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

The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise [Kindle Edition]

Michael T. Fisher , Martin L. Abbott
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Review

“This book is much more than you may think it is. Scale is not just about designing Web sites that don’t crash when lots of users show up. It is about designing your company so that it doesn’t crash when your business needs to grow. These guys have been there on the front lines of some of the most successful Internet companies of our time, and they share the good, the bad, and the ugly about how to not just survive, but thrive.”

–Marty Cagan, Founder, Silicon Valley Product Group


“A must read for anyone building a Web service for the mass market.”

–Dana Stalder, General Partner, Matrix Partners



“Abbott and Fisher have deep experiences with scale in both large and small enterprises. What’s unique about their approach to scalability is they start by focusing on the true foundation: people and process, without which true scalability cannot be built. Abbott and Fisher leverage their years of experience in a very accessible and practical approach to scalability that has been proven over time with their significant success.”

–Geoffrey Weber, VP of Internet Operations/IT, Shutterfly


“If I wanted the best diagnoses for my health I would go to the Mayo Clinic. If I wanted the best diagnoses for my portfolio companies’ performance and scalability I would call Martin and Michael. They have recommended solutions to performance and scalability issues that have saved some of my companies from a total rewrite of the system.”

–Warren M. Weiss, General Partner, Foundation Capital


“As a manager who worked under Michael Fisher and Marty Abbott during my time at PayPal/eBay, the opportunity to directly absorb the lessons and experiences presented in this book are invaluable to me now working at Facebook.”

–Yishan Wong, Director of Engineering, Facebook


 

"The Art of Scalability is by far the best book on scalability on the market today. The authors tackle the issues of scalability from processes, to people, to performance, to the highly technical. Whether your organization is just starting out and is defining processes as you go, or you are a mature organization, this is the ideal book to help you deal with scalability issues before, during, or after an incident. Having built several projects, programs, and companies from small to significant scale, I can honestly say I wish I had this book one, five, and ten years ago.”

–Jeremy Wright, CEO, b5media, Inc.


“Only a handful of people in the world have experienced the kind of growth-related challenges that Fisher and Abbott have seen at eBay, PayPal, and the other companies they’ve helped to build. Fewer still have successfully overcome such challenges. The Art of Scalability provides a great summary of lessons learned while scaling two of the largest internet companies in the history of the space, and it’s a must-read for any executive at a hyper-growth company. What’s more, it’s well-written and highly entertaining. I couldn’t put it down.”

–Kevin Fortuna, Partner, AKF Consulting


“Marty and Mike’s book covers all the bases, from understanding how to build a scalable organization to the processes and technology necessary to run a highly scalable architecture. They have packed in a ton of great practical solutions from real world experiences. This book is a must-read for anyone having difficulty managing the scale of a hyper-growth company or a startup hoping to achieve hyper growth.”

–Tom Keeven, Partner, AKF Consulting


The Art of Scalability is remarkable in its wealth of information and clarity; the authors provide novel, practical, and demystifying approaches to identify, predict, and resolve scalability problems before they surface. Marty Abbott and Michael Fisher use their rich experience and vision, providing unique and groundbreaking tools to assist small and hyper-growth organizations as they maneuver in today’s demanding technological environments.”

–Joseph M. Potenza, Attorney, Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.

