Too Many Connections Weaken Networks 48
itwbennett writes "Conventional wisdom holds that more connections make networks more resilient, but a team of mathematicians at UC Davis have found that that is only true up to a point. The team built a model to determine the ideal number of cross-network connections. 'There are some benefits to opening connections to another network. When your network is under stress, the neighboring network can help you out. But in some cases, the neighboring network can be volatile and make your problems worse. There is a trade-off,' said researcher Charles Brummit. 'We are trying to measure this trade-off and find what amount of interdependence among different networks would minimize the risk of large, spreading failures.' Brummitt's team published its work (PDF) in the Proceedings of The National Academies of Science."
Re:Primitive (Score:5, Informative)
the study was about power grids, where it makes a bit more sense. of course in that context(and in data-networks, though with data it actually matters where a certain data packet goes as data consumers don't just want _any_ data, they need specific data, but power you don't much care where it actually came from..).
still, gotta wonder, in real world context you'd need to think about what kind of real mechanisms are used for making the new connections and safeties supposed to stop cascades from spreading.