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> Due to the rapid growth, GitLab.com's performance slowed down. Not sure why Gitlab is still not able to scale the platform. I run Gitlab on a 2 CPU 4GB RAM

> Due to the rapid growth, GitLab.com's performance slowed down. Not sure why Gitlab is still not able to scale the platform. I run Gitlab on a 2 CPU 4GB RAM VM and it performs very well(even with fairly large repos). There is also the known issue with Gitlab CE itself being resource intensive, but in the case of the version hosted on Gitlab it seems to be a scaling issue.

nzoschke 10y ago
Scaling a multi-tenant service is an incredibly hard problem. Resource contention and noisy neighbors require incredibly sophisticated systems to work around. Automating many smaller, isolated systems is much easier. This is another trend that will affect the SaaS model.
- merb 10y ago
  Which is akward to install for the average user. If you have an Ops team that is fine, but I doubt even at gitlab.com they don't have too many folks that automate that stuff, so either they spend time developing or they spent time automating / splitting. Actually the biggest problem is actually RoR which Gitlab is based on, it offers a very limited performance compared against others. Even if you split, you still need more servers on ruby than you would've needed for C#, Java, C++ or whatever is closer to the metal.
  - nzoschke 10y ago
    Agree. I'm building software in Go and using the AWS DynamoDB service. Lots of performance, minimal operations. Easy to manage tons of installs of this software. It's not impossible to scale RoR and Postgres but there are architectures that are far easier.
  - sytse 10y ago
    The hardest part to scale are the shared services, particularly the fileserver, see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/operations/issues/1/ https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/operations/issues/1/ For the RoR application servers we can (and did) just spin up more machines https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/29/look-into-gitlab-infrastructure/ https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/29/look-into-gitlab-infrast...
pekk 10y ago
Should Gitlab allocate a whole 2 CPU 4GB RAM VM to each user for free?
- dineshp2 10y ago
  Where did I mention that Gitlab should allocate a 2 CPU 4gb RAM server for every user? The point of the comment was to show that Gitlab performs well when there are appropriate server resources, hence the reason for Gitlab.com not performing well is because it has not been scaled up/out or both.
  - kiallmacinnes 10y ago
    Like pekk, that's not how I read your comment. It makes sense, once explained...
- sytse 10y ago
  If you want this you can use https://about.gitlab.com/githost-io/ https://about.gitlab.com/githost-io/ But the problem is this is expensive (we have 100k+ users) and people can't collaborate easily (you need a new account for each server).

nzoschke 10y ago

Scaling a multi-tenant service is an incredibly hard problem. Resource contention and noisy neighbors require incredibly sophisticated systems to work around. Automating many smaller, isolated systems is much easier. This is another trend that will affect the SaaS model.

merb 10y ago
Which is akward to install for the average user. If you have an Ops team that is fine, but I doubt even at gitlab.com they don't have too many folks that automate that stuff, so either they spend time developing or they spent time automating / splitting. Actually the biggest problem is actually RoR which Gitlab is based on, it offers a very limited performance compared against others. Even if you split, you still need more servers on ruby than you would've needed for C#, Java, C++ or whatever is closer to the metal.
- nzoschke 10y ago
  Agree. I'm building software in Go and using the AWS DynamoDB service. Lots of performance, minimal operations. Easy to manage tons of installs of this software. It's not impossible to scale RoR and Postgres but there are architectures that are far easier.
- sytse 10y ago
  The hardest part to scale are the shared services, particularly the fileserver, see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/operations/issues/1/ https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/operations/issues/1/ For the RoR application servers we can (and did) just spin up more machines https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/29/look-into-gitlab-infrastructure/ https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/29/look-into-gitlab-infrast...

pekk 10y ago

Should Gitlab allocate a whole 2 CPU 4GB RAM VM to each user for free?

dineshp2 10y ago
Where did I mention that Gitlab should allocate a 2 CPU 4gb RAM server for every user? The point of the comment was to show that Gitlab performs well when there are appropriate server resources, hence the reason for Gitlab.com not performing well is because it has not been scaled up/out or both.
- kiallmacinnes 10y ago
  Like pekk, that's not how I read your comment. It makes sense, once explained...
sytse 10y ago
If you want this you can use https://about.gitlab.com/githost-io/ https://about.gitlab.com/githost-io/ But the problem is this is expensive (we have 100k+ users) and people can't collaborate easily (you need a new account for each server).