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Understanding Kafka with Factorio (2019)

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Re: Understanding Kafka with Factorio (2019)

#21

Post by vegabook »

dekhn wrote: post #13
marginalia_nu wrote: post #3

> Vertical scaling — a bigger, exponentially more expensive server This is in practice not true at all. Vertical scaling is typically a sublinear cost increase (up to a point, but that point is a ridiculous beast of a machine), since you're (typically) upgrading just the CPU and/or just the RAM or just the storage; not all of them at once. There are instances where you can get nearly 10x the machine for 2x the cost.

Disagree- typically vertical scaling is lumpy, and even worse- CPU and RAM upgrades are typically not linear, because you're limited by the number of slots/sockets and the manufacturers intentionally charge higher (expoentially) prices for the largest RAM and fastest CPUs.

If they charge these big numbers more it's precisely because they're trying to capture some of the embarrassingly better value you get from vertical scaling. It's a testament to vertical scaling's effectiveness that they _can_ do so.

Re: Understanding Kafka with Factorio (2019)

#22

Post by marginalia_nu »

fluoridation wrote: post #20
marginalia_nu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go from a 8T/16C Epyc 7xxx series CPU to a 32T/64C CPU and not even double the cost.

That's more like horizontal scaling, though. You get more throughput (transactions per second) but not lower latency (seconds per transaction). Though it may be more cost-effective to have a single 32-core machine than two 16-core machines.

I disagree with this definition of horizontal scaling. If you're moving to a bigger computer rather than more computers, then you're scaling vertically and not horizontally.

(and fwiw, wikipedia agrees with this definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalability#Horizontal_(scale_... )

Re: Understanding Kafka with Factorio (2019)

#23

Post by cubefox »

Semi related: Are other people also annoyed by how many projects are using names of completely unrelated famous things? I expected to read some wild association between a game and Franz Kafka, but no, it's about a streaming platform which happens to be named "Kafka". This is getting seriously annoying when you google for some, e.g. historical, term and then your search results are littered by some completely unrelated software/IT project which reuses the name for no reason in particular. "Factorio" is actually an example of how to do better: Just make up your own word!

Re: Understanding Kafka with Factorio (2019)

#24

Post by the_af »

cubefox wrote: post #23

Semi related: Are other people also annoyed by how many projects are using names of completely unrelated famous things? I expected to read some wild association between a game and Franz Kafka, but no, it's about a streaming platform which happens to be named "Kafka". This is getting seriously annoying when you google for some, e.g. historical, term and then your search results are littered by some completely unrelate…

Even worse, Kafka and Apache Kafka have almost no meaningful connection. According to Wikipedia, the author was reading (Franz) Kafka, who was a writer, and the software system is "optimized for writing". (Franz) Kafka wasn't "optimized" for anything, so this is just whimsical naming. It could just as well have been named Apache Hemingway, or Apache Tolstoy.

Whimsical naming is ok, but can also be confusing and annoying.

Re: Understanding Kafka with Factorio (2019)

#25

Post by cubefox »

the_af wrote: post #24
cubefox wrote: post #23

Semi related: Are other people also annoyed by how many projects are using names of completely unrelated famous things? I expected to read some wild association between a game and Franz Kafka, but no, it's about a streaming platform which happens to be named "Kafka". This is getting seriously annoying when you google for some, e.g. historical, term and then your search results are littered by some completely unrelate…

Even worse, Kafka and Apache Kafka have almost no meaningful connection. According to Wikipedia, the author was reading (Franz) Kafka, who was a writer, and the software system is "optimized for writing". (Franz) Kafka wasn't "optimized" for anything, so this is just whimsical naming. It could just as well have been named Apache Hemingway, or Apache Tolstoy. Whimsical naming is ok, but can also be confusing and annoy…

I think many such names are mostly chosen because they kind of sound nice and they have a prestigious association.

Re: Understanding Kafka with Factorio (2019)

#26

Post by fluoridation »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #22
fluoridation wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's more like horizontal scaling, though. You get more throughput (transactions per second) but not lower latency (seconds per transaction). Though it may be more cost-effective to have a single 32-core machine than two 16-core machines.

I disagree with this definition of horizontal scaling. If you're moving to a bigger computer rather than more computers, then you're scaling vertically and not horizontally. (and fwiw, wikipedia agrees with this definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalability#Horizontal_(scale_... )

Then it sounds like you have a disagreement of terminology with FTA, since the article is using the terms like I am. Vertical scaling means increasing the serial performance of the system, and horizontal scaling means increasing the parallel performance of the system. In this sense, vertical scaling past a certain point does indeed get exponentially more expensive, while horizontal scaling almost always scales linearly in cost, or better.

Re: Understanding Kafka with Factorio (2019)

#28

Post by golergka »

BSEdlMMldESB wrote: post #4

what about understanding our own imperialistic civilization? crash in planet (or new continent?) and proceed to expand while decimating native life? in any case, good game.

That's what all life forms do — consume everything they can and reproduce as much as they can. So, doing is _is_ life.
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