(ri-dun´d&nt)
(adj.) Used to describe a
component of a computer or
network system that is used to guard the primary system from failure by acting as a back up system. Redundant components can include both
hardware elements of a system -- such as
disk drives,
peripherals,
servers,
switches,
routers -- and
software elements -- such as
operating systems,
applications and
databases.
Redundancy is the quality of systems or elements of a system that are backed up with secondary resources. For example, “The network has redundancy.”