Designing Scalable Systems

Many software based problems with large amounts of persistent data have already, or are currently, out growing the typical design of a single database for all persistence requirements. The need to build scalable software systems is becoming paramount as the amount of data that software applications deal with grows and as we move software applications to the cloud where the addition of more distributed computing power is only an API call away.

Ricky Ho has put together a comprehensive list of general principles and common techniques to use when designing scalable systems. It's a great list to reference while thinking about and designing new components for a software system that is required to scale.

Coding the Architecture

I recently found this website called Coding the Architecture. They have an online book full of resources on how to approach, document and refine software architecture. The information contained on the site is simple, concise and backed by some experienced software developers.

One of their ideas/practises I find particularly compelling is what they call 'C4' otherwise known as context, containers, components and classes. The authors highlight the usefulness of decomposing the architecture of an entire software system into 4 separate architecture diagram types. This separation helps development teams understand their software system(s) more clearly by only showing a specific view of them. By reducing the amount of information you put into a single "architecture" diagram, the more easily it is to digest, understand and then act upon.

They also recently blogged about a similar topic in a post called Deliberate practise, effective sketches.