Measuring Blast Radius and Steady-State Hypotheses
Define a measurable steady state, form falsifiable hypotheses, and bound the blast radius so chaos experiments are safe, scientific, and informative.
Chaos as a Scientific Method
Chaos engineering is not random breakage; it is an experiment. Like any experiment, it needs a hypothesis, a controlled variable, and a measurable outcome.
This lesson focuses on the steady-state hypothesis and bounding the blast radius.
Defining Steady State
Steady state is your system's normal, healthy behavior expressed as measurable output, not internal metrics.
- Good: orders completed per minute, p99 latency
- Weak: CPU usage, memory
Steady state should reflect what users experience.
All lessons in this course
- Principles of Chaos Engineering
- Tools and Platforms for Chaos Experiments
- Building Resilience into System Design
- Measuring Blast Radius and Steady-State Hypotheses