A cross-section of a ship's hull showing partitioned bulkheads.

The Bulkhead Pattern: Isolating Failures in Distributed Systems

The Bulkhead pattern is a critical resilience strategy that prevents failures in one part of a system from cascading into a catastrophic, system-wide outage. By partitioning resources, it ensures that one misbehaving dependency cannot exhaust the resources needed to serve others, thereby protecting the overall health of your application.

July 8, 2018 · (updated June 25, 2025) · 6 min · Pradeep Loganathan