How to fix software system failure
Software system failure is an inevitable occurence that should be anticipated during the design phase. If we carelessly design our systems that lack fault tolerance, high availability, and strategies for disaster recovery, a failure can be detrimental. One of the adverse consequences of failing is the loss of thousands of loyal customers and, as a result, money.
Software product failure can even lead to bankruptcy in severe cases. But losing the trust of loyal customers when a company’s tech reputation is completely shattered is far worse than any monetary loss. A lot of damage control is required to survive this severe blow, but instead of dwelling on our mistakes, we can redeem them. Like all other mistakes and bad decisions, we can fix software failure.
To do that, we won’t make yet another mistake by not going into the past and understanding why we failed.
Some software system red flags to avoid
Some software system failures can be avoided if we carefully consider certain pointers in our software planning and design phases. A bad system destined for failure isn’t devised for failure intentionally; it merely fails because we, the software project managers, architects, and developers, sometimes struggle with recognizing and avoiding the following red flags.
Challenges with planning and leadership
Planning should be comprehensive enough to encompass short and long-term goals and hard deadlines. Without good planning, we’ll undergo a continuous back-and-forth process to fix loose ends that weren’t taken care of in the planning phase. This happens sometimes because of a lack of communication between the managers and the teams and other times because of a lack of clear and concise instructions. Micromanagement can be particularly challenging in these times, and it often doesn’t address the deeper needs of the situation. We require collaborative work with a sense of trust in the competency of the team. Managers should lead by example and ensure that any technical impediments are not left as is, but the stuck resource gets the required help to solve it, without contributing to the frustration of wasted efforts
Inadequate use of resources
Resources of any type, whether human, monetary, or technical, are only beneficial if their potential is properly utilized at the right place and time. Sometimes, leadership sets unrealistic goals, putting undue pressure on team members to outperform themselves quickly, which is sometimes not humanly possible, leading to burnout. This can also exhaust the technical and financial resources during the development phase, leaving less for the product testing phase. Appropriate resource management is always required to prevent and fix software failure.
Lack of fault tolerance
A poor software design is another reason for failure. Designing a system with a lack of frequent data backups or keeping the system in one data center entirely defies common principles of System Design. Missing such design details can easily lead to setbacks. We need to anticipate hardware malfunctions, software system bugs, power outages, network issues, and any human errors and prepare for disaster recovery beforehand to prevent software failure. Efficient disaster recovery procedures should be underway. Plus, regular disaster recovery drills should create fake disaster scenarios to assess system recovery time and weaknesses in the recovery processes.
How to fix software system failure
Now, let’s look at some solutions that enable effective disaster recovery. First, we should not dwell on our mistakes; we should learn from them and move forward. Then, we should follow the steps given below to fix software failure.
Troubleshoot the issue to identify the actual problem. Did some hardware component act out and malfunction? Was it a software bug? Did a power outage cause our servers to turn off? Did too many incoming requests from malicious clients make our website go down? Identify the problem!
If solving the problem falls under our domain and expertise, for example, retrieving data by running a simple script from the backup logs in case of data loss or simply restarting our system to help fix the problem, then we should definitely follow this course of action.
However, if the issue is bigger and requires all team members to be on board, for example, fault in the planning strategies that led to the development of a system with a single point of failure, lack of disaster recovery processes, systems that aren’t scalable and can’t accommodate more users, or failure of recovery drills to identify unforeseen bottlenecks, then we might need to regroup and strategize effective risk mitigation procedures. If one point of failure was an imminent risk, we should try designing a more redundant system.
Crashing under unbearable loads can lead to system failure. During this crisis, where the system is met with a load it is unable to bear and eventually breaks, it is required to intelligently design scalable solutions that allow for easy expansion of resources to accommodate all users.
In case of data loss, robust backup and recovery strategies are advised because they minimize downtime and ensure data availability and integrity before the system starts functioning again.
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