Single Points of Failure
A single point of failure poses a lot of potential risk to a network, because if the device
fails, a segment or even the entire network is negatively affected. Devices that could
represent single points of failure are firewalls, routers, network access servers, T1 lines,
switches, bridges, hubs, and authentication servers—to name a few. The best defenses
against being vulnerable to these single points of failure are proper maintenance, regular
backups, redundancy, and fault tolerance.
fails, a segment or even the entire network is negatively affected. Devices that could
represent single points of failure are firewalls, routers, network access servers, T1 lines,
switches, bridges, hubs, and authentication servers—to name a few. The best defenses
against being vulnerable to these single points of failure are proper maintenance, regular
backups, redundancy, and fault tolerance.
Redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) provides fault tolerance for hard
drives and can improve system performance. Redundancy and speed are provided by
breaking up the data and writing it across several disks so different disk heads can work
simultaneously to retrieve the requested information.
drives and can improve system performance. Redundancy and speed are provided by
breaking up the data and writing it across several disks so different disk heads can work
simultaneously to retrieve the requested information.
