Single Point Of Failure
Single Point of Failure (SPOF) is a system design concept where a single component, if it fails, will cause the entire system to stop functioning. It refers to any critical part of a system that lacks redundancy or backup, making the system vulnerable to disruptions. This concept is crucial in reliability engineering, fault tolerance, and high-availability system design.
Developers should understand SPOF to design resilient systems that minimize downtime and ensure continuous operation, especially in critical applications like financial services, healthcare, or e-commerce. It is essential when building distributed systems, cloud architectures, or any service requiring high availability, as identifying and eliminating SPOFs improves fault tolerance and disaster recovery capabilities.