FIAT - Fault injection based automated testing environment

Distributed/parallel real-time dependable systems employed in critical applications such as avionics, air traffic control and nuclear power plants need property validation during design. implementation. deployment and maintenance phases. There is a distinct challenge to validate dependability properties of such systems. An automated real-time distributed accelerated fault injection environment (FIAT) is presented as an attempt to provide suitable tools for the validation process. This paper presents the concepts and design, as well as the implementation and evaluation of the FIAT environment. As this system has been built, evaluated and is currently in use, example fault tolerant systems such as checkpointing and duplicate and match will be employed to show its usefulness.