Markovian availability modeling for software‐intensive systems

Abstract

It is important to take into account the trade‐off between hardware and software systems when total computer‐system reliability/performance is evaluated and assessed. Develops an availability model for a hardware‐software system. The system treated here consists of one hardware and one software subsystem. For the software subsystem, in particular, it is supposed that: the restoration actions are not always performed perfectly; the restoration times for later software failures become longer; and reliability growth occurs in the perfect restoration action. The hardware‐ and software‐failure occurrence phenomena are described by a constant and a geometrically decreasing hazard rate, respectively. The time‐dependent behavior of the system is described by a Markov process. Useful expressions for several quantitative measures of system performance are derived from this model. Finally, numerical examples are presented for illustration of system availability measurement and assessment.

Citation

Tokuno, K. and Yamada, S. (2000), "Markovian availability modeling for software‐intensive systems", International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 200-212. https://doi.org/10.1108/02656710010304609