The art of scalability : scalable web architecture, processes, and organizations for the modern enterprise

A Comprehensive, Proven Approach to IT Scalability from Two Veteran Software, Technology, and Business Executives In "The Art of Scalability, " AKF Partners cofounders Martin L. Abbott and Michael T. Fisher cover everything IT and business leaders must know to build technology infrastructures that can scale smoothly to meet any business requirement. Drawing on their unparalleled experience managing some of the world s highest-transaction-volume Web sites, the authors provide detailed models and best-practice approaches available in no other book. Unlike previous books on scalability, "The Art of Scalability" doesn t limit its coverage to technology. Writing for both technical and nontechnical decision-makers, this book covers everything that impacts scalability, including architecture, processes, people, and organizations. Throughout, the authors address a broad spectrum of real-world challenges, from performance testing to IT governance. Using their tools and guidance, organizations can systematically overcome obstacles to scalability and achieve unprecedented levels of technical and business performance. Coverage includes Staffing the scalable organization: essential organizational, management, and leadership skills for technical leaders Building processes for scale: process lessons from hyper-growth companies, from technical issue resolution to crisis management Making better build versus buy decisions Architecting scalable solutions: powerful proprietary models for identifying scalability needs and choosing the best approaches to meet them Optimizing performance through caching, application and database splitting, and asynchronous design Scalability techniques for emerging technologies, including clouds and grids Planning for rapid data growth and new data centers Evolving monitoring strategies to tightly align with customer requirements " Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 10 Foreword......Page 22 Acknowledgments......Page 24 About the Authors......Page 26 Introduction......Page 28 Part I: Staffing a Scalable Organization......Page 34 Introducing AllScale......Page 36 Why People......Page 37 Why Organizations......Page 38 Why Management and Leadership......Page 44 Conclusion......Page 47 Chapter 2: Roles for the Scalable Technology Organization......Page 48 The Effects of Failure......Page 49 Defining Roles......Page 50 Executive Responsibilities......Page 52 Organizational Responsibilities......Page 56 Individual Contributor Responsibilities and Characteristics......Page 59 An Organizational Example......Page 62 A Tool for Defining Responsibilities......Page 64 Conclusion......Page 68 Organizational Influences That Affect Scalability......Page 70 Team Size......Page 73 Organizational Structure......Page 82 Conclusion......Page 87 Chapter 4: Leadership 101......Page 90 What Is Leadership?......Page 91 Leadership—A Conceptual Model......Page 93 Taking Stock of Who You Are......Page 94 Leading from the Front......Page 96 Checking Your Ego at the Door......Page 98 Mission First, People Always......Page 99 Making Timely, Sound, and Morally Correct Decisions......Page 100 Alignment with Shareholder Value......Page 101 Vision......Page 102 Mission......Page 105 Goals......Page 106 Putting Vision, Mission, and Goals Together......Page 108 The Causal Roadmap to Success......Page 111 Conclusion......Page 113 Chapter 5: Management 101......Page 116 What Is Management?......Page 117 Project and Task Management......Page 118 Building Teams—A Sports Analogy......Page 120 Upgrading Teams—A Garden Analogy......Page 121 Measurement, Metrics, and Goal Evaluation......Page 125 The Goal Tree......Page 128 Paving the Path for Success......Page 129 Conclusion......Page 130 Understanding the Experiential Chasm......Page 132 Defeating the Corporate Mindset......Page 136 The Business Case for Scale......Page 141 Conclusion......Page 144 Part II: Building Processes for Scale......Page 146 Chapter 7: Understanding Why Processes Are Critical to Scale......Page 148 The Purpose of Process......Page 149 Right Time, Right Process......Page 152 When Good Processes Go Bad......Page 157 Conclusion......Page 158 Chapter 8: Managing Incidents and Problems......Page 160 What Is an Incident?......Page 161 What Is a Problem?......Page 162 The Components of Incident Management......Page 163 The Components of Problem Management......Page 166 Incident and Problem Life Cycles......Page 167 Implementing the Daily Incident Meeting......Page 168 The Postmortem Process......Page 170 Putting It All Together......Page 173 Conclusion......Page 175 What Is a Crisis?......Page 176 Why Differentiate a Crisis from Any Other Incident?......Page 177 How Crises Can Change a Company......Page 178 Order Out of Chaos......Page 179 Communications and Control......Page 184 The War Room......Page 185 Status Communications......Page 187 Crises Postmortems......Page 188 Crises Follow-up and Communication......Page 189 Conclusion......Page 190 Chapter 10: Controlling Change in Production Environments......Page 192 What Is a Change?......Page 193 Change Identification......Page 195 Change Management......Page 197 Continuous Process Improvement......Page 205 Conclusion......Page 206 Chapter 11: Determining Headroom for Applications......Page 210 Purpose of the Process......Page 211 Structure of the Process......Page 212 Ideal Usage Percentage......Page 216 Conclusion......Page 219 Chapter 12: Exploring Architectural Principles......Page 222 