Think Piece

Occasionally I come across a piece of writing that’s really memorable.  (At least it sticks in my mind until the next day.)  Perhaps because of all the news about avalanches in our surrounding mountains, this essay – The Failure of Networked Systems  – really resonates.

There is a critical angle for piles of sand – a level of steepness that the slope cannot go beyond without sand starting to roll down the slope.

Imagine that, as you add sand, you colour red all of the areas of the pile that achieve this critical angle (and are thus on the verge of an avalanche). You will notice that the red patches appear as tendrils running down the side of the pile. As you add sand to the pile it gets higher and wider – the pile gets steeper and more little tendrils of red appear. Eventually you will see the tendrils of red start to interconnect.

If you drop a grain of sand on a red area then you will precipitate an avalanche. If the red area is interconnected with other red areas then all these areas will be drawn into the avalanche. If the red area is isolated, then the avalanche will be confined to one red tendril running down the side of the pile.

This basic principal can be applied to my network problem. If one route on the network gets loaded to capacity (i.e. turns red), the system detects that it has reached maximum capacity and it delays traffic (piles it higher) or switches traffic to other routes (spreads wider).

So: whether it’s a pile of sand, or an electronic one, or a financial system of interdependent “investment vehicles”, or an energy-and-food system, or a climate system under stress, there are a lot of red tendrils.

The author – Aeldric – who posts on The Oil Drum, is not a doomster.  “My opinion,” he says, “is that our way of life will have to change significantly, but slowly. I don’t expect to be clubbing anybody with a femur in any foreseeable future. ”  But, as you’ll read, recent events, both local and global, have given him pause.