The slides from my Strangeloop 2015 keynote Video is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlU1opuCXB0&feature=youtu.be&a

1. Hopelessness and Confidence in
Distributed Systems Design
Camille Fournier, Senior Thinker and
Raconteur
@skamille

2. The easiest
way to scale!
Hassle-free
scaling!
Easiest.
Database.
Ever.
Sync state in a cinch at a
distributed system scale.
Real-time
data
Real-time
Analytics
Real-time
Decisions

3. @aphyr

4. Distributed Systems: Ugly, Hard,
and Here to Stay

7. TRADE/OFF

8. TRADE/OFF

9. Embrace
Hopelessness
Gain
Confidence

11. A brief interlude: The goals of
Distributed Systems

12. SCALE

13. FAILURE TOLERANCE

15. A DISTRIBUTED CACHE FOR RISK
ANALYSIS

18. Scaling
/

19. "DSM
FIGURE"
by
Mehrnazzhian
-­‐
Own
work.
Licensed
under
CC
BY-­‐SA
4.0
via
Commons

20. Azul

22. SYNCHRONIZATION PERFORMANCE/

23. REWRITING MODIFICATION/

24. BEST practice: TESTING

25. GLOBAL SERVICE DISCOVERY USING
ZOOKEEPER

26. GLOBAL service discovery system

27. Failure Tolerance
Scaling
/

28. Naïve approach: Central Coordinator!
• Should all data be in one system? That would be
easy!
• But then…
DISTANCE PERFOMANCE/

29. • Speed of light
• Limitations of bandwidth and latency
DISTANCE PERFOMANCE/

30. Fallacies of Distributed Computing
Deutsch et al, Sun Microsystems
1. The network is reliable.
2. Latency is zero.
3. Bandwidth is infinite.
4. The network is secure.
5. Topology doesn't change.
6. There is one administrator.
7. Transport cost is zero.
8. The network is homogeneous.

31. Wide Area Networks Add
Complexity

32. FEATURES CONTROL/

33. BEST PRACTICE: Remember that
clients are part of your system

34. A second brief interlude…

36. MICROSERVICES AT RENT THE
RUNWAY

37. Evolution off of a monolith

38. Scaling (systems and humans)
and failure tolerance (??)
/

39. COMMON
UNDERSTANDING
THE PERFECT
TOOL FOR THE
JOB
/
@coda

40. RATE OF CHANGE THOROUGHNESS/

41. @adrianco

42. BEST PRACTICE: DATA DESIGN
(AGAIN!)

46. BEST PRACTICE: Data Design (again!)
• Silence comes via good design!
• You can always design poorly and have to
overcommunicate/coordinate

48. Distributed Systems: Ugly, Hard
and Here to Stay

50. COMBAT HOPE AND FEAR BY
UNDERSTANDING TRADE/OFFS

51. Hopeless and Confident

53. Thank you!
Special Thanks:
@randommood
@SeanTAllen
@chrisk5000
@HenryR
@aphyr
@caitie
@pbailis (aka
Littlefinger)
@giltene
@MikeM6174
@tsantero
?s: @skamille