The document discusses the importance of infrastructure and redundancy in technology, using quotes from notable figures like Winston Churchill and Henry Ford to emphasize the value of resilience and learning from failure. It also highlights biologist Sara Lewis's research on fireflies, revealing insights into their mating rituals and unique communication methods. Lastly, it mentions practices such as post-mortems after outages to improve future performance and code quality.

1. PREPARING TO FAIL
Photo: Blair Harkness

2. INFRASTRUCTURE
CODE
PEOPLE

3. INFRASTRUCTURE
WINSTON CHURCHILL
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure
with no loss of enthusiasm.”

4. REDUNDANCY

5. MULTIPLE HARD DRIVES

6. MULTIPLE POWER SUPPLIES

7. DUPLICATE SERVERS

8. DUPLICATE DATA CENTERS
Dallas
Oregon
Chicago
Ashburn, VA
TED HQ Dublin

9. MONITORING

10. INFRASTRUCTURE
CODE
PEOPLE

11. CODE
HENRY FORD
“The only real mistake is the one from
which we learn nothing.”

12. VERSION CONTROL

13. GRACEFUL FAILURE
The love and lies of
fireflies
Sara Lewis:
Biologist Sara Lewis has spent the past 20 years getting
to the bottom of the magic and wonder of fireflies. In this
charming talk, she tells us how and why the beetles
produce their silent sparks, what happens when two
fireflies have sex, and why one group of females is known
as the firefly vampire. (It's not pretty.) Find out more
astonishing facts about fireflies in Lewis' footnotes, below.
Evolutionary ecologist Sara Lewis digs deep into firefly mating rituals to
uncover a world of secret languages and strange gifts in these silent
sparks.
Sara Lewis
Learn more
Discuss
The love and lies of
fireflies
Sara Lewis:
Biologist Sara Lewis has spent the past 20 years getting
to the bottom of the magic and wonder of fireflies. In this
charming talk, she tells us how and why the beetles
produce their silent sparks, what happens when two
fireflies have sex, and why one group of females is known
as the firefly vampire. (It's not pretty.) Find out more
astonishing facts about fireflies in Lewis' footnotes, below.
Evolutionary ecologist Sara Lewis digs deep into firefly mating rituals to
uncover a world of secret languages and strange gifts in these silent
sparks.
Sara Lewis
Discuss

14. CONTINUOUS TESTING

15. DEBTONATOR
Importance
Code quality
DANGER
ZONE

16. DEBTONATOR
MoreLess
Engineer’s knowledge of project’s code

17. DEBTONATOR
CONFERENCES EMS PAGE BUILDER
Cherbert
Alex
Trost
Trost
Cherbert
Ryan
Trost

18. INFRASTRUCTURE
CODE
PEOPLE

19. PEOPLE
JOHN WOODEN
“Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.”

20. BUS COUNT
1 (Bad)

21. BUS COUNT
3 (Good)

22. POST-MORTEMS
After an outage, we discuss its cause, severity,
and how it can be avoided in the future.

23. PREPARING TO FAIL
Photo: Blair Harkness