Resiliency Engineering is the practice of designing and building systems to achieve resiliency. Ensuring they can handle failures, adapt to disruptions, and recover gracefully without major downtime.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Murphyโs Law
๐ช๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐น๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐?
Before understanding Resiliency Engineering, it is necessary to understand what Resiliency is. Resiliency is an outcome, not a practice. It is the ability of a system to handle failures, adapt to disruptions, and maintain functionality under pressure.
๐ช๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐น๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ ๐๐ป๐ด๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ป๐ด?
Resiliency Engineering is the practice of designing and building systems to achieve resiliency. It involves strategies like fault tolerance, redundancy, self-healing mechanisms, and failure recovery to ensure systems remain stable and reliable even in unpredictable conditions.
๐ง๐๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐น๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ ๐๐ป๐ด๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ป๐ด
Resiliency engineering can be broadly categorized into three types: proactive resiliency, reactive resiliency, adaptive resiliency.
๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐น๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐
Proactive resiliency prevents failures before they happen, keeping systems stable and reliable. It ensures smooth operations by distributing traffic, limiting overload, and maintaining backups. All are called Upstream Resiliency.
- Load Balancing, Load Shedding & Load Leveling โ Distribute traffic efficiently and prevent overload.
- Throttling & Rate Limiting โ Control excessive requests to maintain system stability.
- Chaos Engineering โ Inject controlled failures to test and improve system resilience.
- Redundancy & Replication โ Ensure backup systems are active to prevent downtime.
๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐น๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐
Reactive Resiliency ensures systems recover quickly with minimal impact when failures occur. All are called Downstream Resiliency.
- Timeout - Setting a timeout ensures operations donโt hang indefinitely.
- Retry Strategies & Retry Amplification โ Reattempt failed operations with increasing delays to reduce strain and avoid simultaneous retries.
- Fallback Plan & Failover Mechanisms โ Offering alternative flows and switch to backup systems seamlessly.
- Circuit Breakers โ Prevent repeated failures from overwhelming services while avoiding unnecessary retries.
๐๐ฑ๐ฎ๐ฝ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐น๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐
Adaptive Resiliency bridges Upstream and Downstream Resiliency by learning from failures and continuously improving system resilience.
- Observability & Monitoring โ Track failures in real time for better insights.
- Chaos Engineering โ Identify weaknesses and enhance system robustness.
- Automated Scaling โ Dynamically adjust resources based on demand.
- Machine Learning & AI โ Predict and prevent failures before they happen.
๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐น๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ ๐๐ป๐ด๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ป๐ด
Building resilient systems requires key principles that ensure systems can withstand failures, adapt to disruptions, and recover quickly. These core concepts provide the foundation for designing resilient architectures.
- To engineer resiliency, systems must be built with key principles:
- Fault Tolerance โ The ability to operate even when components fail
- Redundancy โ Backup systems that take over in case of failure.
- Failover & Recovery โ Mechanisms to switch to a working state quickly.
- Observability & Monitoring โ Real-time insights into system health.
- Chaos Testing โ Simulating failures to test system robustness.
๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฐ๐น๐๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป
A truly resilient system integrates all threeโproactively preventing failures, reacting gracefully when they occur, and continuously adapting to become stronger over time.
๐๐ป๐๐ฝ๐ถ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ณ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ๐
