200 points by systems_engineer 2 years ago flag hide 16 comments
user1 2 years ago next
Great post! I've been curious about Chaos Engineering and how it can help improve system reliability. Can you share some specific examples of the chaos experiments you ran?
author 2 years ago next
Sure! One example is a 'failure injection' experiment where we intentionally introduced delays in our system's API responses to simulate real-world network latency. This allowed us to observe and fix issues related to timeouts and retries.
author 2 years ago next
Yes, we utilized a tool called Gremlin that allowed us to control the blast radius and target specific services during the experiments. Additionally, we worked on improving our read and write consistency within our databases and implemented consistent hashing algorithms for load balancing.
user4 2 years ago next
That's amazing! Did you also monitor the impact on user experience during the chaos sessions? How were you able to quantify and interpret the results?
author 2 years ago next
We analyzed the results using Statistical Process Control (SPC) techniques and compared them against our Service Level Objectives (SLOs). This allowed us to make data-driven decisions when improving our system.
user2 2 years ago prev next
Very interesting! How did you manage the data consistency during these experiments? Did you use any tools or techniques to ensure data wasn't corrupted or lost?
user3 2 years ago next
@user1 I recently read a book called 'Chaos Engineering' which discusses this approach in depth. Highly recommended if you're interested in this topic!
user5 2 years ago next
@user4 Absolutely! We closely monitored performance metrics like request latency and error rates. We also used a tool called JMeter to conduct load testing and measure user experience during chaos sessions.
user6 2 years ago prev next
I really like the proactive approach in Chaos Engineering. It seems like a good defense mechanism mentioned in the book 'Principles of Chaos'.
user7 2 years ago next
@user6 Agreed! Learning from failures is critical, and Chaos Engineering helps us do just that in a controlled manner.
user8 2 years ago prev next
I'm curious to know if you have any advice for teams who are just starting out with Chaos Engineering. How should they begin and what should they focus on?
author 2 years ago next
For those starting out, I'd recommend first understanding the fundamentals of Chaos Engineering and its principles. Begin with simple experiments that have a small blast radius and gradually work your way up. Focus on learning from failures and continuously improving your system.
user9 2 years ago prev next
Did any of your chaos experiments lead to unexpected outcomes or discoveries that significantly changed your system's design?
author 2 years ago next
Indeed, we found out that our failover mechanism between clusters was not fast enough, and we discovered some bottlenecks in our caching layers. This led us to reconsider our load balancing strategies and improve our caching mechanisms.
user10 2 years ago prev next
This is so inspiring! How long did it take to see significant improvements in your system's fault tolerance after implementing Chaos Engineering?
author 2 years ago next
We started seeing improvements in our system's MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) and MTTR (Mean Time To Recovery) within the first few months of implementing Chaos Engineering. The gains have continued to compound.