Definition of fault tolerant

The term "fault tolerant" refers to a system or device that can continue operating in the presence of hardware or software failures or other malfunctions. The concept of fault tolerance is critical in modern computing environments, where mission-critical applications and infrastructure require high levels of reliability and availability. The word "fault tolerant" was coined in the late 1950s by computer scientists working to develop more dependable mainframe computers. The term emerged during a time when computing systems were much simpler and less sophisticated than they are today, and issues like power outages, component failures, and coding errors could cause widespread system failures. To address these problems, computer engineers began developing techniques to help these systems recover from errors and continue functioning. One of the earliest methods was redundancy - adding backup or duplicate components to a system to provide a failover in case of a failure. This concept laid the foundation for fault tolerance, as it enabled systems to continue operating despite component failures. The term "fault tolerant" itself first appeared in a paper published in 1959 by computer scientist J. Lapinsky. In his paper, he discussed the need for computer systems to handle errors gracefully and continue operating even when faults or failures occurred. The term gained wider usage throughout the 1960s and 1970s as computer engineers and designers began incorporating fault tolerance into their system and device designs. Today, fault tolerance is an essential concept in computer science and engineering, serving as a critical factor in maximizing system reliability and ensuring mission-critical applications and infrastructure continue functioning even in the face of failures or malfunctions.