SPOF (Single Point of Failure)
The abbreviation SPOF (single point of failure) is a term for a weak spot in the IT infrastructure. When this point of the infrastructure fails, the entire system becomes inoperable. This could be a key hardware component, power supply, or network connection.
The existence of SPOF within an IT infrastructure has a negative impact on availability and reliability; therefore, it is undesirable. However, eliminating all SPOFs can be very costly because the component, power supply, or network connection must be duplicated, or sufficient redundancy needs to be ensured.
Therefore, the goal is to balance the cost with the infrastructure’s high availability and reliability demands. For example, dual power or connectivity is standard in data centres, as well as fully redundant hardware of critical infrastructure.
