Foundations of Metrology in the Observation of Critical Systems

The scientific literature as well as the industrial practice shows that the observation of a system when it operates in its real environment is a common and attractive option to obtain highly accurate measurements of the system’s performance and monitor its behavior. Methodology and tools for the performance evaluation and monitoring of distributed systems can successfully take advantage of the methodological approach and the mathematical tools and techniques which are typical of metrology, the science of measurement. We approach metrology from the perspective of an expert in evaluation and monitoring of critical systems, and we address the issues of the importance and of the concrete applicability of the main practices and notions from metrology to the observations of dependability properties of critical systems. We review the foundations of measurement theory and analyze the awareness of such concepts in the observations of critical systems, and the main open research challenges in this area.