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It’s a bit unclear to me what is so expensive about the load balancing nodes. Care that explain why it’s substantially more than a few round robin’d smart rever

It’s a bit unclear to me what is so expensive about the load balancing nodes. Care that explain why it’s substantially more than a few round robin’d smart reverse proxies moving data to the correct storage node? With S3/Dynamo design the back end destination is largely known from the hash ring. Also- Wasabi has fantastic pricing and full s3 compatibility.

zzzcpan 8y ago
> It’s a bit unclear to me what is so expensive about the load balancing nodes. They also use Reed-Solomon and split data into multiple pieces to store on multiple servers. So they need all those "load balancing"-like nodes anyway and probably no new hardware or infrastructure is necessary to conform to S3 API.
- brianwski 8y ago
  Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze. > They also use Reed-Solomon and split data into multiple pieces to store on multiple servers. So they need all those "load balancing"-like nodes anyway Yes. We definitely do "load balancing" or more accurately "disk space loading balancing" but we do it all in software. The net outcome is the same, but the cost is lower. > probably no new hardware or infrastructure is necessary to conform to S3 API No, it would require additional hardware we do not purchase at all right now. Backblaze's philosophy is to shave off cost at all layers if it doesn't actually contribute to uptime or durability. Put differently, if there is a lower cost way to achieve the same uptime or durability with some intelligent software or possibly an extra network round trip, we do it that way instead of purchasing extra hardware.
  - hemancuso 8y ago
    What special hardware vs a few cores with a reverse proxy? Surely a trivial cost.
    - brianwski 8y ago
      > Surely a trivial cost. So we both agree it is more than zero cost? Backblaze saves that cost passes on the savings to customers. I'm not sure what the exact costs would be because Backblaze did not implement it that way. > a few cores By "a few" do you mean 10, 100, 1000 or...? For how much bandwidth will your solution support? For example, can your few cores support 10 Gbits/sec? 100 GBits/sec? 1 TBit/sec? Backblaze is COMPLETELY FREE of worrying about these questions, because our solution does not require this additional step and this additional hardware, and therefore does not have this choke point.
brianwski 8y ago
Disclaimer: I'm the author of the blog post. > Care that explain why it’s substantially more than a few round robin’d smart reverse proxies moving data to the correct storage node? That is exactly what it is. Plus making sure the network is provisioned with enough bandwidth to handle the extra copies, or even just the extra overhead. That's where Backblaze saves money, not purchasing "a few" servers, and only provisioning the network to handle the smaller amount of bandwidth required if you make a connection DIRECTLY from the client to the final storage Vault the data will stay on forever. Companies that have a networking, power, and computer hardware and spinning drive bill less than 2% of their total yearly company revenue often have PLENTY of ways of solving these problems for a "small amount of money". Backblaze is quickly approaching an Exabyte of customer data on more than 100,000 spinning disks. We have to purchase millions of dollars worth of hardware a month now. If Backblaze can solve a problem that shaves a few percentages of cost off then it can save quite a bit. Backblaze can then pass that savings through to customers.

zzzcpan 8y ago

> It’s a bit unclear to me what is so expensive about the load balancing nodes. They also use Reed-Solomon and split data into multiple pieces to store on multiple servers. So they need all those "load balancing"-like nodes anyway and probably no new hardware or infrastructure is necessary to conform to S3 API.

brianwski 8y ago
Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze. > They also use Reed-Solomon and split data into multiple pieces to store on multiple servers. So they need all those "load balancing"-like nodes anyway Yes. We definitely do "load balancing" or more accurately "disk space loading balancing" but we do it all in software. The net outcome is the same, but the cost is lower. > probably no new hardware or infrastructure is necessary to conform to S3 API No, it would require additional hardware we do not purchase at all right now. Backblaze's philosophy is to shave off cost at all layers if it doesn't actually contribute to uptime or durability. Put differently, if there is a lower cost way to achieve the same uptime or durability with some intelligent software or possibly an extra network round trip, we do it that way instead of purchasing extra hardware.
- hemancuso 8y ago
  What special hardware vs a few cores with a reverse proxy? Surely a trivial cost.
  - brianwski 8y ago
    > Surely a trivial cost. So we both agree it is more than zero cost? Backblaze saves that cost passes on the savings to customers. I'm not sure what the exact costs would be because Backblaze did not implement it that way. > a few cores By "a few" do you mean 10, 100, 1000 or...? For how much bandwidth will your solution support? For example, can your few cores support 10 Gbits/sec? 100 GBits/sec? 1 TBit/sec? Backblaze is COMPLETELY FREE of worrying about these questions, because our solution does not require this additional step and this additional hardware, and therefore does not have this choke point.

brianwski 8y ago

Disclaimer: I'm the author of the blog post. > Care that explain why it’s substantially more than a few round robin’d smart reverse proxies moving data to the correct storage node? That is exactly what it is. Plus making sure the network is provisioned with enough bandwidth to handle the extra copies, or even just the extra overhead. That's where Backblaze saves money, not purchasing "a few" servers, and only provisioning the network to handle the smaller amount of bandwidth required if you make a connection DIRECTLY from the client to the final storage Vault the data will stay on forever. Companies that have a networking, power, and computer hardware and spinning drive bill less than 2% of their total yearly company revenue often have PLENTY of ways of solving these problems for a "small amount of money". Backblaze is quickly approaching an Exabyte of customer data on more than 100,000 spinning disks. We have to purchase millions of dollars worth of hardware a month now. If Backblaze can solve a problem that shaves a few percentages of cost off then it can save quite a bit. Backblaze can then pass that savings through to customers.