Principles and Goals......Page 223 Principle Selection......Page 226 AKF’s Twelve Architectural Principles......Page 227 Scalability Principles In Depth......Page 231 Conclusion......Page 235 Fixing Organizational Dysfunction......Page 238 Designing for Scale Cross Functionally......Page 241 Entry and Exit Criteria......Page 244 Conclusion......Page 246 Ensuring Scale Through Review......Page 248 Board Constituency......Page 250 Conducting the Meeting......Page 252 Entry and Exit Criteria......Page 255 Conclusion......Page 257 Building Versus Buying, and Scalability......Page 260 Focusing on Cost......Page 261 Focusing on Strategy......Page 262 “Not Built Here” Phenomenon......Page 263 Merging Cost and Strategy......Page 264 AllScale’s Build or Buy Dilemma......Page 267 Conclusion......Page 269 Chapter 16: Determining Risk......Page 270 Importance of Risk Management to Scale......Page 271 Measuring Risk......Page 272 Managing Risk......Page 279 Conclusion......Page 282 Performing Performance Testing......Page 284 Don’t Stress Over Stress Testing......Page 291 Performance and Stress Testing for Scalability......Page 297 Conclusion......Page 298 Chapter 18: Barrier Conditions and Rollback......Page 300 Barrier Conditions......Page 301 Rollback Capabilities......Page 305 Markdown Functionality—Design to Be Disabled......Page 309 Conclusion......Page 310 Tradeoffs in Business......Page 312 Relation to Scalability......Page 316 How to Think About the Decision......Page 317 Conclusion......Page 322 Part III: Architecting Scalable Solutions......Page 324 Chapter 20: Designing for Any Technology......Page 326 Technology Agnostic Design......Page 327 The TAD Approach......Page 333 Conclusion......Page 335 Chapter 21: Creating Fault Isolative Architectural Structures......Page 336 Fault Isolative Architecture Terms......Page 337 Benefits of Fault Isolation......Page 339 How to Approach Fault Isolation......Page 344 When to Implement Fault Isolation......Page 346 How to Test Fault Isolative Designs......Page 348 Conclusion......Page 349 Concepts Versus Rules and Tools......Page 352 Introducing the AKF Scale Cube......Page 353 The X-Axis of the Cube......Page 355 The Y-Axis of the Cube......Page 358 The Z-Axis of the Cube......Page 360 Putting It All Together......Page 361 When and Where to Use the Cube......Page 363 Conclusion......Page 364 The AKF Scale Cube for Applications......Page 366 The X-Axis of the AKF Application Scale Cube......Page 368 The Y-Axis of the AKF Application Scale Cube......Page 370 The Z-Axis of the AKF Application Scale Cube......Page 371 Putting It All Together......Page 374 Practical Use of the Application Cube......Page 376 Conclusion......Page 381 The AKF Scale Cube for Databases......Page 384 The X-Axis of the AKF Database Scale Cube......Page 385 The Y-Axis of the AKF Database Scale Cube......Page 389 The Z-Axis of the AKF Database Scale Cube......Page 392 Putting It All Together......Page 394 Practical Use of the Database Cube......Page 397 Conclusion......Page 401 Chapter 25: Caching for Performance and Scale......Page 404 Caching Defined......Page 405 Object Caches......Page 408 Application Caches......Page 411 Content Delivery Networks......Page 416 Conclusion......Page 417 Synching Up on Synchronization......Page 420 Synchronous Versus Asynchronous Calls......Page 422 Defining State......Page 428 Conclusion......Page 432 Part IV: Solving Other Issues and Challenges......Page 436 Chapter 27: Too Much Data......Page 438 The Cost of Data......Page 439 The Value of Data and the Cost-Value Dilemma......Page 441 Making Data Profitable......Page 443 Handling Large Amounts of Data......Page 447 Conclusion......Page 450 Chapter 28: Clouds and Grids......Page 452 History and Definitions......Page 453 Characteristics and Architecture of Clouds......Page 457 Differences Between Clouds and Grids......Page 461 Conclusion......Page 463 Chapter 29: Soaring in the Clouds......Page 466 Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing......Page 467 Where Clouds Fit in Different Companies......Page 475 Decision Process......Page 477 Conclusion......Page 480 Chapter 30: Plugging in the Grid......Page 482 Pros and Cons of Grids......Page 483 Different Uses for Grid Computing......Page 488 Decision Process......Page 492 Conclusion......Page 494 “How Come We Didn’t Catch That Earlier?”......Page 496 A Framework for Monitoring......Page 499 Measuring Monitoring: What Is and Isn’t Valuable?......Page 505 Monitoring and Processes......Page 507 Conclusion......Page 508 Data Center Costs and Constraints......Page 510 Location, Location, Location......Page 512 Data Centers and Incremental Growth......Page 515 Three Magic Rules of Three......Page 517 Multiple Active Data Center Considerations......Page 523 Conclusion......Page 525 Chapter 33: Putting It All Together......Page 528 What to Do Now?......Page 529 Case Studies......Page 532 References......Page 536 Appendices......Page 538 Appendix A: Calculating Availability......Page 540 Hardware Uptime......Page 541 Customer Complaints......Page 542 Portion of Site Down......Page 543 Third-Party Monitoring Service......Page 544 Traffic Graph......Page 545 Appendix B: Capacity Planning Calculations......Page 548 Appendix C: Load and Performance Calculations......Page 554 A......Page 562 B......Page 565 C......Page 566 D......Page 570 E......Page 571 F......Page 572 H......Page 573 I......Page 574 L......Page 575 M......Page 576 N......Page 577 P......Page 578 Q......Page 579 R......Page 580 S......Page 581 T......Page 583 X......Page 585 Z......Page 586

