Airbnb has developed Impulse, an internal load testing framework designed to improve the reliability and performance of its microservices. The tool enables distributed, large-scale testing and allows engineering teams to run self-service, context-aware load tests integrated with CI pipelines. By simulating production-like traffic and interactions, Impulse helps engineers identify bottlenecks and errors before changes reach production. According to the Airbnb engineering team, Impulse is already in use in several customer support backend services and is under review for broader adoption.
I'm going to be talking about something very basic, which is almost like the fundamental ideas that I think that every developer should know if they're unfortunate enough to have to work on a distributed system, which is probably most of you. The reason I've written this talk is because I'm working on a book, which is designed as like, you've been dropped onto a project where somebody ill-advisedly made the choice to use microservices, which is always a terrible idea.
When something breaks, the impact isn't always obvious right away. What starts as a few 500 errors in one service can quickly snowball into failed transactions, frustrated users, and revenue loss.
Integrating FinOps early in microservices architectures leads to significant reductions in both cloud costs and operational inefficiencies, creating a more cost-effective environment for organizations.
A standardized CI/CD pipeline for microservices should address key challenges such as coordinating cross-service releases, managing backward compatibility, and preventing configuration duplication.