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Fundamentals of Dependability

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Fault-Tolerant Design

Abstract

The ultimate goal of fault tolerance is the development of a dependable system. In a broad term, dependability is the ability of a system to deliver its intended level of service to its users [16]. As computing becomes ubiquitous and penetrates our everyday lives on all scales, dependability becomes important not only for the traditional safety-, mission-, and business-critical applications, but also for our society as a whole. In this chapter, we study three fundamental characteristics of dependability: attributes, impairment, and means. Dependability attributes describe the properties which are required of a system. Dependability impairments express the reasons for a system to cease to perform its function or, in other words, the threats to dependability. Dependability means are the methods and techniques enabling the development of a dependable system, such as fault prevention, fault tolerance, fault removal, and fault forecasting.

“Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word ‘safe’ that I wasn’t previously aware of.” Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

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  1. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Forum 120, 164 40, Krista, Sweden

    Elena Dubrova

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  1. Elena Dubrova
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Correspondence to Elena Dubrova .

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Dubrova, E. (2013). Fundamentals of Dependability. In: Fault-Tolerant Design. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2113-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2113-9_2

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