This is a terrific treatise on the problem of scaling, and the Divmod strategy, which I recommend to anyone looking for a clear picture in mind. It will help yo

This is a terrific treatise on the problem of scaling, and the Divmod strategy, which I recommend to anyone looking for a clear picture in mind. It will help you make scalable systems where ever you are. For me, Mantissa was more than an intellectual curiosity. I built my site on top of it. Though I'm now migrating to App Engine for other, pragmatic reasons (hosted environment, ease of deployment, Google's CDN, not having to do system maintenance, integration with Google's auth system, integration with Google services, BigTable, great prices, PR), Mantissa is a terrific place to get started to learn about the basics of scalability. Once Divmod is able to get the rough spots ironed out, Mantissa could be a major competitor to App Engine. What they could provide in a hosted environment includes things Google has either ruled not to do, or haven't done yet (such as COMET).