Redundancy – Routers, Switches…and Pacifiers

Hardware is not my forte, but I know enough to know the advantages of redundancy. The vendor that hosts all our web applications knows that as well. Every vital component needed to keep our sites going are doubled up. If any one of those components fail, a replacement steps up to the plate. They do this with network switches, routers and even power. They also offer georedundancy. You can have duplicate copies of your servers in multiple cities. If say the Charlotte, North Carolina server goes down, the Chattanooga, Tennessee server can take over.

Illustration of Network Redundancy (Source: Cisco)

Ryan and I waited nine weeks before introducing Sagan to the pacifier. It was well-received. I believe Ryan even used the word “miracle”. Once we introduced the pacifier, some peculiar Sagan behavior suddenly started to make a heck of a lot of sense. He liked to suck for comfort. When you are sucking on a bottle, you are always going to get milk regardless of your hunger level. Sometimes Sagan wanted to suck without milk. Of course, we didn’t know this. Sagan would cry for his bottle and then smack it away…and then cry for the bottle again. We just thought he was an indecisive little dude. Once we saw him with the pacifier we realized– he knew exactly what he wanted all along.

That pacifier has become such a key component (for the time being), we can’t risk having a single failure point… especially considering my mother’s miniature pinscher has developed a taste for them. We practice a mini version of geo-redundancy. We keep pacifiers in our bedroom, our living room and the car. As an added safeguard, each location usually has its own redundant supply.

If one pacifier goes down [on the dirty floor] or is eaten or lost, there is another to take its place.

Redundant Pacifiers

We also have redundant supplies of diapers, wipes, clothes, blankets…and of course, key breast pump components.

We may not have the five nines of uptime, but just like with networks, redundancy helps keep our operations running smoothly.

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