uncertain infrastructure - dr. mark burgess presentation at devops days nyc 2013

Uncertain Infrastructures What Science Tells Us About IT

Mark Burgess

Promises we can keep?

P - DescriPing

H - StuffH

Y - ThaYt

S - HappenS

I - ..ah

C - ... S - .. ok whatever

Environm

enta

l

Clo

sure

X

Syste

ms

Thin

kin

g

Semantics and Dynamics Desired-state and actual behaviour

Dev + Ops

What you intend + What actually happens

Dev ? Ops ?

… but they are only in approximate balance

IT would be easy if systems were deterministic ...

LOGIC rains environmental complexity ...

… onto knife-edge sensitivity

“Continuous delivery requires continuous automation

... not power-assisted intervention”

Autonomous

infrastructure

There is no such thing as an immutable system

No intended change is not the same as no change at all

“Many worlds” branches and relativity

“The history of attempts to prevent cracks from spreading or evade

their consequences is almost the history of engineering.”

-- J.E. Gordon The New Science of Strong Materials

Failures are semantic

Processes are

dynamic

Harp not on that keyboard!

Orchestration?

Choreography?

Control is ...

Join the discussion …

Tw: @markburgess_osl