Recent Trends in Dependable and High Availability Systems

A special issue of Computers (ISSN 2073-431X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 April 2026 | Viewed by 632

Special Issue Editor


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years dependable and highly available systems gained relevance also because of the well-known process of “human digitalization’’ which has led to the widespread diffusion of smart devices for mission critical applications, like internet banking and government applications. At the same time, dependable systems shall be capable of providing services with the best level of Quality as these systems are designed to perform with a series of non-functional requirements such as availability, safety and security. Dependable systems, as well as highly available systems, are crucial in various system domains, like financial, government, big companies, medical devices as well as any type of critical infrastructures. A common point of dependable and highly availability systems is, for example, availability. In particular, highly available systems should provide a ratio of availability close to 100%. Another key attribute is represented by survivability that, for example, is often addressed by various disaster recovery solutions. These systems must also provide integrity of system resources (e.g., data). Safety and security are crucial requirements of dependable systems.

In this Special Issue we are particularly interested to collect contributions in the field of dependable and highly availability systems as, for example, application of machine learning and artificial intelligence to perform failover and disaster recovery of highly available systems; security and safety of dependable systems; architectural solutions and new software systems for dependable and highly available systems; dependability model and evaluation, as well as fault tolerance and recovery mechanisms for enterprise applications and real time systems.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Big data analytics and machine learning techniques and AI models for highly available systems.
  • Applications of AI models to improve safety, security and reliability of dependable systems. New software and architectural components for highly available systems.
  • Cloud-based solutions for high availability systems and dependable systems.
  • Failover and recovery techniques for highly available systems.
  • AI and machine learning integration of software agents for highly available and dependable systems.
  • Monitoring tools for dependable and highly available systems.
  • Dependability modeling and evaluation.
  • Integration of Enterprise Applications into high availability solutions.
  • IoT-based systems for dependable and highly available systems.
  • Energy efficient dependable and highly available systems.
  • Applications of big data analytics for dependable systems and computing.
  • Safety and security of dependable systems.
  • Highly available embedded systems.

Dr. Fabrizio Messina
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Computers is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • dependable systems
  • highly available systems
  • quality of service

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

30 pages, 3604 KB  
Article
Integrated Systems Ontology (ISOnto): Integrating Engineering Design and Operational Feedback for Dependable Systems
by Haytham Younus, Felician Campean, Sohag Kabir, Pascal Bonnaud and David Delaux
Computers 2025, 14(11), 451; https://doi.org/10.3390/computers14110451 - 22 Oct 2025
Viewed by 367
Abstract
This paper proposes an integrated ontological framework, Integrated Systems Ontology (ISOnto), for dependable systems engineering by semantically linking design models with real-world operational failure data. Building upon the recently proposed Function–Behaviour–Structure–Failure Modes (FBSFM) framework, ISOnto integrates early-stage design information with field-level evidence to [...] Read more.
This paper proposes an integrated ontological framework, Integrated Systems Ontology (ISOnto), for dependable systems engineering by semantically linking design models with real-world operational failure data. Building upon the recently proposed Function–Behaviour–Structure–Failure Modes (FBSFM) framework, ISOnto integrates early-stage design information with field-level evidence to support more informed, traceable, and dependable failure analysis. This extends the semantic scope of the FBSFM ontology to include operational/field feedback from warranty claims and technical inspections, enabling two-way traceability between design-phase assumptions (functions, behaviours, structures, and failure modes) and field-reported failures, causes, and effects. As a theoretical contribution, ISOnto introduces a formal semantic bridge between design and operational phases, strengthening the validation of known failure modes and the discovery of previously undocumented ones. Developed using established ontology engineering practices and formalised in OWL with Protégé, it incorporates domain-specific extensions to represent field data with structured mappings to design entities. A real-world automotive case study conducted with a global manufacturer demonstrates ISOnto’s ability to consolidate multisource lifecycle data into a coherent, machine-readable repository. The framework supports advanced reasoning, structured querying, and system-level traceability, thereby facilitating continuous improvement, data-driven validation, and more reliable decision-making across product development and reliability engineering. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Dependable and High Availability Systems)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop