Simulations
Realistic incident simulations, without the theatrics.
Game days and chaos engineering can be valuable when they map to outcomes. DawnOps simulations are structured, safe, and measurable, designed to build capability you can see in real incidents.
What most simulations get wrong.
They become either entertainment or risk, with little sustained improvement.
Too theatrical
Fun, but not operationally relevant; no tie to real failure modes or measurable improvement.
Too risky
Production impact without structure; lots of adrenaline, not much learning.
What a good simulation includes.
The signals and constraints responders actually face.
Ambiguity
Not every alert is actionable. Signals conflict. The “right answer” isn’t obvious.
Constraints
Limited time, partial context, imperfect runbooks, and incomplete telemetry.
Decision points
Multiple plausible mitigation paths, with tradeoffs and verification requirements.
What simulations produce over time.
Capability that shows up when the pager goes off.
Faster diagnosis
Lower TTD with better “what changed” paths and stronger signal literacy.
Cleaner mitigations
More safe, verifiable mitigations; fewer false fixes and risky production changes.
Lower on-call anxiety
Consistency improves across engineers because the team has shared reps and playbooks.
Pair simulations with coaching and a knowledge base.
Simulations work best when they feed runbooks, context, and ongoing training.
Proactive coaching
Coach teams in the flow of work with prompts for triage, comms, and verification.
Gotcha scanner
Turn recurring failure patterns into teachable prompts and safe mitigation guidance.
Context collector
Capture acronyms, ownership, and decision history so incidents don’t depend on “who happens to know”.