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by phtrivier 1387 days ago
"But what if _the_ machine goes down ? What if it goes down _during quarter earnings legally requested reporting consolidation period_ ? We need _redundancy_ !!"

Also, philosophically, I guess, a "distributed" systems starts at "two machines". (And you actually get most of the "fun" of distributed systems with "two processes on the same machine".)

We're taught how to deal with "N=1" in school, and "N=all fans of Taylor Swift in the same seconds" in FAANGS.

Yet I suspect most people will be working on "N=12, 5 hours a day during office hours, except twice a year." And I'm not sure what's the reference techniques for that.
2 comments
arinlen 1387 days ago
> Also, philosophically, I guess, a "distributed" systems starts at "two machines".

People opening a page in a browser that sends requests to a server is already a distributed system.

A monolith sending requests to a database instance is already a distributed system.

Having a metrics sidecar running along your monolith is already a distributed system.

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phtrivier 1387 days ago
> A monolith sending requests to a database instance is already a distributed system.

True, of course.

And even a simple set like this brings in "distribution" issues for the app developper:

When do you connect ? When do you reconnect ?

Where do you get your connection credentials from ?

What should happen when those credentials have to change ?

Do you ever decide to connect to a backup db ?

Do you ever switch your application logic to a mode where you know the DB is down, but you still try to work without it anyway ?

Etc..

Those examples are specific to DBS, but in a distributed system any other services brings in the same questions.

With experience you get opinions and intuitions about how to attack each issues ; my question is still : "should you need to point a newcomer to some reference / book about those questions, where would you point to ?"

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User23 1387 days ago
> Yet I suspect most people will be working on "N=12, 5 hours a day during office hours, except twice a year." And I'm not sure what's the reference techniques for that.

Here you go: http://bofh.bjash.com/

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