Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#21

Post by matchagaucho » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:39 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #9

jzelinskie wrote: post #7

I think a lot of the smaller details this article glosses over contribute to FB's ability to run on so few machines. For example, comparing my anecdotes of FB's internal network (they probably have the most organized/mature IPv6 network on the planet) with those of my AWS public cloud experience, I'd reckon that a lot of FB applications would require architectural redesigns to operate in that kind of environment. The…

I suppose the reason Facebook doesn't resell their infrastructure is because their endgame is to _be_ the internet. From their point of view, any site you're on that isn't Facebook is their competition.

FB open sourced their infrastructure. Anyone can lift these designs and build their data centers using identical specs.

http://www.opencompute.org/wiki/Server/SpecsAndDesigns

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#22

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:40 PM UTC

bedros wrote: post #15

ryandvm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the reason Facebook doesn't resell their infrastructure is because their endgame is to _be_ the internet. From their point of view, any site you're on that isn't Facebook is their competition.

That's exactly why only a fool will use reactjs in their web design, because FB will put you out of business and if you sue them for infringing your patents, your reactjs license is revoked

[deleted]

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#23

Post by closeparen » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:41 PM UTC

cbhl wrote: post #14

pier25 wrote: post #8

> Its application code is still developed using PHP This is surprising since 1) Facebook is most likely using Hack and 2) it could save a lot of money by moving to Go. > Facebook’s entire site runs on HHVM (desktop, API and mobile) Isn't Facebook running mostly on React? I'm guessing HHVM only really powers the API, business logic, etc.

I imagine the lifetime savings of having a backend in Go is dwarfed by the one-time cost of such a migration. That's why they invented Hack and HHVM in the first place -- it was a cheap-enough compromise that didn't require rewriting the whole code base.

IIRC, Facebook uses (their derivative of) PHP to collect data from a number of services in different languages over Thrift, which they developed.

PHP is the presentation layer. Much of the actual logic is in C++, Java, and maybe even Go by now.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#24

Post by jsolson » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:41 PM UTC

jzelinskie wrote: post #7

I think a lot of the smaller details this article glosses over contribute to FB's ability to run on so few machines. For example, comparing my anecdotes of FB's internal network (they probably have the most organized/mature IPv6 network on the planet) with those of my AWS public cloud experience, I'd reckon that a lot of FB applications would require architectural redesigns to operate in that kind of environment. The…

One of the big things it glosses over is core counts... counting "servers" ignores that AWS has current-gen instance families with as few as 32 VCPUs in their largest instance type versus 128 VCPUs in the x1 family. If you look at multiple generations of families the difference between "servers" becomes even more stark.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#25

Post by deepnotderp » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:42 PM UTC

jzelinskie wrote: post #7

I think a lot of the smaller details this article glosses over contribute to FB's ability to run on so few machines. For example, comparing my anecdotes of FB's internal network (they probably have the most organized/mature IPv6 network on the planet) with those of my AWS public cloud experience, I'd reckon that a lot of FB applications would require architectural redesigns to operate in that kind of environment. The…

This is true, and something I've wondered too. They have an outstanding infrastructure team.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#26

Post by ot » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:51 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #8

> Its application code is still developed using PHP This is surprising since 1) Facebook is most likely using Hack and 2) it could save a lot of money by moving to Go. > Facebook’s entire site runs on HHVM (desktop, API and mobile) Isn't Facebook running mostly on React? I'm guessing HHVM only really powers the API, business logic, etc.

> 2) it could save a lot of money by moving to Go.

[citation needed]

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#27

Post by drawkbox » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:52 PM UTC

Reddit and Netflix are hosted on AWS so yes you could.

You wouldn't run it the same as if you had your own infrastructure though, and probably you would run it more horizontal and cached but it could be done much cheaper than this estimate. On your own environments you can use larger servers, dbs and sharding or clustering is closer. But the cloud is different and you'd be able to run it but differently. The cloud definitely influences architecture.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#28

Post by coryl » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:53 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #9

jzelinskie wrote: post #7

I think a lot of the smaller details this article glosses over contribute to FB's ability to run on so few machines. For example, comparing my anecdotes of FB's internal network (they probably have the most organized/mature IPv6 network on the planet) with those of my AWS public cloud experience, I'd reckon that a lot of FB applications would require architectural redesigns to operate in that kind of environment. The…

I suppose the reason Facebook doesn't resell their infrastructure is because their endgame is to _be_ the internet. From their point of view, any site you're on that isn't Facebook is their competition.

Maybe, but I think Facebook understands that great products attract users, not scalable/speedy infrastructure.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#29

Post by jsmthrowaway » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:56 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #27

Reddit and Netflix are hosted on AWS so yes you could. You wouldn't run it the same as if you had your own infrastructure though, and probably you would run it more horizontal and cached but it could be done much cheaper than this estimate. On your own environments you can use larger servers, dbs and sharding or clustering is closer. But the cloud is different and you'd be able to run it but differently. The cloud de…

> Reddit and Netflix are hosted on AWS so yes you could.

Those are read-heavy properties (yes, even Reddit, a miracle of aggressive caching). Don't underestimate Facebook's write load, which is the bloody difficult thing to scale.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#30

Post by jsmthrowaway » Wed, Jun 28, 2017, 11:58 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #23

cbhl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the lifetime savings of having a backend in Go is dwarfed by the one-time cost of such a migration. That's why they invented Hack and HHVM in the first place -- it was a cheap-enough compromise that didn't require rewriting the whole code base.

IIRC, Facebook uses (their derivative of) PHP to collect data from a number of services in different languages over Thrift, which they developed. PHP is the presentation layer. Much of the actual logic is in C++, Java, and maybe even Go by now.

They mentioned exactly that as a talking point during a talk I saw in 2012, so I'd imagine it's even more accurate now. Thrift exists for a reason.

Another fun bit from that deck was a newsfeed-related PHP function with something like over 70 arguments across a dozen lines -- basically template data to render that had organically grown over time. It earned its own slide. There was an audible gasp from the room when it was revealed in all its glory, and they talked about the work it takes to refactor stuff like that (which is extensive).