Chaos engineering is a disciplined approach to identifying and mitigating potential failures in a system by intentionally injecting faults and observing how the system responds. It aims to ensure that systems can withstand unexpected disruptions and maintain their performance and reliability.
Key Principles of Chaos Engineering
- Hypothesize about steady state behavior: Define what a normal, healthy state of your system looks like in terms of performance metrics and data quality.
- Simulate real-world failures: Introduce controlled failures that mimic potential real-world issues.
- Run experiments in production: Test the system in its actual working environment to observe genuine reactions.
- Automate experiments: Use automation to run chaos experiments continuously or at regular intervals.
- Minimize blast radius: Start with small, controlled experiments to reduce the risk of causing significant disruption.