Comment by AlotOfReading

It's just realtime programming. I wouldn't say that realtime techniques are limited to a very narrow range of ultra critical systems, given that they encompass everything from the code on your SIM card to games in your steam library.

    In large, distributed systems the best we're looking for is statistically acceptable. You can always tailor a workload that will break a guarantee in the real world.

This is called "soft" realtime.