5 ms·

If you haven't seen stackoverflows server architecture posts you'd probably enjoy them: https://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/17/stack-overflow-the-architecture-2

by sigusr1 10y ago

If you haven't seen stackoverflows server architecture posts you'd probably enjoy them: https://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/17/stack-overflow-the-architecture-2016-edition/ https://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/17/stack-overflow-the-ar... I still think containers are great, and I really like the abstractions kubernetes provides, but if I ever had enough traffic to worry about scaling, I envision running a small cluster of very powerful computers rather than 100s of weak ones.

Joeri 10y ago
So basically, through careful engineering, they can run stackoverflow.com, one of the top-ten sites in the world, on a single web server and a single database server. Beefy machines for sure, but it kind of takes the air out of the web-scale hype balloon.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Physical servers they host themselves, mind you.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  Ya I love this as a counterpoint to much scaling. Stackoverflow has pretty good uptime and pretty good performance, can't fault the end result.
- mrep 10y ago
  > one of the top-ten sites in the world 49th actually: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stackoverflow.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stackoverflow.com
Bromskloss 10y ago
Huh? Why are they running Windows?
- e12e 10y ago
  I don't know about the rest of the (initial) team, but Joel was lead on Excel as I recall. If you have a group if devs that know the nt kernel, SQL server and iis very well - why would you not use the ms stack? Don't get me wrong, I prefer Linux and Free software myself - but that doesn't mean the thousands of Man years sybase and ms have spent on their stack is wasted effort.
- Joeri 10y ago
  Because they thought it was the better choice for them. You cannot argue with the result. https://www.quora.com/Why-does-StackExchange-StackOverflow-uses-ASP-NET-instead-of-some-opensource-frameworks https://www.quora.com/Why-does-StackExchange-StackOverflow-u...

by sigusr1 10y ago

Joeri 10y ago

So basically, through careful engineering, they can run stackoverflow.com, one of the top-ten sites in the world, on a single web server and a single database server. Beefy machines for sure, but it kind of takes the air out of the web-scale hype balloon.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Physical servers they host themselves, mind you.
brianwawok 10y ago
Ya I love this as a counterpoint to much scaling. Stackoverflow has pretty good uptime and pretty good performance, can't fault the end result.
mrep 10y ago
> one of the top-ten sites in the world 49th actually: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stackoverflow.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stackoverflow.com

Bromskloss 10y ago

Huh? Why are they running Windows?

e12e 10y ago
I don't know about the rest of the (initial) team, but Joel was lead on Excel as I recall. If you have a group if devs that know the nt kernel, SQL server and iis very well - why would you not use the ms stack? Don't get me wrong, I prefer Linux and Free software myself - but that doesn't mean the thousands of Man years sybase and ms have spent on their stack is wasted effort.
Joeri 10y ago
Because they thought it was the better choice for them. You cannot argue with the result. https://www.quora.com/Why-does-StackExchange-StackOverflow-uses-ASP-NET-instead-of-some-opensource-frameworks https://www.quora.com/Why-does-StackExchange-StackOverflow-u...