Preventive Maintenance vs Run To Failure

Developers should learn preventive maintenance to ensure the long-term health and performance of software systems, hardware, and development environments meets developers should consider run to failure for non-essential systems, prototypes, or low-risk components where downtime is acceptable and repair is straightforward. Here's our take.

Preventive Maintenance

Nice Pick

Developers should learn preventive maintenance to ensure the long-term health and performance of software systems, hardware, and development environments

Pros

• It is crucial for maintaining production servers, databases, and CI/CD pipelines to avoid unexpected outages and data loss
• Related to: devops, site-reliability-engineering

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Run To Failure

Developers should consider Run To Failure for non-essential systems, prototypes, or low-risk components where downtime is acceptable and repair is straightforward

Pros

• It is useful in agile or lean development environments to avoid over-engineering and reduce maintenance overhead, such as in disposable infrastructure or during rapid experimentation phases
• Related to: devops, agile-methodology

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

Use Preventive Maintenance if: You want it is crucial for maintaining production servers, databases, and ci/cd pipelines to avoid unexpected outages and data loss and can live with specific tradeoffs depend on your use case.

Use Run To Failure if: You prioritize it is useful in agile or lean development environments to avoid over-engineering and reduce maintenance overhead, such as in disposable infrastructure or during rapid experimentation phases over what Preventive Maintenance offers.

The Bottom Line

Preventive Maintenance wins

Developers should learn preventive maintenance to ensure the long-term health and performance of software systems, hardware, and development environments