http://highscalability.com/unorthodox-approach-database-design-coming-shard
MDV & BASES presents:
"How to Scale a Startup Successfully: A Discussion with Two Silicon
Valley Startup CTOs"
Date: Wednesday, October 3
Time: 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Location: David Packard Electrical Engineering Auditorium,
Stanford University
Food and drinks provided following the talks!
Discussion topics:
1) Scaling to the Masses - How hi5 built an information architecture
to support millions of users
Speaker: Akash Garg, CTO and Co-Founder, hi5 Networks
(http://www.hi5.com)
Come hear about hi5's evolution and the tools and techniques that
have successfully allowed them to support the needs of 70 million
users. Akash will also discuss challenges faced and lessons learned
as hi5 scaled over the past 4 years.
2) Building scalable web services with practical tools
Speaker: Nathan Schmidt, CTO of PBwiki (http://www.pbwiki.com)
PBwiki has exploited Free and Open Source tools to build out a
scalable, performant infrastructure with very small capital
investment. The last few years have seen a dramatic change in core
pieces available to system architects, and we'll talk about some of
the practical approaches to horizontal scalability, availability and
performance for today's nimble web startup.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Windows System/36
Microsoft San Francisco hosted Startup Weekend San Francisco. Tickets for the Sunday Night Demos were $5.99, less than a matinee movie, with a Tandoori dinner included. Turns out, I was in for helluva treat. About 140 people, developers, designers, had ozmosed into 20 teams following un-conference format.
Unconference implies no rules, wrong!
Teams group together based on similarity of interest, merit skills, capability to-do the job and good spirit. The Startup Weekend goal is to develop a working demo (not power-point), and a presentation pitch to catch the interest of venture capital.
The 20 teams leaned young and no team had developed Windows apps, all demos were Web and mobile apps. I feel we are at the inflection point where the new generation app patterns offer a 10x increase in productivity over the prior.
Analogy, IBM System/36 apps were replaced by Microsoft Windows apps. Azure looks likes Microsoft’s next generation, and I expect Startup Weekend like events to evangelize and win mindshare.
Enough yap, the Sunday Night Demos!
Unconference implies no rules, wrong!
Teams group together based on similarity of interest, merit skills, capability to-do the job and good spirit. The Startup Weekend goal is to develop a working demo (not power-point), and a presentation pitch to catch the interest of venture capital.
The 20 teams leaned young and no team had developed Windows apps, all demos were Web and mobile apps. I feel we are at the inflection point where the new generation app patterns offer a 10x increase in productivity over the prior.
Analogy, IBM System/36 apps were replaced by Microsoft Windows apps. Azure looks likes Microsoft’s next generation, and I expect Startup Weekend like events to evangelize and win mindshare.
Enough yap, the Sunday Night Demos!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Web 2.0 expo hall, takeaway
* Platform connections companies turned out (Facebook, IBM, MSFT, Salesforce)
* Search engines did not (Google, Yahoo)
* Private community platforms, showed up
* Consumer internet communities, did not (MySpace, Friendster)
* Specialist SaaS providiers turned out (Meetup)
Conclusions:
* Laser focused specialists grow, by squeezing out multi-players
* Platforms focus on niche, but generally add value by aggregating others content
* Key to growth focus on disaggregating own content, to aggregate others content
* Search engines did not (Google, Yahoo)
* Private community platforms, showed up
* Consumer internet communities, did not (MySpace, Friendster)
* Specialist SaaS providiers turned out (Meetup)
Conclusions:
* Laser focused specialists grow, by squeezing out multi-players
* Platforms focus on niche, but generally add value by aggregating others content
* Key to growth focus on disaggregating own content, to aggregate others content
web 2.0 expo hall pics
View more presentations from Clive Boulton.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Microsoft loves Hadoop, do you?
Search Engines, spot the odd man out...
Corporate search behind the file wall, how does your search perform..?
How many of use corporate search built using Microsoft IT Architecture patterns. What are these architecture patterns, a single 64-bit SQL Server, 4 replicated SQL servers? Really these patterns are stepped in Windows client server technologies, not high performance computing.
Maybe it's all about to change, Microsoft also loves HPC and Hadoop!
Microsoft purchased Powerset in June 2008 for $100 million, to help it catch up with the Hadoop based search engine companies. ZDnet reports Yahoo has over 10,000 Linux servers. Google is rumored to have many more servers. But how can ISVs bennefit from Hadoop?
In a couple of ways, Hadoop technologies are likely to be interwoven in Microsoft Azure services through Powersets natural language search built on Hadoop and Mapreduce. Microsoft even changed the internal policys, to allow the Powerset dev team to continue contibuting back to the Hadoop open source project. If not Hadoop then Microsoft research has their own Dryad approach (pointer c/o David Chappell)
Another way to access Hadoop rleated technlogies, a new company Cloudera staffed by rockstar developers is set to commericalise open source Hadoop.
Marten Mickos, sold MySQL to SUN for $1B, he's now an investor in Cloudera. Seeing another growth story?
Some ISV's will use Cloud services, another set will build out own data centers?
So, how many data servers will you have in 5 years?
- Yahoo
- Microsoft
- A9
Corporate search behind the file wall, how does your search perform..?
How many of use corporate search built using Microsoft IT Architecture patterns. What are these architecture patterns, a single 64-bit SQL Server, 4 replicated SQL servers? Really these patterns are stepped in Windows client server technologies, not high performance computing.
