Failure simulation and availability report on same

A simulation may be performed to assess availability of a service in the event of various types of failures. A specification may describe a behavior to be induced on a machine, and a formula under which availability is to be measured. A controller processes the specification and dispatches a request to induce the behavior to a machine on which the behavior is to be induced. An agent on that machine may look up a routine in a simulation library and may use the routine to induce the behavior. Data, such as performance counter values, are collected before, during, and/or after occurrence of the behavior, and are transmitted back to the controller. A report generator applies the formula contained in the specification to the data received to calculate the availability metric, and produces a report containing that metric.