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

50 Powerful, Easy-to-Use Rules for Supporting Hypergrowth in Any Environment

Scalability Rules is the easy-to-use scalability primer and reference for every architect, developer, web professional, and manager. Authors Martin L. Abbott and Michael T. Fisher have helped scale more than 200 hypergrowth Internet sites through their consulting practice. Now, drawing on their unsurpassed experience, they present 50 clear, proven scalability rules—and practical guidance for applying them.

Abbott and Fisher transform scalability from a “black art” to a set of realistic, technology-agnostic best practices for supporting hypergrowth in nearly any environment, including both frontend and backend systems.

For architects, they offer powerful new insights for creating and evaluating designs. For developers, they share specific techniques for handling everything from databases to state. For managers, they provide invaluable help in goal-setting, decision-making, and interacting with technical teams. Whatever your role, you’ll find practical risk/benefit guidance for setting priorities—and getting maximum “bang for the buck.”

•  Simplifying architectures and avoiding “over-engineering”

•  Scaling via cloning, replication, separating functionality, and splitting data sets

•  Scaling out, not up

•  Getting more out of databases without compromising scalability

•  Avoiding unnecessary redirects and redundant double-checking

•  Using caches and content delivery networks more aggressively, without introducing unacceptable complexity

•  Designing for fault tolerance, graceful failure, and easy rollback

•  Striving for statelessness when you can; efficiently handling state when you must

•  Effectively utilizing asynchronous communication

•  Learning quickly from mistakes, and much more

A bold demon hunter risks becoming her own worst enemy while tracking down her sinister prey…A haunted barbarian returns to his shattered homeland to face a harrowing past…A lone monk scours evil from an ancient forest where the line between friend and foe has vanished…A gifted but impetuous wizard finds out that great knowledge and power come with a price…A proud young witch doctor makes a chilling discovery that shakes his faith to its core…A desperate playwright embarks down a dark path of madness and depravity in his quest for fame…An unscrupulous wagon driver learns that his sole passenger is harboring a terrifying secret…

Yet, in the aftermath of Mengsk's treachery, Raynor is plagued by strange visions of Char -- a deadly, volcanic world haunted by horrifying alien creatures. As the nightmares grow in intensity, Raynor begins to suspect that they may not be figments of his imagination -- but a desperate form of telepathic contact. Convinced that the woman he loves is still alive, Raynor launches a hasty mission to rescue Kerrigan from Char. But deep beneath the planet's smoldering surface, Raynor finds a strange chrysalis...and is forced to watch in horror as a terrible, all-too-familiar entity rises from it.

Before him stands a creature of depthless malice and vengeance...

Sarah Kerrigan: the Zerg Queen of Blades.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT

But now Krasus -- known to some as the red dragon Korialstrasz -- senses the malice of Grim Batol rising once more to threaten those he holds dear. Determined this time to confront this evil by himself, he is unaware of the quests that will draw others to Grim Batol and reveal the monstrous truth that could not only herald their deaths, but usher in a terrible new age of darkness and destruction.

Something moved in the shadows to his right.

He whirled, holding the light up. For a moment it appeared as if the shadows themselves were alive, bunching and swirling like ink in water. At the same time, a voice like the distant moan of wind drifted through the empty room and raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Deckaaaaarrdddd Caiiinnnn . . .”

Cain felt a strange doubling, a memory of a night many years before, when he was just a boy. A whispered voice calling to him, just like this. He backed away, fumbling in his rucksack with one hand, holding the lighted staff with the other against the darkness. Already he was doubting himself: had it just been the wind moving through the broken remains of the building above him, a trick his mind had played after so long in the sun?

The voice came again, a sound like bones scraping together in the grave.

“Your ghosts are many, old man, and they are active.”

A grating of metal over rock seemed to come from everywhere at once. Once again a pool of black smoke thickened and then dissipated, only to reassemble somewhere else: a shape carrying a sword, the form of a man, but with eyes that glowed red with the fires of hell.

Cain knew what this was, yanked from the depths of his own mind and used against him: the image of the Dark Wanderer himself, conjured up to weaken his resolve. The smoke-shape swirled and shifted, reforming into two indistinct human shapes, one taller and clearly female, one small and delicate. Shock raced through Cain’s limbs as an older, familiar memory fought to surface. He closed his eyes against the darkness as the yawning pit of despair opened within him, threatening to pull him in. You must not listen.

***

Deckard Cain is the last of the Horadrim, the sole surviving member of a mysterious and legendary order. Assembled by the archangel Tyrael, the Horadrim were charged with the sacred duty of seeking out and vanquishing the three Prime Evils: Diablo (the Lord of Terror), Mephisto (the Lord of Hatred), and Baal (the Lord of Destruction). But that was many years ago. As the decades passed, the Horadrim’s strength diminished, and they fell into obscurity. Now all of their collected history, tactics, and wisdom lie within the aged hands of one man. A man who is growing concerned.

Dark whisperings have begun to fill the air, tales of ancient evil stirring, rumblings of a demonic invasion set to tear the land apart.

Amid the mounting dread, Deckard Cain uncovers startling new information that could bring about the salvation—or ruin—of the mortal world: other remnants of the Horadrim still exist. He must unravel where they have been and why they are hiding from one of their own.

As Cain searches for the lost members of his order, he is thrust into an alliance with an unlikely ally: Leah, an eight-year-old girl feared by many to carry a diabolical curse. What is her secret? How is it tied to the prophesied End of Days? And if there are other living Horadrim, will they be able to stand against oblivion? These are the questions Deckard Cain must answer . . .