Decay Prevention/Mitigation

design & specify to slow decay

• understand threat/risks: technical but also economic, social, political - the best network breaks if the poor steal copper trunks.
• seek graceful degradation: build-in disaster testing, physical redundancy, harden systems, but only up to surrounding infrastructure
• seek boring solutions: avoid obsolete & bleeding-edge solutions, require multiple sources, think interchangeable pieces

• be slow to retire, and mothball rather than destroy previous manual/proven processes
• develop & maintain local human resources (first response, only response)