Myth vs. Reality: Lessons in Reliability from the July 19 Outage

The narrative recounts an experience at Newark Liberty International Airport during a major outage, which underscores the importance of a robust and integrated system for maintaining reliability in critical services. The text dispels common myths about reliability, such as the oversimplified notions that redundancy equals reliability and that preventing failure is the sole goal, emphasizing instead the complexity of interconnected systems. It advocates for a proactive approach to system design that assumes failure and incorporates strategies like failure masking, bounding failures with canaries and phased rollouts, and fast incident recovery processes. The lessons learned from past outages highlight the value of automation, AI-driven insights, and continuous testing in enhancing system resilience. By fostering a culture of preparedness and adaptability, organizations can achieve true operational reliability, ensuring that critical services remain accessible even during challenging conditions.