Software Fault Injection: Growing 'Safer' Systems

This paper describes software fault injection and what types of anomalies fault injection should simulate. We highlight the benefits that software fault injection could have provided to several infamous software error-related incidents. And, we explain how fault injection can be used to "grow" safer systems. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 2. FAULT INJECTION BASICS: WHAT TO INJECT 3. INFAMOUS DISASTERS 4. GROWING SAFER SYSTEMS 5. CONCLUSIONS 1. INTRODUCTION If we knew what the future held, then we could know precisely how good today's software is. More precisely, we would know when in the future it will fail, how often it will fail, and under what conditions it will fail. Armed with that information, it would be trivial to confidently assess the "goodness" of the code. To us, the future is a black box. We do not know what faults will be triggered, and we do not know how severe the failures will be. All that can be done from a development standpoint today is to fix known, existing fau..