By High availability configurations degrade silently. Every new software component, every additional workload, every AI integration shifts the failure surface in ways a one-time deployment test cannot detect. Teams that set a testing cadence at launch and never revisit it are operating on outdated assumptions, often until a failover makes the cost visible.
In this interview on TFiR, Alexus Gore, Customer Experience Software Engineer at SIOS Technology, breaks down how testing frequency must evolve alongside environment complexity and what organizational culture shifts are required to make high availability a default engineering discipline rather than a reactive fix.
Guest: Alexus Gore, Customer Experience Software Engineer at SIOS Technology
Show: The Agentic Enterprise
Here is what every platform engineer and SRE needs to know.
Technical Deep Dive
Q: How often should teams run high availability tests in dynamic environments?
Alexus Gore, Customer Experience Software Engineer at SIOS Technology, states the answer plainly: as often as possible. Gore draws a direct line between environmental change and testing obligation, arguing that every new software introduction resets the requirement to validate the HA setup. A five-minute checklist is a floor, not a ceiling, and the cadence must increase as the environment grows more complex.
“As much time as you can put into testing your environment, your environment changes is the way to go.”
Alexus Gore, Customer Experience Software Engineer, SIOS Technology
Q: What triggers a need to increase HA testing frequency?
Gore identifies two clear triggers: introducing a new environment for the first time and introducing additional software into an existing one. Both events alter the failure surface and require renewed testing to confirm that HA guarantees still hold. The arrival of AI workloads is cited as a concrete example of the kind of change that raises environmental dynamism and, with it, testing obligations.
“When you’re introducing this new environment, you want to test as much as you can. When it comes to introducing more software in there is when you want to keep maintaining that testing.”
Alexus Gore, Customer Experience Software Engineer, SIOS Technology
Q: How do engineering teams build a culture where high availability is not an afterthought?
Gore frames the culture question around customer trust rather than internal process. Teams that communicate openly about improvements made in response to failures build the credibility that sustains customer relationships through outages. The implication is that HA culture is not built by mandating testing alone but by tying testing outcomes directly to product improvement cycles and making that improvement visible externally.
“Making sure that you improve your product upon failures that have happened with your product is the biggest way to improve the culture within your organization.”
Alexus Gore, Customer Experience Software Engineer, SIOS Technology
Q: Why do failovers damage customer relationships and what prevents it?
Gore is direct: failovers cost customers money, and no customer tolerates that willingly. Prevention comes from consistent testing and from demonstrating to customers that the engineering team responds to failures with measurable improvements rather than reassurances. Trust is built through the visible cycle of failure, response, and product advancement, not through avoiding the subject of downtime.
“No one likes when failovers happen and you lose money. Making sure that you build trust with customers, making sure that you improve your product upon failures that have happened with your product is the biggest way to improve.”
Alexus Gore, Customer Experience Software Engineer, SIOS Technology
Resources & Documentation
- SIOS Technology, high availability and disaster recovery software for critical enterprise workloads
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Swapnil Bhartiya: How often should teams actually run through these five minute checklist and how does that frequency changes as that environment becomes more dynamic? Or as we were talking about, you know, new use cases, AI and everything is entering, so it’s becoming more dynamic as well. So frequency of these tests and check. You know,
Alexus Gore: I say you should test as, as often as possible. Right. When you’re introducing this new environment, you want to test as much as you can. When it comes to introducing more software in there is when you want to keep maintaining that testing, but as much as you can, as much as possible. I know it’s like if you’re running through a five minute checklist, sure. But testing is like the crucial thing here to make sure that you’re not missing anything. So as much time as you can put into testing your environment, your environment changes is the way to go.
Swapnil Bhartiya: What kind of culture organizations should build? It could be from top down or within the engineering community that this is not seen, as we used to say, someone else’s problem. It should not be an afterthought, it should be the core part. The moment you write your application and deploy it. High availability should be part of that. So what is your advice there?
Alexus Gore: I would say to definitely build trust with customers and making sure that there is a lot of communication that happens between you and the customers with making sure that, or at least showing the customer how you are building the trust with improvements that you are going to make to your product. Because obviously no one likes when failovers happen and you lose money. So making sure that you build trust with customers, making sure that you improve your product upon failures that have happened with your product is the biggest, the biggest way to improve the culture within your organization.
