Help, I’m clueless about Web Service scalability

I’m really freaked out. I have one of the biggest interviews of my life coming up and I’m way under qualified to host it.

It’s on Thursday and it’s about Scalability and Performance of Web Services.

Look at who will be on. Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic, the company behind WordPress (and behind this blog). Paul Bucheit, one of the founders of FriendFeed and the creator of Gmail (he’s also the guy who gave Google the “don’t be evil” admonishion). Nat Brown, CTO of iLike, which got six million users on Facebook in about 10 days.

All three have faced huge scalability problems head on. All three are developers and architects who actually have built systems that have built great reputations online.

I’m totally out of my league and as I do more and more research on the topic I realize just how out of my league I am.

But, one good thing about doing stuff online is that:

1. I can admit I’m over my head and get help from you.
2. I just need to know enough to be dangerous to get a conversation going between these three guys.
3. I’m not the only interviewer here. You will take over and fill in the pothole in my own knowledge (we’ll get you involved via Skype).

It’s free. It’s open to you.

So, since I’m clueless about the topic, what would you ask these guys about how to build scalable and performant Web services, especially given that tomorrow’s services are probably going to be glued together from a variety of services?

Oh, and thanks to Rackspace for sponsoring this webinar (we’re filming it at the excellent Revision 3 studios in San Francisco).

Comments

  1. Thanks for help on Scalability Questions | Open Source Blogging says:
    October 9, 2008 at 4:22 am

    [...] Over the weekend I pleaded for help with the Webinar I’m hosting today on scalability. The comments I received on the blog and on FriendFeed are world class and included links to tons of resources. It is an example of why I love blogging and Twittering and FriendFeeding. What an interesting group of people hang out here. Anyway, see you later in the morning. I’ll read many of these questions live, and if you can join us live we’ll be taking questions via Skype during the show. [...]

  2. Scalability talk with the experts - Social media, web development and digital life - JungleG says:
    October 9, 2008 at 12:32 pm

    [...] There’s a great thread still going on about scalability in Robert’s blog Categories : [...]

  3. IT Project Failures mobile edition says:
    October 9, 2008 at 4:19 pm

    [...] and that deliver real benefits to bottom lines and productivity. In another post, Robert discusses enterprise-class scalability, hinting at a strategic business perspective: [H]ow to build scalable and performant Web services, [...]

  4. Internet Marketing Blog » Blog Archive » (Internet Marketing) Made Easy says:
    November 22, 2008 at 8:09 pm

    [...] Comment on Help, I’m clueless about Web Service scalability by … [...]