System stability is a system's ability to provide continuous, reliable service in the face of unexpected events. It is a top priority in system design. As businesses expand and software architectures evolve, systems grow more complex. This complexity introduces risks, such as hardware and software failures, incorrect changes, and sudden traffic spikes. In extreme cases, an entire data center can become unavailable due to a cut fiber optic cable or a natural disaster. Ensuring system stability against these threats is a significant challenge.
A stable distributed system must adapt quickly to change, promptly detect and resolve issues, and maintain its consistency and reliability. Stability encompasses several key attributes: availability, reliability, observability, operability, scalability, and maintainability. Cloud platform services help build more stable systems. For example, a cloud platform can dynamically allocate and release compute resources based on real-time demand. This makes a system easier to scale and reduces its load. In addition, cloud platforms offer redundant storage and backup capabilities to prevent downtime or data loss due to hardware failures or other incidents. These capabilities improve system reliability.
Shared responsibility model
Alibaba Cloud provides a high availability (HA) infrastructure and a suite of tools to ensure application stability. Build stable cloud applications using Alibaba Cloud products and following the best practices in this framework.