An exception handling software architecture for developing fault-tolerant software

Fault-tolerant object-oriented software systems are inherently complex and have to cope with an increasing number of exceptional conditions in order to meet the system's dependability requirements. This work proposes a software architecture which integrates uniformly both concurrent and sequential exception handling. The exception handling architecture is independent of programming language or exception handling mechanism, and its use can minimize the complexity caused by the handling of abnormal behavior. Our architecture provides, during the architectural design stage, the context in which more detailed design decisions related to exception handling are made in later development stages. This work also presents a set of design patterns which describes the static and dynamic aspects of the components of our software architecture. The patterns allow a clear separation of concerns between the system's functionality and the exception handling facilities, applying the computational reflection technique.