Create a shared nothing infrastructure. Infrastructure can become a shared resource for development and deployment with the same downsides as shared resources in your logic and data tiers. It can cause locking and blocking and dead lock. A service oriented architecture allows the creation of a parallel and isolated development process that scales feature development to match your growth.
You must change your mentality to build really scalable systems. Approach chaos in a probabilistic sense that things will work well. In traditional systems we present a perfect world where nothing goes down and then we build complex algorithms (agreement technologies) on this perfect world. Instead, take it for granted stuff fails, that’s reality, embrace it. For example, go more with a fast reboot and fast recover approach. With a decent spread of data and services you might get close to 100%. Create self-healing, self-organizing lights out operations.
Work From the Customer Backwards to Verify a New Service is Worth Doing
Work from the customer backward. Focus on value you want to deliver for the customer.
Force developers to focus on value delivered to the customer instead of building technology first and then figuring how to use it.
Start with a press release of what features the user will see and work backwards to check that you are building something valuable.
End up with a design that is as minimal as possible. Simplicity is the key if you really want to build large distributed systems.
Guntram Bechtold lebt mit seiner Familie in Dornbirn. Gemeinsam mit Freunden und Geschäftspartnern entstehen Angebote wie die BusinessLabs, die AgentConf, die WorkerConf oder die Plattform für Digitale Initiativen. Der passionierte Läufer ist für seine Livestreams auf dem Fahrrad bekannt und gefürchtet. Guntram arbeitet bei der Vorarlberger Digitalagentur StarsMedia und hilft mit den Smart City Dornbirn Wettbewerb zu organisieren.
