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I gave a talk at CU Boulder[1] in 2019 on complexity in cloud infrastructure and the design of rsync.net. What I wrote, and then said several times was that:
by rsync 5y ago
I gave a talk at CU Boulder[1] in 2019 on complexity in cloud infrastructure and the design of rsync.net.
What I wrote, and then said several times was that:
"Simple systems fail in boring ways. Complex systems fail in fascinating ways."
I gave examples from Chernobyl, Air France Flight 447, etc. as examples of such. It's a topic that fascinates me and I had hoped to give several more such talks - but alas, the pandemic.
In my opinion, the best discussion of this topic is the book _Normal Accidents_ by Charles Perrow[2].
[1] https://www.colorado.edu/libraries/2019/11/08/cyberinfrastructure-expert-speak-norlin-library https://www.colorado.edu/libraries/2019/11/08/cyberinfrastru...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Accidents
- neolog 5y agoI'd love to see/read that talk if you happen to youtube it or write it up.
- rsync 5y agoNo, it was neither recorded nor transcribed. Some of my observations on complexity were touched upon in this interview, however: https://console.dev/interviews/rsync-john-kozubik/ https://console.dev/interviews/rsync-john-kozubik/ Specifically: "rsync.net has no firewalls and no routers. In each location we connect to our IP provider with a dumb, unmanaged switch. This might seem odd, but consider: if an rsync.net storage array is a FreeBSD system running only OpenSSH, what would the firewall be ? It would be another FreeBSD system with only port 22 open. That would introduce more failure modes, fragility and complexity without gaining any security." ... and I recommend these console.dev interviews in general - they're usually very interesting.