---
title: Reliability pillar checklist
source_url: "https://architecture.arcgis.com/en/framework/architecture-pillars/reliability/checklist.html"
md_url: "https://architecture.arcgis.com/en/framework/architecture-pillars/reliability/checklist.md"
---
#### Best practices for reliability

| Identifier | Best practice |
| -------- | ------- |
| R.1 | **Target a reasonable reliability approach** - more is not always better. Configuring an internal-facing system for high availability can sound like a good idea, but if the operational burden of maintaining a larger infrastructure distracts from the organization's mission, then the increased reliability comes at too high a cost. Carefully establish expectations of recovery time with stakeholders. |
| R.2 | **Take regular system backups** using supported tools, and create a plan for testing the restoration of backups on a regular basis. Backup workflows without testing create risk of a failed system restore. |
| R.3 | **Understand the weakest links** in your system reliability strategy, which could be technical, personnel or process gaps. System uptime and SLA guarantees are limited by their weakest support system or component. |
| R.4 | **Use lower environments** to mirror configurations and and test reliability approaches like high availability and backup processes. |
| R.5 | **Define escalation paths** to ensure that issues reach the right staff quickly, and action can be taken to resolve any problems. |
| R.6 | **Understand user workflows** - while a service may report that it is working based on a simple health check, if a user's workflow is not successful, they will often see it as a system outage. Understanding real user workflows can help to quickly narrow down on the problematic service or component and fix the problem they are seeing. |