a Comprehensive, Proven Approach To It Scalability From Two Veteran Software, Technology, And Business Executives

in The Art Of Scalability, Akf Partners Cofounders Martin L. Abbott And Michael T. Fisher Cover Everything It And Business Leaders Must Know To Build Technology Infrastructures That Can Scale Smoothly To Meet Any Business Requirement. Drawing On Their Unparalleled Experience Managing Some Of The World’s Highest-transaction-volume Web Sites, The Authors Provide Detailed Models And Best-practice Approaches Available In No Other Book.

unlike Previous Books On Scalability, The Art Of Scalability Doesn’t Limit Its Coverage To Technology. Writing For Both Technical And Nontechnical Decision-makers, This Book Covers Everything That Impacts Scalability, Including Architecture, Processes, People, And Organizations.

throughout, The Authors Address A Broad Spectrum Of Real-world Challenges, From Performance Testing To It Governance. Using Their Tools And Guidance, Organizations Can Systematically Overcome Obstacles To Scalability And Achieve Unprecedented Levels Of Technical And Business Performance.

coverage Includes

• staffing The Scalable Organization: Essential Organizational, Management, And Leadership Skills For Technical Leaders
• building Processes For Scale: Process Lessons From Hyper-growth Companies, From Technical Issue Resolution To Crisis Management
• making Better “build Versus Buy” Decisions
• architecting Scalable Solutions: Powerful Proprietary Models For Identifying Scalability Needs And Choosing The Best Approaches To Meet Them
• optimizing Performance Through Caching, Application And Database Splitting, And Asynchronous Design
• scalability Techniques For Emerging Technologies, Including Clouds And Grids
• planning For Rapid Data Growth And New Data Centers
• evolving Monitoring Strategies To Tightly Align With Customer Requirements