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Failure Modes and Effect Analysis of Use Cases: A Structured Approach to Engineering Fault Tolerance Requirements

Authors:
Elena Troubitsyna

Keywords: use cases; failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA); fault tolerance; requirements

Abstract:
Fault tolerance -- an ability of a system to cope with errors -- is an important characteristic of dependable systems. However, software development approaches traditionally give precedence to modelling nominal system behaviour over modelling system behaviour in presence of faults. This leads to ad-hoc and error prone implementation of fault tolerance mechanisms. In this paper, we propose a systematic approach to elicitation and modelling of fault tolerance-related requirements. Our approach is based on using Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) that is used to identify faults, their detection and error recovery. We rely on use-case modelling to structure system behaviour and propose to conduct FMEA of each individual use case. Our approach facilitates elicitation and structuring of fault tolerance behaviour. It enables an integrated modelling of nominal and abnormal system behaviour from early development phases.

Pages: 82 to 87

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2011

Publication date: August 21, 2011

Published in: conference

ISBN: 978-1-61208-149-6

Location: Nice/Saint Laurent du Var, France

Dates: from August 21, 2011 to August 27, 2011