Fully updated! Fifty Powerful, Easy-to-Use Rules for Supporting Hyper Growth

“Whether you’re taking on a role as a technology leader in a new company or you simply want to make great technology decisions,

Scalability Rules

will be the go-to resource on your bookshelf.”

–Chad Dickerson, CTO, Etsy

Scalability Rules, Second Edition, is the easy-to-use scalability primer and reference for every architect, developer, network/software engineer, web professional, and manager. Authors Martin L. Abbott and Michael T. Fisher have helped scale hundreds of high-growth companies and thousands of systems. Drawing on their immense experience, they present 50 up-to-the-minute technical best practices for supporting hyper growth practically anywhere.Fully updated to reflect new technical trends and experiences, this edition is even easier to read, understand, and apply. Abbott and Fisher have also added powerful “stories behind the rules”: actual experiences and case studies from CTOs and technology executives at Etsy, NASDAQ, Salesforce, Shutterfly, Chegg, Warby Parker, Twitter, and other scalability pioneers.

Architects will find powerful technology-agnostic insights for creating and evaluating designs. Developers will discover specific techniques for handling everything from databases to state. Managers will get invaluable help in setting goals, making decisions, and interacting with technical teams. Whatever your role, you’ll find practical risk/benefit guidance for setting priorities, translating plans into action, and gaining maximum scalability at minimum cost.

You’ll learn how to

• Simplify architectures and avoid “over-engineering”
• Design scale into your solution, so you can scale on a just-in-time basis
• Make the most of cloning and replication
• Separate functionality and split data sets
• Scale out, not up
• Get more out of databases without compromising scalability
• Eliminate unnecessary redirects and redundant double-checking
• Use caches and CDNs more aggressively, without unacceptable complexity
• Design for fault tolerance, graceful failure, and easy rollback
• Emphasize statelessness, and efficiently handle state when you must
• Effectively utilize asynchronous communication
• Learn from your own mistakes and others’ high-profile failures
• Prioritize your actions to get the biggest “bang for the buck”

Table of Contents

1 Reduce the Equation

2 Distribute Your Work

3 Design to Scale Out Horizontally

4 Use the Right Tools

5 Get Out of Your Own Way

6 Use Caching Aggressively

7 Learn from Your Mistakes

8 Database Rules

9 Design for Fault Tolerance and Graceful Failure

10 Avoid or Distribute State

11 Asynchronous Communication and Message Buses

12 Miscellaneous Rules

13 Rule Review and Prioritization

About the Authors

Martin L. Abbott is a founding partner of AKF Partners, a growth consulting firm focusing on meeting the needs of today’s fast-paced and hyper-growth companies. Marty was formerly the COO of Quigo, an advertising technology startup acquired by AOL in 2007. Prior to Quigo, Marty spent nearly six years at eBay, most recently as SVP of Technology and CTO and member of the CEO’s executive staff. Prior to eBay, Marty held domestic and international engineering, management, and executive positions at Gateway and Motorola. Marty has served on a number of boards of directors for public and private companies. He spent a number of years as both an active duty and reserve officer in the US Army. Marty has a BS in computer science from the United States Military Academy, an MS in computer engineering from the University of Florida, is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program, and has a Doctorate of Management from Case Western Reserve University.

Michael T. Fisher is a founding partner of AKF Partners, a growth consulting firm focusing on meeting the needs of today’s fast-paced and hyper-growth companies. Prior to co-founding AKF Partners, Michael held many industry roles including the chief technology officer of Quigo, acquired by AOL in 2007, and the vice president of engineering & architecture for PayPal. He served as a pilot in the US Army. Michael received a PhD and MBA from Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, an MS in information systems from Hawaii-Pacific University, and a BS in computer science from the United States Military Academy (West Point). Michael is an adjunct professor in the Design & Innovation Department at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management.