[67921] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Converged Networks Threat (Was: Level3 Outage)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Petri Helenius)
Wed Feb 25 13:50:52 2004
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 20:49:53 +0200
From: Petri Helenius <pete@he.iki.fi>
To: David Meyer <dmm@1-4-5.net>
Cc: Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net>, nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <20040225183455.GA8050@1-4-5.net>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
David Meyer wrote:
> Is this an accurate characterization of your point? If
> so, why should sharing fate in the switching fabric
> necessarily reduce the resiliency of the those services
> that share that fabric (i.e., why should this be so)? I
> have some ideas, but I'm interested in what ideas other
> folks have.
>
>
I think it has been proven a few times that physical fate sharing is
only a minor contributor to the total connectivity availability while
system complexity mostly controlled by software written and operated by
imperfect humans contribute a major share to end-to-end availability.
From this, it can be deduced that reducing unneccessary system
complexity and shortening the strings of pearls that make up the system
contribute to better availablity and resiliency of the system. Diversity
works both ways in this equation. It lessens the probablity of same
failure hitting majority of your boxes but at the same time increases
the knowledge needed to understand and maintain the whole system.
I would vote for the KISS principle if in doubt.
Pete
