A holistic approach to fault management: wheels within a wheel

Systems with high dependability requirements are increasingly relying on complex on-line fault management systems to function in a wide range of scenarios. Fault management systems involve a combination of multiple steps – monitoring, data analysis, planning and execution – that are typically independently developed and optimized. We argue that it is inefficient and ineffective to improve any particular fault management step without taking into account its interactions and dependencies with the rest of the steps. Through six real-life examples, we demonstrate this inefficiency and how it results in systems that either under-perform or are over-budget. We propose instead a holistic approach to fault management that is aware of, respects, and explicitly considers, the couplings between the different fault management steps, to produce a system that meets its cost, performance and dependability objectives better than is done today.