Part III. Chaos In Practice

Chaos Engineering originated at Netflix, but its reach now extends throughout tech and into other industries. At conferences we often hear reservations from engineers in other industries like finance who are reluctant to implement chaos because the impact on customers has an immediate and regulated financial impact. We maintain that failures will happen regardless of intention or planning. While running experiments that surface vulnerabilities may cause small negative impacts, it is much better to know about them and control the extent of the impact than to be caught off-guard by the inevitable, large-scale failure. We now see several banks and finance companies adopting Chaos Engineering, providing counterexamples to those in that industry who are hesitant.

Engineers at medical companies have expressed similar hesitations. Sure, a disruption in an entertainment service is inconvenient, and a disruption in a monetary transaction can be confusing and expensive, but any disruption in a healthcare-related technology could put lives on the line. We remind these engineers that many of the principles of western science that inspired our formalization of Chaos Engineering originated in medicine. Clinical trials are the highest standard for medical research. Without trivializing the potential ramifications of introducing chaos into a healthcare-related system, we remind them that there is a well-respected precedent for experimentation where lives literally are at stake.

Putting Chaos Engineering into practice is the most urgent and relevant topic for this nascent discipline. Keeping sight of implementation, sophistication, and adoption concerns can help you figure out where you are on the road to Chaos, and where you need to apply resources to build a successful practice in your organization.