[O.SI.4] Build health checks into every service
Category: RECOMMENDED
Each service within a system should be configured to include a health check endpoint
which provides real-time insight into how the system and its dependencies are performing.
Usually manifested as a secure and private HTTP health endpoint (for example,
/actuator/health), this feature serves as a critical component in
monitoring the health status of the overall system, generally including information such
as operating status, versions of software running, database response time, and memory
consumption. By offering lightweight and fast-responding feedback, they enable sustaining
system reliability and availability, two attributes that directly impact customer
experience and service credibility.
Observability, governance, and testing tools can invoke these health check endpoints periodically, ensuring the continuous evaluation of system health. However, implementing them should be done with precautionary measures like rate-limiting, thresholding, and circuit breakers to avoid overwhelming the system and to involve human intervention when required.
Integrating health check endpoints is highly recommended for larger, more complex systems or any environment where system availability and rapid issue resolution need to be prioritized. In systems with high interoperability, such as microservices architecture, the presence of health check endpoints in every service becomes even more critical as they help identify issues related to specific services in the system. This can significantly reduce the debugging time and enhance the efficiency of the development process.
For mission critical workloads it may be beneficial to explore additional mitigation strategies to prevent widespread failure due to faulty deployments. These strategies could include alerting mechanisms when overall fleet size, load, latency, or error rate are abnormal, and phased deployments to ensure thorough testing before full-scale implementation. These preventive deployment measures complement health check endpoints and can prevent a potentially flawed deployment from propagating throughout the entire system.
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