Antifragile Systems and Teams

All complex computer systems eventually break, despite all of the heavy-handed, bureaucratic change-management processes we throw at them. But some systems are clearly more fragile than others, depending on how well they cope with stress. In this O’Reilly report, Dave Zwieback explains how the DevOps methodology can help make your system antifragile.

Systems are fragile when organizations are unprepared to handle changing conditions. As generalists adept at several roles, DevOps practitioners adjust more easily to the fast pace of change. Rather than attempt to constrain volatility, DevOps embraces disorder, randomness, and impermanence to make systems even better.

This concise report covers:

• Why Etsy, Netflix, and other antifragile companies constantly introduce volatility to test and upgrade their systems
• How DevOps removes the schism between developers and operations, enlisting developers to deploy as well as build
• Using continual experimentation and minor failures to make critical adjustments—and discover breakthroughs
• How an overreliance on measurement and automation can make systems fragile
• Why sharing increases trust, collaboration, and tribal knowledge

Dave Zwieback has been managing large-scale, mission-critical infrastructure and teams for 17 years.