Failures

A failure is described as the difference of service it delivers to the user when it deviates from compliance with the system specification for a specified period of time. Failures are known as a system not working properly. A fault can lead to other faults, or to a failure, or neither. In this essay I will describe four types of failures that may occur in a distributed system. I will also identify which failures are applicable to centralized systems and choose two out of the four failures and described how I would isolate and fix each failure. The four types of failures that I will be describing include; halting failures, byzantine failures, omission failures and network failures.

Halting failures are defined when a component simply stops. Most people have run into a situation where their computer may suddenly stop or freeze. This type of failure is known as a halting failure. There is no way to detect the failure except for when the freeze actually starts. There are many different reasons why a halting freeze may occur. Common reasons that a computer freeze may occur are: hardware/software issues, memory issues and spyware and virus infections.

If I had a halting failure, the first thing I would do is try to identify the problem why it froze. It is important for users to identify what the issue may be. If software or hardware issues are the culprits you make sure that your computer has the latest software or hardware update and that your system doesn’t have a malfunctioning application. If the computer is having memory issues it may be smart to get a hard drive free some space from your computer. Spyware and virus infections can be resolved by making sure your computer is protected by good antivirus software.

Byzantine failures are described as several types of faulty behaviors including data corruption or loss, failures caused by malicious programs, etc. Byzantine failures can occur due to a software bug, a hardware malfunction, or even a malicious...