Abstract
Fault tolerant systems based on the use of software design diversity may be able to achieve high levels of reliability more cost-effectively than other approaches, such as heroic debugging. Earlier experiments have shown multi-version software systems to be more reliable than the individual versions. However, it is also clear that the reliability benefits are much worse than would be suggested by naive assumptions of failure independence between the versions. It follows that it is necessary to assess the reliability actually achieved in a fault tolerant system. The difficulty here mainly lies in acquiring knowledge of the degree of dependence between the failures processes of the versions. The paper addresses the problem using Byesian inference. In particular, it considers the problem of choosing a prior distribution to represent the beliefs of an expert assessor. It is shown that this is not easy, and some pitfalls for the unwary are identified.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Knight, J.C. and N.G. Leveson, An Experimental Evaluation of the Assumption of Independence in Multi-Version Programming. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 1986. SE-12 (1): p. 96–109.
Knight, J.C. and N.G. Leveson. An empirical study of failure probabilities in multi-version software. in 16th International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing (FTCS-16). 1986. Vienna, Austria: IEEE Computer Society Press.
Voges, U., ed. Software diversity in computerized control systems. Dependable Computing and Fault-Tolerance series, ed. A. Avizienis, H. Kopetz, and J.C. Laprie. Vol. 2. 1988, Springer-Verlag: Wien.
Briere, D. and P. Traverse. Airbus A320/A330/A340 Electrical Flight Controls — A Family Of Fault-Tolerant Systems. in 23rd International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing (FTCS-23). 1993. Toulouse, France, 22–24: IEEE Computer Society Press.
Kantz, H. and C. Koza. The ELEKTRA Railway Signalling-System: Field Experience with an Actively Replicated System with Diversity. in 25th IEEE Annual International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing (FTCS-25). 1995. Pasadena, California: IEEE Computer Society Press.
Eckhardt, D.E. and L.D. Lee, A theoretical basis for the analysis of multiversion software subject to coincident errors. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 1985. SE-11 (12): p. 1511–1517.
Littlewood, B. and D.R. Miller, Conceptual Modelling of Coincident Failures in Multi-Version Software. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 1989. SE-15(12): p. 1596–1614.
Musa, J.D., A. Iannino, and K. Okumoto, Software Reliability: Measurement, Prediction, Application. 1987: McGraw-Hill International Editions. 621.
Brocklehurst, S., et al., Recalibrating software reliability models. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 1990. SE-16(4): p. 458–470.
Littlewood, B. and L. Strigini, Validation of Ultra-High Dependability for Software-based Systems. Communications of the ACM, 1993. 36(11): p. 69–80.
Butler, R.W. and G.B. Finelli. The Infeasibility of Experimental Quantification of Life-Critical Software Reliability. in ACM SIGSOFT’ 91 Conference on Software for Critical Systems, in ACM SIGSOFT Software Eng. Notes, Vol. 16 (5). 1991. New Orleans, Louisiana.
Johnson, N.L. and S. Kotz, Distributions in Statistics: Continuous Multivariate Distributions. Wiley Series in Probability and Mathematical Statistics, ed. R.A. Bradley, Hunter, J. S., Kendall, D. G., Watson, G. S. Vol. 4. 1972: John Weley and Sons, INc. 333.
Miller, K.W., et al., Estimating the Probability of Failure When Testing Reveals No Failures. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 1992. 18(1): p. 33–43.
Littlewood, B. and D. Wright, Some conservative stopping rules for the operational testing of safety-critical software. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 1997. 23(11): p. 673–683.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Littlewood, B., Popov, P., Strigini, L. (2000). Assessment of the Reliability of Fault-Tolerant Software: A Bayesian Approach. In: Koornneef, F., van der Meulen, M. (eds) Computer Safety, Reliability and Security. SAFECOMP 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1943. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-40891-6_26
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-40891-6_26
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41186-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-40891-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive