A self-healing system can discover errors in its functioning and make changes to itself without human intervention, thereby restoring itself to a better-functioning state. There are three levels of self-healing systems.
Application Level
In typical applications, problems are documented in an ‘exceptions log’ for further examination. Most problems are minor and can be ignored. Serious problems may require the application to stop (for example, an inability to connect to a database that has been taken offline).
System Level
Unlike application level self-healing, system level self-healing does not depend on a programming language or specific components. Rather, it can be generalized and applied to all services and applications, independent of their internal components.
The most common system level errors include process failures (often resolved by redeploying or restarting) and response time issues (often resolved by scaling and descaling). Self-healing systems conduct health checks on different components and automatically attempt fixes (such as redeploying) to recuperate to their desired states.
Hardware Level
Hardware level self-healing redeploys services from an unhealthy node to a healthy one. It also conducts health checks on different components. Since true hardware level self-healing (for example, a machine that can heal failed memory or repair a broken hard disk) does not exist, current hardware level solutions are essentially system level solutions.
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