Art of Scalability, The: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise, 2nd Edition

Chapter 21. Creating Fault-Isolative Architectural Structures

The natural formation of the country is the soldier’s best ally.

—Sun Tzu

In the days before full-duplex and 10-gigabit Ethernet, when repeaters and hubs were used within CSMA/CD (carrier sense multiple access with collision detection) networks, collisions among transmissions were common. Collisions reduced the speed and effectiveness of the network, as collided packets would likely not be delivered on their first attempt. Although the Ethernet protocol (then an implementation of CSMA/CD) used collision detection and binary exponential back-off to protect against congestion in such networks, network engineers also developed the practice of segmenting networks to allow for fewer collisions ...