This book provides an overview of the work of two successive ESPRIT Basic Research Projects on Predictably Dependable Computing Systems (PDCS), as well as their major achievements. The purpose of the projects has been "to contribute to making the process of designing and constructing dependable computing systems much more predictable and cost-effective." The book contains a carefully edited selection of papers on all four main topics in PDCS: fault prevention, fault tolerance, fault removal, and fault forecasting. Problems of real-time and distributed systems, system structuring, qualitative...

The International Working Conference on Dependable Computing for Critical Applications was the first conference organized by IFIP Working Group 10. 4 Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance, in cooperation with the Technical Committee on Fault-Tolerant Computing of the IEEE Computer Society, and the Technical Committee 7 on Systems Reliability, Safety and Security of EWlCS. The rationale for the Working Conference is best expressed by the aims of WG 10. 4: Increasingly, individuals and organizations are developing or procuring sophisticated computing systems on whose services they need to...