Beyond Hyperscale: The Socio-Technical Adaptation of Site Reliability Engineering for Enhanced Resilience in Critical Infrastructure
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55640/Keywords:
Site Reliability Engineering, DevOps, Financial Services,, Healthcare Systems, Telecommunications, Error Budgets, System ResilienceAbstract
Purpose: This article examines the specialized and contextual application of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles across high-impact industries: Financial Services, Healthcare Systems, and Telecommunications. It addresses the gap in existing literature by providing a multi-sectoral, comparative analysis, moving beyond SRE's origins in hyper-scale technology companies.
Methodology: A conceptual synthesis and structured literature review methodology were employed, analyzing foundational SRE literature, complementary DevOps practices, and specific industry compliance and risk documentation. The analysis is framed by a socio-technical systems perspective, focusing on how unique sector demands—namely stringent regulation, legacy infrastructure, and catastrophic failure potential—mandate adaptive SRE strategies.
Findings: The core SRE tenets of Error Budget Management, Toil Quantification, and Systematic Post-Mortems are universally applicable yet require distinct interpretation based on sectoral risk. Financial Services prioritize transaction integrity and regulatory SLOs, Healthcare Systems emphasize patient safety and data security (HIPAA/GDPR), while Telecommunications focuses on massive-scale latency and network throughput optimization in hybrid cloud environments. Crucially, the Error Budget acts as a risk management tool that must be culturally accepted and technically integrated into hybrid environments. The socio-technical paradox of 'embracing risk' in risk-averse settings is mitigated by reframing the Error Budget as a learning mechanism, supported by blameless post-mortems.
Originality: This work proposes a structured model for understanding SRE's adaptive implementation in traditionally risk-averse, highly regulated sectors. It underscores the critical distinction between operational availability and compliance/safety-driven resilience, demonstrating that SRE is an essential component of digital transformation that must be customized to meet specific legal and human-impact imperatives. Future work is associated with extending SRE principles to MLOps reliability and quantitative analysis of socio-technical drivers.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Svetlana Petrova (Author)
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