7 ms·

Can anyone recommend MOOCs and/or university courses (open syllabus) covering Distributed Systems?

jammygit 7y ago
Also curious! I've looked in the past and had a lot of trouble finding one. A book recommendation would also be very helpful!
elamje 7y ago
Yeah, I just asked a similar question on HN and didn't get many responses, but one overwhelming book rec was "Designing Data Intensive Applications" Basically a high level guide through modern architectures, frameworks, and database designs. So far, my takeaway has been learning what tool would be useful for certain types of data engineering, not the details of how to write code with it. Edit - link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417801
- dkersten 7y ago
  I second that book. Got a pre-release digital copy a couple of years back and its awesome. Physical copy is on my desk. I should make time to re-read it :)
lazyant 7y ago
Unfortunately doesn't seem to be good books out there or I don't know about them. The "Data intensive applications" book is highly praised but focused in databases. The other "Designing Distributed Systems:" O'Reilly book is solely about Kubernetes. The "Scalable Internet Architecture" is trash (sorry). The best source for distributed computing I found is Facebook's engineering blog.
PhilippGille 7y ago
Some links to related resources (repos, articles, books, courses) can be found here: - https://github.com/mxssl/sre-interview-prep-guide https://github.com/mxssl/sre-interview-prep-guide - https://github.com/theanalyst/awesome-distributed-systems https://github.com/theanalyst/awesome-distributed-systems One linked resource for example: - https://github.com/aphyr/distsys-class https://github.com/aphyr/distsys-class
titanomachy 7y ago
Just go work as an SRE at Google for a couple years.
- Avalaxy 7y ago
  Have you considered that: 1) Maybe not everyone belongs to the 1% that can pass the interviews? 2) Maybe not everyone lives in a place that has a Google office where development is happening? Sorry but you sound terribly arrogant here, pretending that it's just an option that everyone has and that the whole world lives in the same place where you live.
- rurban 7y ago
  Or better work at AVL for a few years. Their large distributed system is real-time, and on failures people might die. Esp. in the Formula 1 dptmt, where everything is 10x faster and larger with much more sensors. On normal complicated control systems, such as in an airplane, you do have plenty of time to complete your task in the given timeframe, but in F1 there's not much time left, and you have to optimize everything, HW, protocols and SW. Much harder than in gaming or at scale at Google/Facebook/Amazon. Eg you have to convert your database rows from write-optimized to read-optimized on demand. A simple fast database cannot do both fast enough. A normal firewire protocol is not fast enough, you have split it up into trees. A normal CAN protocol ditto, you have to multiplex it. You have to load logic into the sensors to compress the data and filter it out, to help transmitting the huge amount of data.
appwiz 7y ago
I like Effective Monitoring and Alerting[1] if you’re looking for operating a distributed system. It provides next level detail for this article. [1] http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025986.do

Also curious! I've looked in the past and had a lot of trouble finding one. A book recommendation would also be very helpful!

elamje 7y ago

Yeah, I just asked a similar question on HN and didn't get many responses, but one overwhelming book rec was "Designing Data Intensive Applications" Basically a high level guide through modern architectures, frameworks, and database designs. So far, my takeaway has been learning what tool would be useful for certain types of data engineering, not the details of how to write code with it. Edit - link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417801

dkersten 7y ago
I second that book. Got a pre-release digital copy a couple of years back and its awesome. Physical copy is on my desk. I should make time to re-read it :)

lazyant 7y ago

Unfortunately doesn't seem to be good books out there or I don't know about them. The "Data intensive applications" book is highly praised but focused in databases. The other "Designing Distributed Systems:" O'Reilly book is solely about Kubernetes. The "Scalable Internet Architecture" is trash (sorry). The best source for distributed computing I found is Facebook's engineering blog.

PhilippGille 7y ago

Some links to related resources (repos, articles, books, courses) can be found here: - https://github.com/mxssl/sre-interview-prep-guide https://github.com/mxssl/sre-interview-prep-guide - https://github.com/theanalyst/awesome-distributed-systems https://github.com/theanalyst/awesome-distributed-systems One linked resource for example: - https://github.com/aphyr/distsys-class https://github.com/aphyr/distsys-class

titanomachy 7y ago

Just go work as an SRE at Google for a couple years.

Avalaxy 7y ago
Have you considered that: 1) Maybe not everyone belongs to the 1% that can pass the interviews? 2) Maybe not everyone lives in a place that has a Google office where development is happening? Sorry but you sound terribly arrogant here, pretending that it's just an option that everyone has and that the whole world lives in the same place where you live.
rurban 7y ago
Or better work at AVL for a few years. Their large distributed system is real-time, and on failures people might die. Esp. in the Formula 1 dptmt, where everything is 10x faster and larger with much more sensors. On normal complicated control systems, such as in an airplane, you do have plenty of time to complete your task in the given timeframe, but in F1 there's not much time left, and you have to optimize everything, HW, protocols and SW. Much harder than in gaming or at scale at Google/Facebook/Amazon. Eg you have to convert your database rows from write-optimized to read-optimized on demand. A simple fast database cannot do both fast enough. A normal firewire protocol is not fast enough, you have split it up into trees. A normal CAN protocol ditto, you have to multiplex it. You have to load logic into the sensors to compress the data and filter it out, to help transmitting the huge amount of data.

appwiz 7y ago

I like Effective Monitoring and Alerting[1] if you’re looking for operating a distributed system. It provides next level detail for this article. [1] http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025986.do