A taxonomy of perturbations: Determining the ways that systems lose value

Disturbances and disruptions, both internal and external to the system, are a major concern for system architects who are responsible for ensuring that their systems maintain value robustness no matter what occurs. These perturbations can have multiple causes and can affect a system in multiple ways. This paper presents a taxonomy of disturbances and disruptions to assist system architects and researchers in identifying the ways in which systems can fail to deliver value. By doing so, this taxonomy falls into a larger research effort to develop survivability design principles that will help system architects design systems that prevent, mitigate and recover from disturbances.