Paper
The multi-cores are coming and software designed for fewer cores usually doesn't work on more cores without substantial redesign. For a taste of the issues take a look at No new global mutexes! (and how to make the thread/connection pool work), which shows some of the difficulties
Oracle
The upshot of the paper is Oracle rules and MySQL sucks for sharding. Which is technically probable, if you don't throw in minor points like cost and ease of use. The points where they think Oracle wins: online schema changes, more robust replication, higher availability, better corruption handling,
Paper
How do we debug and profile a cloud full of processors and threads? It's a problem more will be seeing as we code big scary programs that run on even bigger scarier clouds. Logging gets you far, but sometimes finding the root cause of problem requires delving deep
Paper
Update: MapReduce and PageRank Notes from Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau's Fall 2008 class . Collects interesting facts about MapReduce and PageRank. For example, the history of the solution to searching for the term "flu" is traced through multiple generations of technology. With Google entering the cloud space with Google
Paper
Under the philosophy that the best method to analyse spam is to become a spammer, this absolutely fascinating paper recounts how a team of UC Berkely researchers went under cover to infiltrate a spam network. Part CSI, part Mission Impossible, and part MacGyver, the team hijacked the botnet so that
Paper
An excellent article by Bryan Cantrill and Jeff Bonwick on how to write multi-threaded code. With more processors and no magic bullet solution for how to use them, knowing how to write multiprocessor code that doesn't screw up your system is still a valuable skill. Some topics: Know
Paper
Yahoo has developed a new language called Pig Latin that fit in a sweet spot between high-level declarative querying in the spirit of SQL, and low-level, procedural programming `a la map-reduce and combines best of both worlds. The accompanying system, Pig, is fully implemented, and compiles Pig Latin into physical
Paper
Abstract—This paper presents the architecture and characteristics of a memory database intended to be used as a cache engine for web applications. Primary goals of this database are speed and efficiency while running on SMP systems with several CPU cores (four and more). A secondary goal is the support
Paper
Although the problem of scaling human genome sequencing is not exactly about building bigger, faster and more reliable websites it is most interesting in terms of scalability. The paper describes a new technology by the startup company Complete Genomics to sequence the full human genome for the fraction of the
Paper
I have introduced pattern languages in my earlier post on The Pattern Bible for Distributed Computing. Achieving highest possible scalability is a complex combination of many factors. This PLoP 2007 paper presents a pattern language that can be used to make a system highly scalable. The Scalability Pattern Language introduced
Paper
How do we scale datacenters? Should we build a few mammoth million machine datacenters or many smaller micro datacenters? Intuitively we usually go with a bigger is better economies of scale type argument, but it may not be so. What works for Walmart may not work for White Box World.
Paper
I found the discussion of the available bandwidth of tree vs higher dimensional virtual networks topologies quite, to quote Spock, fascinating: A mathematical analysis by Ritter (2002) (one of the original developers of Napster) presented a detailed numerical argument demonstrating that the Gnutella network could not scale to the capacity