burnrate.py

import argparse
import math
import textwrap
from datetime import timedelta

DURATIONS = {"s": 1, "m": 60, "h": 3600, "d": 86400, "w": 604800}
ERROR_RATES = [
    0.0001,
    0.0005,
    0.001,
    0.005,
    0.01,
    0.05,
    0.1,
    0.3,
    0.5,
    0.9,
    1,
]

# Honeycomb will alert based on the error rate measured over the last 1/4 of
# the configured exhaustion interval
LOOKBACK_FRACTION = 0.25

def duration(s):
    if len(s) == 1:
        count = s
        unit = "s"
    else:
        count = s[:-1]
        unit = s[-1].lower()
    if unit not in DURATIONS.keys():
        raise ValueError(f"'{unit}' is not a recognised unit of duration")
    return int(count) * DURATIONS[unit]


parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("--slo", type=float, default=99.9)
parser.add_argument("--slo-interval", type=duration, default="30d")
parser.add_argument("--starting-budget", type=int, default=100)
parser.add_argument("--exhaustion-interval", type=duration, default="1d")


def time_to_alert(error_rate, slo, slo_interval, starting_budget, exhaustion_interval):
    max_error_rate = starting_budget * (1 - slo)
    max_error_rate_exhaustion = max_error_rate * (slo_interval/exhaustion_interval)
    time_to_alert = (LOOKBACK_FRACTION * max_error_rate_exhaustion * exhaustion_interval) / error_rate
    if time_to_alert > exhaustion_interval:
        return math.inf
    return int(time_to_alert)


def remaining_budget(error_rate, slo, slo_interval, starting_budget, calculation_interval):
    slo_error_rate = (1 - slo)
    burn = (error_rate / slo_error_rate) * (calculation_interval/slo_interval)
    return starting_budget - burn


def duration_to_string(d):
    return str(timedelta(seconds=d))


def when(d):
    if d == math.inf:
        return "never"
    return f"after {duration_to_string(d)}"


def main():
    args = parser.parse_args()

    slo = args.slo/100
    slo_interval = args.slo_interval
    starting_budget = args.starting_budget/100
    exhaustion_interval = args.exhaustion_interval

    print(f"SLO: {slo:.3%} over {duration_to_string(slo_interval)}")
    print(f"Budget remaining at start: {starting_budget:.2%}")
    print(f"Burn alert exhaustion interval: {duration_to_string(exhaustion_interval)}")
    print()
    print(f"  error rate    alert fires*                  budget remaining**")
    print(f"  ----------    ------------                  ------------------")

    for e in ERROR_RATES:
        t = time_to_alert(e, slo, slo_interval, starting_budget, exhaustion_interval)
        b = remaining_budget(e, slo, slo_interval, starting_budget, min(t, exhaustion_interval))
        print(f"{e:12.2%}    {when(t).ljust(27)} {b:8.2%}")

    print(textwrap.dedent("""
    *
    'never' is only true if the errors stop completely within the exhaustion
    interval. If they persist then an alert will eventually fire so long as the
    error rate is above the complement of the SLO (i.e. 0.05% for an SLO of
    99.95%) and the alert exhaustion interval is less than or equal to the SLO
    interval.

    **
    'budget remaining' indicates the remaining error budget when the alert
    fires (or, if no alert fires, at the end of the exhaustion interval). You
    can simulate successive periods by plugging this number back into the
    --starting-budget argument."""))


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

$ python3 burnrate.py --slo 99.99 --slo-interval 30d --starting-budget 100 --exhaustion-interval 1d

SLO: 99.990% over 30 days, 0:00:00
Budget remaining at start: 100.00%
Burn alert exhaustion interval: 1 day, 0:00:00

  error rate    alert fires*                  budget remaining**
  ----------    ------------                  ------------------
       0.01%    never                         96.67%
       0.05%    never                         83.33%
       0.10%    after 18:00:00                75.00%
       0.50%    after 3:36:00                 75.00%
       1.00%    after 1:48:00                 75.00%
       5.00%    after 0:21:36                 75.00%
      10.00%    after 0:10:48                 75.00%
      30.00%    after 0:03:36                 75.00%
      50.00%    after 0:02:09                 75.12%
      90.00%    after 0:01:12                 75.00%
     100.00%    after 0:01:04                 75.31%