Building Secure and Reliable Systems

Part II. Designing Systems

Part II focuses on the most cost-effective way to implement security and reliability requirements: as early as possible in the software development lifecycle, when designing systems.

Although product design should ideally incorporate security and reliability from the start, much of the security- and reliability-related functionality you’ll develop will likely be added to an existing product. Chapter 3 provides an example of how we’ve made already-operating systems at Google safer and less prone to outages. You can retrofit your systems with many similar enhancements, and they will be much more effective when paired with some of the design principles that follow.

Chapter 4 considers the natural tendency to defer dealing with security and reliability concerns at the expense of sustained velocity. We argue that functional and nonfunctional requirements don’t necessarily need to be at odds.

If you’re wondering where to begin integrating security and reliability principles into your systems, Chapter 5—which discusses how to evaluate access based upon risk—is an excellent place to start. Chapter 6 then looks at how you can analyze and understand your systems through invariants and mental models. In particular, the chapter recommends using a layered system architecture built on standardized frameworks for identity, authorization, and access control.

To respond to a shifting risk landscape, you need to be able to change your infrastructure frequently and quickly ...