Efectele inchiderii Google Reader #2

Ieri Feedly anunta o rata de crestere a numarului de inscrieri uluitor de mare - peste 500.000 de noi utilizatori in doar 48 de ore. Sunt convins ca numarul e in crestere.

Astazi - pe blogul NewsBlur citeam un post foarte interesant despre modul in care ei au simtit explozia de noi utilizatori veniti in sistem dupa anuntul dat de Google:

I was able to handle the 1,500 users who were using the service everyday, but when 50,000 users hit an uncachable and resource intensive backend, unless you’ve done your homework and load tested the living crap out of your entire stack, there’s going to be trouble brewing. Here’s just a few of the immediate challenges I faced over the past four days:

• My hosting provider, Reliable Hosting Services, was neither reliable, able to host my increasing demands, or a service I could count on. I switched to Digital Ocean and immediately got to writing new Fabric scripts so I could deploy a new app/task server by issuing a single command and having it serve requests automatically within 10 minutes of bootstrapping.
• It didn’t take long to max out my Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) account’s quota of 10,000 emails a day. So a few hours into the melee I switched to Mailgun, which unfortunately resulted in emailing myself 250,000 error reports. If you tried to email me and couldn’t get through, it’s because 50,000 emails about lost database connections made their way ahead of you in line.
• Eventually, I was just plain blacklisted on SES for sending too many emails.
• Fortunately, when the PayPal fraud department called because of an unprecedented spike in payments, I was prepared.

Cum spuneam si ieri - anuntul inchiderii Google Reader a creat o piata de cateva sute de mii - poate chiar milioane de utilizatoi in cautare unei solutii - iar asta nu poate fi decat un lucru foarte bun pentru orice RSS Reader in cautare de utilizatori noi.

Insa daca nu esti pregatit pentru o astfel de crestere peste noapte - si nu ti-ai facut temele legat de scalabilitate si de modul in care ar trebui sa abordezi aceasta crestere masiva - e foarte posibil ca business-ul tau sa moara subit.

Nimic nu poate fi mai rau decat un sistem cazut sau erori de genul 404 Not Found pentru noii utilizatori.