Microservice Production Readiness Level
Overview
This documentation describes some levels of production readiness. The main factor of choosing a Service Level is the expected SLO. i.e., You need to define your service SLO in order to choose your service level.
Here's the typical required SLO for each level:
| Service Levels | Required SLO (Availability) |
|---|---|
| C | 95% ~ 99% |
| B | 99% ~ 99.9% |
| A | > 99.9% |
When checking production readiness, you will need to go through the Production Readiness Checklist which requires different check items for different levels.
If you find yourself having a hard time choosing the right level, a general advice is to start from Level B and work on improving it to meet Level A if necessary.
Level A
Level A is for critical microservices. Services that handle PII, contribute directly and significantly to company-level goals, or could lead to significant damage to the company during downtime (e.g., transaction service), should usually be Level A.
Level B
Level B is for standard microservices. This applies to services that provide necessary functionality, but won't lead to significant usability downgrade during downtime, or can be remedied without largely affecting company-level goals. Examples: review service, geolocation service
Level C
Level C is for experimental microservices: services that provide experimental new features, or services that affect only a small part of users.