City Threads - Shop now
Buy new:
-25% $33.60
FREE delivery Monday, June 9 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: Premia Books USA
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

John Allspaw
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Art of Capacity Planning: Scaling Web Resources 1st Edition

by John Allspaw (Author)
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$33.60","priceAmount":33.60,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"33","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"60","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"gL77mQWybbArOI2ky5G9jk3wEit%2FitZD0uEXA5hfnExv5A%2FlAiysYu3qhn2nQvQKvLKYOIfxxHfmDtWDl4odYHA1DjC7%2Fgbh4WEl2UyYavmPR3i5vHuwY1d8b%2Fm0HYhF6y%2FMXegncJyFX1irrc7iRZHzxCifZwtJ%2Ba9ivkpL1VPGHO6ECR5Q%2BpPHC35eFmhP","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$7.06","priceAmount":7.06,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"7","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"06","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"gL77mQWybbArOI2ky5G9jk3wEit%2FitZDFe0UGaXHnoipsF8oyJxP1V3hpxfACKTyaJzICwFzehoHtK16dLzJSQRsOYTvwc10uVFu83qD6oYxE0U1omsA7sptNwpOtoH1j3VSO%2F23JaIPnU9HvH8sNeLNVSP7Kfh%2BDuTDbkRR4mY%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Success on the web is measured by usage and growth. Web-based companies live or die by the ability to scale their infrastructure to accommodate increasing demand. This book is a hands-on and practical guide to planning for such growth, with many techniques and considerations to help you plan, deploy, and manage web application infrastructure.

The Art of Capacity Planning is written by the manager of data operations for the world-famous photo-sharing site Flickr.com, now owned by Yahoo! John Allspaw combines personal anecdotes from many phases of Flickr's growth with insights from his colleagues in many other industries to give you solid guidelines for measuring your growth, predicting trends, and making cost-effective preparations.

Topics include:

  • Evaluating tools for measurement and deployment
  • Capacity analysis and prediction for storage, database, and application servers
  • Designing architectures to easily add and measure capacity
  • Handling sudden spikes
  • Predicting exponential and explosive growth
  • How cloud services such as EC2 can fit into a capacity strategy

In this book, Allspaw draws on years of valuable experience, starting from the days when Flickr was relatively small and had to deal with the typical growth pains and cost/performance trade-offs of a typical company with a Web presence. The advice he offers in The Art of Capacity Planning will not only help you prepare for explosive growth, it will save you tons of grief.

Read more
Previous slide of product details
  1. ISBN-10
    0596518579
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0596518578
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    O'Reilly Media
  5. Publication date
    October 28, 2008
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    7 x 0.49 x 9.19 inches
  8. Print length
    152 pages
Next slide of product details

There is a newer edition of this item:

The Art of Capacity Planning: Scaling Web Resources in the Cloud
The Art of Capacity Planning: Scaling Web Resources in the Cloud
$23.41
(15)
Only 7 left in stock (more on the way).

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Previous set of slides
  1. The Art of Capacity Planning: Scaling Web Resources in the Cloud
    Arun Kejariwal
     
    Paperback
    -53%$23.41
    List: $49.99
    Get it as soon as Monday, Jun 9
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
    Only 7 left in stock (more on the way).
Next set of slides

From the brand

Previous page

  2. Sharing the knowledge of experts

    O'Reilly's mission is to change the world by sharing the knowledge of innovators. For over 40 years, we've inspired companies and individuals to do new things (and do them better) by providing the skills and understanding that are necessary for success.

    Our customers are hungry to build the innovations that propel the world forward. And we help them do just that.

  3. Software Architecture: The Hard Parts: Modern Trade-Off Analyses for Distributed Architectures
    Machine Learning Design Patterns: Solutions to Common Challenges in Data Preparation, Model Build...
    Essential Math for Data Science: Take Control of Your Data with Fundamental Linear Algebra, Proba...
    Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the B...

    Your partner in learning

    Visit the Store

  4. Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniqu...
    Hands-On Large Language Models: Language Understanding and Generation
    Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable ...
    AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models

    Bestsellers

    Visit the Store

  5. Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach
    Platform Engineering: A Guide for Technical, Product, and People Leaders
    Facilitating Software Architecture: Empowering Teams to Make Architectural Decisions
    Building Green Software: A Sustainable Approach to Software Development and Operations

    Software Development

    Visit the Store

  6. Fluent Python: Clear, Concise, and Effective Programming
    JavaScript: The Definitive Guide: Master the World's Most-Used Programming Language
    Learning Java: An Introduction to Real-World Programming with Java
    Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development

