A system’s dependability can be thought of as being the trustworthiness of the system. The difficulty when attempting to measure dependability is that it is typically a context sensitive property. While one user might regard a system to be dependable for the particular activities they use it for, another user might regard it to be totally undependable for their activities. As well as being cont...

Dependability-critical systems require the engineering techniques and tools to provide high assurances of their safety and reliability. Similarly, software-intensive systems are increasingly becoming essential to dependabilitycritical infrastructure requiring dependability engineering techniques to sufficiently analyze the impact of the hardware and software (as well as their interactions and i...

Individuals and organizations increasingly use sophisticated software systems from which they demand great reliance. “Reliance” is contextually subjective and depends on the particular stakeholder’s needs; therefore, in different circumstances, the stakeholders will focus on different properties of such systems, e.g., continuity, availability, performance, real-time response, ability to avoid c...

This paper presents an ethnomethodologically informed study of the ways that more-or-less dependable systems are part of the everyday lifeworld of society members. Through case study material we explicate how dependability is a practical achievement and how notions of dependability are constituted as practical achievements. We show how attending to the logical grammar of dependability can clari...

There is growing interest in using a structure of claims, arguments, and evidence to explain why all critical software hazards have been eliminated or adequately mitigated in mission-critical and safety-critical systems. Such a structure has been called a dependability case, an assurance case, or a (goal-structured) safety case. Dependability cases are sometimes viewed as adding no extra value,...

We present a system architect and administrator's view of system dependability issues and research suggestions. The dependability problem has been extensively studied by operators and architects, and most simple failures have known solutions. However, many operators and architects are not aware of many of the available solutions or the scope of the dependability problem. More complex failures w...

In this short position paper we argue that dependability technologies must be based on best-effort engineering principles, if they are to be useful for general-purpose enterprise and consumer IT. We will explain why ‘best-effort based dependability’ is not an oxymoron, but, instead, a necessity. We will also argue that service-orientation fits the best-effort engineering philosophy, and in that...