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0 pointsben_jones9y ago0 comments

People forget that the two methods of scaling are HORIZONTAL and VERTICAL. They think: "I can just put some micro-services behind HA proxy and boom, more capacity!".

And then they forget if they had just modified that one query and tweaked that one for-loop they could've had that same capacity without launching six new servers with all kinds of potential for the wiring to go down and cause downtime. Plus the dev time to build the services.

0 comments

bane9y ago

I usually think of scaling in 3 methods: horizontal (add more machines), vertical (get a bigger machine) and inward (improve your algorithms).

The largest performance gains I've seen are most often of the inward type -- like multi-thousands of percent, just by rethinking the code or the approach.

Bonus, improving inward scaling multiplies investments in horizontal and vertical scaling.

aianus9y ago

Vertical scaling requires hiring good engineers instead of mediocre ones (additional cost of $100,000s per year across the team). Horizontal scaling in comparison is much, much cheaper for your average CRUD app.

brianwawok9y ago

Maybe, maybe not.

For example choosing Java over Ruby would give you 2-10x better perf per server... and I am not sure that Java devs cost any more or less than Ruby devs.

Now we can get into an argument about developer productivity and all that.. but form a purely "i want to run 10x more users per server"... something like Java / Ruby gets you a long ways.

joslin019y ago

I talked to a CTO once that said he brought his RoR fleet down from 60 servers to 6-8 by switching to Scala.

2 more replies

aianus9y ago

> I am not sure that Java devs cost any more or less than Ruby devs

I don't know about that, how many bootcamps are pumping out Java programmers instead of Python/Ruby programmers?

1 more reply

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0 pointsben_jones9y ago0 comments

People forget that the two methods of scaling are HORIZONTAL and VERTICAL. They think: "I can just put some micro-services behind HA proxy and boom, more capacity!".

0 comments

bane9y ago

I usually think of scaling in 3 methods: horizontal (add more machines), vertical (get a bigger machine) and inward (improve your algorithms).

The largest performance gains I've seen are most often of the inward type -- like multi-thousands of percent, just by rethinking the code or the approach.

Bonus, improving inward scaling multiplies investments in horizontal and vertical scaling.

aianus9y ago

brianwawok9y ago

Maybe, maybe not.

For example choosing Java over Ruby would give you 2-10x better perf per server... and I am not sure that Java devs cost any more or less than Ruby devs.

Now we can get into an argument about developer productivity and all that.. but form a purely "i want to run 10x more users per server"... something like Java / Ruby gets you a long ways.

joslin019y ago

I talked to a CTO once that said he brought his RoR fleet down from 60 servers to 6-8 by switching to Scala.

2 more replies

aianus9y ago

> I am not sure that Java devs cost any more or less than Ruby devs

I don't know about that, how many bootcamps are pumping out Java programmers instead of Python/Ruby programmers?

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse