Critical reliability assessments of distributed field-monitoring information systems

The volume of monitoring data is expected to increase exponentially in the near future. To cope with large volume of data, an information system was designed using concepts of distributed computing and service orientation. The system design consists of five discrete services, and it leads to a flexible, reliable, and scalable information system. One major challenge for this design is how to configure it properly. This work proposes the use of reliability assessment to answer such challenge. Three critical aspects for such information systems are assessed. They are reliabilities of data storage, data transmission, and server under load. Methods to estimate these reliabilities are presented and discussed. These discussions should help system administrators use quantified indices to configure information systems of distributed nature.