Operations and reliability
Platform reliability
SLOs, on-call, runbooks and post-incident reviews turn reliability into a process rather than heroics.
Fictional scenario. An example situation that illustrates the approach. It is not a client project and describes no measured results.
Business problem
A fictional SaaS company relies on two people for every incident. There are no reliability targets and incidents repeat.
Assumptions
- Basic observability exists.
- The team can organise on-call.
- Leadership accepts error budgets.
Constraints
- No availability promises to customers without a contract.
- A sustainable workload for people.
- Blameless reviews.
Reference architecture
Components by stage — an illustration, not a running system and not a certified design.
01Targets
- SLIs and SLOs
- Error budgets
02Detection
- Symptom-based alerts
- On-call
03Response
- Runbooks
- Communication
04Improvement
- Post-incident review
- Actions with deadlines
The diagram as a list
| Stage | Components |
|---|---|
| Targets | SLIs and SLOs, Error budgets |
| Detection | Symptom-based alerts, On-call |
| Response | Runbooks, Communication |
| Improvement | Post-incident review, Actions with deadlines |
Interfaces
| From | To | Via |
|---|---|---|
| Monitoring | On-call | Alerts |
| On-call | Runbook | Link in the alert |
| Review | Backlog | Tasks |
Data flow
- Metrics are compared with SLOs.
- Budget burn triggers an alert.
- On-call follows the runbook.
- A review follows the incident.
- Actions are tracked.
Security boundaries
- Incident access through temporary permissions.
- Incident actions are logged.
- No secrets in runbooks.
Where a person approves
- SLO changes.
- Emergency changes are reviewed afterwards.
Delivery phases
01 · Assessment
Incidents and signals.
02 · Targets
SLOs for the key services.
03 · Process
On-call and runbooks.
04 · Improvement
Reviews and actions.
Limitations
- It is not round-the-clock support.
- Reviews need discipline.
Trade-offs
- Higher SLOs — costlier operations.
- Strict budgets — slower new features.
Related services
Related assessments
Integration patterns used
Workshops and assessments
Facing something similar?
We start with an assessment of where you are and propose a realistic first phase.