5 ms·

Notes on Theory of Distributed Systems [pdf]

199 points by htfy96 4y ago

infogulch 4y ago
15 pages of just TOC. 400+ pages of content > These are notes for the Fall 2022 semester version of the Yale course CPSC 465/565 Theory of Distributed Systems There are a lot of algorithms, but I don't see CRDTs mentioned by name. Perhaps it's most closely related to "19.3 Faster snapshots using lattice agreement"?
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > CRDTs Wrong level of abstraction. This is clearly a lower level course than that and discusses more fundamental ideas. A quickie look through chapter 6 reminds me of CRDTs, at least the vector clock concept. Other bits from other parts of this course probably need to be combined into what would be called a CRDT.
phtrivier 4y ago
Is anyone teaching "Practice of boring Distributed Systems 101 for dummies on a budget with a tight schedule" ? As in, "we have a PHP monolith used by all of 12 people in the accounting department, and for some reason we've been tasked with making it run on multiple machines ("for redundancy" or something) by next month. The original developpers left to start a Bitcoin scam. Some exec read about the "cloud", but we'll probably get just enough budget to buy a coffee to an AWS salesman. Don't even dream of hiring a "DevOps" to deploy a kubernetes cluster to orchestrate anything. Don't dream of hiring anyone, actually. Or, paying anything, for that matter. You had one machine ; here is a second machine. That's a 100% increase in your budget, now go get us some value with that ! And don't come back in three months to ask for another budget to 'upgrade'." Where would someone start ? (EDIT: To clarify, this is a tongue in cheek hyperbole scenario, not a cry for immediate help. Thanks to all who offered help ;) Yet, I'm curious about any resource on how to attack such problems, because I can only find material on how to handle large scale multi million users high availability stuff.)
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > we'll probably get just enough budget to buy a coffee to an AWS salesman. You have it backwards. Salesmen will usually buy you the coffee. Even if you don't have the budget today, they still have an expense account and will usually buy you coffee.
- qntty 4y ago
  Sounds like you could be looking for something like VMware vSphere if primary-backup replication is what you want
  - dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
    For a couple dozen thousand USD in licensing (vSAN licenses are expensive)
- fredsmith219 4y ago
  I can’t believe at 12 people would actually be stressing the system. Could you meet the requirements of the project by setting up the second machine as a hot back up at an offsite location?
  - phtrivier 4y ago
    Maybe. How do I find the O'Reilly book that explains that ? And the petty details about knowing the first one is down and starting the backup ? And just enough data replication to actually have some data in the second machine ? Etc, etc... My pet peeves with distributed and ops books is that they usually start by laying out all those problems, but then move on to either : - explain how Big Tech has even bigger problems, before explainig how you can fix Big Tech problems with Big Tech budgets and headcound by deploying just one more layer of distributed cache or queue that vietually ensures your app is never going to work again (That's "Desifning Data Intensive Applications", in bad faith.) - or, not really explain anything, wave their hands chanting "trade offs trade offs" and start telling kids stories about Byzantine Generals.
    - 4y ago
tychota 4y ago
Why teach Paxos and not raft. I thought raft was easier to grasp, and is used a lot nowadays?.
- dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
  Raft is an opinionated version of Paxos, they aren't fundamentally super different
  - quibono 4y ago
    Would you say one is used more than the other in the industry or is it more of a fair split?
dang 4y ago
Related: Notes on CPSC 465/565: Theory of Distributed Systems [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11911402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11911402 - June 2016 (9 comments)
yewenjie 4y ago
Is there an overview of distributed systems that can be finished in one evening? Preferably in video format.
- xuancanh 4y ago
  Martin Kleppmann's lecture series is the most concise one https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeKd45zvjcDFUEv_ohr_HdUFe97RItdiB https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeKd45zvjcDFUEv_ohr_H.... The total length is about 8 hours. You can finish it in one evening, depending on whether you sleep or not.

199 points by htfy96 4y ago

15 pages of just TOC. 400+ pages of content > These are notes for the Fall 2022 semester version of the Yale course CPSC 465/565 Theory of Distributed Systems There are a lot of algorithms, but I don't see CRDTs mentioned by name. Perhaps it's most closely related to "19.3 Faster snapshots using lattice agreement"?

dragontamer 4y ago
> CRDTs Wrong level of abstraction. This is clearly a lower level course than that and discusses more fundamental ideas. A quickie look through chapter 6 reminds me of CRDTs, at least the vector clock concept. Other bits from other parts of this course probably need to be combined into what would be called a CRDT.

phtrivier 4y ago

Is anyone teaching "Practice of boring Distributed Systems 101 for dummies on a budget with a tight schedule" ? As in, "we have a PHP monolith used by all of 12 people in the accounting department, and for some reason we've been tasked with making it run on multiple machines ("for redundancy" or something) by next month. The original developpers left to start a Bitcoin scam. Some exec read about the "cloud", but we'll probably get just enough budget to buy a coffee to an AWS salesman. Don't even dream of hiring a "DevOps" to deploy a kubernetes cluster to orchestrate anything. Don't dream of hiring anyone, actually. Or, paying anything, for that matter. You had one machine ; here is a second machine. That's a 100% increase in your budget, now go get us some value with that ! And don't come back in three months to ask for another budget to 'upgrade'." Where would someone start ? (EDIT: To clarify, this is a tongue in cheek hyperbole scenario, not a cry for immediate help. Thanks to all who offered help ;) Yet, I'm curious about any resource on how to attack such problems, because I can only find material on how to handle large scale multi million users high availability stuff.)

HWR_14 4y ago
> we'll probably get just enough budget to buy a coffee to an AWS salesman. You have it backwards. Salesmen will usually buy you the coffee. Even if you don't have the budget today, they still have an expense account and will usually buy you coffee.
qntty 4y ago
Sounds like you could be looking for something like VMware vSphere if primary-backup replication is what you want
- dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
  For a couple dozen thousand USD in licensing (vSAN licenses are expensive)
fredsmith219 4y ago
I can’t believe at 12 people would actually be stressing the system. Could you meet the requirements of the project by setting up the second machine as a hot back up at an offsite location?
- phtrivier 4y ago
  Maybe. How do I find the O'Reilly book that explains that ? And the petty details about knowing the first one is down and starting the backup ? And just enough data replication to actually have some data in the second machine ? Etc, etc... My pet peeves with distributed and ops books is that they usually start by laying out all those problems, but then move on to either : - explain how Big Tech has even bigger problems, before explainig how you can fix Big Tech problems with Big Tech budgets and headcound by deploying just one more layer of distributed cache or queue that vietually ensures your app is never going to work again (That's "Desifning Data Intensive Applications", in bad faith.) - or, not really explain anything, wave their hands chanting "trade offs trade offs" and start telling kids stories about Byzantine Generals.
  - 4y ago

tychota 4y ago

Why teach Paxos and not raft. I thought raft was easier to grasp, and is used a lot nowadays?.

dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
Raft is an opinionated version of Paxos, they aren't fundamentally super different
- quibono 4y ago
  Would you say one is used more than the other in the industry or is it more of a fair split?

dang 4y ago

Related: Notes on CPSC 465/565: Theory of Distributed Systems [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11911402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11911402 - June 2016 (9 comments)

yewenjie 4y ago

Is there an overview of distributed systems that can be finished in one evening? Preferably in video format.

xuancanh 4y ago
Martin Kleppmann's lecture series is the most concise one https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeKd45zvjcDFUEv_ohr_HdUFe97RItdiB https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeKd45zvjcDFUEv_ohr_H.... The total length is about 8 hours. You can finish it in one evening, depending on whether you sleep or not.