Why is everything so scalable?
stavros.io
Why is everything so scalable?
1–10 of 383 posts
Re: Why is everything so scalable?
#2> scalability needs a whole bunch of complexity
I am not sure this is true. Complexity is a function of architecture. Scalability can be achieved by abstraction, it doesn't necessarily imply highly coupled architecture, in fact scalability benefits from decoupling as much as possible, which effectively reduces complexity.
If you have a simple job to do that fits in an AWS Lambda, why not deploy it that way, scalability is essentially free. But the real advantage is that by writing it as a Lambda you are forced to think of it in stateless terms. On the other hand if suddenly it needs to coordinate with 50 other Lambdas or services, then you have complexity -- usually scalability will suffer in this case, as things become more and more synchronous and interdependent.
> The monolith is composed of separate modules (modules which all run together in the same process).
It's of course great to have a modular architecture, but whether or not they run in the same process should be an implementation detail. Barriers should be explicit. By writing it all depending on local, synchronous, same-process logic, you are likely building in all sorts of implicit barriers that will become hidden dangers when suddenly you do need to scale. And by the way that's one of the reasons we think about scaling in advance, is that when the need comes, it comes quickly.
It's not that you should scale early. But if you're designing a system architecture, I think it's better to think about scaling, not because you need it, but because doing so forces you to modularize, decouple, and make synchronization barriers explicit. If done correctly, this will lead to a better, more robust system even when it's small.
Just like premature optimization -- it's better not to get caught up doing it too early, but you still want to design your system so that you'll be able to do it later when needed, because that time will come, and the opportunity to start over is not going to come as easily as you might imagine.
Re: Why is everything so scalable?
#3I've seen startups killed because of one or two "influential" programmers deciding they need to start architecturing the project for 1000TPS and 10K daily users, as "that's the proper way to build scalable software", while the project itself hasn't even found product-market fit yet and barely has users. Inevitably, the project needs to make a drastic change which now is so painful to do because it no longer fits the perfect vision the lead(s) had.
Cue programmers blaming the product team for "always changing their mind" as they discover what users actually need, and the product team blaming developers for being hesitant to do changes, and when programmers agree, it takes a long time to undo the perfect architecture they've spent weeks fine-tuning against some imaginary future user-base.
Re: Why is everything so scalable?
#4Ugh, there is just something so satisfying about developer cynicism. It gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling.
I basically agree with most of what the author is saying here, and I think that my feeling is that most developers are at least aware that they should resist technical self-pleasure in pursuit of making sure the business/product they're attached to is actually performing. Are there really people out there who still reach for Meta-scale by default? Who start with microservices?
Re: Why is everything so scalable?
#5I don't get this scalability craze either. Computers are stupid fast these days and unless you are doing something silly, it's difficult to run into CPU speed limitations.
I've been running a SaaS for 10 years now. Initially on a single server, after a couple of years moved to a distributed database (RethinkDB) and a 3-server setup, not for "scalability" but to get redundancy and prevent data loss. Haven't felt a need for more servers yet. No microservices, no Kubernetes, no AWS, just plain bare-metal servers managed through ansible.
I guess things look different if you're using somebody else's money.
Re: Why is everything so scalable?
#6Honestly, in my experience, the only good reason to have microservices in a "software solution" is to be able to match 1 service -> 1 mantainer/team and have a big (read "nested", with multiple level of middle-managers) group of teams, each that may have different goals.
In this way it's very easy to "map" a manager/team to a "place" in the solution map, with very explicit and documented interactions between them
Re: Why is everything so scalable?
#7> scalability needs a whole bunch of complexity I am not sure this is true. Complexity is a function of architecture. Scalability can be achieved by abstraction, it doesn't necessarily imply highly coupled architecture, in fact scalability benefits from decoupling as much as possible, which effectively reduces complexity. If you have a simple job to do that fits in an AWS Lambda, why not deploy it that way, scalabili…
> It's of course great to have a modular architecture, but whether or not they run in the same process should be an implementation detail
It should be, but I think "microservices" somehow screwed up that. Many developers think "modular architecture == separate services communicating via HTTP/network that can be swapped", failing to realize you can do exactly what you're talking about. It doesn't really matter what the barrier is, as long as it's clear, and more often than not, network seems to be the default barrier when it doesn't have to be.
Re: Why is everything so scalable?
#8ThoughtWorks gathers this phenomenon under the term "envy": Web Scale envy [1] or Big Data envy [2] are two relevant blips on their technology radar. It is typically better to keep things simple.
[1] https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/techniques/high-performan...
[2] https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/techniques/big-data-envy
Re: Why is everything so scalable?
#9I've seen my share of insanely over-engineered Azure locked-in applications that could easily have been run on an open source stack on a $20 VM.
Re: Why is everything so scalable?
#10Many startup business models have no chance of becoming profitable unless they reach a certain scale, but they might have less than 1% probability of reaching that scale. Making it scalable is easy work since it is deterministic, but growing customers is not.
Another perspective is that the defacto purpose of startups (and projects at random companies) may actually be work experience and rehearsal for the day the founders and friends get to interview at an actual FAANG.
I think the author's “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” nails it.