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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_injection

In software testing, fault injection is a technique for improving the coverage of a test by introducing faults in order to test code paths, in particular error handling code paths, that might otherwise rarely be followed. It is often used with stress testing and is widely considered to be an important part of developing robust software^[1].

The propagation of a fault through to an observable failure follows a well defined cycle. When executed, a fault may cause an error, which is an invalid state within a system boundary. An error may cause further errors within the system boundary, therefore each new error acts as a fault, or it may propagate to the system boundary and be observable. When error states are observed at the system boundary they are termed failures. This mechanism is termed the fault-error-failure cycle ^[2] and is a key mechanism in dependability.