A semi-automated availability-assessment system and methodology. A comprehensive
questionnaire providing detailed information about the hardware and operating-system
components and configuration of a system, application-and-database-software components
and configuration of the system, data related to other potential sources of unplanned
downtime, and data related to potential sources of planned downtime is received.
The information contained in the received questionnaire is processed in several
steps. First, hardware and operating-system-component-and-configuration information
is extracted in order to conduct a Markov-chain availability analysis of the overall
system hardware and operating system to provide a first intermediate result. Application-and-database-software
component and configuration information, along with data and estimates related
to software component failure and recovery rates, as well as relevant data for
other potential sources of unplanned downtime, are extracted from the questionnaire
and compiled together to form a second intermediate result. Information related
to maintenance and other planned activities that result in planned system downtime
are extracted from the questionnaire and compiled together as a third intermediate
result. Finally, the intermediate result sets are combined in a deterministic manner
to produce a final availability assessment for the system.
