Abstract
Fault tolerance is the ability of a system to continue performing its intended functions in presence of faults. Fault tolerance is necessary because it is practically impossible to build a perfect system. As the complexity of a system grows, its reliability drastically decreases, unless compensatory measures are taken. In this chapter, we formally define fault tolerance and discuss its importance for designing a dependable system. We show the relation between fault tolerance and redundancy and consider different types of redundancy. We briefly cover the history of fault-tolerant computing and describe its main application areas.
“If anything can go wrong, it will.” Murphy’s law.
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Dubrova, E. (2013). Introduction. In: Fault-Tolerant Design. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2113-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2113-9_1
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