6.033 Spring 2005: Preparation for Recitation 18

The primary topic of today's recitation will be to finish the discussion of The Recovery Manager of the System R Database Manager (citation) (requires MIT certificates) and the issues raised in Appendix 10-A of the class notes.

Also read Chocolate (citation) (requires MIT certificates) to learn an interesting take on fail-soft design of complex systems. Compare the recommendations of this short paper with the instructions in the U. S. Navy Flight Manual:

If you are lost,

Finally, read a relevant topic about the reliability of complex systems in Tracking the Blackout Bug by Kevin Poulson. It is especially interesting to compare what Poulson highlights with the actual recommendations of the original report . It isn't necessary to read all 238 pages of that report; the summary on pages 18 and 19 (numbered pages 26 and 27 in the pdf files of part 1 and of the full report) gives a pretty good high-level picture of what the rest of the report says.

Questions or comments regarding 6.033? Send e-mail to the 6.033 staff at or to the 6.033 TAs at

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