The self-measurement principle: a design principle for large-scale, long-lived, and highly reliable concurrent systems

A good design, development, and maintenance methodology for concurrent systems must be based on a good recognition and/or understanding of the intrinsic characteristics of concurrent systems. Measuring and monitoring the behavior of a complex concurrent system is an indispensable way to achieve the reliability of the system. Based on recognition and/or understanding of the wholeness principle of concurrent systems and the uncertainty principle in measuring and monitoring concurrent systems, the paper proposes a design principle, called the “self-measurement principle”, for large-scale, long-lived, and highly reliable concurrent systems. The self-measurement principle requires that a large-scale, long-lived, and highly reliable concurrent system should be constructed by some function components and some (may be only one) permanent self-measurement components that act concurrently with the function components, measure and monitor the system itself according to some requirements, and pass run-time information about the system´s behavior to the outside world of the system