Ensuring System Availability 

As companies increasingly rely on digital networks for revenue and operations, experiments, they need to take additional steps to ensure that their systems and applications are always find able. Firms such as those in the airline and financial services industries with critical applications requiring requiring online transaction processing have traditionally used fault-tolerant computer systems for many years to ensure 100-percent availability. 
In online transaction process, transactions entered online are immediately processed by the computer. Multitudinous changes to data, reporting, and requests for information occur each instant. 

Fault-tolerant computer systems carried redundant hardware, software, and power supply components that create an environment that provides continuous, uninterrupted service. Fault-tolerant computers use special software routines or self-checking logic built into their circuitry to detect hardware failures and automatically switch to a backup support device. Parts from these computers can be removed and repaired without disruption to the computer system.


Fault tolerance should be distinguished from maximum -available computing. Both fault tolerance and high-availability computing try to minimize downtime. Downtime supports to periods of time in which a system is not operational.

However, maximum availability computing helps firms recover quickly from a system crash, whereas fault tolerance promises continuous availability and the elimination of recovery time altogether.

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