Infrastructure Patterns Library
A collection of proven patterns for scalable and maintainable infrastructure, covering foundational, deployment, reliability, and observability patterns.
Foundational Patterns
1. Immutable Infrastructure
Never mutate live systems. Replace instead of patching.
- Tools: Packer, Terraform, Docker
2. Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Manage infra with versioned, declarative code.
- Tools: Terraform, Pulumi, Ansible
3. Declarative Configuration
Describe what the system should do, not how.
- Reduces drift. Enables convergence.
4. Layered Environments
Separate dev/staging/prod with parity and automation.
- Promote code, not configs.
Deployment Patterns
5. Blue/Green Deployments
Switch between two live environments for zero-downtime updates.
6. Canary Releases
Deploy to a small segment before full rollout.
- Monitor and rollback based on real usage.
7. Rolling Updates
Update incrementally, pod by pod, node by node.
- Works well with orchestration platforms (e.g. Kubernetes).
Reliability Patterns
8. Health Checks + Readiness Probes
Surface failure early and clearly.
- Automate recovery and traffic routing.
9. Auto Healing
Fail-fast and replace. Don’t try to debug everything in place.
10. Throttling + Rate Limiting
Prevent overload. Protect dependencies.
Observability Patterns
11. Structured Logging
Make logs machine-readable and queryable.
- Tools: ELK, Loki, Fluentd
12. Distributed Tracing
Follow a request across services.
- Tools: OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Zipkin
13. Metrics + Alerting
Track key indicators, not just uptime.
- Alert on symptoms, not noise.
Operational Guardrails
14. Runbooks + Playbooks
Turn tribal knowledge into executable guidance.
- Link them directly from alerts and dashboards.
15. Principle of Least Privilege
Restrict access. Minimize blast radius.
16. Tag Everything
Resources without metadata become invisible.
Common Anti-Patterns
A1. Snowflake Servers
Manually configured servers that can’t be recreated.
- Fix: Use automation and immutable infrastructure.
A2. Alert Fatigue
Unfiltered, noisy alerts that hide real issues.
- Fix: Tune thresholds. Prioritize signal over volume.
A3. Tribal Knowledge
Critical information kept in people’s heads or Slack.
- Fix: Document everything. Share it.
A4. Friday Deploys
Shipping changes when response capacity is lowest.
- Fix: Use change windows with strong rollback strategy.
A5. Everything-as-a-Monolith
One pipeline, one environment, one big bang deploy.
- Fix: Modularize, parallelize, isolate failures.
A6. Infinite Retention
Storing logs or metrics forever with no lifecycle policy.
- Fix: Define data retention windows. Archive or purge.
A7. Copy-Paste Infra
Reproducing bad patterns across environments or teams.
- Fix: Use reusable modules. Validate with tests.
This library grows with your system. Add what works. Retire what doesn’t. Infrastructure patterns aren’t just technical—they’re cultural.