An example would be a Web request in a concurrent app server: if one request has an error accessing the database, maybe it can't continue, but the server proces

An example would be a Web request in a concurrent app server: if one request has an error accessing the database, maybe it can't continue, but the server process should keep handling other requests. Generally, I think a "component" would be a piece such that if there's an unplanned-for, fatal failure in it, other components need to continue running.