Jesse Robbins (Cofounder of Opscode) explains GameDay, an exercise designed to increase Resilience through large-scale fault injection across critical systems.

1. Jesse Robbins
Cofounder, Opscode
@jesserobbins
jesse@opscode.com
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2. Join Us!!!
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3. “You don’t choose the moment,
the moment chooses you.
You only choose how prepared
you are when it does.”
-Fire Chief Mike Burtch
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4. Operations is Work that Matters
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5. GameDay
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6. define:
GameDay
An exercise designed to increase
Resilience through large-scale fault
injection across critical systems.
Part of a larger discipline called
Resilience Engineering.
Not new, just new to us ;-)

7. define:
Resilience
Resilience is a the ability
of a System to adapt to
changes, failures, &
disturbances.

8. define:
System
People
Culture
Processes
Applications & Services
Infrastructure
Software
Hardware

9. This will be on the test:
Resilience is a product of
People & Culture
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10. Copyright © 2010 Opscode, Inc - All Rights Reserved 10

11. This will be on the test:
FAILURE HAPPENS!

13. “multiple & unexpected interactions of
failures are inevitable”
-Charles Perrow

14. Catastrophic Potential
Simple Complexity Complex
Tight
KEEP
OUT!!!
Coupling
Loose
Created by Jesse Robbins
"Catastrophic Potential" adapted from Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow 14

15. define:
The Nines (roughly)
99% 5256 min (3.5 days)
99.9% 528 min ( 8.8 hours )
99.99% 53 min
99.999% 5 min
99.9999% 30 Seconds
99.99999% 3 Seconds

16. 99.9% *
99.9% *
99.9%
=
99.7% (oops!)
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17. MTTR > MTBF
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18. I ❤ MTTR
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19. Copyright © 2010 Opscode, Inc - All Rights Reserved 19

20. GameDay
Slide Courtesy of John Allspaw - http://www.slideshare.net/jallspaw/10-deploys-per-day-dev-and-ops-cooperation-at-flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnorman/2678090600 20

21. Useful Ops Personality Defects
25% Pyromaniac
75% Paranoid

22. setting a good example

23. GameDay increases Resilience in 3 ways
Preparation
‣ Identification and mitigation of risks and impact from
failure
‣ Reduces frequency of failure (MTBF)
‣ Reduces duration of recovery (MTTR)
Participation
‣ Builds confidence & competence responding to failure
and under stress.
‣ Strengthens individual and cultural ability to anticipate,
mitigate, respond to, and recover from failures of all
types.
Exercises
‣ Trigger and expose “latent defects”
‣ Choose discover them, instead of letting that be
determined by the next real disaster.
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24. start small...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oakleyoriginals/5674150237 24

25. increase awareness
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maunzy/5099921731 Copyright © 2010 Opscode, Inc - All Rights Reserved 25

26. build confidence
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skevbo/4864249944

27. full scale, live fire exercises
http://tacomafiredepartment.blogspot.com/2010/05/west-slope-training-burn.html Opscode, Inc - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2010 27

28. safety standards &
“building codes”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peregrinari/3801964067 28

29. GameDay increases Resilience in 3 ways
Preparation
‣ Identification and mitigation of risks and impact from
failure
‣ Reduces frequency of failure (MTBF)
‣ Reduces duration of recovery (MTTR)
Participation
‣ Builds confidence & competence responding to failure
and under stress.
‣ Strengthens individual and cultural ability to anticipate,
mitigate, respond to, and recover from failures of all
types.
Exercises
‣ Trigger and expose “latent defects”
‣ Choose discover them, instead of letting that be
determined by the next real disaster.
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30. no substitutes for experience...
Failure free operations require
experience with failure.
Ana Grillo © Ana Grillo Photography
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31. The “OODA” Loop
Observe, Orient, Decide, Act
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32. OODA: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
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33. “You don’t choose the moment,
the moment chooses you.
You only choose how prepared
you are when it does.”
-Fire Chief Mike Burtch
33

34. Jesse Robbins
Cofounder, Opscode
@jesserobbins
jesse@opscode.com
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35. Please See:
John Allspaw
‣ Resilience Engineering:
http://www.kitchensoap.com/2011/04/07/resilience-engineering-part-i/
‣ Advanced Post Mortem Fu:
http://www.slideshare.net/jallspaw/advanced-postmortem-fu-and-human-error-101-velocity-2011
Dr. Richard Cook
‣ How Complex Systems Fail
http://www.ctlab.org/documents/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf
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