Very simplified introduction: failover is the ability to keep using a service or device in case it fails, and you usually achieve that by having redundancy, having more than one service or device at time. A silly example could be when the power goes off in your house, you can handle that (failover) by having and using a flashlight (redundancy) as backup light system.

In my life I faced similar problems all the time and I think it is valid to share that. I’ll start with the very basic service (but currently very necessary) Internet, suppose we’re not at home or we’re travelling or our beloved ISP is off, I deal with that by having an extra 3G modem and Kindle with 3G free-worldwide.

I travel quite often and everytime sometimes I face issues with outlets.  My notebook is meant to be used on Brazil outlet pattern but when I go to US I need to use an outlet adapter. It is not a very accurate failover mechanism however travelling with one world outlet adapter can save you from some pain.

The main way I have fun is by playing games; then in case of my console broke or the power went out I have the portable, again it’s not quite accurate a failover mechanism but for my purpose it is.

Another area is TV, suppose my TV was stealed I can keep watching it by using my usb tv or even my gps tv.

Going to digital world I can tell you endless stories and ways to have failover. The most obvious could be have your files in your computer but keep it also in a cloud storage. I love this thing about digital buying, I used to buy games digitally (Steam, eShop, PSN) and even though I change computer I don’t need dirty old DVD’S to recovery my games, they are all associated with my account.

These last two are the best IMHO: make all the documents you have digital copy (this is easy today since any smartphone can take pictures), try to attached them to cloud (email, storage…), it saved me a lot of time. You should have at least two phone numbers of a service (food delivery, cab, hospital and etc.) because sometimes you don’t have easy access to get this info.

And you, what do you do to have failover in your life?