Using SSD as a Foundation for New Generations of Flash Databases - Nati Shalom

“You just can't have it all” is a phrase that most of us are accustomed to hearing and that many still believe to be true when discussing the speed, scale and cost of processing data. To reach high speed data processing, it is necessary to utilize more memory resources which increases cost. This occurs because price increases as memory, on average, tends to be more expensive than commodity disk drive. The idea of data systems being unable to reliably provide you with both memory and fast access—not to mention at the right cost—has long been debated, though the idea of such limitations was cemented by computer scientist, Eric Brewer, who introduced us to the CAP theorem.

The CAP Theorem and Limitations for Distributed Computer Systems

Click to read more ...

CLOUD & GRID EVENT BY THE ONLINE GAMING HIGH SCALABILITY SIG

The first meeting of this Online Gaming High Scalability SIG will be on the 9th of July 2009 in central London, starting at 10 AM and finishing around 5PM.

The main topic of this meeting will be potentials for using cloud and grid technologies in online gaming systems. In addition to experience reports from the community, we have invited some of the leading cloud experts in the UK to discuss the benefits such as resource elasticity and challenges such as storage and security that companies from other industries have experienced. We will have a track for IT managers focused on business opportunities and issues and a track for architects and developers more focused on implementation issues.

The event is free but up-front registration is required for capacity planning, so please let us know in advance, if you are planning to attend by completing the registration form on this page

To propose a talk or for programme enquiries, contact meetings [at] gamingscalability [dot] org.

Note: The event is planned to finish around 5 PM so that people can make their way to Victoria on time for CloudCamp London. CloudCamp is a meeting of the cloud computing community with short talks, is also free but you will have to register for it separately

PROGRAMME: http://skillsmatter.com/event/cloud-grid/online-gaming-high-scalability-sig/wd-99

Facebook Chat Architecture

For those interested in building scalable systems, today I will speak about the Facebook Char architecture. Starting keynote:

''When your feature’s userbase will go from 0 to 70 million practically overnight, scalability has to be baked in from the start.''

Eugene Lutuchy, lead engineer on Facebook Chat

Click to read more ...

Scalability Developer Competition Launched by GigaSpaces - $25k in prizes

Today GigaSpaceslaunched the OpenSpaces Developer Challenge, which will award $25,000 in prizes to developers who build the most unique and innovative applications or plug-ins for the OpenSpaces Framework. OpenSpaces is an open source development solution from GigaSpaces for building linearly scalable software applications. It is widely used in a variety of industries, such as Wall Street trading applications, telecommunications platforms and online gaming.

The Challenge is designed to encourage innovation around OpenSpaces and support the developer community. Prizes ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 will be awarded to those who submit the most promising applications that were built using OpenSpaces, or plug-ins, and other components that extend OpenSpaces in pioneering ways.

The OpenSpaces development framework is designed to simply and dynamically scale out a software application across many computers -- also referred to as "cloud computing." It is unique in that it addresses applications that have been traditionally difficult to distribute in this manner, including high-throughput applications that are stateful, transactional or data-intensive. OpenSpaces leverages GigaSpaces' eXtreme Application Platform (XAP) as the middleware implementation, and is based on the popular Spring Framework developed by SpringSource .

Submissions for the OpenSpaces Developer Challenge will be accepted between December 10, 2007 and April 2, 2008. All applications will be reviewed and judged by a panel of industry experts, and the winners will be announced on the OpenSpaces.org Web site on April 22, 2008. The awards -- including the $10,000 first prize -- will be presented to the winners at a gala in San Francisco during the JavaOne 2008 conference in May. Winners will also be recognized in a worldwide press announcement.

The OpenSpaces Developer Challenge marks the latest initiative by GigaSpaces to encourage development and innovation in the developer community. The Company provides developers with easy access to GigaSpaces' products and solutions through its Start-Up Program, which provides qualified companies and individuals with full, free and perpetual use of the Company's flagship product, GigaSpaces XAP. In addition, the Company provides a free Community Edition of its product and contributes to several open source initiatives, including the Spring Framework and the Mule ESB.

To encourage "early bird" applications for the OpenSpaces Developer Challenge, ten $1,000 prizes will be drawn among those applicants who submitted an application concept (not actual code, just the concept of the proposed submission) by January 29, 2008.

Interested developers should:

1. Go to the OpenSpaces Developer Challenge Web site

2. Read the Challenge guidelines and FAQs

3. Develop a killer application or plug-in based on OpenSpaces

4. OPTIONAL: Submit their application concept by January 29 to be eligible for the ten $1,000 "early bird" prizes

5. Submit their actual application (including code) by April 2, 2008

Additional information on the Challenge is available here . 

Click to read more ...