Comments on: Web 2.0 Companies NEED To Scale http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/ I'm The Boss @ netmobs, past CEO of b5media, author of Blog Marketing and a hardcore Canadian Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:21:47 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Dan Ciruli http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48383 Dan Ciruli Mon, 12 Dec 2005 19:41:16 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48383 Nik - you hit the nail on the head. Nik – you hit the nail on the head.

]]> By: Nik Cubrilovic http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48381 Nik Cubrilovic Sun, 11 Dec 2005 02:06:15 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48381 I will tell you the problem, it's because many web2.0 apps are developed by designers-come-developers who while they can swing some PHP or RubyOnRails do not understand the concept of scale and efficiency. They see it running on their local desktop server with local browser well and think thats that. Having 37Signals tell them on their blog that uptime is not as important doesn't help either. These developers need to learn how to benchmark and build distributed and scalable applications, just because it runs fine on your local instance of MySQL server doesn't mean that server and setup will scale up to 10 servers and 100,000 users. In addition, I cant believe investors are putting money into these apps - money that is being spent on setting up new servers and new pipes that wouldn't be required if the app with efficient in the first place. yuk. I will tell you the problem, it’s because many web2.0 apps are developed by designers-come-developers who while they can swing some PHP or RubyOnRails do not understand the concept of scale and efficiency. They see it running on their local desktop server with local browser well and think thats that.

Having 37Signals tell them on their blog that uptime is not as important doesn’t help either. These developers need to learn how to benchmark and build distributed and scalable applications, just because it runs fine on your local instance of MySQL server doesn’t mean that server and setup will scale up to 10 servers and 100,000 users.

In addition, I cant believe investors are putting money into these apps – money that is being spent on setting up new servers and new pipes that wouldn’t be required if the app with efficient in the first place. yuk.

]]> By: Jeremy Wright http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48364 Jeremy Wright Fri, 09 Dec 2005 01:11:01 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48364 RMX: I'm a bit curious as to what part of my post says companies need to spend gobs of money on scaling. As I said, there's a ladder to high availability. Companies need to choose what step they should be on. RMX: I’m a bit curious as to what part of my post says companies need to spend gobs of money on scaling. As I said, there’s a ladder to high availability. Companies need to choose what step they should be on.

]]> By: RMX http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48359 RMX Thu, 08 Dec 2005 22:15:07 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48359 I totally disagree. I went to a CIO-forum held by one of our Venture Capital investors where they had each of their portfolio companies describe the biggest mistakes in their company's histories. One very common theme was "spending too much time and resources in over-building infrastructure". The technology to scale becomes orders of magnitude cheaper and easier every year -- and it's foolhardy to design an architecture with 1999 scaling technology for hypothetical problem that might occur in 2005. One obvious example is in the area of database scaling. Sure, today you can either get an expensive (Oracle RAC) solution, or cludge something together with a lot of effort on half-assed solutions (PostgreSQL/Slony/PgPool ; MySQL-Cluster ; SQLServer repliction). Or, you can realize that smarter database-developers than you are rapidly advancing each of those technologies, and by the time you need them they'll be commoditized and stable. I did a fair amount of work with our CFO in a publicly traded software company's online-store infrastructure -- and risk-benefit analysis almost always ended up favoring less than expected infrastructure. I totally disagree. I went to a CIO-forum held by one of our Venture Capital investors where they had each of their portfolio companies describe the biggest mistakes in their company’s histories.

One very common theme was “spending too much time and resources in over-building infrastructure”.

The technology to scale becomes orders of magnitude cheaper and easier every year — and it’s foolhardy to design an architecture with 1999 scaling technology for hypothetical problem that might occur in 2005.

One obvious example is in the area of database scaling. Sure, today you can either get an expensive (Oracle RAC) solution, or cludge something together with a lot of effort on half-assed solutions (PostgreSQL/Slony/PgPool ; MySQL-Cluster ; SQLServer repliction). Or, you can realize that smarter database-developers than you are rapidly advancing each of those technologies, and by the time you need them they’ll be commoditized and stable.

I did a fair amount of work with our CFO in a publicly traded software company’s online-store infrastructure — and risk-benefit analysis almost always ended up favoring less than expected infrastructure.

