Scalability Rules: 50 Principles for Scaling Web Sites

1. Reduce the Equation

We’ve all been there at some point in our academic or professional careers: We stare at a complex problem and begin to lose hope. Where do we begin? How can we possibly solve the problem within the allotted time? Or in the extreme case—how do we solve it within a single lifetime? There’s just too much to do, the problem is too complex, and it simply can’t be solved. That’s it. Pack it in. Game over...

Hold on—don’t lose hope! Take a few deep breaths and channel your high school or college math teacher/professor. If you have a big hairy architectural problem, do the same thing you would do with a big hairy math equation and reduce it into easily solvable parts. Break off a small piece of the problem and break it into several ...