performance-reliability-engineering

To define measurable non-functional requirements (NFRs) for distributed systems, establish specific performance and reliability thresholds that services must meet under production load. This creates enforceable SLOs for capacity planning and validation.

The best way to run load tests for capacity planning is to execute load and soak tests against your services, analyze the results, and identify bottlenecks. This validates system performance against defined NFRs and informs scaling policies.

You need reliability patterns like circuit breakers, retries, bulkheads, and timeouts when improving system resilience in production. They prevent cascading failures and ensure distributed systems maintain SLOs during real-world load spikes.

To design autoscaling policies based on performance test results, use the bottlenecks and capacity limits identified during load testing to define scaling triggers. This ensures distributed systems scale automatically to meet enforced NFR targets.

Yes, validating SLOs across existing production environments is a core application of this approach. It defines and validates performance and reliability targets directly within current distributed architecture through testing and resilience reviews.