Reliability Prediction for Component-Based Software Systems with Architectural-Level Fault Tolerance Mechanisms

This paper extends the core model of a recent component-based reliability prediction approach to offer an explicit and flexible definition of reliability-relevant behavioral aspects (i.e. error detection and error handling) of software fault tolerance mechanisms, and an efficient evaluation of their reliability impact in the dependence of the whole system architecture and usage profile. Our approach is validated with the reporting service of a document exchange server, by modeling the reliability, conducting a reliability prediction and sensitivity analyses, and demonstrating its ability to support design decisions.