Paper: Coordination Avoidance in Distributed Databases By Peter Bailis

Peter Bailis has released the work of a lifetime, his dissertion is now available online: Coordination Avoidance in Distributed Databases.

The topic Peter is addressing is summed up nicely by his thesis statement: 

Many semantic requirements of database-backed applications can be efficiently enforced without coordination, thus improving scalability, latency, and availability.

I'd like to say I've read the entire dissertation and can offer cogent insightful analysis, but that would be a lie. Though I have watched several of Peter's videos (see Related Articles). He's doing important and interesting work, that as much University research has done, may change the future of what everyone is doing.

From the introduction:

The rise of Internet-scale geo-replicated services has led to upheaval in the design of modern data management systems. Given the availability, latency, and throughput penalties associated with classic mechanisms such as serializable transactions, a broad class of systems (e.g., “NoSQL”) has sought weaker alternatives that reduce the use of expensive coordination during system operation, often at the cost of application integrity. When can we safely forego the cost of this expensive coordination, and when must we pay the price?

In this thesis, we investigate the potential for coordination avoidance—the Continue reading

How Shopify Scales to Handle Flash Sales from Kanye West and the Superbowl

This is a guest repost by Christophe Limpalair, creator of Scale Your Code.

In this article, we take a look at methods used by Shopify to make their platform resilient. Not only is this interesting to read about, but it can also be practical and help you with your own applications.

Shopify's Scaling Challenges

Shopify, an ecommerce solution, handles about 300 million unique visitors a month, but as you'll see, these 300M people don't show up in an evenly distributed fashion.

One of their biggest challenge is what they call "flash sales". These flash sales are when tremendously popular stores sell something at a specific time.

For example, Kanye West might sell new shoes. Combined with Kim Kardashian, they have a following of 50 million people on Twitter alone.

They also have customers who advertise on the Superbowl. Because of this, they have no idea how much traffic to expect. It could be 200,000 people showing up at 3:00 for a special sale that ends within a few hours.

How does Shopify scale to these sudden increases in traffic? Even if they can't scale that well for a particular sale, how can they make sure it doesn't affect Continue reading

Vote: What’s the better strategy – HP splitting up or Dell buying EMC?

HP is splitting up while Dell and EMC are coming together. Which move will pan out better?+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: HP is now two companies: How did we get here? +The two companies are taking dramatically different paths to set themselves up to compete in the fast-moving technology landscape of today.HP is dividing itself into two businesses starting today; HP Inc. will sell PCs and printers while Hewlett Packard Enterprise will focus on infrastructure sales. Dell, meanwhile, has engineered a $67 billion buyout of EMC, and by extension VMware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Baidu Android app component puts 100 million devices at risk

A software development kit created by Chinese Internet services company Baidu and used by thousands of Android applications contains a feature that gives attackers backdoor-like access to users' devices.The SDK is called Moplus and while it's not open to the public, it was integrated in more than 14,000 apps, of which only around 4,000 were created by Baidu, security researchers from Trend Micro said in a blog post Sunday.The company estimates that the affected apps are used by over 100 million users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IEEE plugs into Smart Cities movement

Guadalajara, Mexico -- Smart Cities are the best response to the global urban future, according to the IEEE, which bills itself as “the world's largest professional association for the advancement of technology.”Gilles Betis, IEEE Smart City Initiative Chair, said the population in cities will grow from 3.5 billion today to 7.2 billion by 2050.“Doubling the number of people in cities is not an adjustment, this is a transition,” he said.Betis made the remarks in his keynote speech at the first IEEE Smart Cities Conference last week in Guadalajara, “the Silicon Valley of Mexico.”The city was the first of five “core cities” the association is focusing on for research grants and development projects.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: The Art of the Humble Inquiry

humble-inquiryHumble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling
Edgar H Schein

Edgar Schein says we have a cultural issue. We like to tell people what we think, rather than asking them what they’re trying to tell us. Overall, especially in the world of information technology, I tend to agree. To counter this problem, he suggests that we perfect the art of the humble inquiry — redirecting our thinking from the immediate solution that comes to mind, or even from the question that was asked, and trying to get to the what the person we’re talking to is actually asking.

