Being redundant is usually called out for being unnecessary or when your job is lost to a company closing business or reducing staff.
It’s why redundancy is often referred to as bad when in fact, often times, it is good.
When I worked for a telecommunications company that installed fiber for businesses, I had to review and approve the capital expenditure requests for each build of fiber for network connectivity to the customer’s building(s). At first, I didn’t understand why some of the requests had double the costs for redundant connections. So, I asked why this was.
If the customer’s building was beyond a 200-foot lateral from the pole where the fiber would be connected to the access point, they must have dual entrance points into the building. Then, I asked why again.
And the answer was…squirrels.
Having no experience with squirrels, I was skeptical. To dispel my qualm that we were deceiving customers out of unnecessary money, the operations manager would come sit in my office and tell me stories about the urgent repairs they had to do each time a squirrel chewed through a singular entrance line, which was frequent. This was the early 2000’s and even back then, the reliance on network connectivity and the Internet was consequential.
It wasn’t until I moved to California that I truly understood this. There was only one residential Internet service provider that had connection speeds faster than DSL or, yes, dial-up. At first the service was unremarkable with no issues but then it started to degrade with intermittent down times for no reason. Over the course of a year or more, a technician would come out to test, replace or add some piece of equipment: modem, router, extenders, cables. Until one rainy Sunday night with nothing more that could be tested, added or replaced, the technician finally had to climb that dreaded telephone pole looming in our backyard. And to his dismay, the problem readily revealed itself within the badly frayed wire hanging by a thread from that pole to our house all because of the relentless chewing of –
Squirrels.
I alluded to redundancy in earlier posts and why in certain circumstances, it is important. What Once Was Good Advice – Cache Coach
When Redundancy is Good
Internet Connectivity
Wireless phone data connectivity is a back-up when the power goes out or when your Internet service provider has issues.
Smoke/CO Detection Systems
We currently have two different smoke detectors (ADT & Nest) in critical areas of our house. One such area is the basement utility room with the furnace and electrical/breaker panel. One night when it was still light, the ADT smoke detector went off in this room. This one notifies ADT who will notify the fire department. We told them to hold off on the fire department since the Nest one next to it was not going off. It took us awhile to verify there was truly no fire and the cause, a malfunctioning battery that didn’t show as a low battery.
The Nest system of detectors doesn’t notify the fire department. However, they do work in concert with one another and can be accessed remotely.
For example, our CA house had only a Nest system. One cool morning, I was still upstairs in the bathroom when my husband left to get a haircut telling me he was putting the automatic oven cleaner on. A few minutes later, the Nest detector by the bathroom had the calm female voice alert me there was smoke detected downstairs and that the alarm will sound momentarily. In my haste to get downstairs to identify the problem, I left my phone. By the time I got to the kitchen, it was full blown alarms with bright, flashing strobe lights from every Nest in the house. My husband was getting the notifications that essentially our house was on fire. Since I couldn’t hear my phone ringing, he used the talk-to-your-pet feature on our auto-feeders to connect with me.
Once I could release the oven-cleaning lock, I was able to open the oven door and find the pan with the smoking silicon handles that I quickly put out. At least we knew the Nest system worked fantastically.
Security Systems
In 2013, we had absolutely no security on our house, no dog, no alarm, no cameras and we left and returned from work every weekday at extremely predictable times. Looking back, we were the perfect target for a home robbery that happened on a dark, rainy late afternoon in February. The cost of a redundant security system far outweighs the thousands of dollars of material goods and peace of mind lost from invasion of your privacy, stolen SSN’s, passport and other highly personal items.
Doorbell cameras such as Ring allow you to capture close-up high-quality photos and video. It also allows you to quickly scan the recorded footage to narrow a timeframe of some type of activity. Then you can use the DVR recording from your mounted cameras to capture what actually occurred. It is often only wandering cats or other wildlife, but it can be nefarious. Your Private Sanctuary – Cache Coach
We now have a redundant security system. Why Redundancy Is Crucial to Effective Home Security? | by Pkarblogger | Medium
Passwords & Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Passwords are the primary barrier to your online accounts along with the redundant second layer of a 2FA texted numerical code. However, when there is no 2FA available on accounts like my website, I had to change settings to mitigate the 2,300 failed login attempts on Monday. If this doesn’t work, on to the next level of redundant security.
Data Storage and Back-up
Laptop storage, file servers, external hard drives/flash drives, digital vaults, cloud-based OneDrive, iCloud, etc. If you don’t have your personal, important files backed-up somewhere, you’re still living in the 90’s.
Redundancy has become essential in consequential situations to protect you and your treasures. If there is an inadequacy or failure in one system, the other system can mitigate or help troubleshoot the issue or inadequacy and will provide another layer of access and protection.
Again, a one-time fix is often not enough and requires staying one-step ahead.
Incidentally, I had this post planned months ago and largely written and scheduled weeks ago. I use Microsoft OneNote that is stored directly on my laptop and in the cloud. The cloud back-up wasn’t available this morning and my husband got a work call at 2:00 am. Microsoft-CrowdStrike Outage Causes IT Nightmare Across Airports, Banks and Hospitals Globally – CNET