Re: Converged Networks Threat (Was: Level3 Outage)

[Petri Helenius <pete () he iki fi>]

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