TCFT

The Technical Community on Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance (TCFT) provides a forum for exchange of ideas among interested scientists, researchers, practitioners, developers, maintainers, users and students in the technical field. It is aimed at identifying and integrating approaches, methods and techniques for specifying, designing, building, assessing, validating, operating and maintaining computer systems where faults are considered as natural, anticipated events, and thus, can be tolerated. A wide variety of faults are considered: accidental faults (physical, design-induced, or originating from human interaction) and intentional and/or malicious faults, as well, namely those affecting the security of systems. Specifically, the TC is concerned with progress in (i) understanding of faults and their effects; (ii) specification and design methods for fault-tolerant computing; (iii) validation, and design for testability and verifiability; (iv) assessing, through modeling and measurement, the dependability achieved. In these ways, the TC hopes to play a crucial role in minimizing the risks that the increasingly sophisticated computing and communications systems might cause for society.

Technical activity ranges from basic research to current design practice and field experience. This includes sponsoring the International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), the annual flagship activity of this TC, sponsoring annual workshops focusing on various aspects of fault-tolerant computing and co-sponsoring relevant conferences organized by the IEEE Computer Society, the International Federation of Information Processing, and the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies. The TC also publishes an electronic newsletter containing meeting reports, calls for papers, and news announcements. The IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing is, amongst others, a natural archival journal for research in this field.