]]> By: Prashant http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48353 Prashant Thu, 08 Dec 2005 08:29:28 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48353 Agreed To your Point but we have cases like riya.com the company is on the vege of being accuired by google when there technology is still in its alpha stage . you see the one more dimension of the scene is that weare living or racing toward a hot market . no body wants to loose out an opprtunity of being accuired and cashing out on the name of building an infrastructure . so its normal . "when meebo.com can have a team of three guys and still makea dent in internet universe so can everybody else " this seems to be the mantra these days Prashant www.knowprashant.blogspot.com Agreed To your Point but we have cases like riya.com the company is on the vege of being accuired by google when there technology is still in its alpha stage . you see the one more dimension of the scene is that weare living or racing toward a hot market . no body wants to loose out an opprtunity of being accuired and cashing out on the name of building an infrastructure .

so its normal . “when meebo.com can have a team of three guys and still makea dent in internet universe so can everybody else ” this seems to be the mantra these days
Prashant
http://www.knowprashant.blogspot.com

]]> By: Jeremy Pepper http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48352 Jeremy Pepper Thu, 08 Dec 2005 07:57:16 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48352 Well, wasn't that how Gmail operated all those months? Got too many people, let's add another server? It's the same shtick as "beta" sites - it's short term thinking to save $, and to not have to spend too much on the front-end. I think the Brits call it penny wise, pound foolish. Well, wasn’t that how Gmail operated all those months? Got too many people, let’s add another server?

It’s the same shtick as “beta” sites – it’s short term thinking to save $, and to not have to spend too much on the front-end. I think the Brits call it penny wise, pound foolish.

]]> By: john http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48332 john Wed, 07 Dec 2005 05:16:19 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48332 totally agreed Jeremy... totally agreed. I also wish it were easier... and the funny thing is, a lot of the time it could be easier... but the experience isn't generally spread out enough to do the simple things that can help... content caching via a CDN, smart scheduled processes, offloading non-mission critical tasks to other boxes, etc... lots of people have never had to deal with true scale, so they aren't adept at it. Maybe there's a good consulting gig there in this need? totally agreed Jeremy… totally agreed. I also wish it were easier… and the funny thing is, a lot of the time it could be easier… but the experience isn’t generally spread out enough to do the simple things that can help… content caching via a CDN, smart scheduled processes, offloading non-mission critical tasks to other boxes, etc… lots of people have never had to deal with true scale, so they aren’t adept at it. Maybe there’s a good consulting gig there in this need?

]]> By: Joe Palladino http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48331 Joe Palladino Wed, 07 Dec 2005 03:46:33 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48331 Here here! The problem is that for so long web development wasn't considered real development. it is taking time for the reality that this isn't just real development it can be a bit more if you also including the front end as well. Here here!

The problem is that for so long web development wasn’t considered real development. it is taking time for the reality that this isn’t just real development it can be a bit more if you also including the front end as well.

]]> By: Steve Borsch http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48326 Steve Borsch Wed, 07 Dec 2005 00:08:29 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48326 Glad to see people are talking about this issue. IMHO, this infrastructure discussion is the "dirty little secret" of all the hyperbole surrounding Web 2.0. Just wait until there is global scaling required! I did <a href="borsch.typepad.com/ctd/2005/10/web_20_conferen.html" rel="nofollow">a post</a> about this dirty little secret right after the Web 2.0 Conference since this missing part of the discussion was so glaringly left out. Glad to see people are talking about this issue. IMHO, this infrastructure discussion is the “dirty little secret” of all the hyperbole surrounding Web 2.0. Just wait until there is global scaling required!

I did a post about this dirty little secret right after the Web 2.0 Conference since this missing part of the discussion was so glaringly left out.

]]> By: Dan Ciruli http://www.ensight.org/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-48325 Dan Ciruli Tue, 06 Dec 2005 23:04:37 +0000 http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/12/05/web-20-companies-need-to-scale/#comment-48325 Couldn't have said it better myself (so I quoted most of your post in my blog!). I will say this: designing for scalability doesn't have to be difficult or expensive if 1) it's done early, and 2) you utlize good tools for distribution (rather than writing them from scratch yourself) Couldn’t have said it better myself (so I quoted most of your post in my blog!). I will say this: designing for scalability doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive if 1) it’s done early, and 2) you utlize good tools for distribution (rather than writing them from scratch yourself)

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