Software fault tolerance techniques and implementation

Publication date 19 November 2001

reliability safety security software fault tolerance

Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to computer science (68-02) Theory of software (68N99) Specification and verification (program logics, model checking, etc.) (68Q60)

Review text

The monograph is devoted to one of the major software quality feature to be error free. The monograph introduces tools to prevent software design faults and tolerate the operational effects of imperfections. The book includes 7 chapters. Main introduction (Chapter 1) where definitions (software organization, intended use, dependable software, fault: avoidance, removal, forecasting, tolerance; recovery: types, backward, forward; redundancy: types, for software, for information, temporal) are being introduced. The process of structuring redundancy for software fault tolerance is the next topic for discussion (Chapter 2). The problems of robust software, design diversity (including case studies, experiments, levels , data, factors and their connection with fault tolerance application), data re-expressions (overview, output types, examples, algorithms), architectural structure for diverse software (structure for development; Xu, Randell, Daniels, Kim and Vouk frameworks) are discussed. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEChapter 3 is dealing with design methods, programming techniques and issues. The problems and issues include similar errors and lack of diversity, consistent comparison problem, domino effect and overhead. Programming techniques consist of assertions, checkpointing and atomic actions. The important dependable system development model and \(N\)-version software paradigm is also described in this chapter. Chapter 4 explains design diverse software fault tolerance techniques. It includes the following sections: recovery blocks (operation, example, issues and discussion); \(N\)-version programming (operation, example, issues and programming); distributed recovery blocks (operation, example, issues and discussion); \(N\) self-checking programming (operation, example, issues and programming); acceptance voting (operation, example, issues and programming); technique comparisons (\(N\)-version programming and recovery block technique comparisons, recovery block and distributed recovery block technique comparisons, consensus recovery block, recovery block technique and \(N\)-version programming comparisons, acceptance voting, consensus recovery block, recovery block technique and \(N\)-version programming comparisons). NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEChapter 5 gives representation data diverse software fault tolerance techniques including retry blocks (operation, example, issues and discussion), \(N\)-copy programming (operation, example, issues and discussion), two-pass adjudicators (operation, multiple correct results, example, issues and discussion). Chapter 6 describes other software fault tolerance techniques which include \(N\)-version programming variants (with tie-breaker and acceptance test operation and example), resourceful systems, data-driven dependability assurance scheme, self-configuring optimal programming (operation, example, issues and discussion), and some other important techniques. The concluding Chapter 7 is related to adjudicating the results and includes the following sections: voters (exact majority voter, median voter, mean voter, consensus voter, comparison tolerances and the formal majority voter, dynamic majority and consensus voter, and other types of voters); acceptance tests (satisfaction of requirements, accounting tests, reasonableness tests, computer run-time tests). Each chapter is concluding by summary and references.

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