Quantitative models of service reliability

Calculate failure and repair behavior while testing independence assumptions, shared causes, and the gap between model predictions and observations.

10 published lessons1 module260 min of guided study
  1. 01
    Quantitative models of service reliabilityadvanced · 10 lessons

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Quantitative models of service reliability

Calculate failure and repair behavior while testing independence assumptions, shared causes, and the gap between model predictions and observations.

  1. 01

    A fault tree separates failure logic from probability assumptions

    Derive minimal cut sets, retain repeated-event identity, and quantify overlapping failure combinations without multiplying dependent events blindly.

    25 min
  2. 02

    Series and parallel formulas need a shared mission and independence

    Calculate required-path and redundant-path reliability while accounting for switching dependencies, mission duration, and the difference from repairable availability.

    24 min
  3. 03

    Redundancy shares the environment unless the model says otherwise

    Build a conditional common-cause mixture, distinguish marginal reliability from joint outage probability, and investigate shared failure domains and model uncertainty.

    25 min
  4. 04

    Availability rates and step probabilities are different model inputs

    Derive two-state repairable availability, distinguish continuous-time rates from discrete transitions, and inspect transient and degenerate behavior.

    27 min
  5. 05

    Repair cycles can have memory even when their averages match

    Use alternating renewal reasoning, compare exponential and nonmemoryless durations, and distinguish replacement, minimal repair, and finite-time reliability questions.

    26 min
  6. 06

    Burn rate needs the same eligible-event denominator as the SLO

    Calculate request-based error-budget use, distinguish traffic share from time share, and qualify exhaustion forecasts and multi-window alerts.

    25 min
  7. 07

    A reachable majority is a probability event, not a correctness proof

    Calculate independent quorum-availability tails, include shared failure scenarios, and separate replica count from communication, durability, and protocol safety.

    26 min
  8. 08

    Retries change the load that changes their failure probability

    Model bounded attempt amplification, distinguish a constant-probability baseline from overload feedback, and connect retry budgets with deadlines and safe side effects.

    27 min
  9. 09

    Recovery tails include incidents that have not finished yet

    Define recovery endpoints, retain right-censored observations, estimate survival carefully, and distinguish heavy-tail hypotheses from unsupported percentile forecasts.

    27 min
  10. 10

    A reliability model needs held-out failures and a defensible observation process

    Validate reliability predictions against exposure, censoring, changing regimes, dependence, and uncertainty instead of treating a fitted curve or green test as a guarantee.

    28 min
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