From an engineering standpoint, a single point of failure is something to avoid at all costs. This is one point, where if there is a failure, the entire system goes down and fails. Adding redundancy to a system minimizes the potential for this and is frequently done with large server farms - even to the point of getting multiple electrical substations feeding from different sections of the power grid. Downtime is not good.
An excellent example of this happened in Japan with a hapless slug - from CNN:
Small slug throws Japan's high-speed rail into chaos
A single, small slug has been blamed for a massive power failure that brought part of Japan's high-speed rail network to a standstill last month.
An estimated 12,000 passengers were delayed on May 30, after power was cut on lines operated by rail company JR Kitakyushu, in the country's southern Kyushu region.
The outage occurred during peak commuter time, at 9.40 a.m, forcing the company to cancel a total of 26 trains.
Japan is famous for its large network of efficient high-speed trains, which run the length of the country and carry thousands of passengers every day.
During a later inspection of the network's electrical equipment, the company's engineers discovered a dead slug, measuring about 2 to 3 centimeters (0.7 to 1.1 inches) long.
The timing on Japanese trains is legendary - there are so many different lines that making connections can be screwed up by a couple minutes delay. If a train is off-time, they will issue a very abject and genuine apology.
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