Shadow Environment Scaling for Service Incident Mitigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Resolving service incidents in large enterprise environments is challenging due to the inefficiency of AI-generated actions and the resource-intensive process of evaluating and selecting appropriate mitigation operations.
Innovation Solution
A computerized method using a scaled-down shadow environment to test mitigation operations, where a shadow environment simulates the production environment, allowing AI tools to generate and test mitigation operations that adhere to guardrail rules, thereby ensuring effective incident resolution with reduced resource consumption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If AI tools are used to generate mitigation operations for service incidents, then the speed of incident response is improved, but the reliability of the mitigation operations is worsened because AI-generated actions are not guaranteed to work
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by deploying a shadow environment before actual incident mitigation to pre-test AI-generated operations. The shadow environment allows the system to evaluate mitigation operations in advance, ensuring their effectiveness before applying them to the production environment, thus resolving the reliability concern while maintaining fast response times.
Solution Approach 2:
The shadow environment serves as an intermediary between AI-generated mitigation operations and the production environment. It acts as a buffer that validates AI-generated actions before they affect actual services, ensuring reliability without compromising the speed of incident response.
2Measurement precision
If the production environment is used to test mitigation operations, then the accuracy of incident resolution is improved, but the resource consumption is worsened due to the large scale of production systems
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a shadow environment that is a scaled-down copy of the production environment. This copy maintains the essential characteristics and workloads needed for accurate incident resolution testing, while consuming significantly fewer computing resources than the full production environment would require.
Solution Approach 2:
The shadow environment applies parameter changes by scaling down the production environment's resources while maintaining proportional workloads and conditions. This allows accurate testing of mitigation operations with reduced resource consumption, as the shadow environment is configured to reflect production conditions at a smaller scale.
3Reliability
If a full-scale production environment is used for testing, then the realism of incident reproduction is improved, but the time required for testing is worsened due to the extensive resources involved
Solution Approach 1:
The shadow environment provides a simplified copy that reproduces essential incident conditions without the full complexity and scale of production. This enables realistic incident reproduction testing to complete much faster than in the full production environment, reducing testing duration while maintaining sufficient realism.
Data Source
AI summary
A computerized method automatically generates mitigation operations to address service incidents in a production environment. An incident associated with a service deployed in a production environment is detected. A rule associated with the service is then determined which describes a requirement of the service that must be maintained. A solution generator model is used to determine a mitigation operation to address the incident. The service is deployed to a shadow environment that is scaled down compared to the production environment. The incident is reproduced by directing traffic to the service and using a scaled-down threshold. The service is modified using the mitigation operation, and the modified service is executed in the shadow environment. If it is determined that the detected incident is addressed by the mitigation operation, the service in the production environment is modified using the mitigation operation.