{"id":6319,"date":"2024-01-06T13:54:45","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T03:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/?p=6319"},"modified":"2024-01-06T13:56:04","modified_gmt":"2024-01-06T03:56:04","slug":"better-sre-vs-incident-responder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/better-sre-vs-incident-responder\/","title":{"rendered":"#21 &#8211; Better SRE in 2024 is all we can hope for"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><span class=\"stk-highlight\" style=\"color: var(--base-3);background-color: var(--contrast-3)\">Episode 21 [SREpath Podcast]<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"gb-grid-wrapper gb-grid-wrapper-0de1a18b\">\n<div class=\"gb-grid-column gb-grid-column-fe753567\"><div class=\"gb-container gb-container-fe753567\">\n\n<iframe style=\"border-radius:12px\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/7fDRJ4wCyhrh3pjD2LvM8a?utm_source=generator&#038;t=0\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameBorder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\" id=\"show-notes\">Show notes<\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Sebastian is back for this episode to help set out direction for 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We reflected during the holidays on the problems SREs faced in 2023 in terms of job insecurity, burnout, and &#8220;that really shouldn&#8217;t be my sole job&#8221;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sebastian and I talked about what we hope to bring to the community in 2024 to make SREs and SRE teams stronger, happier, and healthier at their work.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\" id=\"my-reflections-from-this-episode\">My reflections from this episode<\/h2>\n\n\n<p>In\u00a02024, we need to end this madness.\u00a0SREs are not purely\u00a0incident\u00a0responders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I have had far too many\u00a0conversations that have given me evidence to the contrary.\u00a0Far more than I could stomach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m a curious sort, so I enquire how SREs do their work when I meet one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many have told me point blank that a majority\u00a0of their time is spent on-call.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They get precious few hours to work on anything\u00a0<em>remotely<\/em>\u00a0proactive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I consider this to be\u00a0<strong>one of the &#8211; if not\u00a0<em>the\u00a0<\/em>&#8211; worst antipatterns in Site Reliability Engineering<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"668\" src=\"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-3-1024x668.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-3-1024x668.png 1024w, https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-3-300x196.png 300w, https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-3-768x501.png 768w, https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-3.png 1247w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s like some managers read the chapter about\u00a0incident\u00a0response\u00a0in the 2016 SRE book and forgot about everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People! There are 100s more pages on what else SREs need to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Things alluding to proactive work, working across the software system&#8230; you know, enabling team stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/campaign-statistics.com\/link_click\/MVbWVjSYbc_rtSLr\/0d6c2699846ded7f441f23cc640f6ed2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SREs are enabling teams in the Team Topologies model<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;But wait, Ash, what if we simply need to do on-call because there are so many\u00a0incidents?&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My friend, that&#8217;s a case for concern right there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This tells me that too little is being done in terms of release engineering, capacity planning and early warning systems like pre-production observability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s just the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I could rattle off at least 5-6 proactive things you could be doing to reduce future\u00a0incident\u00a0severity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is something that needs to be said to achieve even a sliver of the above processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I align with the viewpoint of industry experts who assert that for SREs to excel, they need:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u27a1\ufe0f Direct access to business stakeholders<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u27a1\ufe0f Direct access to developers and infrastructure experts<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>and in some cases&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u27a1\ufe0f Direct access to users and customers<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is another aspect to the issue and it\u00a0puts the burden of guilt on people like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I feel like I often overwhelm people at SRE conferences about the sociotechnical aspects of the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;d think I would remember they are not part of our little echo chamber where everything SRE is &#8220;obvious&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SRE is far from an obvious practice\u00a0<strong>\u2014<\/strong>\u00a0incident\u00a0response\u00a0antipattern case-in-point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the honest\u00a0truth is, it&#8217;s not obvious and we need to work harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harder in what sense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To make the easier, more productive path to SRE more visible to you and your boss and whoever else needs to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s my goal for 2024 alongside Sebastian, who will join me from time to time to share ways we can do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My first port of call will be to make a section on Observability, covering how to resolve critical problems in that area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are many other resources out there already, but I hope to share ideas in as simple a way as I can.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, and for now&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since you&#8217;ve read this far, here&#8217;s a plug for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/campaign-statistics.com\/link_click\/MVbWVjSYbc_rtSLr\/fc0c6aa290d795885efceebbdb6c862f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the\u00a0SREpath podcast<\/a>\u00a0[Spotify link] that you need to take advantage of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/campaign-statistics.com\/link_click\/MVbWVjSYbc_rtSLr\/426851f4f091685f48e8f19693698b94\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Episode #21,\u00a0Sebastian and I spoke about this\u00a0incident\u00a0responder\u00a0antipattern<\/a> [Spotify link], which is also\u00a0the first episode of 2024!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you join us on this\u00a0fervent\u00a0journey or pave your own path, we&#8217;ll keep working to move SRE to its true North Star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And let&#8217;s hope that is NOT to be a <strong>fulltime\u00a0incident\u00a0responder.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Episode 21 [SREpath Podcast] Show notes Sebastian is back for this episode to help set out direction for 2024. We reflected during the holidays on the problems SREs faced in 2023 in terms of job insecurity, burnout, and &#8220;that really shouldn&#8217;t be my sole job&#8221;. Sebastian and I talked about what we hope to bring [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[12,13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6321,"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6319\/revisions\/6321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sysmit.com\/cf22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}