Load Shedding Controller

Normal Behavior

A mechanism to deliberately drop incoming requests when a system is overloaded.

Failure Behavior

May drop requests or fallback to degraded mode under load.

Business Consequence

Load shedding controllers intentionally drop excess traffic to protect backend systems from cascading failure during extreme spikes. If the controller fails to shed load, the backend databases and application servers become overwhelmed by resource exhaustion, leading to a total system crash and 0% availability. If it fails closed, it blocks legitimate traffic even when capacity is available, resulting in unnecessary revenue loss and a self-inflicted denial of service.

Visual Manifestation

"If failing open: P99 latency graphs spike vertically to 30 seconds before system metrics flatline into OOMKills. If failing closed: traffic drops to absolute zero while backend CPU utilization rests peacefully at 2%."

Satirical Behavior

"A brutal bouncer at the club door that panic-locks the building and pepper-sprays everyone in line the moment the venue reaches 50% capacity, just to be safe."

Technical Terminology

Failure Indicators