Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Cheating Your Way to Webscale
Search
Sponsored
·
Ship Features Fearlessly
Turn features on and off without deploys. Used by thousands of Ruby developers.
→
Matt Robenolt
May 02, 2014
Programming
13
1.4k
Cheating Your Way to Webscale
Python Nordeste, May 2nd 2014
Matt Robenolt
May 02, 2014
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Matt Robenolt
See All by Matt Robenolt
Everything is broken and I don't know why.
mattrobenolt
0
44
I am bad at my job.
mattrobenolt
0
220
Everything is broken, and I don't know why. Python edition.
mattrobenolt
1
210
Everything is broken, and I don't know why. Python edition.
mattrobenolt
2
610
Varnish: How We Do It
mattrobenolt
1
230
Everything is broken, and I don't know why.
mattrobenolt
7
1.6k
HTTP for Great Good
mattrobenolt
85
200k
Caching is Hard: Varnish @ Disqus
mattrobenolt
52
2.1M
Developing & Deploying "Large" Scale Web Applications
mattrobenolt
25
1.3k
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
Claude Code、ちょっとした工夫で開発体験が変わる
tigertora7571
0
180
FOSDEM 2026: STUNMESH-go: Building P2P WireGuard Mesh Without Self-Hosted Infrastructure
tjjh89017
0
190
20260127_試行錯誤の結晶を1冊に。著者が解説 先輩データサイエンティストからの指南書 / author's_commentary_ds_instructions_guide
nash_efp
1
1.1k
Python’s True Superpower
hynek
0
190
今から始めるClaude Code超入門
448jp
8
9.5k
iOSアプリでフロントエンドと仲良くする
ryunakayama
0
120
AIコーディングの理想と現実 2026 | AI Coding: Expectations vs. Reality 2026
tomohisa
0
580
izumin5210のプロポーザルのネタ探し #tskaigi_msup
izumin5210
1
450
PostgreSQL を使った快適な go test 環境を求めて
otakakot
0
310
「やめとこ」がなくなった — 1月にZennを始めて22本書いた AI共創開発のリアル
atani14
0
190
2026/02/04 AIキャラクター人格の実装論 口 調の模倣から、コンテキスト制御による 『思想』と『行動』の創発へ
sr2mg4
0
610
AIによる高速開発をどう制御するか? ガードレール設置で開発速度と品質を両立させたチームの事例
tonkotsuboy_com
7
2.5k
Featured
See All Featured
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
inesmontani
PRO
3
3.1k
Why Our Code Smells
bkeepers
PRO
340
58k
世界の人気アプリ100個を分析して見えたペイウォール設計の心得
akihiro_kokubo
PRO
67
37k
Become a Pro
speakerdeck
PRO
31
5.8k
Agile that works and the tools we love
rasmusluckow
331
21k
Deep Space Network (abreviated)
tonyrice
0
77
XXLCSS - How to scale CSS and keep your sanity
sugarenia
249
1.3M
How to Create Impact in a Changing Tech Landscape [PerfNow 2023]
tammyeverts
55
3.3k
Color Theory Basics | Prateek | Gurzu
gurzu
0
210
Art, The Web, and Tiny UX
lynnandtonic
304
21k
Designing for Performance
lara
611
70k
Chrome DevTools: State of the Union 2024 - Debugging React & Beyond
addyosmani
10
1.1k
Transcript
Python Nordeste May 2nd 2014 Matt Robenolt Cheating Your Way
to #webscale
Hello < me irl
Lead Operations Engineer
Core Contributor
So what is #webscale?
10 million requests per second 4ms mean response time asynchronous
io mongodb
10 million requests per second 4ms mean response time asynchronous
io mongodb NOPE
Disqus only does 150 req/s per web server. * we
also write some bad code
150 12,960,000 388,800,000 per second per day per month real
world #webscale
Scale is about hiding the fact that your application is
actually really slow.
If your application feels fast, then it’s probably good enough.
Users hate waiting for shit.
So how do we do it?
Cheating 101
When a user asks for new data, let’s give them
old data instead.
When a user asks for new data, let’s give them
old data instead. Caching
When telling us to do something, let’s say we did
and maybe do it later.
When telling us to do something, let’s say we did
and maybe do it later. Queueing
Rule #1 Don’t get caught.
Rule #2 Don’t get caught.
Rule #3 Don’t get caught.
HTTP Caching
Introducing
tl;dr Varnish sits between your application and your users Internet
Let’s talk about HTTP. Hypertext Transport Protocol
$ curl -v disqus.com
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 Request
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 Method
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 Path
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 Version
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 Headers
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 Response
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 Status
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 Headers
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 For 300 seconds, all users will get the same response without talking to our application.
> GET / HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 > Host: disqus.com
> Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Server: nginx < Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:38:37 GMT < Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 10453 < Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:32:14 GMT < Vary: Accept-Encoding < Expires: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:43:36 GMT < Cache-Control: public, max-age=300 With power comes great responsibility.
GET / INTERNET Varnish Web servers
GET / INTERNET Varnish Web servers CACHED! “Cache-Control: max-age=300”
GET / INTERNET Varnish Web servers
GET / INTERNET Varnish Web servers CACHED!
BUT WAIT… THERE’S MORE
COLLAPSING REQUEST
GET / INTERNET Varnish Web servers
INTERNET Varnish Web servers GET /
INTERNET Varnish Web servers GET / If multiple users request
the same object, Varnish makes one fetch and returns to all users.
Queueing
Do as little work as possible, and return a promise
that this work will be done.
INTERNET Web servers Task workers Slow/Fast Data store Queue POST
/foo
INTERNET Web servers Task workers Slow/Fast Data store Queue POST
/foo
INTERNET Web servers Task workers Slow/Fast Data store Queue POST
/foo Workers can rate limit, debounce, increment counters, generate a fast materialized view, etc.
INTERNET Web servers Task workers Slow/Fast Data store Queue POST
/foo Make sure your tasks finish before a user tries to read the data back.
Final Thoughts
Understand your application. Where can you cheat without disrupting user
experience? Is seeing a few seconds old data going to damage a product?
Cheating should only enhance user experience.
Cheat any way you can, just don’t get caught.
Django & Varnish & RabbitMQ & Celery & PostgreSQL &
Redis & Cassandra & Riak Thanks
Questions? I have answers. ^ github.com/mattrobenolt @mattrobenolt some