How to make your services resilient to slow dependencies

In the blog post, the critical role of service dependencies in software reliability is explored, particularly focusing on how to make services resilient to slow or failing dependencies. Service dependencies, unlike code dependencies, are external components like databases or SaaS services that provide essential functionality but can introduce significant risks if they fail or become slow. Techniques such as multithreading, caching, circuit breakers, and exponential backoff are discussed as methods to mitigate these risks, each with its own benefits and limitations. Additionally, the post details how to test resilience against slow dependencies using Gremlin, a tool for running latency experiments that can simulate network issues to assess an application's robustness. Through a series of carefully designed tests, developers can identify the limits of their systems' resilience and make necessary improvements to ensure reliability.