Scalability a Growing Problem in Web 2.0
Scaling is critical for Web 2.0 application success ...
"There is a great I.B.M. commercial that was popular a year or two ago. In it a bunch of programmers and designers are eagerly surrounding a computer monitor that reports on a web application they just released. The team is happy, jovial, like all teams are during a much-anticipated launch. They get even more happy when the numbers of users starts to climb. Up, up it goes, and they cheer for joy. Then the numbers keep climbing, steeply, and the group realizes that their system won’t scale. Their mood turns from sweet to sour in an instant. Their best case scenario wasn’t actually that: it was their worst case scenario.
This is an extreme case of what happens when an application benefits from network effects. If an application is useful, then the network of users will grow crazily fast at some point, what many folks like to call a “tipping” point, after the book by Malcolm Gladwell. This is a crucial stage for any Web 2.0 application, because it is at that moment when an application can make its money back in an instant. If it can’t scale, it can’t survive the tipping point.
In his What is Web 2.0 piece, Tim O’Reilly puts it provocatively: “it’s not accident that Google’s system administration, networking, and load balancing techniques are perhaps even more closely guarded secrets than their search algorithms.” Indeed, you can find Brin and Page’s original search algorithm each and every day on your friendly internet: The Anatomy of a Search Engine. But what can you find out about how they manage their system as a whole? Not much." continued ... (Via Bokardo)
"There is a great I.B.M. commercial that was popular a year or two ago. In it a bunch of programmers and designers are eagerly surrounding a computer monitor that reports on a web application they just released. The team is happy, jovial, like all teams are during a much-anticipated launch. They get even more happy when the numbers of users starts to climb. Up, up it goes, and they cheer for joy. Then the numbers keep climbing, steeply, and the group realizes that their system won’t scale. Their mood turns from sweet to sour in an instant. Their best case scenario wasn’t actually that: it was their worst case scenario.
This is an extreme case of what happens when an application benefits from network effects. If an application is useful, then the network of users will grow crazily fast at some point, what many folks like to call a “tipping” point, after the book by Malcolm Gladwell. This is a crucial stage for any Web 2.0 application, because it is at that moment when an application can make its money back in an instant. If it can’t scale, it can’t survive the tipping point.
In his What is Web 2.0 piece, Tim O’Reilly puts it provocatively: “it’s not accident that Google’s system administration, networking, and load balancing techniques are perhaps even more closely guarded secrets than their search algorithms.” Indeed, you can find Brin and Page’s original search algorithm each and every day on your friendly internet: The Anatomy of a Search Engine. But what can you find out about how they manage their system as a whole? Not much." continued ... (Via Bokardo)
Tipping Point.
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