The Art of Scalability (PDF)

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