F

Failfast

Similar to failstop, but it also concedes that the stopping may not be instantaneous and that stopping quickly may be good enough. Sometimes, watchdog timers are employed as a mechanism to achieve failfast behavior.

Failstop

In practice, a component should be internally checking its own correct operation; upon detecting an error in itself, it should stop its execution before it has a chance to corrupt data or propagate errors to other components outside itself. The concept that a component either executes completely correctly or it halts.

Failure fencing

Closely related to failstop and fault containment. A method to ensure that a faulty component cannot propagate errors or failure. Surviving components prevent the defective component from accessing other components or data.

Fault

A defect, but possibly an imprecise error.

See also [Error]

Fault containment

A method to prevent a failed component from propagating to other components.

Fault isolation

A method to determine the source of a fault and the component or FRU that requires repair.

Fault isolation zone

A division of a system in which a set of disjointed zones facilitates fault isolation.

Fault propagation

Transmission of a fault to unaffected areas of the system.

Fault recovery zone

An area of the system in which recovery work is performed on a component in that area.

FC-AL

Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop.

FIFO

first in, first out.

FMEA

failure modes and effects analysis.

FRU

field-replaceable unit.

FTA

fault tree analysis.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol.