Degeneracy-Aware Functional and Algorithmic Resilience in Virtualized 6G Networks Under Correlated Failures

Abstract: Redundancy is widely used to sustain service continuity in programmable and virtualized networks; however, replicated functions often share platforms, software stacks, and control dependencies, making them vulnerable to correlated failures. Consequently, replica counts alone may overestimate true resilience. This paper adopts a degeneracy-aware perspective, where robustness depends on the availability of structurally diverse yet functionally equivalent alternatives. We formalize this perspective through three complementary metrics: the Functional Substitution Score (FSS), which quantifies structurally distinct substitutes for a function; the Algorithmic Resilience Quotient (ARQ), which measures diversity among algorithms that remain comparable in delivered performance; and the Multi-Layer Degeneracy Index (MLDI), which captures how functional diversity is distributed across architectural layers. Using targeted disruption protocols on a synthesized data, we show that redundancy and robustness can diverge substantially. The results show that FSS separates structural diversity from replica count, ARQ distinguishes genuine algorithmic alternatives from near-duplicate implementations, and MLDI captures cross-layer buffering that remains hidden under redundancy-only analysis. These findings establish degeneracy as a practical resilience primitive for open, disaggregated, and virtualized 6G systems.