Reliability in cloud computing

Let's get an intuitive understanding of reliability first, as we did in the previous section. A resource is said to have reliability if it often works when we try to use it. You will be hard-pressed to find an example of anything that is perfectly reliable. Even the most well-manufactured computer components have a degree of unreliability. To continue with the car analogy, if you go to your garage and you can usually start your car and drive it away, then it is said to have high "reliability". Conversely, if you can't trust your car to start (maybe because it has an old battery), it is said to have low "reliability".

Reliability and availability are sometimes erroneously used interchangeably. As we saw with the car analogy, they are related but they are not the same and don't have the exact same meaning. The terms have different objectives and can have different costs to maintain certain levels of service.

Reliability...