[AusNOG] "Simple Systems Have Less Downtime"

[Tom Paseka]

recommended reading: Normal Accidents
<https://www.amazon.com/Normal-Accidents-Living-High-Risk-Technologies/dp/0691004129>
 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Accidents

On Wed, Mar 4, 2020 at 7:59 PM Mark Smith <markzzzsmith at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 5 Mar 2020, 14:07 Bevan Slattery, <bevan at slattery.net.au> wrote:
>
>> There was a whole PhD paper demonstrating why planes with two engines
>> were safer than planes with four due to risk of catastrophic failure having
>> four engines/and complexity that outweighed the additional redundancy it
>> provided.
>>
>
>
> Having realised that "unnecessary complexity is the enemy", after working
> on both simple and complex networks and systems, I've been "collecting"
> simplicity idioms:
>
> "Less is more." - Bauhaus Movement.
>
> "Complex equals more things that can break." - Anonymous on Slashdot.
>
> "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when
> there is nothing left to take away.” (in the context of aircraft design
> coincidentally) - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey.
>
> "As simple as possible but no simpler."
>
> "In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is nothing
> left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - RFC1925.
>
>
> Somewhere along the line I came across a theory that the Roman Empire
> collapsed because of its complexity, and that continuing adding complexity
> will unavoidably result in catastrophic collapse.
>
> Looking that up, I came across this paper that suggests persistent,
> determined and voluntary simplicity is the way to gain resilience and avoid
> complexity collapse.
>
> "Resilience through Simplification: Revisiting Tainter’s Theory of
> Collapse"
>
> http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/ResilienceThroughSimplificationSimplicityInstitute.pdf
>
>
> Regards,
> Mark.
>
>
>>
>> [b]
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *AusNOG <ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net> on behalf of Mark Smith
>> <markzzzsmith at gmail.com>
>> *Date: *Thursday, 5 March 2020 at 1:05 pm
>> *To: *AusNOG Mailing List <ausnog at ausnog.net>
>> *Subject: *[AusNOG] "Simple Systems Have Less Downtime"
>>
>>
>>
>> This is excellent. About startups, however lots of parallels in network
>> and network protocol architecture and design.
>>
>>
>>
>> Simple Systems Have Less Downtime
>>
>> https://www.gkogan.co/blog/simple-systems/
>>
>>
>>
>> Also cross over with RFC1925, "The Twelve Networking Truths", for those
>> that may not be aware if it.
>>
>>
>>
>> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1925
>>
>>
>>
>> (RFC1925 might be the best RFC ever.)
>>
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