    Programming Languages

    Visit the Store

  7. Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniqu...
    Designing Machine Learning Systems: An Iterative Process for Production-Ready Applications
    Hands-On Generative AI with Transformers and Diffusion Models
    Prompt Engineering for LLMs: The Art and Science of Building Large Language Model–Based Applications

    AI / Machine Learning

    Visit the Store

  8. Learning Data Science: Data Wrangling, Exploration, Visualization, and Modeling with Python
    Data Science from Scratch: First Principles with Python
    Essential Math for Data Science: Take Control of Your Data with Fundamental Linear Algebra, Proba...
    Data Science: The Hard Parts: Techniques for Excelling at Data Science

    Data Science

    Visit the Store

  9. Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with pandas, NumPy, and Jupyter
    Database Internals: A Deep Dive into How Distributed Data Systems Work
    Fundamentals of Data Engineering: Plan and Build Robust Data Systems
    Learning Data Science: Data Wrangling, Exploration, Visualization, and Modeling with Python

    Data, Databases and more

    Visit the Store

  10. Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems
    System Design on AWS: Building and Scaling Enterprise Solutions
    Cloud Native Infrastructure with Azure: Building and Managing Cloud Native Applications
    Hacking Kubernetes: Threat-Driven Analysis and Defense

    Cloud Services

    Visit the Store

  11. The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
    The Art of Leadership: Small Things, Done Well
    Laws of UX: Using Psychology to Design Better Products & Services
    Product Leadership: How Top Product Managers Launch Awesome Products and Build Successful Teams

    Business

    Visit the Store

  12. Financial Data Engineering: Design and Build Data-Driven Financial Products
    Deep Learning for Finance: Creating Machine & Deep Learning Models for Trading in Python
    Reinforcement Learning for Finance: A Python-Based Introduction
    Artificial Intelligence in Finance: A Python-Based Guide

    Finance

    Visit the Store

  13. Mastering Blockchain: Unlocking the Power of Cryptocurrencies, Smart Contracts, and Decentralized...
    Blockchain Tethered AI: Trackable, Traceable Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
    Programming Bitcoin: Learn How to Program Bitcoin from Scratch
    Mastering the Lightning Network: A Second Layer Blockchain Protocol for Instant Bitcoin Payments

    Blockchain / Cryptocurrency

    Visit the Store

  14. Security as Code: DevSecOps Patterns with AWS
    Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld
    Security Chaos Engineering: Sustaining Resilience in Software and Systems
    Container Security: Fundamental Technology Concepts that Protect Containerized Applications

    Security

    Visit the Store

  15. Arduino Cookbook: Recipes to Begin, Expand, and Enhance Your Projects
    SQL Cookbook: Query Solutions and Techniques for All SQL Users
    AWS Cookbook: Recipes for Success on AWS
    Web Accessibility Cookbook: Creating Inclusive Experiences

    Cookbooks

    Visit the Store

  16. Head First Java: A Brain-Friendly Guide
    Head First Software Architecture: A Learner's Guide to Architectural Thinking
    Head First Python: A Learner's Guide to the Fundamentals of Python Programming, A Brain-Friendly ...
    Head First Design Patterns: Building Extensible and Maintainable Object-Oriented Software 2nd Edi...

    Head First series

    Visit the Store

  17. 97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts
    97 Things Every Information Security Professional Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts
    97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts
    97 Things Every Data Engineer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

    97 Things series

    Visit the Store

  18. Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works
    Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster
    Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams
    Lean AI: How Innovative Startups Use Artificial Intelligence to Grow

    Lean series

    Visit the Store

Next page

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Allspaw is currently Operations Engineering Manager at Flickr, the popular photo site. He has had extensive experience working with growing web sites since 1999. These include online news magazines (Salon.com, InfoWorld.com, Macworld.com) and social networking sites that experienced extreme growth (Friendster and Flickr). During his time at Friendster, traffic increased 5X. He was responsible for their transition from a couple dozen servers in a failing data center to over 400 machines across two data centers, and the complete redesign of the backing infrastructure. When he joined Flickr, they had 10 servers in a tiny data center in Vancouver; they are now located in multiple data centers across the US. Prior to his web experience, Allspaw worked in modeling and simulation as a mechanical engineer doing car crash simulations for the NHTSA.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 28, 2008
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 152 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0596518579
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0596518578
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.49 x 9.19 inches

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
John Allspaw

John Allspaw

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

John has worked in systems operations for over fourteen years in biotech, government and online media. He started out tuning parallel clusters running vehicle crash simulations for the U.S. government, and then moved on to the Internet in 1997. He built the backing infrastr at Salon.com, InfoWorld.com, Friendster, and Flickr. He is now Chief Technology Officer at Etsy, and is the author of "The Art of Capacity Planning" and "Web Operations" published by O'Reilly. He speaks from time to time at conferences on topics related to web operations, operations and development culture, infrastructure, and human factors and systems safety.

