An Evaluation of Software Fault Tolerance in a Practical System

An experimental project to assess the effectiveness of software fault tolerance techniques is described. Techniques were developed for, and applied to, a realistic implementation of a practical real-time system, namely a naval command and control system. Reliability data was collected by running this system with a simulated tactical environment for a variety of action scenarios. Analysis of the data confirms that software fault tolerance techniques can significantly enhance system reliability.

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