Snowflake-like network design minimizes downtime and repair difficulty

New Scientist : Large networks such as the power grid and the internet make use of redundancy to reduce the effects of damage to the network. Redundancy is generally expensive and can be difficult to maintain, but the cheaper alternative of fixing broken connections as needed can leave areas without network connection until they are repaired. To minimize the difficulty of making repairs, Robert Farr of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences and his colleagues have determined that the ideal network design is a snowflake-like pattern. Starting with an arrangement of square or triangular nodes, they found that the best way to connect them was to have primary branches that have no more than two levels of branches below them. That topology allows each node to be connected on all but one side, meaning that connection failures were contained and that repairs were easy to make. Farr’s team now hopes to apply the idea to real-world situations to determine how adaptable it is to changing conditions.