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I am aging myself, but: http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2008/04/im-going-to-scale-my-foot-up-y.html http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2008/04/im-going-to-

by SCdF 4y ago

I am aging myself, but: http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2008/04/im-going-to-scale-my-foot-up-y.html http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2008/04/im-going-to-scal... The bit that stuck with me (re-reading for the first time since 2008, I forgot how aggressive it was): "Scalability is not your problem, getting people to give a shit is."

chaboud 4y ago
That's a great write-up. However, once people do give a shit, if you didn't think about scalability, it becomes an enormous problem. And, funny enough, the people that didn't think about scalability, if they're smart, have typically moved on to something else.
- switchbak 4y ago
  There's also the situation where you've passed your scalability limits, you have users, the system is falling down and the business has blinders on and simply won't accept that they need to invest in a better way. Being overly speculative and ambitious early on is a great way to fail. Building on top of something past its limits and ignoring the (developer, customer, velocity) pain is yet another.
  - chaboud 4y ago
    One great way to guard against this is to force teams to design for scaling up and down. I regularly give a "plan for success, and plan for failure" speech that covers this area. If your service opex breaks even at 1k users because you designed for capacity up to 100k users, and you actually end up with 100 dedicated super-sticky users, you'll resent the users you have as they bleed you to death. If, instead, you build a system that less efficiently, but still reasonably, scales to 100k users by ramping up cost to support 100k users by 4-8x... but has an opex break even at 50 users... Congrats! you've planned for success and planned for failure. Go get those 100k customers, then optimize. But don't wait to optimize an unscalable system until you already have customers. That's a recipe for lost customer trust and "ahead of their time" epitaphs.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > And, funny enough, the people that didn't think about scalability, if they're smart, have typically moved on to something else. OTOH, the smart people who thought about scalability and designed a highly complex system to handle the load of 5 requests per minute have also moved on.
vrnvu 4y ago
Great post thanks for sharing. I also highlight this one: http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2011/12/process.html http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2011/12/process.html

by SCdF 4y ago

chaboud 4y ago

That's a great write-up. However, once people do give a shit, if you didn't think about scalability, it becomes an enormous problem. And, funny enough, the people that didn't think about scalability, if they're smart, have typically moved on to something else.

switchbak 4y ago
There's also the situation where you've passed your scalability limits, you have users, the system is falling down and the business has blinders on and simply won't accept that they need to invest in a better way. Being overly speculative and ambitious early on is a great way to fail. Building on top of something past its limits and ignoring the (developer, customer, velocity) pain is yet another.
- chaboud 4y ago
  One great way to guard against this is to force teams to design for scaling up and down. I regularly give a "plan for success, and plan for failure" speech that covers this area. If your service opex breaks even at 1k users because you designed for capacity up to 100k users, and you actually end up with 100 dedicated super-sticky users, you'll resent the users you have as they bleed you to death. If, instead, you build a system that less efficiently, but still reasonably, scales to 100k users by ramping up cost to support 100k users by 4-8x... but has an opex break even at 50 users... Congrats! you've planned for success and planned for failure. Go get those 100k customers, then optimize. But don't wait to optimize an unscalable system until you already have customers. That's a recipe for lost customer trust and "ahead of their time" epitaphs.
lelanthran 4y ago
> And, funny enough, the people that didn't think about scalability, if they're smart, have typically moved on to something else. OTOH, the smart people who thought about scalability and designed a highly complex system to handle the load of 5 requests per minute have also moved on.

vrnvu 4y ago

Great post thanks for sharing. I also highlight this one: http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2011/12/process.html http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2011/12/process.html