Durable computing: What is it and why now?
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
Thoughtworks
4.5 • 58 Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Managing distributed systems and complex workflows can be challenging. What happens when something fails? If a task isn't executed to completion, that can lead to serious problems. From transaction and billing failures to deploying software, even small issues can have significant consequences.
This is one of the reasons for durable computing. Designed to isolate code from crashes, it preserves state so a task is completed even when something fails.
To discuss durable computing, explore why it matters today and how we've been using it at Thoughtworks, Brandon Cook and John Coleman join host Alexey Boas on the Technology Podcast. They dive into the current platform ecosystem and what it means for developers — and requires of them. They also talk about the value of durable computing for AI, explaining why the concept of 'durable agents' offers an important of avenue of investigation in a world eager to embrace agentic systems.
Learn more about durable computing in this blog post from July 2025: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/cloud/durable-computing-making-easier-resilience-distributed-systems
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Popperks Technology podcast. |
| 0:11.0 | My name is Alexei. I am one of your regular hosts and I'm speaking to you from |
| 0:16.2 | Sao Paulo in Brazil. And this time around, we're here to talk about durable computing. |
| 0:22.7 | And I am thrilled to have with us, Brandon Cook and John Coleman to help us navigate through |
| 0:28.6 | this very interesting topic. |
| 0:30.3 | Hello to both of you. |
| 0:31.6 | Brandon, maybe you, would you mind introducing yourself? |
| 0:35.0 | Yeah, I'm Brandon Cook, principal software engineer at ThoughtWorks based out of New York. |
| 0:41.7 | Excited to chat today. |
| 0:43.8 | It's amazing to have you with us. |
| 0:45.3 | Thank you so much for joining. |
| 0:46.5 | And how about you, John? |
| 0:47.8 | Hi, yeah. |
| 0:48.2 | My name is John Coleman. |
| 0:49.3 | I'm from the Bangkok ThoughtWorks office. |
| 0:53.3 | And I'm a lead consultant. |
| 0:55.8 | Amazing. |
| 0:56.4 | Thank you so much for being here with us to talk about this. |
| 0:59.1 | And so maybe we can get started by talking about some motivation if you don't mind. |
| 1:05.2 | So, I mean, the foundations of the topic go back to the 70s, right? |
| 1:10.3 | So acid properties to face commits. |
| 1:12.6 | Why are we discussing these things now in the context of distributed systems? |
... |
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