He gives numerous examples throughout the book; perhaps my favorite is of the person who asked stopped their car while he was doing yard work to ask directions to a particular street. Rather than answering, he asked where they were trying to get to. They were, in fact, off course for their original plan, but he directed them down a different path that got them there faster than if they’d turned around and found their way back to that original path. This is a perfect example of asking returning a specific question with a larger question — an authentic Continue reading

New products of the week 11.02.2015

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.FullContactPricing: FullContact is free to download and use. FullContact Premium is available by subscription — two subscription options:  FullContact Premium monthly for $9.99; FullContact Premium annually for $99.99To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 11.02.2015

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.FullContactPricing: FullContact is free to download and use. FullContact Premium is available by subscription — two subscription options:  FullContact Premium monthly for $9.99; FullContact Premium annually for $99.99To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

LightCyber game lets IT pros become the attacker

It’s only a game, but LightCyber hopes its Cyber Attack Training System (CATS) helps IT folks think like attackers in order to better defend their networks.The online game sets players up with stolen login credentials for a networked machine and turns them loose with Metasploit tools. The idea is for security pros to discover and compromise other devices on the network with the goal of capturing a specific file.Public access to CATS is available for 12 hours only on Nov. 10 and is open to anyone who can provide a legitimate corporate email address. The first 100 players who successfully find the target file win a black hoodie.The game will give network security pros who spend their days searching logs for indicators of compromise the chance to better understand the mindset of attackers so they are better prepared to search for their footprints.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Stretched Firewalls across Layer-3 DCI? Will the Madness Ever Stop?

I got this question from one of my readers (and based on these comments he’s not the only one facing this challenge):

I was wondering if you can do a blog post on Cisco's new ASA 5585-X clustering. My company recently purchased a few of these with the intent to run their cross data center active/active firewalls but found out we cannot do this without OTV or a layer 2 DCI.

A while ago I expressed my opinion about these ideas, but it seems some people still don’t get it. However, a picture is worth a thousand words, so maybe this will work:

Read more ...

IDG Contributor Network: 3 ways you can sell your own personal data

It's not just the lowlifes and thieves making money from stolen data; you might be able to make a few bucks selling your own personal data, too.Now, I'm not suggesting you place an ad for your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) on Craigslist, but there are actually outlets that will let you, or plan to let you, sell some of your data. It's used for marketing.Personal data marketplace One such company is the U.S.-based Datacoup, which says it lets you connect your apps and services via APIs in order to sell data. Datacoup pitches itself as the world's first personal data marketplace.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Robots invade the real world

From C-3PO to the Terminator to Star Trek’s Data, robots have entertained us on the big screen for years. But, unlike our cinematic cyborg heroes, the real thing has been something of a disappointment because the technology has failed to live up to the Hollywood hype. But this is not true anymore. Robots have arrived.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

10 real-world robots

Robots have arrivedFrom C-3PO to the Terminator to Star Trek’s Data, robots have entertained us on the big screen for years. But, unlike our cinematic cyborg heroes, the real thing has been something of a disappointment because the technology has failed to live up to the Hollywood hype. But this is not true anymore. Robots have arrived. Here are examples of robots being deployed in the real world. (Read the full story.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CISA won’t do much to turn threat intelligence into action

With the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) the feds are trying to make it more attractive to share threat intelligence, but it won’t do much to help businesses deal with the high cost of sorting through what can be an overwhelming flow of possible security incidents and find which ones need to be checked out.And deciding what data to share, what threat intelligence feeds to subscribe to and what tools are needed to turn potentially valuable information into action takes sizeable resources, experts say.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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