Failover Strategies

Failover strategies define what the platform should do when the preferred provider is unavailable, underperforming, or restricted by policy.

Trigger conditions

Failover can be triggered by hard failures, sustained latency spikes, category-specific quality degradation, or explicit operator intervention. The trigger should be observable and auditable.

Fallback ordering

Policies should specify which providers are acceptable fallbacks and in what order they should be considered. Ordering can follow merit rank, geographic proximity, cost posture, or customer-specific rules.

Graceful degradation

Some categories can tolerate higher latency or reduced quality for a limited period, while others require strict fail-closed behaviour. Failover design should reflect the actual tolerance of the workload.

Review loop

After a failover event, teams should review why it occurred, how long it lasted, and whether the fallback behaviour matched the intended operational policy.

Next step

Pair failover behaviour with Logs & Tracing for incident review.