Techniques described herein relate to automatic system suspension based upon downstream system failure in service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications. A system management module of a SOA system may be configured to detect a problem with a downstream service provider involved with a SOA application, and in response, automatically suspend particular processing within the application to prevent requests that may end up at the downstream service provider from entering the SOA application. The system management module may implement a circuit breaker module that maintains a circuit breaker structure specific to a downstream endpoint leading to a downstream service provider. Upon a triggering of a circuit breaker for a downstream endpoint, one or more upstream service providers are identified as associated with faulted traffic causing the triggering, and the system management module can automatically cause further traffic from these upstream service providers to be suspended.