Aside: robustness and fragility
Monday, February 08, 2010
1:16 PM
An application is 
Fragile (or "brittle") if minor changes in the environment can break it. 
Robust if minor changes in the environment will not affect it. 
Reality: failures happen. 
In 2002, google estimated that one server a day in their infrastructure fails due to wire rot. 
Need a robust approach to avoid service failure. 
This implies flowless switching. 