In this course, we looked at the key factors of the AWS global infrastructure when architecting for failure, specifically at the availability zone and Region level.  To ensure that our solutions continue to run and operate when a failure occurs, and a failure WILL occur at some point, then you need to ensure you design for this from the outset. Designing for failure will ensure that you and your customers continue to receive great service, and you as a business continue to thrive as a reliable and stable platform delivering solid services. 

The level at which you implement your design for failure is largely dependent on your RTO and RPO, the longer these values are the less critical it might be to implement increasing amounts of failure protection.  The shorter these values are, the more complexity and resiliency you will need to architect and build into your solutions. Failure doesn’t just occur at the global infrastructure level, we need to be building with failure in mind at every level, from the application running on the host all the way through to the geographical location hosting the resources.  Always ask the question in your design, ‘If this component fails, will my application still work?’ If not, then re-architect it if the business deems it critical enough.

That now brings me to the end of this lecture and to the end of this course. You should now have a better understanding of why you should incorporate a ‘design for failure’ approach when it comes to your architectural design patterns. If you have any feedback, positive or negative, please send an e-mail to support@cloudacademy.com, your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and good luck with your continued learning of cloud computing. Thank you.