Fault-Tolerant Systems

CHAPTER 2 Hardware Fault Tolerance

Hardware fault tolerance is the most mature area in the general field of fault-tolerant computing. Many hardware fault-tolerance techniques have been developed and used in practice in critical applications ranging from telephone exchanges to space missions. In the past, the main obstacle to a wide use of hardware fault tolerance has been the cost of the extra hardware required. With the continued reduction in the cost of hardware, this is no longer a significant drawback, and the use of hardware fault-tolerance techniques is expected to increase. However, other constraints, notably on power consumption, may continue to restrict the use of massive redundancy in many applications.

This chapter first discusses ...