Structural Failure Models for Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computing

Despite means of fault prevention such as extensive testing or formal veri?cation, errors inevitably occur during system operation. To avoid subsequent system fa- ures, critical distributed systems, therefore, require engineering of means for fault tolerance. Achieving fault tolerance requires some redundancy, which, unfor- nately, is bound to limitations. Appropriate fault models are needed to describe which types of faults and how many faults are tolerable in a certain context. Pre- ous resear