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Resiliency

Resiliency

In DevOps, resiliency is a system’s ability to continue to provide an acceptable level of performance even when problems are occurring within the system.

System Threats

Common problems that occur to a system are internal failures, external failures, as well as malicious attacks. These problems are all inevitable, but DevOps practices can minimize their frequency and severity.

Resiliency Methods

Resiliency can be achieved through methods such as:

  • Caching: storing frequently or recently retrieved responses in a fast, accessible location.
  • Input validation: running checks for malicious requests and throwing them away if found.
  • Load balancing: distributing requests evenly across different servers to avoid overworking any individual server.

Measuring Resiliency

Resiliency can be measured by determining how quickly a critical failing service can recover, and the degree to which critical services are available during a failure (number of failed requests, latency).

Resiliency Measurements

Resiliency is measured to gain an understanding of how our system has performed under adverse conditions.

These measurements can be compared to targets to identify areas for improvement.

Internal System Problems

Internal system problems include system changes and hardware failures.

These internal problems can be addressed through practices such as change-management processes and redundancy.

External System Problems

External system problems include loss of dependency availability or support.

These can be addressed through practices such as fallback strategies and a proactive approach to dependency management.

Resiliency Testing

A system’s resiliency can be tested through practices such as:

  • Simulating internal and external failures
  • Pushing the system to its limits through tests
  • Attempting to locate security vulnerabilities

Cyber Attacks

Cyber attacks include DDOS and SQL injection attacks and can be mitigated through practices such as input validation.

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