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Aaron Gammon
Aaron Gammon

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The N N Problem: Why Every Integration Platform Collapses Under Its Own Connector Count

The connector catalogue is the integration industry’s proudest number — and its quiet death sentence.

With N systems, the connections people actually want grow on the order of N². Ten systems → ~45 possible connections. A hundred → nearly five thousand. Connector-building grows in a straight line behind that demand.

So demand climbs as a square; supply trudges up as a line. They look close when N is small. Then the gap opens into the integration backlog — and you don’t grow out of it. You grow into it.

You can’t hire your way out either. More engineers raise the slope of a line racing a square. The only escape is a different exponent: comprehend each system once (N) and get the quadratic web as a consequence.

Full essay:
https://inferrex.com/insights/the-nxn-problem?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=insights_the-nxn-problem

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