We are headed towards a characterization of the kinds of applications that we believe are truly critical. We can make a couple of observations, one about scale, one about structure.
Scale is important.
Loss of a regional bank s central computer could be a disaster for the bank. It might or might not recover. On the other hand, loss of a few regional banks is not likely to be a national disaster. On the other hand, the loss of the Federal Reserve s ability to transfer money among banks could lead to a complete economic collapse, a national disaster. In every critical service, there is a threshold for loss of functionality that can create a national disaster if it persists for long enough.