Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) is much more than a set of technical tools or automated processes. At its core, SRE is built on a unique mindset and culture that shape how you approach and maintain reliability in modern systems.

How SREs Think Differently: Real-World Examples and Analogies

Before we dive into the analogy, it's important to understand that SREs approach systems with a different mindset than traditional operations teams. While traditional operators often react to problems as they arise, SREs proactively design, monitor, and automate systems to prevent issues before they impact users.

Analogy: SREs as Air Traffic Controllers vs. Traditional Operators as Pilots

• Traditional operations teams are like pilots focused on flying their own plane safely from point A to point B;
• SREs are like air traffic controllers, monitoring the entire airspace, preventing collisions, and ensuring the whole system runs smoothly.

Example: Handling Service Outages

• A traditional operations team might respond to an outage by fixing the immediate problem and restoring service as quickly as possible;
• An SRE investigates the root cause, automates the fix, and updates system monitoring so the same issue is detected and resolved faster next time.

Example: Deploying New Features

• Traditional operations often avoid change to keep systems stable, delaying new features until they're absolutely sure nothing will break;
• SREs use automation and testing to deploy changes safely and quickly, accepting some risk but designing systems to recover automatically if something goes wrong.

A core aspect of the SRE mindset is the commitment to building reliable systems through practical, data-driven habits. One foundational practice is the use of error budgets, which help you balance innovation and stability by defining how much unreliability is acceptable before new changes must pause.