SRE - SLI SLO SLA & Error Budget

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Introduction to Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).

  • Key Concepts:
    • History: SRE originated at Google, focusing on engineering principles for operations.
    • Principles: Service Level Objectives (SLOs), Error Budgets, reducing Toil, automation.
    • Practices: Monitoring, observability, incident response, anti-fragility.
    • Tools & Automation: Utilizing tools and automation to improve efficiency and reliability.
    • Organizational Impact: Understanding the changes required within an organization to adopt SRE.
    • Integration: How SRE can complement other frameworks like Agile and ITSM.
    • Future Trends: Exploring emerging trends in the SRE field.

In a Nutshell: Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)

  • Origin: Born at Google in 2003, combining software engineering with operational responsibilities.
  • Goal: To build and maintain highly available and scalable software systems.
  • Key Principles:
    • Engineering Mindset: Apply software engineering principles to solve operational problems.
    • Focus on Reliability: Build systems that are resilient and can handle high traffic and unexpected events.
    • Automation: Automate tasks like scaling, healing, and incident response to improve efficiency.

How SREs Work:

  • Balance of Operations and Engineering:
    • 50% Operations: Handling day-to-day operational tasks like:
      • On-call duties
      • Supporting live services
      • Incident response and resolution
      • Manual interventions to maintain service availability
    • 50% Engineering:
      • Developing software that improves service reliability.
      • Building features that enhance system resilience.
      • Automating operational tasks.
      • Working on scaling and performance improvements.

Why SRE Matters:

  • Increasing Reliance on Software: Modern businesses heavily rely on software systems.
  • Need for Scalability and Availability: Businesses need systems that can handle growing user demands and remain operational 24/7.
  • Improved Efficiency: SRE practices help to automate tasks and reduce manual effort, improving operational efficiency.

In Simple Terms:

Imagine you have a website. An SRE is like a specialized engineer who not only keeps the website running smoothly (like fixing broken links) but also makes sure it can handle a sudden surge of traffic without crashing and proactively prevents future issues. They use their software engineering skills to build tools and systems that make the website incredibly reliable and always available to users.

What is Toil?

  • Definition: Toil in SRE refers to any work that is:
    • Manual: Requires significant human intervention and is not automated.
    • Repetitive: Involves performing the same tasks repeatedly, leading to boredom and inefficiency.
    • Tactical: Involves quick fixes and workarounds instead of addressing the underlying root cause.
    • Automatable: Could be automated through scripting, tools, or other engineering solutions.

Examples of Toil:

  • Manual Releases: Deploying software manually, without using automation tools.
  • Repetitive Testing: Performing the same tests manually for each release.
  • Constant Alert Acknowledging: Manually acknowledging the same alerts every day.
  • Manual Account Management: Creating, deleting, and resetting user accounts manually.
  • Repetitive On-Call Responses: Addressing the same incidents repeatedly without implementing permanent fixes.
  • Tactical Workarounds: Applying temporary fixes instead of addressing the underlying root cause of a problem.

Why Toil is Bad:

  • Inefficiency: Manual work is time-consuming and prone to human error.
  • Burnout: Repetitive tasks can lead to burnout and decreased job satisfaction.
  • Distraction: Toil diverts engineers from more valuable tasks, such as innovation and improvement.
  • Missed Opportunities: Focusing on manual tasks prevents engineers from identifying and addressing the root causes of problems.

Addressing Toil:

  • Automation: The key to reducing toil is to automate as many tasks as possible. This can be achieved through scripting, using tools like Ansible or Puppet, and implementing CI/CD pipelines.
  • Root Cause Analysis: Instead of applying quick fixes, investigate and address the root cause of recurring issues.
  • Process Improvement: Streamline and improve operational processes to reduce the need for manual intervention.
  • Tooling: Leverage monitoring and alerting tools to proactively identify and address potential issues.

Key Takeaways

  • Toil is a significant obstacle to engineering productivity and job satisfaction.
  • Identifying and eliminating toil is a crucial aspect of SRE practices.
  • By focusing on automation and root cause analysis, SRE teams can free up engineers to focus on more strategic and impactful work.

Why is Toil Bad?

  • Slows Progress: Toil consumes valuable time and resources, hindering the ability to innovate and deliver new features.
  • Poor Quality: Manual work is prone to errors, leading to increased incidents and service disruptions.
  • Demoralizes Employees: Toil is repetitive and unstimulating, leading to burnout, decreased morale, and increased employee turnover.
  • Increased Costs: Dealing with the consequences of toil (e.g., fixing errors, hiring replacements) incurs significant costs.
  • Stagnation: Toil prevents engineers from focusing on higher-value activities like development, innovation, and improving system reliability.

Addressing Toil:

  • Automation: The key to addressing toil is through automation. Automate repetitive tasks using scripts, tools, and orchestration platforms.
  • Focus on Prevention: Proactively address potential issues through robust monitoring, proactive capacity planning, and implementing self-healing systems.
  • Embrace SRE Principles: Apply software engineering principles to operational tasks, such as designing for failure, implementing observability, and building automated solutions.
  • Invest in Training and Development: Equip engineers with the skills and knowledge to automate tasks and improve operational efficiency.
  • Prioritize Toil Reduction: Make reducing toil a strategic priority within the organization.

Service Level Objectives and Error Budgets. What are these things? 


  • Definition of Service Level Objectives (SLOs)
  • Introduction to Error Budgets
  • Explanation of Error Budget Policies (actions taken when the error budget is exceeded)


    • This highlights the crucial point that SRE practices are not purely technical exercises. They are driven by business goals and the need to fulfill promises made to customers regarding service reliability are upheld.

    Importance of SLOs in translating business expectations into concrete, measurable goals for the technical teams

    Importance of defining and tracking SLOs within an SRE framework.

    This emphasizes the dual purpose of SLOs: ensuring customer satisfaction and maintaining the health and security of the service.

    Striving for 100% reliability is not a realistic or achievable goal.

    SLOs are time-bound.

    • SLOs must have a defined timeframe (e.g., monthly, weekly) for accurate measurement and tracking.
    This is an example of an SLO. In this case, the SLO is a 99.9% success rate for web requests within a month. Which means if 1 million web request come in we allow 1000 request to fail with 99.999% within a month. Defining 0.1% failure rate within defined time frame a month. 

    This 1000 is effectively is our error budget. THis is defining SLO and its corresponding error budget. 

    Service Level Indicators (SLIs) are the metrics used to measure SLOs (e.g., request success rate, latency)
    SLIs provide valuable insights into the health and performance of the service.

    Error budget policy  is triggered when the error budget is exceeded.
    Remediation actions could include investigating root causes, increasing capacity, or halting non-critical deployments.

    Prioritizing reliability over new feature development when the error budget is exceeded.

    SLOs contribute to the fulfillment of Service Level Agreements (SLAs).SLAs are legally or contractually binding.

    Consequences of breaching SLOs.
    Unsatisfied users can lead to:
    • Lost revenue: Customers may switch to competitors.
    • Decreased employee productivity: Service disruptions can hinder employee workflows.
    • Negative brand reputation: Social media backlash can damage the company's image.
    VALET mnemonic kind in combination between Google and Home Depot who are applying SRE at scale:

    VALET framework for defining SLOs, which includes:
    • Volume: Handling expected traffic loads.
    • Availability: Ensuring the service is consistently accessible.
    • Latency: Maintaining acceptable response times.
    • Errors: Minimizing the occurrence of errors.
    • Tickets: Managing support tickets effectively.

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