fault tolerance
Graceful degradation capability
Fault tolerance is a system's ability to continue operating when components fail.
A fault-tolerant design anticipates failures and builds in redundancy—backup servers, duplicate data paths, failover mechanisms—so that no single point of failure brings everything down.
The aircraft's fault-tolerant avionics kept flying even after the sensor malfunction.
The concept applies broadly to engineering, computing, and organizational design.
Maintaining function while failing
- self-healingAble to repair itself
- disaster recoveryRestoring systems after catastrophe
- business continuitySustaining operations through crises
- adaptiveAble to change accordingly
fallback · contingency · recovery · rollback · restart
Stored duplicate for recovery
- replicationAct of duplicating precisely
- failoverAutomatic backup system activation
- duplicationMaking an identical copy
- RAIDDisk virtualization technology
clustering · mirroring · hot-swappable · load balancing · multipath · snapshot · standby · voting systems
Continuous operational period
- availabilityState of being obtainable
- dependabilityConsistent trustworthy nature
- stabilityResistance to displacement
- durabilityResistance to wear
maintainability · survivability · integrity · non-stop · always-on · guaranteed delivery · mission-critical · zero downtime
Error removal from programs
- validationConfirming truth or accuracy
- diagnosticsMethods identifying problems
- troubleshootingSystematic fault diagnosis
- loggingRecording system events
error correction · try-catch · error detection · checksum · CRC · heartbeat · timeout · acknowledgment
Automatic harm prevention mechanism
- interlocksJoins by fitting together
- emergency stopInstant shutdown mechanism
- isolationComplete separation from others
- containmentPreventing hostile expansion
lockout · tagout · pressure relief valve · fuses · grounding · overload protection · deadman switch · safe mode
graceful degradation
Maintaining function while failing
- self-healingAble to repair itself
- disaster recoveryRestoring systems after catastrophe
- business continuitySustaining operations through crises
adaptive · fallback · contingency · recovery · rollback · restart
backup
Stored duplicate for recovery
- replicationAct of duplicating precisely
- failoverAutomatic backup system activation
- duplicationMaking an identical copy
RAID · clustering · mirroring · hot-swappable · load balancing · multipath · snapshot · standby · voting systems · spare
uptime
Continuous operational period
- availabilityState of being obtainable
- dependabilityConsistent trustworthy nature
- stabilityResistance to displacement
durability · maintainability · survivability · integrity · non-stop · always-on · guaranteed delivery · mission-critical · zero downtime · predictability
debugging
Error removal from programs
- validationConfirming truth or accuracy
- diagnosticsMethods identifying problems
- troubleshootingSystematic fault diagnosis
logging · error correction · try-catch · error detection · checksum · CRC · heartbeat · timeout · acknowledgment · retransmission
fail-safe
Automatic harm prevention mechanism
- interlocksJoins by fitting together
- emergency stopInstant shutdown mechanism
- isolationComplete separation from others
containment · lockout · tagout · pressure relief valve · fuses · grounding · overload protection · deadman switch · safe mode
- safeguardssafeguards, safety valve, protections, kill switch, defenses
- tech methodsagile, debugging, scrum, testing, kanban
- backupsbackup copy, backup file, backup drive, backup system, backup generator
- computing problemstraveling salesman, shortest path, pathfinding, optimization, searching
- distributed systemsload balancing, sharding, replication, partitioning, clustering
- microservicesmicroservices, container, containerization, orchestration, Docker
fault tolerancesingle point of failure
Lone vulnerable component
fragility · brittleness · vulnerability · unreliability · cascading failure
fault tolerancefragility
Ease of breaking
brittleness · vulnerability · susceptibility · instability · precariousness
fault, faulty, tolerance, tolerant, defaults, defaulted, defaulter, faultlessly, defaulting