Chaos Testing Simulated Traffic Non-Production Environment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for chaos testing of distributed software applications do not effectively simulate real-world traffic conditions and introduce chaos conditions without protecting the production environment from potential disruptions.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented system and method for chaos testing that generates simulated traffic streams and applies user-defined chaos conditions to a non-production version of a target application, such as a containerized application, while monitoring responses to ensure no impact on the production environment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If chaos testing is performed on production version of target application, then real-world resilience testing is improved, but production environment stability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a copy of the production target application in a non-production environment that mirrors the production setup. This copy is used for chaos testing, allowing realistic resilience evaluation without exposing the actual production system to harmful chaos conditions. The non-production copy serves as a safe surrogate for conducting aggressive reliability testing.
Solution Approach 2:
The testing environment is segmented into separate non-production and production systems. By isolating chaos testing to the non-production segment, the patent enables independent testing activities that would be too risky for the production segment. This segmentation allows parallel operation of stable production systems and aggressive testing in isolated non-production environments.
2Reliability
If simulated traffic stream is generated for chaos testing, then testing realism is improved, but system complexity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a simulated traffic stream generator as an intermediary component that creates realistic traffic patterns for testing. This mediator component generates synthetic requests that mimic real user behavior, enabling realistic chaos testing without requiring actual production traffic. The intermediary simplifies the testing setup by providing controllable, repeatable traffic scenarios.
3Measurement precision
If chaos conditions are applied to test application resilience, then resilience measurement accuracy is improved, but application stability during testing deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies chaos conditions preliminarily to a non-production version of the target application before deployment to production. By conducting resilience testing in advance on a copy of the system, the patent measures application resilience under stress without compromising the stability of the production application. This preliminary testing reveals potential weaknesses before they affect production stability.
Data Source
AI summary
Computer systems and methods perform a chaos experiment for a target application. The computer system: (i) generates, for the chaos experiment, a simulated traffic stream for a non-production version of the target application; (iii) provides chaos event settings for one or more chaos conditions to the non-production version of the target application; (iv) executes the non-production version of the target application during the chaos experiment, such that the non-production version of the target application, during the chaos experiment, (a) generates responses to the simulated traffic stream while simultaneously (b) being subject to the one or more chaos conditions of the chaos event settings; and (iv) monitors the responses generated by the non-production version of the target application during the chaos testing.