Why do computers stop and what can be done about it?

An analysis of the failure statistics of a commercially available fault-tolerant system shows that administration and software are the major contributors to failure. Various approaches to software fault-tolerance are then discussed -- notably process-pairs, transactions and reliable storage. It is pointed out that faults in production software are often soft (transient) and that a transaction mechanism combined with persistent process- pairs provides fault-tolerant execution -- the key to software fault-tolerance. 

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