Scalable Internet Architectures [Paperback]

Theo Schlossnagle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2006 | ISBN-10: 067232699X | ISBN-13: 978-0672326998 | Edition: 1

As a developer, you are aware of the increasing concern amongst developers and site architects that websites be able to handle the vast number of visitors that flood the Internet on a daily basis. Scalable Internet Architecture addresses these concerns by teaching you both good and bad design methodologies for building new sites and how to scale existing websites to robust, high-availability websites. Primarily example-based, the book discusses major topics in web architectural design, presenting existing solutions and how they work. Technology budget tight? This book will work for you, too, as it introduces new and innovative concepts to solving traditionally expensive problems without a large technology budget. Using open source and proprietary examples, you will be engaged in best practice design methodologies for building new sites, as well as appropriately scaling both growing and shrinking sites. Website development help has arrived in the form of Scalable Internet Architecture.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Theo Schlossnagle is a principal at OmniTI Computer Consulting, where he provides

expert consulting services related to scalable internet architectures, database replication,

and email infrastructure. He is the creator of the Backhand Project and the Ecelerity

MTA, and spends most of his time solving the scalability problems that arise in

high-performance and highly distributed systems.

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (July 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067232699X
• ISBN-13: 978-0672326998
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Theo excels at developing elegant solutions to complicated problems as well as applying emerging technologies to solve everyday problems. As a hands-on executive of the company, he applies his experience and ingenuity to deliver innovative solutions to OmniTI clients.

A widely respected industry thought leader, Theo is the author of Scalable Internet Architectures (Sams) and has racked up more than one hundred speaking engagements at conferences worldwide. He was also the principal architect of the Momentum MTA, which is now the flagship product of OmniTI's sister company, Message Systems. Born from Theo's vision and technical wisdom, this innovation is transforming the email software spectrum.

Theo is a computer scientist in every respect. After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University in computer science with a focus on graphics and randomized algorithms in distributed systems, he went on to research resource allocation techniques in distributed systems during four years of post-graduate work. Theo is a member of the IEEE and a senior member of the ACM. He serves on the editoral board of the ACM's Queue Magazine and on the ACM professions board.

In addition to being an engineer, Theo is a serial entrepreneur having founded several successful dot com startups including Message Systems, Fontdeck, and Circonus.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I could not put this book down, January 31, 2008

By 

Michael Mee "mikemee" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scalable Internet Architectures (Paperback)

I picked up this book the other day on the recommendation of a friend, and I can't put it down. I like it because:

* its small (the number of pages 225, the print, the format, the thickness) , but its pithy. Every page has useful stuff.
* the real world experience (pain!) just oozes out of this book. So many times while reading I thought: "Oh yes ... hadn't thought of that."
* its not stridently opensource, nonetheless ends up most there anyway - but only after addressing commercial products and their role
* its business focused, not geek focused - while still being incredibly geeky

Most of all its just really well written and edited. I've caught a couple of minor typos, but nothing that interfered with reading or enjoying the book.

In a world of many great technical books, and insufficient time to read them, its hard to know which ones are worth the effort. This one definitely is.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The previous reviews don't really do it justice, November 23, 2006

By 

AngryCoder (Western United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scalable Internet Architectures (Paperback)

This is a fantastic book about scalable systems. If you want specifics, he presents opensource and cost effective solutions that can be implemented, but in my opinion that isn't the real value of the book.

The real value is the way he leads you through the thought processess that need to occur as you plan for releasing and using such a system. I really like some of the stuff that is emphasized and has caused me to realize that I had gaps in my knowledge. Gaps like better release planning, and actual cost of such a system, especially as it grows, or shrinks.

I've been extremely happy with this purchase.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A worthwhile read, a disappointing experience, March 31, 2009

By 

Thomas B. Brenneke - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scalable Internet Architectures (Paperback)

First and foremost, chapter 10 should be an Appendix. This was a horrible ending to what seemed to be a promising discussion on horizontal scaling for any system/network engineer or astute systems engineer.

Clear and concise, then incoherent and grammatically challenged, this book requires constant read backs leaving the reader with a sense of a diminished level of reading comprehension.

Fortunately there are some very good real world discussions on horizontal scaling, distributed caching, and eliminating single points of failure in your design.

Unfortunately the book was a long documentary on the author's Spread utility/program/solution and the last chapter is dedicated to writing a module for Spread. Completely out of band with regards to actual high performance clustered environments where the author's solution is likely scarce in popularity.

I do appreciate his coverage of logging. Despite my rating, I don't regret the first nine chapters.