Preparation for Recitation 15

Read sections D and E, and appendices A and B of chapter 8.

Section D presents techniques for systematically building fault tolerant systems. One or more of these ideas appear in almost every fault-tolerant system design. As you read this section, try to think of at least one application of these techniques that we have seen in other systems we have read about this semester.

Appendix A presents a sequence of nonvolatile storage designs with increasing reliability. As you read, identify one example of:

• a failure that fail-fast storage can tolerate but raw storage cannot.
• a failure that stable storage can tolerate but fail-fast storage cannot.

Appendix B reports on a number of fault-tolerant systems that failed to meet their goals, even though the designers had the best intentions. As you read Appendix B, make note of principles from section E.1 that were violated in "Adventures with error correction."

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