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fault tolerant (FT)


Fault tolerance refers to the ability of a system to continue operating without interruption when one or more of its components fail. A fault-tolerant system is designed to have no service interruption, but typically comes at a significantly higher cost due to the need for more redundant components[1][3][4][6][9][12]. The goal of fault tolerance is to ensure business continuity and high availability of crucial applications and systems, aiming for zero downtime.


Fault-tolerant systems often use methods such as load balancing, failover, and duplication of critical components to ensure that there is no single point of failure. If a component fails, the system is designed to isolate the failure and continue operating as if nothing happened, frequently by immediately switching to a backup system or component[6][9][12].


Compare to: high availability


fault tolerance vs. high availability

While both high availability and fault tolerance aim to make systems reliable and reduce downtime, they differ in their approach to handling system failures. High availability focuses on quick recovery from failures, while fault tolerance aims to prevent any noticeable interruption in service.


Key Differences

  1. Redundancy: HA systems have redundant resources to allow for failover, while FT systems have more extensive redundancy to prevent any service interruption[1].
  2. Response to Failure: HA systems are designed to recover quickly from failures, whereas FT systems are designed to operate without interruption even when failures occur[1][4][7].
  3. Cost and Complexity: FT systems are generally more expensive and complex due to the higher level of redundancy and the need to prevent any downtime[1][4].
  4. Design Goal: The design goal of HA is to ensure that downtime is minimized, while the design goal of FT is to eliminate downtime altogether[5][6][7].



Citations:

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/high-availability-vs-fault-tolerance-jon-bonso

[2] https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/definition/high-availability

[3] https://www.imperva.com/learn/availability/fault-tolerance/

[4] https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/powerha-aix/7.2?topic=aix-high-availability-versus-fault-tolerance

[5] https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/hybrid-work/what-is-high-availability.html

[6] https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/fault-tolerance

[7] https://www.spiceworks.com/it-security/vulnerability-management/articles/high-availability-fault-tolerance-comparison/

[8] https://us.sios.com/resource/high-availability/

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_tolerance

[10] https://www.reddit.com/r/aws/comments/xz45m5/what_is_the_difference_between_high_availability/

[11] https://avinetworks.com/glossary/high-availability/

[12] https://avinetworks.com/glossary/fault-tolerance/

[13] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44588539/high-availabilityha-vs-fault-tolerance

[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability

[15] https://www.techtarget.com/searchdisasterrecovery/definition/fault-tolerant

[16] https://www.baeldung.com/cs/high-availability-vs-fault-tolerance

[17] https://www.nginx.com/resources/glossary/high-availability/

[18] https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/what-is-fault-tolerance/

[19] https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/high-availability-fault-tolerance-and-disaster-recovery-explained/

[20] https://www.solarwinds.com/resources/it-glossary/high-availability

[21] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fault-tolerant

[22] https://www.redswitches.com/blog/fault-tolerance-vs-high-availability/

[23] https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/high_availability

[24] https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/fault_tolerance

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