Comments on: The importance of institutional redundancy

By: tito

tito — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:11:43 +0000

This is exactly why I am currently working on a clone of myself

By: Tweets that mention The importance of institutional redundancy cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog -- Topsy.com

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:51:24 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ivan Kirigin, chris dixon. chris dixon said: Rackspace down… Institutional redundancy. Institutional redundancy. Institutional redundancy. http://bit.ly/5z1nim [...]

By: tito

tito — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:11:43 +0000

This is exactly why I am currently working on a clone of myself

By: The importance of institutional redundancy | Igniting Startups - nPost

The importance of institutional redundancy | Igniting Startups - nPost — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:49:55 +0000

[...] From cdixon.org [...]

By: David Boon

David Boon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:34:18 +0000

Definitely agree. Would be interesting to hear how the same principle applies to personal life.

By: lsemel

lsemel — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:32:43 +0000

In a similar vein, if you see some opportunity why not start redundant companies to pursue it? That way, you have a stake in both yourself and the competition.

By: Mark Essel

Mark Essel — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:19:53 +0000

Heck ya, synchronization of asynchronous information is a BIG hurdle.

Developers have had to deal with this for a while already: merging simultaneously modified files. It requires some communication and intelligent collaborative effort beyond some fantastic tools (github, svn, dropbox).

By: David Semeria

David Semeria — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:55:50 +0000

..and not only. Think about browser based apps – you want to work offline and then synchronize with the cloud. This can get incredibly tricky when multiple users have shared write permission on the same assets.

I see this as a key tech/investment space going forward.

By: chris dixon

chris dixon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:51:57 +0000

i'm not one to suggest the govt break up non-monopolistic companies, but i do think a world of smaller companies is probably a good thing.

By: chris dixon

chris dixon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:50:46 +0000

agree about synchronization. already see this as a huge challenge e.g. with db replication

By: chris dixon

chris dixon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:49:58 +0000

def agree it applies to twitter, see http://cdixon.org/?p=1296

By: AndreaF

AndreaF — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:48:43 +0000

Wise words. Ultimately, it's always about cost vs risk. The more you spend/invest, the less you risk. Redundancy, whether we are talking about an extra server in a separate location or an institution, has a cost. If you can afford it, de-risk it.

By: Apolinaras Sinkevicius

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:44:53 +0000

I have been heading business operations (for those who don't get what ops people do – we do what Roy Disney did for Walt Disney – Wikipedia it) for early and larger late stage startups my entire career. The #1 thing I do every time I join an organization is to put in plan B for everything. You have a T1, get wireless T as a backup. Using Amazon cloud, better have VM ready to go on RackSpace cloud. Genius graphic artist doing projects for you, get another one pronto. Have a real awesome coder on staff, better start looking for replacement. I never rely on a single supplier, vendor, etc.
You simply can't, because things will always go wrong and you have to have the plan B. Unfortunately many execs don't like to think about the doomsday and end up getting caught with their pants down.

By: David Semeria

David Semeria — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:18:48 +0000

Sure, loosely coupled systems (like the web itself) are more fault-tolerant than highly-concentrated ones.

But here's a thought: for redundancy to be really efficient the key challenge is synchronization. This goes for the Cloud, SaaS applications, caches on low-bandwidth devices (mobile phones), etc, etc.

IMO, effective synchronization solutions will represent the backbone of the web of the future.

By: Tweets that mention The importance of institutional redundancy cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog -- Topsy.com

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:06:29 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by chris dixon, hrjn_rss. hrjn_rss said: The importance of institutional redundancy: Comments http://url4.eu/nLgY [...]

By: Mark Essel

Mark Essel — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:11:16 +0000

Great point about natural clumping caused by financial gravity. Big and great companies get more resources and can easily provide better services for a wide variety of areas. But this centralization efficacy comes at a cost of durability.

As a society we are challenged to spur on competition, innovation, for a variety of competing services so that overall, our services strengthen in reliability. Services you can trust builds long term user retention.

Have you seen businesses like Google, Apple, and MSFT become too big as to open up potential vulnerabilities? What in particular do you suggest to remedy the situation. Should large businesses have some financial motovation to spin off fully independent subsidiaries?

By: mayanks

mayanks — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:09:12 +0000

I think this applies to us more today as most of us are moving our applications/data to the cloud. Somebody stumbling over a power cord somewhere could just wipe out your precious information.

It applies to twitter also. If they had made the twitter protocol something similar to SMTP or like google wave and opened it up for others to host it as well, it would have saved a lot of failwhales and money to them.

I wonder if it could be applied to our governments as well