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Current Experiences with Fault Tolerant Software Design: Dependability Through Diverse Formal Specifications?

  • Conference paper
Fehlertolerierende Rechensysteme / Fault-tolerant Computing Systems

Part of the book series: Informatik-Fachberichte ((INFORMATIK,volume 214))

Abstract

We view fault prevention and fault tolerance as complementary strategies for achieving dependability [1]. While fault tolerance in the hardware can be handled by replicating components, design fault tolerance for software requires that development of the redundant components be based on the design diversity approach. Design diversity is the independent generation of multiple software versions from the same requirements [2]. Two general methods have been proposed for providing fault tolerance by design diversity: Recovery Block Software [3] and Multi-Version Software (also called N-Version Programming) [2]. Our work focuses on the Multi-Version Software (MVS) approach in which the multiple versions are executed concurrently and their results are checked against each other by a consensus decision algorithm. A result that deviates from the others by some specified margin is taken as an indication of an underlying software fault.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    John P. J. Kelly

Authors
  1. John P. J. Kelly
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Rechnerentwurf und Fehlertoleranz, Fakultät für Informatik, Universität Karlsruhe, Postfach 6980, D-7500, Karlsruhe 1, Germany

    Winfried Görke

  2. ZBIT/ Elektro- und Prozeßleittechnik, Th. Goldschmidt AG, Goldschmidtstraße 100, D-4300, Essen 1, Germany

    Holger Sörensen

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© 1989 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kelly, J.P.J. (1989). Current Experiences with Fault Tolerant Software Design: Dependability Through Diverse Formal Specifications?. In: Görke, W., Sörensen, H. (eds) Fehlertolerierende Rechensysteme / Fault-tolerant Computing Systems. Informatik-Fachberichte, vol 214. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75002-1_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75002-1_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-51565-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-75002-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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