The Comprehensive, Proven Approach to IT Scalability–Updated with New Strategies, Technologies, and Case Studies
In The Art of Scalability, Second Edition, leading scalability consultants Martin L. Abbott and Michael T. Fisher cover everything you need to know to smoothly scale products and services for any requirement. This extensively revised edition reflects new technologies, strategies, and lessons, as well as new case studies from the authors’ pioneering consulting practice, AKF Partners.
Writing for technical and nontechnical decision-makers, Abbott and Fisher cover everything that impacts scalability, including architecture, process, people, organization, and technology. Their insights and recommendations reflect more than thirty years of experience at companies ranging from eBay to Visa, and Salesforce.com to Apple.
You’ll find updated strategies for structuring organizations to maximize agility and scalability, as well as new insights into the cloud (IaaS/PaaS) transition, NoSQL, DevOps, business metrics, and more. Using this guide’s tools and advice, you can systematically clear away obstacles to scalability–and achieve unprecedented IT and business performance.
Coverage includes
· Why scalability problems start with organizations and people, not technology, and what to do about it
· Actionable lessons from real successes and failures
· Staffing, structuring, and leading the agile, scalable organization
· Scaling processes for hyper-growth environments
· Architecting scalability: proprietary models for clarifying needs and making choices–including 15 key success principles
· Emerging technologies and challenges: data cost, datacenter planning, cloud evolution, and customer-aligned monitoring
· Measuring availability, capacity, load, and performance
Praise for The Art of Scalability, Second Edition
“A how-to manual for building a world-class engineering organization with step-by-step instructions on everything including leadership, architecture, operations, and processes. A driver’s manual for going from 0 to 60, scaling your business. With this book published, there’s no excuse for mistakes—in other words, RTFM.”
—Lon F. Binder, vice president, technology, Warby Parker
“I’ve worked with AKF for years on tough technical challenges. Many books address how to correct failing product architectures or problematic processes, both of which are symptoms of an unspoken problem. This book not only covers those symptoms, but also addresses their underlying cause—the way in which we manage, lead, organize, and staff our teams.”
—Jeremy King, chief technology officer and senior vice president, global ecommerce, Walmart.com
“I love this book because it teaches an important lesson most technology-focused books don’t: how to build highly scalable and successful technology organizations that build highly scalable technology solutions. There’s plenty of great technology coaching in this book, but there are also excellent examples of how to build scalable culture, principles, processes, and decision trees. This book remains one of my few constant go-to reference guides.”
—Chris Schremser, chief technology officer, ZirMed
Praise for the First Edition
“This book is much more than you may think it is. Scale is not just about designing Web sites that don’t crash when lots of users show up. It is about designing your company so that it doesn’t crash when your business needs to grow. These guys have been there on the front lines of some of the most successful Internet companies of our time, and they share the good, the bad, and the ugly about how to not just survive, but thrive.”
—Marty Cagan, founder, Silicon Valley Product Group
“A must read for anyone building a Web service for the mass market.”
—Dana Stalder, general partner, Matrix Partners
“Abbott and Fisher have deep experiences with scale in both large and small enterprises. What’s unique about their approach to scalability is they start by focusing on the true foundation: people and process, without which true scalability cannot be built. Abbott and Fisher leverage their years of experience in a very accessible and practical approach to scalability that has been proven over time with their significant success.”
—Geoffrey Weber, vice president of internet operations/IT, Shutterfly
“If I wanted the best diagnoses for my health I would go to the Mayo Clinic. If I wanted the best diagnoses for my portfolio companies’ performance and scalability I would call Martin and Michael. They have recommended solutions to performance and scalability issues that have saved some of my companies from a total rewrite of the system.”
—Warren M. Weiss, general partner, Foundation Capital
“As a manager who worked under Michael Fisher and Marty Abbott during my time at PayPal/eBay, the opportunity to directly absorb the lessons and experiences presented in this book are invaluable to me now working at Facebook.”
—Yishan Wong, former CEO, Reddit, and former director of engineering, Facebook
“The Art of Scalability is by far the best book on scalability on the market today. The authors tackle the issues of scalability from processes, to people, to performance, to the highly technical. Whether your organization is just starting out and is defining processes as you go, or you are a mature organization, this is the ideal book to help you deal with scalability issues before, during, or after an incident. Having built several projects, programs, and companies from small to significant scale, I can honestly say I wish I had this book one, five, and ten years ago.”
—Jeremy Wright, chief executive officer, b5media, Inc.
“Only a handful of people in the world have experienced the kind of growth-related challenges that Fisher and Abbott have seen at eBay, PayPal, and the other companies they’ve helped to build. Fewer still have successfully overcome such challenges. The Art of Scalability provides a great summary of lessons learned while scaling two of the largest internet companies in the history of the space, and it’s a must-read for any executive at a hyper-growth company. What’s more, it’s well-written and highly entertaining. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Kevin Fortuna, partner, AKF Consulting
“Marty and Mike’s book covers all the bases, from understanding how to build a scalable organization to the processes and technology necessary to run a highly scalable architecture. They have packed in a ton of great practical solutions from real world experiences. This book is a must-read for anyone having difficulty managing the scale of a hyper-growth company or a startup hoping to achieve hyper growth.”
—Tom Keeven, partner, AKF Consulting
“The Art of Scalability is remarkable in its wealth of information and clarity; the authors provide novel, practical, and demystifying approaches to identify, predict, and resolve scalability problems before they surface. Marty Abbott and Michael Fisher use their rich experience and vision, providing unique and groundbreaking tools to assist small and hyper-growth organizations as they maneuver in today’s demanding technological environments.”
—Joseph M. Potenza, attorney, Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.
