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DevOps & Automation · Foundational

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

A structured investigation to identify the underlying causes of an incident so they can be eliminated.

Definition

Techniques include the 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams, and timeline analysis. Modern SRE practice acknowledges multiple contributing factors rather than a single root cause.

Example

Five Whys traces an outage to a missing validation test for config files.

Exam tip

Mitigate first to restore service, then perform RCA; restoring service takes priority.

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