Ikai Lan

LinkedIn

Your Language Doesn't Scale: A Discussion of the Nature of Scaling

One of the first questions asked about any new web framework or language is,“Does It Scale?” More often than not, this is one of those questions that is asked before “scaling” itself is correctly defined. What does it mean to scale? Given a hundred projects, scaling could have a hundred different meanings; some similar, others very different from one another.

This session will begin with a discussion of the idea that scaling, in all its different forms, is less a function of the specific languages and frameworks used and more a problem that is solved holistically at the systems architecture level. Following that discussion, we will focus on case studies of the scaling challenges the LinkedIn LED team has faced, particularly with regards to our experiences building web applications and web services.

From 0 to 1,000,000 in 46 Days: Scaling a Facebook Application in Rails

In a strange twist of fate that can only be filed in the “the gods must be crazy” cabinet, LinkedIn created one of the most popular applications on Facebook, Bumper Sticker. Bumper Sticker was created as an evaluation of both the Facebook platform as well as the feasibility of building high traffic applications with Ruby on Rails.

This discussion will start off very light hearted as a look into the conversations that took place when Facebook launched their platform, the various wagers and predictions that were made in the days following the announcement, and lead into a very technical discussion about the steps that were taken to grow the application to serve 30 million requests a day while maintaining the user experience internet users have come to demand of their applications.