Martin L. Abbott

Scalability Rules is the easy-to-use scalability primer and reference for every architect, developer, web professional, and manager. Authors Martin L. Abbott and Michael T. Fisher have helped scale more than 200 hypergrowth Internet sites through their consulting practice. Now, drawing on their unsurpassed experience, they present 50 clear, proven scalability rules–and practical guidance for applying them.

Abbott and Fisher transform scalability from a “black art” to a set of realistic, technology-agnostic best practices for supporting hypergrowth in nearly any environment, including both frontend and backend systems.

For architects, they offer powerful new insights for creating and evaluating designs. For developers, they share specific techniques for handling everything from databases to state. For managers, they provide invaluable help in goal-setting, decision-making, and interacting with technical teams. Whatever your role, you’ll find practical risk/benefit guidance for setting priorities–and getting maximum “bang for the buck.”

Simplifying architectures and avoiding “over-engineering”

Scaling via cloning, replication, separating functionality, and splitting data sets

Scaling out, not up

Getting more out of databases without compromising scalability

Avoiding unnecessary redirects and redundant double-checking

Using caches and content delivery networks more aggressively, without introducing unacceptable complexity

Designing for fault tolerance, graceful failure, and easy rollback

Striving for statelessness when you can; efficiently handling state when you must

Effectively utilizing asynchronous communication

Learning quickly from mistakes, and much more More info →

In The Art of Scalability, AKF Partners cofounders Martin L. Abbott and Michael T. Fisher cover everything IT and business leaders must know to build technology infrastructures that can scale smoothly to meet any business requirement. Drawing on their unparalleled experience managing some of the world’s highest-transaction-volume Web sites, the authors provide detailed models and best-practice approaches available in no other book.

Unlike previous books on scalability, The Art of Scalability doesn’t limit its coverage to technology. Writing for both technical and nontechnical decision-makers, this book covers everything that impacts scalability, including architecture, processes, people, and organizations.

Throughout, the authors address a broad spectrum of real-world challenges, from performance testing to IT governance. Using their tools and guidance, organizations can systematically overcome obstacles to scalability and achieve unprecedented levels of technical and business performance.

• Coverage includes
• Staffing the scalable organization: essential organizational, management, and leadership skills for technical leaders
• Building processes for scale: process lessons from hyper-growth companies, from technical issue resolution to crisis management
• Making better “build versus buy” decisions
• Architecting scalable solutions: powerful proprietary models for identifying scalability needs and choosing the best approaches to meet them
• Optimizing performance through caching, application and database splitting, and asynchronous design
• Scalability techniques for emerging technologies, including clouds and grids
• Planning for rapid data growth and new data centers
• Evolving monitoring strategies to tightly align with customer requirements

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