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The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise
 
 
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The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise [Paperback]

Martin L. Abbott (Author), Michael T. Fisher (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)

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Book Description

0137030428 978-0137030422 December 16, 2009 1
A Comprehensive, Proven Approach to IT Scalability from Two Veteran Software, Technology, and Business Executives

 

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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Editorial Reviews

Review

“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, VP 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, 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, CEO, 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.

About the Author

Martin L. Abbott and Michael T. Fisher are founding partners of AKF Partners, where they advise companies on scaling technology platforms, organizations, leadership, and processes. Previously, Marty was COO of the advertising technology startup Quigo, where he was responsible for product strategy and management, technology, and client services. Marty also spent nearly six years at eBay, most recently as SVP of Technology and CTO. Mike spent two years as CTO of Quigo, serving as President during the transition following its acquisition by AOL. Prior to that, Mike led a development organization of more than two-hundred engineers as Paypal’s VP of Engineering and Architecture.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 592 pages
  • Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (December 16, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0137030428
  • ISBN-13: 978-0137030422
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #358,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

18 Reviews
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 (14)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
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1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good points, but sub-optimal approach, January 17, 2010
By 
Aban (Austin, TX, USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise (Paperback)
This book is good from an HR / management perspective on scalability. I wish the authors had been more technical (and by that I mean less "qualitative" and more statistical) in their approach (even though I agree there can be no "one size fits all" solution to this problem). There are instances in the book where the authors mention that while a team of 1 can produce 1 unit of work, a team of 2 can produce only 1.99 units of work, an assertion which makes about as much sense in the real world as a unicorn. I am sorry if I am coming across as being very negative, because there are some very strong points in this book which are worth considering. However, my grievance (as an engineer) is that it is not for a techie who wants to create a scalable company (aka Brinn/Page or Zuckerburg), but instead is for a management grad who wants to manage a tech company. I wish there were more books available for the former, than the latter.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Technical scalability is only a part of organizational scalability -- know all about it!, January 10, 2010
By 
Soumen Sarkar (Cupertino, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise (Paperback)
Imagine a highly scalable architecture of a successful ecommerce company.
If you visualize distributed data centers, content distribution networks,
Brewers CAP theorem etc you have only half of the scalability story.
This book tells the whole story of organizational scalability of which
technical scalability is only a part. Consider some examples like how do
you perform reliable change management of a vast infrastructure to
maintain business continuity or what should be the model for unambiguous
responsibility-accountibility in a scalable organization.

I have worked in a critical scalability project of PayPal.com and can vouch
that this book is a gem.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Read this before you need it, January 13, 2010
By 
Martin R. Cagan "martyc55" (Saratoga, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise (Paperback)
This is not your typical tech book. It's an unusual mix of lessons learned on both deep technical issues, as well as broad business and people management topics.

One of the most difficult challenges in the Internet era is "surviving success." You may think this is a good problem to have, but that's little consolation if your company goes under because you couldn't scale your business or your software. If you've come up with something promising, and your business is off to a good start, then I can only hope you don't read this too late.

These guys have "been there and done that" at some of the most successful companies of our time, and they are giving back by sharing what they've learned. Very few people on the planet have the experience they do, and this is one of the most important, practical, actionable and relevant books for those of us in the business of running commercial Internet-based businesses.
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