[trustable-software] No silent failures?

[Duncan Hart]

​Hello folks,

I'm wondering if you good folks could help develop my thinking further....

I have come to accept that silent component failure is a contributor to
system failure like no other.

  Imagine you have a system with 3-way redundancy :

  If one component fails then nothing bad happens.

  Even if 2 components fail nothing bad happens.

  But if the first, and the first and second fail AND you don't know that
they have, then on the one hand the redundancy can be said to be effective
and, on the other hand, each failure that you do not notice, because the
redundancy is covering you, brings you one step closer to an entire system
failure.

  When an entire system failure occurs, you will declaim that it was
impossible because you have (had) 3-way redundancy, but you didn't. You
once did, then you had 2-way, then no redundancy at all, then you had a
failure.

Does the logic hold true? How might this manifest itself in a software
environment?

Thoughts, comments, feedback much appreciated.

Warmest regards,
  Duncan


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