4 ms·

If you had an auto scaling kubernetes cluster with multiple redundancies using rust and 3 JS frameworks this wouldn't happen. ;)

wdfx 4y ago
... but many other horrible things might
phtrivier 4y ago
That being said, is the actual production infra archi for HN described somewhere ? Curious how simple it can afford to be. We laugh at people piling layers and layers and artifacts on their sites, all in the hope of adding redundancy, handle "webscale" load, and avoid an outage (ironically increasing the chances that _something_ will break). However, if a single hard drive crashing somewhere can cause your site to be down for minutes or hours, some non-tech people (managers, shareholders, customers) will wonder if the site is "professionnal" enough - and I can sympathize with them.
- tomtom1337 4y ago
  From 2018: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16076041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16076041> > We’re recently running two machines (master and standby) at M5 Hosting. All of HN runs on a single box, nothing exotic: CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2637 v4 @ 3.50GHz (3500.07-MHz K8-class CPU) FreeBSD/SMP: 2 package(s) x 4 core(s) x 2 hardware threads Mirrored SSDs for data, mirrored magnetic for logs (UFS) We get around 4M requests a day.
  - irusensei 4y ago
    > FreeBSD/SMP Good choice. :)
    - raverbashing 4y ago
      "Why are they using a freeware OS?" (: /s
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
oefrha 4y ago
Three.js on HN? Interesting thought.
- voxadam 4y ago
  It could be like SGI's fsn[0] file manager but for tech news. "It's a Unix system, I know this." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)
- onion2k 4y ago
  Raymarched SDF pyramids implemented with GLSL shaders for the voting arrows! They could be so shiny! (It's a wonder that anyone lets me near the frontend of their websites really.)
  - cnity 4y ago
    It wouldn't surprise me if someone managed to implement a 3d voting arrow in less than the 407B transfer size of the existing .gif
    - jnk345u8dfg9hjk 4y ago
      huh, all this time I thought the arrow was just a unicode character
Karellen 4y ago
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!!111!!eleven!!1!
amelius 4y ago
Or a simple RAID array (but of course the controller should keep working).
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  Personally I haven't seen a server without a RAID since time immemorial[0]. Of course HN has it, too, as explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32024989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32024989 [0] early 90s, that is
hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
Irony aside, what's the point? In theory, yes, it could work better. In practice though, HN with its two baremetal boxes has better uptime than 99,99% of the Web, including the biggest ones - just because complexity has its price.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
btschaegg 4y ago
> If you had an auto scaling kubernetes cluster with multiple redundancies using rust and 3 JS frameworks outages like this wouldn't surprise your users anymore. FTFY

wdfx 4y ago

... but many other horrible things might

phtrivier 4y ago

That being said, is the actual production infra archi for HN described somewhere ? Curious how simple it can afford to be. We laugh at people piling layers and layers and artifacts on their sites, all in the hope of adding redundancy, handle "webscale" load, and avoid an outage (ironically increasing the chances that _something_ will break). However, if a single hard drive crashing somewhere can cause your site to be down for minutes or hours, some non-tech people (managers, shareholders, customers) will wonder if the site is "professionnal" enough - and I can sympathize with them.

tomtom1337 4y ago
From 2018: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16076041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16076041> > We’re recently running two machines (master and standby) at M5 Hosting. All of HN runs on a single box, nothing exotic: CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2637 v4 @ 3.50GHz (3500.07-MHz K8-class CPU) FreeBSD/SMP: 2 package(s) x 4 core(s) x 2 hardware threads Mirrored SSDs for data, mirrored magnetic for logs (UFS) We get around 4M requests a day.
- irusensei 4y ago
  > FreeBSD/SMP Good choice. :)
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    "Why are they using a freeware OS?" (: /s
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

oefrha 4y ago

Three.js on HN? Interesting thought.

voxadam 4y ago
It could be like SGI's fsn[0] file manager but for tech news. "It's a Unix system, I know this." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)
onion2k 4y ago
Raymarched SDF pyramids implemented with GLSL shaders for the voting arrows! They could be so shiny! (It's a wonder that anyone lets me near the frontend of their websites really.)
- cnity 4y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if someone managed to implement a 3d voting arrow in less than the 407B transfer size of the existing .gif
  - jnk345u8dfg9hjk 4y ago
    huh, all this time I thought the arrow was just a unicode character

Karellen 4y ago

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!!111!!eleven!!1!

amelius 4y ago

Or a simple RAID array (but of course the controller should keep working).

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
Personally I haven't seen a server without a RAID since time immemorial[0]. Of course HN has it, too, as explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32024989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32024989 [0] early 90s, that is

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago

Irony aside, what's the point? In theory, yes, it could work better. In practice though, HN with its two baremetal boxes has better uptime than 99,99% of the Web, including the biggest ones - just because complexity has its price.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

btschaegg 4y ago

> If you had an auto scaling kubernetes cluster with multiple redundancies using rust and 3 JS frameworks outages like this wouldn't surprise your users anymore. FTFY