Review

"This book is much more than you may think it is. Scale is not just about designing Web sites that don't crash when lots of users show up. It is about designing your company so that it doesn't crash when your business needs to grow. These guys have been there on the front lines of some of the most successful Internet companies of our time, and they share the good, the bad, and the ugly about how to not just survive, but thrive." --Marty Cagan, Founder, Silicon Valley Product Group "A must read for anyone building a Web service for the mass market." --Dana Stalder, General Partner, Matrix Partners "Abbott and Fisher have deep experiences with scale in both large and small enterprises. What's unique about their approach to scalability is they start by focusing on the true foundation: people and process, without which true scalability cannot be built. Abbott and Fisher leverage their years of experience in a very accessible and practical approach to scalability that has been proven over time with their significant success." --Geoffrey Weber, VP of Internet Operations/IT, Shutterfly "If I wanted the best diagnoses for my health I would go to the Mayo Clinic. If I wanted the best diagnoses for my portfolio companies' performance and scalability I would call Martin and Michael. They have recommended solutions to performance and scalability issues that have saved some of my companies from a total rewrite of the system." --Warren M. Weiss, General Partner, Foundation Capital "As a manager who worked under Michael Fisher and Marty Abbott during my time at PayPal/eBay, the opportunity to directly absorb the lessons and experiences presented in this book are invaluable to me now working at Facebook." --Yishan Wong, Director of Engineering, Facebook "The Art of Scalability is by far the best book on scalability on the market today. The authors tackle the issues of scalability from processes, to people, to performance, to the highly technical. Whether your organization is just starting out and is defining processes as you go, or you are a mature organization, this is the ideal book to help you deal with scalability issues before, during, or after an incident. Having built several projects, programs, and companies from small to significant scale, I can honestly say I wish I had this book one, five, and ten years ago." --Jeremy Wright, CEO, b5media, Inc. "Only a handful of people in the world have experienced the kind of growth-related challenges that Fisher and Abbott have seen at eBay, PayPal, and the other companies they've helped to build. Fewer still have successfully overcome such challenges. The Art of Scalability provides a great summary of lessons learned while scaling two of the largest internet companies in the history of the space, and it's a must-read for any executive at a hyper-growth company. What's more, it's well-written and highly entertaining. I couldn't put it down." --Kevin Fortuna, Partner, AKF Consulting "Marty and Mike's book covers all the bases, from understanding how to build a scalable organization to the processes and technology necessary to run a highly scalable architecture. They have packed in a ton of great practical solutions from real world experiences. This book is a must-read for anyone having difficulty managing the scale of a hyper-growth company or a startup hoping to achieve hyper growth." --Tom Keeven, Partner, AKF Consulting "The Art of Scalability is remarkable in its wealth of information and clarity; the authors provide novel, practical, and demystifying approaches to identify, predict, and resolve scalability problems before they surface. Marty Abbott and Michael Fisher use their rich experience and vision, providing unique and groundbreaking tools to assist small and hyper-growth organizations as they maneuver in today's demanding technological environments." --Joseph M. Potenza, Attorney, Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 4228 KB
  • Print Length: 592 pages
  • Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (15 Dec 2009)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B002ZY5FE0
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #187,221 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By P
Format:Paperback
Bit disappointed with this book, as it's mostly written for non-techie management types. Although there's a fair amount of interesting stuff in here (nothing particularly technical though), there's also a lot of waffle, and some of it just feels like padding.

So, if you're a programmer/engineer/sys admin/geek, don't both with it. If you have a bit of IT knowledge and are in a managerial job, you'll like it
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:  18 reviews
19 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Good points, but sub-optimal approach 17 Jan 2010
By Aban - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is good from an HR / management perspective on scalability. I wish the authors had been more technical (and by that I mean less "qualitative" and more statistical) in their approach (even though I agree there can be no "one size fits all" solution to this problem). There are instances in the book where the authors mention that while a team of 1 can produce 1 unit of work, a team of 2 can produce only 1.99 units of work, an assertion which makes about as much sense in the real world as a unicorn. I am sorry if I am coming across as being very negative, because there are some very strong points in this book which are worth considering. However, my grievance (as an engineer) is that it is not for a techie who wants to create a scalable company (aka Brinn/Page or Zuckerburg), but instead is for a management grad who wants to manage a tech company. I wish there were more books available for the former, than the latter.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Technical scalability is only a part of organizational scalability -- know all about it! 10 Jan 2010
By Soumen Sarkar - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Imagine a highly scalable architecture of a successful ecommerce company.
If you visualize distributed data centers, content distribution networks,
Brewers CAP theorem etc you have only half of the scalability story.
This book tells the whole story of organizational scalability of which
technical scalability is only a part. Consider some examples like how do
you perform reliable change management of a vast infrastructure to
maintain business continuity or what should be the model for unambiguous
responsibility-accountibility in a scalable organization.

I have worked in a critical scalability project of PayPal.com and can vouch
that this book is a gem.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Read this before you need it 14 Jan 2010
By Martin R. Cagan - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This is not your typical tech book. It's an unusual mix of lessons learned on both deep technical issues, as well as broad business and people management topics.

One of the most difficult challenges in the Internet era is "surviving success." You may think this is a good problem to have, but that's little consolation if your company goes under because you couldn't scale your business or your software. If you've come up with something promising, and your business is off to a good start, then I can only hope you don't read this too late.

These guys have "been there and done that" at some of the most successful companies of our time, and they are giving back by sharing what they've learned. Very few people on the planet have the experience they do, and this is one of the most important, practical, actionable and relevant books for those of us in the business of running commercial Internet-based businesses.
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Popular Highlights

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&quote;
You can delegate anything you would like, but you can never delegate the accountability for results. &quote;
Highlighted by 39 Kindle users
&quote;
Management means measurement and a failure to measure is a failure to manage. &quote;
Highlighted by 36 Kindle users
&quote;
As your resource pool dwindles, the tendency is to favor short-term customer facing features over longer-term scalability projects. That tendency helps meet quarterly goals at the expense of long-term platform viability. &quote;
Highlighted by 29 Kindle users

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