Single point of failure (SPOF)

Refers to a single component or path in a system that, if it fails, will cause the entire system to fail or disrupt the service it provides. Whether in IT infrastructure, supply chains, or organizational processes, identifying and mitigating SPOFs through redundancy, failover mechanisms, geographic distribution, and decentralization is essential for ensuring reliability and business continuity.

What You Need To Know

In computing for example, this could be a single hardware component like a storage device or network link, or a single piece of software or code library that an application relies on.