Comments on: Dear WTF Chuck – Twitter has $5M, why can’t they hire a Sys Admin? http://www.stevepoland.com/dear-wtf-chuck-twitter-has-5m-why-cant-they-hire-a-sys-admin/ Serial entrepreneur and former early @TechCrunch Writer. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:10:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: matt m http://www.stevepoland.com/dear-wtf-chuck-twitter-has-5m-why-cant-they-hire-a-sys-admin/comment-page-1/#comment-1226 matt m Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:09:47 +0000 http://stevepoland.com/dear-wtf-chuck-twitter-has-5m-why-cant-they-hire-a-sys-admin/#comment-1226 I am pretty sure it doesn't have much to do with Ruby on Rails. It scales really well. With a share-nothing approach, it is horizontally scalable. Most of their problems have been with scaling their push architecture and with MySQL. They really need a different data architecture and more memory on their hardware to support caching. Basic RDBMS has become a limiting constraint on many varieties of distributed architecture, and they didn't seem to have a good grasp of which scheme they were going to use early on. I am pretty sure it doesn’t have much to do with Ruby on Rails. It scales really well. With a share-nothing approach, it is horizontally scalable.

Most of their problems have been with scaling their push architecture and with MySQL. They really need a different data architecture and more memory on their hardware to support caching. Basic RDBMS has become a limiting constraint on many varieties of distributed architecture, and they didn’t seem to have a good grasp of which scheme they were going to use early on.

]]> By: Tomas http://www.stevepoland.com/dear-wtf-chuck-twitter-has-5m-why-cant-they-hire-a-sys-admin/comment-page-1/#comment-1225 Tomas Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:28:33 +0000 http://stevepoland.com/dear-wtf-chuck-twitter-has-5m-why-cant-they-hire-a-sys-admin/#comment-1225 I'm pretty sure that hardware is not the issue here... its cheap and easy to manage. I'm willing to bet it has to do with Ruby on Rails. Great way to launch something real quick. But not that great to scale... Not easy to re-architect to scale while still growing and addressing issues that goes with it. I'm sure they are working their asses of at Twitter HQ to get it in to shape. Hiring bodies to trow at the problem is just not that easy... specially with talent being very sparse right now to say the least. Something charming about Twitter, and in ways the downtime adds to the charm in an odd way. :) I’m pretty sure that hardware is not the issue here… its cheap and easy to manage.

I’m willing to bet it has to do with Ruby on Rails. Great way to launch something real quick. But not that great to scale…

Not easy to re-architect to scale while still growing and addressing issues that goes with it. I’m sure they are working their asses of at Twitter HQ to get it in to shape.

Hiring bodies to trow at the problem is just not that easy… specially with talent being very sparse right now to say the least.

Something charming about Twitter, and in ways the downtime adds to the charm in an odd way. :)

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