Mike Manos presented on the Chaos Monkey and Donkey idea at Uptime.

Chaos Monkeys, Donkeys and the Innovation of Action

May 19, 2011 by mmanos

Last week I once again had the pleasure of speaking at the Uptime Institute’s Symposium. As one of the premiere events in the Data Center industry it is definitely one of those conferences that is a must attend to get a view into what’s new, what’s changing, and where we are going as an industry. Having attended the event numerous times in the past, this year I set out on my adventure with a slightly different agenda.

When I caught up with Mike he told me a lot of people said they were guilty of being data center donkeys.

Interestingly after my talk I literally have dozens of people come up and admit they had been donkeys and offered to reconnect next year to demonstrate what they had done to evolve their operations.

Werner Vogel at GigaOm Structure discussed the Chaos Monkey idea used at Netflix and had a slide. Check out this logo.

The funny thing is the data center executive I was sitting with in Mike's presentation said He is a Chaos Monkey. I am guilty of being a Chaos Monkey.

Now that you see a graphic. Are you a donkey or a Chaos Monkey?