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It seems they were not aware that AWS exists. They should really consider hiring engineers specialized in scaling.

by Mahn 14y ago

saosebastiao 14y ago
The more fundamental problem is the lack of separation between their trading engine and their website. While a website would be perfectly fine on AWS (and likely the more significant part of their scaling problems), the trading engine belongs on a very tightly controlled platform. I don't have any confidence in their platform. It shouldn't take more than a few domain experts to build a better platform...but for some reason its not happening.
- Mahn 14y ago
  > I don't have any confidence in their platform. Neither should anyone, as evidenced by their track record. It's just sad that it is this platform driving the price of the Bitcoin at the moment, and I'm not sure how it speaks about the future of the currency.
- pygy_ 14y ago
  The web frontend commands the trading platform, and the BTC/money outflow. It would be irresponsible for them to host it in an environment they dont control.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jonpaul 14y ago
To be fair, it's my understanding that EC2 are virtual machines. If they use EC2, they need to be 100% certain that their servers are safe and don't fall victim to the Bitcoinica Linode attack. http://bitcoinmagazine.com/the-bitcoinica-linode-theft-and-what-it-means-for-bitcoin/ http://bitcoinmagazine.com/the-bitcoinica-linode-theft-and-w...
Wilya 14y ago
A full month to provision new servers seems awfully long. Even if you don't want to go full cloud (which could make sense, I'm not judging that), you can easily get dedicated servers installed and configured in less than a day.
- nasalgoat 14y ago
  Well, not if you want to do self-hosting of your own equipment. Turnaround time from Dell is minimum two weeks. Add weeks as the servers get bigger and more custom. Also, most DCs need time to set up racks, power and connectivity.
vy8vWJlco 14y ago
I think if any of the important parts operated on AWS, governments would be quick to take advantage of that to shut it down ("it's used int eh drugztrade~!").
codeulike 14y ago
I don't think that using AWS would help them that much. They need to keep very secure (know any banks that use AWS?), and the main trading engine can't be parallelised anyway (because of order sequence and the blockchain). (Also: Amazon would chuck them out as soon as the first senator reached for their phone, as with wikileaks.)
- nwh 14y ago
  Trading on Mt Gox has absolutely nothing to do with the bitcoin blockchain.
  - codeulike 14y ago
    Ah, I didn't realise that. so they're independent of the bitcoin address system? I had read that their trading engine can't be parallelised and assumed the blockchain was the reason. I stand corrected. edit: this guy explains it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5539387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5539387
650REDHAIR 14y ago
Yeah, because AWS = instant scaling. This sort of operation needs physical hardware in their own secure location. This isn't some mobile social webapp.
fmstephe 14y ago
One of the problems here is that an exchange buying and selling one thing doesn't benefit much from scale. The core of a matching engine relies on knowing everything that happened before it, i.e. every trade submitted which has not been matched or cancelled. This pushes the matching process down to a single thread on a single machine. I am building a matching engine now (for pleasure) at https://github.com/fmstephe/matching_engine https://github.com/fmstephe/matching_engine (Having said all that I have no idea where their performance problems are coming from - the matching engine may not be the culprit)

It seems they were not aware that AWS exists. They should really consider hiring engineers specialized in scaling.

by Mahn 14y ago

It seems they were not aware that AWS exists. They should really consider hiring engineers specialized in scaling.

The more fundamental problem is the lack of separation between their trading engine and their website. While a website would be perfectly fine on AWS (and likely the more significant part of their scaling problems), the trading engine belongs on a very tightly controlled platform. I don't have any confidence in their platform. It shouldn't take more than a few domain experts to build a better platform...but for some reason its not happening.

Mahn 14y ago
> I don't have any confidence in their platform. Neither should anyone, as evidenced by their track record. It's just sad that it is this platform driving the price of the Bitcoin at the moment, and I'm not sure how it speaks about the future of the currency.
pygy_ 14y ago
The web frontend commands the trading platform, and the BTC/money outflow. It would be irresponsible for them to host it in an environment they dont control.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

jonpaul 14y ago

To be fair, it's my understanding that EC2 are virtual machines. If they use EC2, they need to be 100% certain that their servers are safe and don't fall victim to the Bitcoinica Linode attack. http://bitcoinmagazine.com/the-bitcoinica-linode-theft-and-what-it-means-for-bitcoin/ http://bitcoinmagazine.com/the-bitcoinica-linode-theft-and-w...

Wilya 14y ago

A full month to provision new servers seems awfully long. Even if you don't want to go full cloud (which could make sense, I'm not judging that), you can easily get dedicated servers installed and configured in less than a day.

nasalgoat 14y ago
Well, not if you want to do self-hosting of your own equipment. Turnaround time from Dell is minimum two weeks. Add weeks as the servers get bigger and more custom. Also, most DCs need time to set up racks, power and connectivity.

vy8vWJlco 14y ago

I think if any of the important parts operated on AWS, governments would be quick to take advantage of that to shut it down ("it's used int eh drugztrade~!").

codeulike 14y ago

I don't think that using AWS would help them that much. They need to keep very secure (know any banks that use AWS?), and the main trading engine can't be parallelised anyway (because of order sequence and the blockchain). (Also: Amazon would chuck them out as soon as the first senator reached for their phone, as with wikileaks.)

nwh 14y ago
Trading on Mt Gox has absolutely nothing to do with the bitcoin blockchain.
- codeulike 14y ago
  Ah, I didn't realise that. so they're independent of the bitcoin address system? I had read that their trading engine can't be parallelised and assumed the blockchain was the reason. I stand corrected. edit: this guy explains it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5539387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5539387

650REDHAIR 14y ago

Yeah, because AWS = instant scaling. This sort of operation needs physical hardware in their own secure location. This isn't some mobile social webapp.

fmstephe 14y ago

One of the problems here is that an exchange buying and selling one thing doesn't benefit much from scale. The core of a matching engine relies on knowing everything that happened before it, i.e. every trade submitted which has not been matched or cancelled. This pushes the matching process down to a single thread on a single machine. I am building a matching engine now (for pleasure) at https://github.com/fmstephe/matching_engine https://github.com/fmstephe/matching_engine (Having said all that I have no idea where their performance problems are coming from - the matching engine may not be the culprit)