Translating Geek Into English

The subject of this newsletter is “going big”. By that I mean how to transition from a Web site with little to moderate traffic, to one that can handle tons of traffic. (How you get the traffic itself is an entirely different issue.)

To be entirely forthcoming, “going big” is not my forte, which is to say that I don’t have a ton of direct, personal experience in this area. Among the X dozens of Web sites I’ve worked on over the past 14 years, only a smattering have the demands of a “big” or “big-ish” site. Which makes sense, as statistically, not that many sites are “big”. In the grand scheme of things, the number of “big” sites is such a small percentage as to be almost negligible. This is fact I’ll speak more about at the beginning of this newsletter.

That being said, I do know a fair amount about the subject, and I know, and have spoken in detail with, people that are directly responsible for heavily trafficked sites. So, although I’m not an expert in “going big”, I’m not just guessing here, either.

As I was writing this newsletter, it also became “big” (as in wordy), so I’ve split it into two. This, the first, looks at going big from the macro perspective: theory, implementation, hardware, and networking. In the next newsletter, I’ll look at the micro perspective: how to write code that scales well.

As always, questions, comments, and all feedback are much appreciated. And thanks for your interest in what I have to say and do!