High Availability strikes again. No surprise there.
But I am mildly flabbergasted by the fact that GitHub uses STONITH. The technology is as safe as open-core nuclear reactor, and it works reliably only in very simple conditions.
STONITH is designed for critical failure so you don't end up with a split-brain situation, which is far worse than a dead node. STONITH is a good thing. The problem here is more than cluster wasn't configure to survive a catastrophic switching failure.
But I am mildly flabbergasted by the fact that GitHub uses STONITH. The technology is as safe as open-core nuclear reactor, and it works reliably only in very simple conditions.