A brittle synchronous chain across permitting, payments, and document services caused cascading outages when one dependency slowed. Which reliability redesign best reduces cascade risk?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
When payments sneeze, permitting catches pneumonia—that is cascade failure. Put queues and bulkheads between the pieces so one slow clerk does not shut the whole permit counter.
Full Explanation
Reducing cascade risk requires loose coupling and failure isolation: asynchronous messaging for eligible steps, timeouts, retries with backoff, and bulkheads between municipal services. Aggressive synchronous retries without limits amplify load. Single-process or shared-connection designs increase coupling and blast radius.