Infrastructure Considerations - 3.1

Availability

System uptime and the degree to which resources are available for users and applications without interruption.

Resilience

The system's ability to withstand disruptions and recover quickly from failures. A resilient system minimizes downtime and can quickly return to operational status after an incident.

Responsiveness

The system's ability to respond to user or application requests within acceptable timeframes, often measured as latency.

Scalability

The capacity to increase or decrease system resources, such as compute, storage, and network, based on demand. Scalability is crucial for handling variable workloads efficiently.

Ease of Deployment

The complexity and effort required to deploy new systems, updates, or products into production environments.

  • Automatic orchestration: Automation tools that manage deployment pipelines with minimal manual intervention (e.g., Kubernetes, Jenkins).
  • Manual process: Deployments that require human oversight and manual execution, which can be prone to errors and slower to execute.

Risk Transfer

Strategies for mitigating or shifting risks away from the organization, often through contracts or insurance.

  • Cybersecurity insurance: Covers financial losses and liabilities in case of cyber incidents, such as ransomware attacks or data breaches.

Ease of Recovery

The time and effort required to recover systems from failures or incidents, such as data loss or cyberattacks. This is often measured as the Recovery Time Objective (RTO).

Patch Availability / Inability to Patch

The ability to apply security patches and updates to systems in a timely manner to protect against vulnerabilities.

In some cases, such as with embedded systems or legacy hardware, patching may be complex or even impossible, creating security risks that require alternative mitigation strategies.

Power

  • Generators: Backup power solutions to ensure continued operation during outages.
  • Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS): Provides short-term power to critical systems in the event of power loss, ensuring no disruption in service until backup generators take over.

Compute / Compute Engine

The processing power of systems, often measured in terms of CPU cores, RAM, or GPU power. This is critical for handling data-intensive workloads like AI, analytics, or cloud computing.