Practical System Reliability

The rise of the Internet, sophisticated computing and communications technologies, and globalization have raised customer's expectations of powerful "alwayson" services. A crucial characteristic of these 'always on' services is that they are highly available; if the customer can't get a search result, or order a product or service, or complete a transaction instantly, then another service provider is often just one click away. As a result, highly available services are essential to many modern businesses, such as telecommunications and cable service providers, web-based businesses, Information Technology (IT) operations, and so on.