Resilient infrastructure architecture is a design that can withstand and recover from disruptions quickly. It is built on the principle of redundancy, with multiple layers of protection that can be activated in the event of a failure. This approach helps to ensure that critical systems are always available, even in the face of major disruptions.

One of the famous quotes from Werner Vogels (CTO, Amazon) is –

“Everything fails all the time.”

With time, failure is imminent. No matter how well you design your infrastructure, something is going to give up and fail at some point. The idea behind resiliency is to be intentional about understanding this reality and building systems that are able to recover from failures quickly without causing catastrophic business disruptions that cause huge financial impact.

The concept of resiliency is best understood when we examine the commercial aviation industry. Almost all parts and functions...

While AWS offers an environment that is generally regarded to offer high availability, security, and scalability compared to typical on-premise environments, it is up to you as the builder to design your architecture in a way that effectively makes use of necessary features to build an environment that can withstand unforeseen incidents that affect your application environment.

AWS offers a secure, scalable, and resilient environment for you to run your workloads. AWS has Regions all over the globe, with each Region having multiple Availability Zones (AZs) within. An AWS Region is a distinct geographical area where AWS clusters its data centers. Each Region is completely independent and isolated from other Regions, providing fault tolerance and high availability. They allow you to deploy your applications and store your data closer to your users for reduced latency and improved performance. In a Region, an AWS AZ is an isolated location that is shielded...

The resilience lifecycle framework provided by AWS is a structured and iterative process designed to foster resilience at every stage of an application’s lifecycle. It encompasses a five-stage approach that addresses the entire spectrum, from planning and design to operation and continuous improvement. By adhering to this framework, organizations can construct and maintain highly resilient applications capable of withstanding disruptions and delivering value consistently, even in challenging circumstances.

Nevertheless, achieving resilience is not a one-time endeavor; rather, it is an ongoing process. Resilience constitutes a journey that necessitates continuous monitoring, refinement, and improvement. Tracking crucial metric parameters, such as SLAs, RTOs, and RPOs enables organizations to adopt a scientific approach to resilience goals. Furthermore, implementing processes such as Operational Readiness Reviews (ORRs) assists in identifying...

In this chapter, we discussed the significance of resilience in building reliable and robust applications. We introduced the resilience lifecycle framework, developed by AWS to help organizations continuously improve the resilience of their applications.

We also highlighted the benefits of following the resilience lifecycle framework, including reduced risk of downtime and data loss, improved operational efficiency, enhanced customer experience, and increased confidence and trust.

To achieve resilience, organizations should view it as an ongoing process, continuously monitoring, tuning, and improving their resilience strategies. Tracking important metric parameters such as SLA, RTO, and RPO enables a scientific approach to resilience goals.

We explored the ORR process, a checklist of questions designed to help organizations identify and solve business problems related to resilience.

Finally, the chapter emphasized the importance of incorporating security measures...