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At Google there is an internal document called "No Heroes". It basically says that if your load is too high - let the damn thing fail. Perhaps it's not importan

At Google there is an internal document called "No Heroes". It basically says that if your load is too high - let the damn thing fail. Perhaps it's not important, and only you think it is. Perhaps the higher ups don't realize it's important and they need to be reminded of it. Reliable infrastructure cannot depend on heroic actions of a small group of people, and especially on actions of a single person. Let it fail - the world will take notice. Or not, in which case you should move to something more useful.

NegatioN 7y ago
I would love to read this or have it available somewhere. It sounds like something a lot of people could benefit from. If it is at all possible to post it somewhere?
- mino 7y ago
  Indeed, it sounds something that should have been part of their now-famous SRE book :) Is it breaking any obvious NDA or can you share it?
  - H8crilA 7y ago
    Not affiliated any more, so I don't even have it. But yeah documents you write on payroll are corporate intellectual property (same as code is) so I couldn't just share it even if I wrote it myself. I wish they added it to the SRE book. But it's not a hard sell if someone already believes that you need to distribute computation/data for higher reliability. Same goes for labor/know-how.
    - 6ue7nNMEEbHcM 7y ago
      Sounds familiar to the bus factor. You want to keep it high in a project, wikipedia has some hints about it.
pmlnr 7y ago
Why is this not part of the SRE hype train?!
deleted 7y ago
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gumby 7y ago
> It basically says that if your load is too high - let the damn thing fail. Perhaps it's not important, and only you think it is. Perhaps the higher ups don't realize it's important and they need to be reminded of it. I do have friends at google who can get away with this approach, but have more who feel they would be fired for doing this.
- Already__Taken 7y ago
  > Google there is an internal document They're not getting away with it. That's the way it be. Your other friends need to take away the "internal document" part from this story not the "Let things fail" part. They're not there yet.

NegatioN 7y ago

I would love to read this or have it available somewhere. It sounds like something a lot of people could benefit from. If it is at all possible to post it somewhere?

mino 7y ago
Indeed, it sounds something that should have been part of their now-famous SRE book :) Is it breaking any obvious NDA or can you share it?
- H8crilA 7y ago
  Not affiliated any more, so I don't even have it. But yeah documents you write on payroll are corporate intellectual property (same as code is) so I couldn't just share it even if I wrote it myself. I wish they added it to the SRE book. But it's not a hard sell if someone already believes that you need to distribute computation/data for higher reliability. Same goes for labor/know-how.
  - 6ue7nNMEEbHcM 7y ago
    Sounds familiar to the bus factor. You want to keep it high in a project, wikipedia has some hints about it.

pmlnr 7y ago

Why is this not part of the SRE hype train?!

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

gumby 7y ago

> It basically says that if your load is too high - let the damn thing fail. Perhaps it's not important, and only you think it is. Perhaps the higher ups don't realize it's important and they need to be reminded of it. I do have friends at google who can get away with this approach, but have more who feel they would be fired for doing this.

Already__Taken 7y ago
> Google there is an internal document They're not getting away with it. That's the way it be. Your other friends need to take away the "internal document" part from this story not the "Let things fail" part. They're not there yet.