Dependable computing: an overview

Dependability is carving out a more and more important place in computer science. To introduce this special issue on dependable computing, we present a synthetic overview of this domain, intended for computer scientists. This paper attempts neither to enumerate nor to detail the numerous particular research work leads on this theme. It rather introduces the requirements from which research activities are stemmed. It synthesises the various issues handled by these activities as well as the various solutions they propose. The content aims at providing to computer scientists a pedagogical survey of the various problems, concepts and classes of studies relating to dependable computing. Supplying a synthetic article does not allow, in particular, numerous contributory persons and teams to be quoted or publications to be listed. The five following papers of this special issue tackle deeply specific aspects of this area. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.