Serial/Parallel Topology
As you may have noticed in Figure 3-4, creating a network with all serial or all parallel topology is unlikely. I will even go out on a limb and say that nearly any highly available network will include both serial and parallel topologies. Even in the most redundant networks by large service providers, the last mile is rarely redundant. In order to calculate the availability of these networks, you need to combine serial availability results and put them into parallel equations. You will also need to combine parallel results and put those into serial equations. In large networks, you may find several levels of combined results going back and forth between serial and parallel before you are finished.
To clarify the notion ...
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