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System Reliability Availability Calculations

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System Reliability Availability Calculations

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Saibi Khan
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© © All Rights Reserved
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SYSTEM RELIABILITY & AVAILABILITY CALCULATIONS

A business imperative for companies of all sizes, cloud computing allows organizations to consume
IT services on a usage-based subscription model. To evaluate the dependability of a system, the
promise of cloud computing depends on two viral metrics:

Service reliability
Service vailability

Vendors offer service level agreements (SLAs) to meet specific standards of reliability and
availability. An SLA breach not only incurs cost penalty to the vendor but also compromises end-
user experience of apps and solutions running on the cloud network.
Though reliability and availability are often used interchangeably, they are different concepts in the
engineering domain. Let’s explore the distinction between reliability and availability, then move into
how both are calculated.

What is reliability?
Reliability is the probability that a system performs correctly during a specific time duration. During
this correct operation:

No repair is required or performed


The system adequately follows the defined performance specifications
Reliability follows an exponential failure law, which means that it reduces as the time duration
considered for reliability calculations elapses. In other words, reliability of a system will be high at its
initial state of operation and gradually reduce to its lowest magnitude over time.

What is availability?
Availability refers to the probability that a system performs correctly at a specific time instance (not
duration). Interruptions may occur before or after the time instance for which the system’s availability
is calculated. The service must:

Be operational
Adequately satisfy the defined specifications at the time of its usage

Availability is measured at its steady state, accounting for potential downtime incidents that can (and
will) render a service unavailable during its projected usage duration. For example, a 99.999%
(Five-9’s) availability refers to 5 minutes and 15 seconds of downtime per year.
(Learn more about availability metrics and the 9s of availability.)

Incident & service metrics


Before discussing how reliability and availability are calculated, let's understand the incident service
metrics used in these calculations. These metrics are computed through extensive experimentation,
experience, or industrial standards; they are not observed directly. Therefore, the resulting
calculations only provide relatively accurate understanding of system reliability and availability.
The graphic, below, and following sections outline the most relevant incident and service metrics:

(Source)

Failure rate
The frequency of component failure per unit time. It is usually denoted by the Greek letter λ
(Lambda) and is used to calculate the metrics specified later in this post. In reliability engineering
calculations, failure rate is considered as forecasted failure intensity given that the component is
fully operational in its initial condition. The formula is given for repairable and non-repairable
systems respectively as follows:
Repair rate
The frequency of successful repair operations performed on a failed component per unit time. It is
usually denoted by the Greek letter μ (Mu) and is used to calculate the metrics specified later in this
post. Repair rate is defined mathematically as follows:

Mean time to failure (MTTF)


The average time duration before a non-repairable system component fails. The following formula
calculates MTTF:

Mean time between failure (MTBF)


The average time duration between inherent failures of a repairable system component. The
following formulae are used to calculate MTBF:

Mean time to recovery (MTTR)


The average time duration to fix a failed component and return to operational state. This metric
includes the time spent during the alert and diagnostic process before repair activities are initiated.
(The average time solely spent on the repair process is called mean time to repair.)
Mean time to detection (MTTD)
The average time elapsed between the occurrence of a component failure and its detection.

Reliability and availability calculations


The calculations below are computed for reliability and availability attributes of an individual
component. The failure rate can be used interchangeably with MTTF and MTBF as per calculations
described earlier.

Reliability is calculated as an exponentially decaying probability function which depends on


the failure rate. Since failure rate may not remain constant over the operational lifecycle of a
component, the average time-based quantities such as MTTF or MTBF can also be used to
calculate Reliability. The mathematical function is specified as:

Availability determines the instantaneous performance of a component at any given time


based on time duration between its failure and recovery. Availability is calculated using the
following formula:

Calculation of multi-component systems


IT systems contain multiple components connected as a complex architectural. The effective
reliability and availability of the system depends on the specifications of individual components,
network configurations, and redundancy models. The configuration can be series, parallel, or a
hybrid of series and parallel connections between system components. Redundancy models can
account for failures of internal system components and therefore change the effective system
reliability and availability performance.
A reliability block diagram (RBD) may be used to demonstrate the interconnection between
individual components. Alternatively, analytical methods can also be used to perform these
calculations for large scale and complex networks. RBD demonstrating a hybrid mix of series and
parallel connections between system components is provided:
The basics of an RBD methodology
are highlighted below.

Using failure rates


The effective failure rates are used to compute reliability and availability of the system using these
formulae:

For series connected components, the effective failure rate is determined as the sum of failure
rates of each component.
For N series-connected components:

For parallel connected components, MTTF is determined as the reciprocal sum of failure rates
of each system component.
For N parallel-connected components:

For hybrid systems, the connections may be reduced to series or parallel configurations first.

Using availability and reliability specifications


Calculate reliability and availability of each component individually.

For series connected components, compute the product of all component values.
For N series-connected components.

For parallel connected components, use the formula:


For N parallel-connected components.
For hybrid connected components, reduce the calculations to series or parallel configurations
first.

It can be observed that the reliability and availability of a series-connected network of components
is lower than the specifications of individual components. For example, two components with 99%
availability connect in series to yield 98.01% availability. The converse is true for parallel combination
model. If one component has 99% availability specifications, then two components combine in
parallel to yield 99.99% availability; and four components in parallel connection yield 99.9999%
availability. Adding redundant components to the network further increases the reliability and
availability performance.
It’s important to note a few caveats regarding these incident metrics and the associated reliability
and availability calculations.

1. These metrics may be perceived in relative terms. Failure may be defined differently for the
same components in different applications, use cases, and organizations.
2. The value of metrics such as MTTF, MTTR, MTBF, and MTTD are averages observed in
experimentation under controlled or specific environments. These measurements may not
hold consistently in real-world applications.

Organizations should therefore map system reliability and availability calculations to business value
and end-user experience. Decisions may require strategic trade-offs with cost, performance and,
security, and decision makers will need to ask questions beyond the system dependability metrics
and specifications followed by IT departments.

Additional resources
The following literature was referenced for system reliability and availability calculations described
in this article:

Johnson, Barry. (1988). Design & analysis of fault tolerant digital systems. Chapters 1-4.
Johnson, Barry. (1996). An introduction to the design and analysis of fault-tolerant systems.
1-87.

Related reading
BMC It Operations Blog
BMC Service Management Blog
MTBF vs. MTTF vs. MTTR: Defining IT Failure
MTTR Explained: Repair vs Recovery in a Digitized Environment
What Is High Availability? Concepts & Best Practices

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