A network partition is a division of a computer network into relatively independent

subnets A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network. Updated by RFC 6918. The practice of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting. Computers that belong to the same subnet are addressed with an identical ...

, either by design, to optimize them separately, or due to the failure of network devices. Distributed software must be designed to be partition-tolerant, that is, even after the network is partitioned, it still works correctly. For example, in a network with multiple subnets where nodes A and B are located in one subnet and nodes C and D are in another, a partition occurs if the

network switch A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destination device. A netw ...

device between the two subnets fails. In that case nodes A and B can no longer communicate with nodes C and D, but all nodes A-D work the same as before.

As a CAP trade-off

The

CAP Theorem In theoretical computer science, the CAP theorem, also named Brewer's theorem after computer scientist Eric Brewer, states that any distributed data store can provide only two of the following three guarantees:Seth Gilbert and Nancy Lynch"Brewer' ...

is based on three trade-offs:

consistency In classical deductive logic, a consistent theory is one that does not lead to a logical contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent ...

availability In reliability engineering, the term availability has the following meanings: * The degree to which a system, subsystem or equipment is in a specified operable and committable state at the start of a mission, when the mission is called for at a ...

, and partition tolerance. Partition tolerance, in this context, means the ability of a data processing system to continue processing data even if a network partition causes communication errors between subsystems.

External links

Partition of the Large Network
doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.20183.06565/6

References

{{Reflist Hardware partitioning Networking hardware Decomposition methods