Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

clear pragmatic best practices, methodologies and tools from two world-class practitioners. there are a lot of scalability books I have now read out there that are full of murky obtuse guidance - makes you wonder if the author is capable of conveying their expertise -- well abbot and fisher's book is very practical clearly written and chock full of frameworks process ideas and best practices that you will not only remember but you will also apply immediately and talk about with colleagues. this is one of the best books I have read in 3-5years. looking forward to their next one already. /josh @jdsboston

When scaling a business, it is all about people, processes, and tools. The authors present practical knowledge and tips. Their shared expertise is especially valuable "because they actually went through it" in helping the reader to gain useful lessons. It does not matter if you are starting a business for the first time or you are a person with extensive business experience,this book provides broad perspectives and critical insights. The book's completeness provides advice that will survive the test of time and is a "must have" for your business library.

Buy The Art of Scalability now. Buy it for yourself. Buy a copy for every manager, leader, director, and other technical senior person in your company.

This book describes and outlines the various people, process, and tools that are involved in scaling a business - whether it's a startup or a Fortune 500 behemoth. It's a great refresher for those of you with deep experience, and it's practically your bible for those in a startup environment (especially first timers). There isn't anything new or novel at what's presented here, but the completeness with which they approach the topic is outstanding. It's also from 2010, so it's very current.

When a web site is down, sometimes they'll call someone like me to figure out whether or not it's a denial-of-service attack (my money's on "no"). Then, when they realize their systems just can't handle their newfound popularity, they'll call a scalability expert, of which Marty and Fish are among the best of the best. If you're running a high-transaction-volume technology operation, particularly a website, this is stuff you need to know.

Many of us who worked for Tom, Marty, & Fish at eBay / PayPal during times of extreme and rapid growth learned a lot of this stuff from our own experience, but for me the book was a nice refresher course, and also covered some areas where I had less personal experience in sufficient depth that I was able to fill in some gaps.

When pressed for time, it's going to be great to be able to tell someone to go buy this book rather than try to explain all the things they're going to need to do to scale their technology organization and their website operation.

I selected this book because of its content about organizations and processes on technology based companies. I was hoping to find answers and solutions to some issues on technical projects, which didn't have good technical explanations and I must admit that many times, while reading this book, I was catching myself saying 'I wish I read this book earlier'. Great book. I recommend it to every software engineer who wants to know not only how to write some code, but also, how to interact with different teams across the whole organization.

I've always been an advocate of engineering - REAL engineering, not the haphazard practice of slapping things together that some people call engineering. Both forms depend on expertise, but that is where the similarities end. REAL engineering is based on methodical planning, accounting for how the many parts work together, disciplined execution, and a bit of obsession over failure and how to prevent it.

The Art of Scalability is the best book I've seen that captures not just the process and technology aspects of complex systems engineering, but also the ever-important people side of things. I've learned the right leaders, managers, staff, and organization structures are critical to success and often the root cause of failure.

When considering engineering skills, we focus too heavily on the technical abilities. These are certainly necessary, but successful personality traits go far beyond the trained skills. Natural born traits of cooperation and leadership (I'm in the "nature" camp more than "nurture" on this one) will also determine the outcome, probably even more than all others.

This book contains a lot of brilliant, pragmatic advice on the technical aspects of building reliable complex systems, but it is the human components that struck me as exceptional. Bravo guys!!

The Art of Scalability is an excellent book, written by some guys that know A LOT about scaling technology and organizations. These were the guys that scaled the infrastructure at eBay to support massive growth in the late 90s through the mid 2000s. The book focuses on people, process, and technology - ALL of which are critical to building a scalable company. Some folks write books purely focused on the technical aspect of scaling a business, which I think misses most of the picture. Yes there are certain technical design principles that are critical such as scale out, not up, implement caching, etc. The point is that if you hire and fire the right people and implement correct processes you have a much greater chance to implement the appropriate technology infrastructure to support a high-growth business. What really elevates this book from others is that it is not too abstract when talking about people and process. They provide detailed examples of what a post mortem meeting agenda should be and who should attend, what the role of the problem manager should be, etc.

ON the technical side of the equation, they spend a lot of time discussing design principles and architecture trade-offs. This includes when to split databases, separating applications or actions into 'swim lanes', etc. There is enough here to satisfy someone who is just looking for technical design and architecture as well.

If you are involved in building or supporting a scalable technology business this is a MUST read.