Failure Domain
Definition
A failure domain is the set of components or functions that share a common risk of concurrent failure because they depend on the same underlying element.
Key Points
- Defines how far a fault can spread.
- Smaller failure domains improve containment and resilience.
- Used in architecture design for systems, networks, and control environments.
- Closely tied to redundancy and segmentation strategy.
Concept
It describes the blast radius of a fault, not the fault event itself.
Explainer
Designers try to limit failure domains so that an outage, control loss, or infrastructure problem stays contained and does not cascade across the whole system.
Cite this entry
Failure Domain. ConnectedEarth Knowledge Base. https://connectedearth.space/knowledge-base/failure-domain/ (updated 13 September 2026).