Abstract
An in-depth assessment of the implementation of fault tolerance in contemporary “off-the-shelf” computing systems [1] leads us to conclude that hardware defenses are not adequately exploited for the assurance of dependability. In the search for a fundamentally better solution we have looked at the self-protection (i.e., fault tolerance) mechanisms of the human being. We use two analogies [2]: (1) the body is analogous to hardware; and (2) the cognitive processes of the mind are analogous to software. The immune system of the body is a major protective mechanism that is completely independent of the cognitive processes. It functions from conception until death of the body and protects the body of an unconscious or sleeping human equally well as that of a conscious one.
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References
A. Avizienis and R. Avizienis. An immune system paradigm for the design of fault-tolerant systems. Presented at Workshop 3: Evaluating and Architecting Systems for Dependability (EASY), in conjunction with DSN 201 and ISCA 2001, Göteborg, Sweden, Jul 1, 2001. Available at: http://www.crhc.uiuc.edu/EASY/easy01-program.html.
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Avizienis, A. (2002). An Immune System Paradigm for the Design of Fault Tolerant Systems. In: Bondavalli, A., Thevenod-Fosse, P. (eds) Dependable Computing EDCC-4. EDCC 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2485. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36080-8_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36080-8_8
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