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

Description

• Copyright 2009
• Dimensions: 7 X 9-1/4
• Pages: 592
• Edition: 1st

• Rough Cuts
• ISBN-10: 0-13-703141-6
• ISBN-13: 978-0-13-703141-2

This is a working draft of a pre-release book. It is available before the published date as part of the Rough Cuts service.

A Comprehensive, Proven Approach to IT Scalability from Two Veteran Software, Technology, and Business Executives

In The Art of Scalability, AKF Partners cofounders Martin L. Abbott and Michael T. Fisher cover everything IT and business leaders must know to build technology infrastructures that can scale smoothly to meet any business requirement. Drawing on their unparalleled experience managing some of the world’s highest-transaction-volume Web sites, the authors provide detailed models and best-practice approaches available in no other book.

Unlike previous books on scalability, The Art of Scalability doesn’t limit its coverage to technology. Writing for both technical and nontechnical decision-makers, this book covers everything that impacts scalability, including architecture, processes, people, and organizations.

Throughout, the authors address a broad spectrum of real-world challenges, from performance testing to IT governance. Using their tools and guidance, organizations can systematically overcome obstacles to scalability and achieve unprecedented levels of technical and business performance.

Coverage includes

• Staffing the scalable organization: essential organizational, management, and leadership skills for technical leaders
• Building processes for scale: process lessons from hyper-growth companies, from technical issue resolution to crisis management
• Making better “build versus buy” decisions
• Architecting scalable solutions: powerful proprietary models for identifying scalability needs and choosing the best approaches to meet them
• Optimizing performance through caching, application and database splitting, and asynchronous design
• Scalability techniques for emerging technologies, including clouds and grids
• Planning for rapid data growth and new data centers
• Evolving monitoring strategies to tightly align with customer requirements

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Sample Content

Table of Contents

Foreword xxi

Acknowledgments xxiii

About the Authors xxv

Introduction 1

Part I: Staffing a Scalable Organization 7

Chapter 1: The Impact of People and Leadership on Scalability 9

Introducing AllScale 9

Why People 10

Why Organizations 11

Why Management and Leadership 17

Conclusion 20

Chapter 2: Roles for the Scalable Technology Organization 21

The Effects of Failure 22

Defining Roles 23

Executive Responsibilities 25

Organizational Responsibilities 29

Individual Contributor Responsibilities and Characteristics 32

An Organizational Example 35

A Tool for Defining Responsibilities 37

Conclusion 41

Chapter 3: Designing Organizations 43

Organizational Influences That Affect Scalability 43

Team Size 46

Organizational Structure 55

Conclusion 60

Chapter 4: Leadership 101 63

What Is Leadership? 64

Leadership–A Conceptual Model 66

Taking Stock of Who You Are 67

Leading from the Front 69

Checking Your Ego at the Door 71

Mission First, People Always 72

Making Timely, Sound, and Morally Correct Decisions 73

Empowering Teams and Scalability 74

Alignment with Shareholder Value 74

Vision 75

Mission 78

Goals 79

Putting Vision, Mission, and Goals Together 81

The Causal Roadmap to Success 84

Conclusion 86

Chapter 5: Management 101 89

What Is Management? 90

Project and Task Management 91

Building Teams–A Sports Analogy 93

Upgrading Teams–A Garden Analogy 94

Measurement, Metrics, and Goal Evaluation 98

The Goal Tree 101

Paving the Path for Success 102

Conclusion 103

Chapter 6: Making the Business Case 105

Understanding the Experiential Chasm 105

Defeating the Corporate Mindset 109

The Business Case for Scale 114

Conclusion 117

Part II: Building Processes for Scale 119

Chapter 7: Understanding Why Processes Are Critical to Scale 121

The Purpose of Process 122

Right Time, Right Process 125

When Good Processes Go Bad 130

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