Separation of Fault Tolerance and Non-Functional Concerns: Aspect Oriented Patterns and Evaluation

Dependable computer based systems employing fault tolerance and robust software development techniques demand additional error detection and recovery related tasks. This results in tangling of core functionality with these cross cutting non-functional concerns. In this regard current work identifies these dependability related non-functional and cross-cutting concerns and proposes design and implementation solutions in an aspect oriented framework that modularizes and separates them from core functionality. The degree of separation has been quantified using software metrics. A Lego NXT Robot based case study has been completed to evaluate the proposed design framework.