Maybe it's all about to change, Microsoft also loves HPC and Hadoop!
Microsoft purchased Powerset in June 2008 for $100 million, to help it catch up with the Hadoop based search engine companies. ZDnet reports Yahoo has over 10,000 Linux servers. Google is rumored to have many more servers. But how can ISVs bennefit from Hadoop?
In a couple of ways, Hadoop technologies are likely to be interwoven in Microsoft Azure services through Powersets natural language search built on Hadoop and Mapreduce. Microsoft even changed the internal policys, to allow the Powerset dev team to continue contibuting back to the Hadoop open source project. If not Hadoop then Microsoft research has their own Dryad approach (pointer c/o David Chappell)
Another way to access Hadoop rleated technlogies, a new company Cloudera staffed by rockstar developers is set to commericalise open source Hadoop.
Marten Mickos, sold MySQL to SUN for $1B, he's now an investor in Cloudera. Seeing another growth story?
Some ISV's will use Cloud services, another set will build out own data centers?
So, how many data servers will you have in 5 years?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Windows Azure with David Chappell at Bay.NET
David Chappell, Distingished Speaker spoke (1/28) @ Bay.NET User Group. Foot Hills Technical College, Los Altos, CA.
* Backgrounder
* Azure Services Platform by David Chappell
* Future Direction
* Impact
* Steps to move Apps into AZURE...
Backgrounder
AZURE is Microsoft's platform entry into Cloud Computing. The name means encompasses; Windows Azure vs Azure (the whole platform) vs Azure Platform Services. More http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Services_Platform
Azure Services Platform by David Chappell
David PPT slides covered Overview, Architecture, Characteristics
Architecture
* VM's are Win 2008 64-bit
* Web Apps supported, any which can invoke IIS7
* Data Access is RESTful (ADO.NET apps not supported)
* Azure service model has an config file - (yay, config)
* SQL Server not supported, all data storage is Tables.
* Tables are supported like schema free. Allowing horizontal sharding over multiple data servers ("MSFT must have hired an architect from Google, or Grid company)
Future Direction
Currently Azure does not host SQL server instances. The current data structure is tables accessed via RESTful services. David Chappell polled the audience of about 100, what they needed (I know many are CTO, Architects or Lead Developers working on business apps). Perhaps predictably out of familiarity, people wanted SQL services (this was not a Google audience). David mentioned he is in Redmond next week meeting the head of Azure, after touring Europe, Brussels, Amsterdam and meeting with big banks and groups like Bay.NET and not to be surprised if Microsoft switches to supporting SQL server, just like Amazon EC2 does (its paid option over the standard SimpleDB). Azure does have access to on premise SQL server data via a service bus....
Impact
* "Some data will never go in the cloud, which goes where is the issue" - David Chappell.
* Data written to Azure storage is saved to 3 physically different data stores.
* Financial data vs CRM - Compliance / Trust. On premise Accounting (Compliance) vs Saas (Trust).
* Apparently Sarbanes Oxley does not allow Financial Data off premise, yet CRM data is allowed off premise, SalesForce.com - David Chappell. (I plan to research Sarbanes, true or not)
* Cloud Computing is heaven for start-ups, 2 guys can lever the Cloud Platform and look like 200.
* 250 guys can look like 2500. No VC funding needed, just a credit card an go
* Integration to other web sites services, like Sales Force.CRM or Google maps is potentially far easier in the Cloud, but may be more expensive depending on how data is metered.
Steps to move Apps into AZURE…
The big conceptual change for developers / CTOs / founders / etc where do you want store the data, at customer premises, like most Client Server Apps. In data center like your ATM account is hosted by a bank, hosted under the lock and key of our your IT team, or hosted in Microsoft data centers around the world. What data goes where, financial on premise, CRM data in Azure, HR data on premise. All of a sudden more questions, without obvious answers.
Final thoughts, many codecamps required before moving forward.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Debate: Salesforce vs SAP
The Churchill Club hosted a debate between Marc Benioff and Hasso Plattner co-founders of respective companies.
My takeway, contrasts
SAP - high margins, low growth
SF - high growth, low margins
SAP - customisation, change within
SF - configuration, build on top
SAP - slow innovation delivery
SF - fast innovation delivery
SAP - distribution by installation
SF - distribution by browser
SAP - sweet spot, thousands of users
SF - sweet spot, small biz
SAP - IT complexity
SF - IT simplicity
SAP - high pct business functionality coverage
SF - low pct business functionality coverage
SAP - certain privicy
SF - trust privicy
Bottom line, choices
After thought...
SAP - Sales person, BMW and Swiss watch
SF - Sales person, Camry and Swatch watch
My takeway, contrasts
SAP - high margins, low growth
SF - high growth, low margins
SAP - customisation, change within
SF - configuration, build on top
SAP - slow innovation delivery
SF - fast innovation delivery
SAP - distribution by installation
SF - distribution by browser
SAP - sweet spot, thousands of users
SF - sweet spot, small biz
SAP - IT complexity
SF - IT simplicity
SAP - high pct business functionality coverage
SF - low pct business functionality coverage
SAP - certain privicy
SF - trust privicy
Bottom line, choices
After thought...
SAP - Sales person, BMW and Swiss watch
SF - Sales person, Camry and Swatch watch
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