Fault-Tolerant Systems [Hardcover]

Israel Koren (Author), C. Mani Krishna (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0120885255 | ISBN-13: 978-0120885251 | Edition: 1

There are many applications in which the reliability of the overall system must be far higher than the reliability of its individual components. In such cases, designers devise mechanisms and architectures that allow the system to either completely mask the effects of a component failure or recover from it so quickly that the application is not seriously affected. This is the work of fault-tolerant designers and their work is increasingly important and complex not only because of the increasing number of "mission critical" applications, but also because the diminishing reliability of hardware means that even systems for non-critical applications will need to be designed with fault-tolerance in mind.

Reflecting the real-world challenges faced by designers of these systems, this book addresses fault tolerance design with a systems approach to both hardware and software. No other text on the market takes this approach, nor offers the comprehensive and up-to-date treatment Koren and Krishna provide. Students, designers and architects of high performance processors will value this comprehensive overview of the field.

* The first book on fault tolerance design with a systems approach

* Comprehensive coverage of both hardware and software fault tolerance, as well as information and time redundancy

* Incorporated case studies highlight six different computer systems with fault-tolerance techniques implemented in their design

* Available to lecturers is a complete ancillary package including online solutions manual for instructors and PowerPoint slides

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (March 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0120885255
• ISBN-13: 978-0120885251
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #900,746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars describes hardware and software redundancies, August 15, 2007

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W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fault-Tolerant Systems (Hardcover)

The mixture of hardware and software discussions in the book is appealing. The authors describe the theory behind designing and modelling systems against failures in their components.

There is a brief coverage of coding theory. This is a subject on which ample numbers of books have been dedicated. The text explains enough elementary theory to motivate subsequent forays into understanding redundancy in software systems.

Note too that at the hardware level, it is not just a single fault tolerant computer that is covered. Another important subtopic is message routing. And how this can be done in a network even if some routers fail, or are overloaded. One example, which you don't see everyday, is of a hypercube and how to route between nodes when some intermediate nodes time out.

For readers interested only in hardware exor software, the book furnishes a good introduction. With the possible benefit that you can compare analysis across hardware and software. You might later want to consult more advanced books closer to your interest.