What Breaks Our Systems - A Taxonomy of Black Swans

Explore a comprehensive taxonomy of black swan events in complex systems during this 31-minute conference talk. Delve into unforeseen, unanticipated, and catastrophic issues that can cause severe system failures. Learn about various categories of black swan events, including unforeseen hard capacity limits, cascading failures, and hidden system dependencies. Discover strategies to harden systems against these potential threats. Gain insights into load and capacity testing, reducing blast radius, implementing effective incident management processes, and prioritizing defenses. Understand how seemingly unpredictable events can become routine non-incidents with proper preparation and management.

Intro
What is a Black Swan?
Black swans can become routine non-incidents
Some subspecies of black swan
Defence: load and capacity testing
HostedGraphite February 2018
Where does coordinated demand come from?
Defence: smaller blast radius
Dependency loops
Defence: incident management process
Defence communication
Defence: priorities and budgets