Engineering
In praise of boring infrastructure
The most reliable platforms we run are the least interesting to talk about. That is the point.
Chipo NdlovuHead of Platform Engineering6 min read
Every few months a new tool promises to change how infrastructure is built. Some of them are excellent. But the platforms we are proudest of are made from parts that have been in production for a decade, configured carefully and monitored well.
Choose technology your team can run at 3 a.m.
The question we ask about any component is not ‘is it powerful?’ but ‘can the person on call understand and fix it, alone, in the middle of the night?’ That question rules out a surprising amount.
Reliability is mostly the absence of surprises.
service: mobile-money-api
slo:
availability:
objective: 99.95
window: 30d
latency_p95_ms:
objective: 300
alerting:
burn_rate_fast: 14.4 # page
burn_rate_slow: 6 # ticketWrite down what ‘working’ means, measure it, and spend your innovation budget on the product rather than the plumbing.