Lessons from giant-scale services
Brewer, E.A.
Internet Computing, IEEE
Volume 5, Issue 4, Jul/Aug 2001 Page(s):46 - 55
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/4236.939450
Summary:Web portals and ISPs such as AOL, Microsoft Network, and Yahoo
have grown more than tenfold in the past five years (1996-2001). Despite
their scale, growth rates, and rapid evolution of content and features,
these sites and other “giant-scale” services like instant
messaging and Napster must be always available. Many other major Web
sites such as eBay, CNN, and Wal-Mart, have similar availability
requirements. The article looks at the basic model for such services,
focusing on the key real-world challenges they face (high availability,
evolution, and growth), and developing some principles for attacking
these problems. Few of the points made in the article are addressed in
the literature, and most of the conclusions take the form of principles
and approaches rather than absolute quantitative evaluations. This is
due partly to the author's focus on high-level design, partly to the
newness of the area, and partly to the proprietary nature of some of the
information (which represents 15-20 very large sites). Nonetheless, the
lessons are easy to understand and apply, and they simplify the design
of large systems
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