🛡️ Case Study: Bulletproofing Genesis Infrastructure with ChaosMonkey DR Drills

Date: May 10, 2025
Organization: Genesis Hosting Technologies
Lead Engineer: Doc (Genesis Radio, Infrastructure Director)

🎯 Objective

Design and validate a robust, automated disaster recovery (DR) system for Genesis infrastructure — including PostgreSQL, MinIO object storage, and ZFS-backed media — with an external testbed (Linode-hosted) named ChaosMonkey.

🧩 Infrastructure Overview

Component	Role	Location
PostgreSQL	Primary/replica database nodes	zcluster.technodrome1/2
MinIO	S3-compatible object storage	shredder
ZFS	Primary media storage backend	minioraid5, thevault
GenesisSync	Hybrid mirroring and integrity check	Deployed to all asset nodes
ChaosMonkey	DR simulation and restore target	Linode

🧰 Tools Developed

`genesis_sync.sh`

Mirrors local ZFS to MinIO and vice versa
Supports verification, dry-run, and audit mode
Alerts via KrangBot on error or drift

`run_dr_failover.sh` & `run_dr_failback.sh`

Safely fail over and restore PostgreSQL + GenesisSync
Auto-promotes DB nodes
Sends alerts via Telegram

`genesis_clone_manager_multihost.sh`

Clones live systems (DB, ZFS, MinIO) from prod to ChaosMonkey
Runs with dry-run preview mode
Multi-host orchestration via SSH

`genesis_clone_validator.sh`

Runs on ChaosMonkey
Verifies PostgreSQL snapshot, ZFS datasets, and MinIO content
Can optionally trigger a GenesisSync --verify

🧪 DR Drill Process (Stage 3 - Controlled Live Test)

🔒 Freeze writes on production nodes
📤 Snapshot and clone entire stack to ChaosMonkey
🔁 Promote standby PostgreSQL and redirect test traffic
🧪 Validate application behavior and data consistency
📩 Alert via KrangBot with sync/report logs
✅ Trigger safe failback using snapshot + delta sync

🚨 Results

Recovery time (RTO): PostgreSQL in 3 min, full app < 10 min
Zero data loss using basebackups and WAL
GenesisSync completed with verified parity between ZFS and MinIO
Repeatable: Same scripts reused weekly for validation

💡 Key Takeaways

Scripts are smarter than sleepy admins — guardrails matter
ZFS + WAL + GitOps-style orchestration = rock solid DR
Testing DR live on ChaosMonkey builds real confidence
Failure Friday is not a risk — it’s a training ground

🌟 Final Thoughts

By taking DR out of theory and into action, Genesis Hosting Technologies ensures that not only is data safe — it’s recoverable, testable, and fully verified on demand. With ChaosMonkey in the mix, Genesis now embraces disaster… on its own terms.

📝 A Note on Naming

"ChaosMonkey" is inspired by the original Chaos Monkey tool created by Netflix, designed to test the resilience of their infrastructure by randomly terminating instances. Our use of the name pays homage to the same principles of reliability, failover testing, and engineering with failure in mind. No affiliation or endorsement by Netflix is implied.

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