Reliability and assurances

[mark@vielle.datasys.net (Mark R. Lindsey)]

I'm working on a theory: if you can't be assured that a subsystem is going
to work all of the time, then you can't be assured that a subsystem is
going to work any of the time.

Does that seem reasonable?

When I say `subsystem' here, it's for lack of a better term to describe
something atomic; e.g., a source of power for computer X, or a database
server for application Y, &c. Obviously, everything depends on something
else, and I'm not talking here about an analysis that extends up a
reliability tree.