What is meant by “fault tolerance” in a software system?
a) The ability of a system to continue operating even when some components fail
b) The ability of software to avoid user errors
c) The process of writing error-free code
d) The practice of handling user input errors
Answer:
a) The ability of a system to continue operating even when some components fail
Explanation:
Fault tolerance refers to the ability of a software system to continue functioning correctly, even if some of its components fail. Fault-tolerant systems are designed to handle failures gracefully, minimizing downtime and preventing catastrophic failures.
Redundancy, error handling, and failover mechanisms are common techniques used to achieve fault tolerance. For example, a fault-tolerant database might replicate data across multiple servers to ensure that if one server fails, the others can continue serving requests.
Fault tolerance is crucial for systems that require high availability, such as banking applications or cloud services, where any downtime could have significant consequences.