Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring

Classification Context

Section:

PHYSICS

Class:

COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING

Subclass:

ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING

Scope Notes

Glossary: fault faults physical defect, imperfection or flaw that occurs within some hardware component, or logical defect of a piece of software. Essentially, the definition of a fault, as used in the fault tolerance community, agrees with the definition found in the dictionary. Faults may be permanent, transient or intermittent. error errors the logical manifestation of a fault, observable in terms of incorrect instructions of or corrupted data in a (computer) system. For example, a fault in a DRAM cell will never be observed if the memory location is never accessed. Specifically, an error is a deviation from accuracy or correctness. failure failures the incorrect functioning of a system as perceivable by a user or the system's environment as a consequence of an error. A failure is the non-performance, the untimely performance or the performance in a subnormal quantity or quality of some action that is due or expected. redundant hardware additional hardware for performing the same function as another hardware part, provided that in faultless operation you could renounce on either hardware parts of the system without losing functionality. data representation a physical or logical encoding (scheme) for data, which allows the latter to be processed, stored or transmitted by a machine. redundancy in data representation a representation of data using more resources than strictly necessary to encode the desired information such that in the error free situation one could renounce some of said resources without losing information. redundancy in operation performing (a set of) operations more than once, performing sequentially different implementations of a particular function or performing additional operations which (allow to) restore a system in a state from which its correct operation can be resumed after a failure. normal operating mode the operation of a system or software once it is deployed and provides the desired service as opposed to its development, maintenance, test or idle time. fault masking hiding the presence of a fault to the user or the environment of a (computer) system by means of some sort of redundancy such that the perceived system functionality is not affected. active fault masking taking particular actions (e.g. reconfiguration or failover) not performed in the error free situation to mask a fault. passive fault masking when a system operates such that no particular action is necessary to mask a fault because all necessary operations are constantly performed independently of the presence of a fault (e.g. majority voting). monitoring observing and/or measuring parameters or status of a running system. mirrored data two copies of the data where it is supposed that both copies contain the same data at any moment. backed up data The second copy of the data reflects the data of the first copy at a particular moment. | Limiting references: Error detection, correction or testing in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer Monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing Checking stores for correct operation; Testing stores during standby or offline operation

Related Keywords

Child Classifications

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• G06F 11/07 Responding to the occurrence of a fault, e.g. fault tolerance
• G06F 11/22 Detection or location of defective computer hardware by testing during standby operation or during idle time, e.g. start-up testing
• G06F 11/28 by checking the correct order of processing
• G06F 11/3 Monitoring
• G06F 11/36 Prevention of errors by analysis, debugging or testing of software