High Availability Network Fundamentals

Predicting Hardware Availability

Although hardware is very likely to contribute to your network's outages, it may or may not be the largest contributor. The fact that I cover hardware first is because it is easiest, not because it is the most important factor to consider in network availability.

Nearly everyone that gets involved with estimating network reliability or availability will first begin by making estimates about the hardware. Only a small percentage actually move on to include the other things covered in this book. This small percentage is most likely a result of the relative ease of obtaining hardware reliability estimates and the difficulty in obtaining information on the other factors. Because most network designers have at least ...