Inability to identify weaknesses or to quantify advancements in software system robustness frequently hinders the development of robust software systems. Efforts have been made to develop benchmarks of software robustness to address this problem, but they all suffer from significant shortcomings. The paper presents the various features that are desirable in a benchmark of system robustness, and evaluates some existing benchmarks according to these features. A new hierarchically structured approach to building robustness benchmarks, which overcomes many deficiencies of past efforts, is also presented. This approach has been applied to building a hierarchically structured benchmark that tests part of the Unix file and virtual memory systems. The resultant benchmark has successfully been used to identify new response class structures that were not detected in a similar situation by other less organized techniques.

The World-Wide Web is the 'killer application' of the mid-1990's, and as a result it serves as the market place for various services. This position document discusses the problem of creating complex Web services from simpler ones, under client control. For example, one might want an annotated forecast of a company's stock price from three simple services, viz., stock price data, forecasting and annotation. We propose meta-scripts as a solution. A client accesses a meta-script, which contains procedures for accessing and composing simpler services. Meta-identifiers are used in the meta-script instead of static links. Developments in type-consistency mechanisms and various enabling services of the Web help in realization of the meta-script based approach. This model of service composition separates control from data manipulation, and gives this control to a client. As clients are empowered with the selection and coordination of service providers, this can lead to a free market for services.