He's a dad, guitarist, engineer, and always trying.

Related books

Page 1 of 1Start Over
Sponsored
Previous page
  1. Shop the Store on Amazon ›
    The Art of Creative Real Estate Investing: Key Expert Strategies in Flipping Techniques, Alternative Financing, Legal Tax Advantages & Risk-Free Rental Properties to Achieve Financial Freedom
    The Art of Creative Real Estate Investing: Key Expert Strategies in Flipping Techniques, Alternative Financing, Legal Tax Advantages & Risk-Free Rental Properties to Achieve Financial Freedom
    4.94.9 out of 5 stars145
    $16.99
  2. Shop the Store on Amazon ›
    The Art Of Game Theory: How To Win Life’s Ultimate Payoffs Through The Craft Of Prediction, Influence, And Empathetic Strategy (Navigate The Labyrinth Of Decision Complexity)
    The Art Of Game Theory: How To Win Life’s Ultimate Payoffs Through The Craft Of Prediction, Influence, And Empathetic Strategy (Navigate The Labyrinth Of Decision Complexity)
    4.44.4 out of 5 stars239
    $27.99
  3. Shop the Store on Amazon ›
    The 6 Pillars of Decision Making: 65 Techniques & Strategies to Make Smart and Strategic Choices, Quickly. Design the Life That You Want by Taking Calculated Risks Using Data and Logical Judgment
    The 6 Pillars of Decision Making: 65 Techniques & Strategies to Make Smart and Strategic Choices, Quickly. Design the Life That You Want by Taking Calculated Risks Using Data and Logical Judgment
    4.54.5 out of 5 stars80
    $17.99
  4. Shop the Store on Amazon ›
    LLM Engineer's Handbook: Master the art of engineering large language models from concept to production
    LLM Engineer's Handbook: Master the art of engineering large language models from concept to production
    4.54.5 out of 5 stars93
    $59.99
  5. Shop the Store on Amazon ›
    Smart Career Planning For Teens: A Guide To Bold Choices And Brilliant Paths Launch Your Dream Career With Clarity, Passion, And Purpose (The Thriving ... Confidence, Success and Independence)
    Smart Career Planning For Teens: A Guide To Bold Choices And Brilliant Paths Launch Your Dream Career With Clarity, Passion, And Purpose (The Thriving ... Confidence, Success and Independence)
    4.94.9 out of 5 stars111
    $14.99
Next page

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
32 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top reviews from the United States

  • AmazonBuyer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A classical treatise about capacity planning
    Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    John Allspaw's book is a classical treatise about capacity planning. It is a valuable asset to all web services professionals. John's lucid style of coupling statistical concepts to the capacity planning (and prediction) practice makes the book very special. The book is methodically organized, in that it takes the reader gradually from a generic view of a capacity planning project to the specifics of the measurement, monitoring and forecasting of web traffic. The book also has a valuable source of information about various statistical tools that help in analysis, design and upgrading of the capacity of web sites. The author's awesome presentation (using mathematical statistics) of all the steps involved (a) in the measurement of current traffic metrics and (b) in forecasting the capacity of a web site, deserves a special word of praise. In summary, I would recommend this book to all professionals involved in the building and maintenance of the web infrastructure, for a business.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • christina
    5.0 out of 5 stars great book on capacity planning for a web service
    Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    I normally cannot read through instructional books but this one was easy to read and follow. This gives you a great basic knowledge of how to approach capacity planning for a web service. I have read it at least 3 times at this point and continue to reference it often.

    The one disappointing thing was that I was unable to figure out how to access the code online, but honestly you do not need it. Just would have been nice to see it.
    One person found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Michael Schenck
    5.0 out of 5 stars From Scalible to progression planning
    Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    This book is fantastic! It's a very easy read, keeps you engaged and is full of excellent advise for all stages. Architectural planning, monitoring, trending, and utilizing public clouds for your occasional peak cycles.

    I can't recommend this enough, my team at work is now reading this and our conversations have changed for the better.
    Helpful
     Report
  • Mark Ruzomberka
    4.0 out of 5 stars John's examples are just like Charlie's from the TV show Numb3rs
    Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2009
    This is the first book on capacity planning I have read so I have nothing substantial to compare it too at this time. John's descriptions and real world examples are great.

    While I was reading I felt John's analogies were very similar to the way the character Charlie from TV's "Numb3rs" explains something very complicated with a real world examples. I liked the examples of the Bacon Delivery truck and the Super-market checkout especially to visualize what was going on in the process of the servers.

    One huge take away was the level of importance tying application metrics and server metrics back to financial costs. SLA's don't really matter if the cost of adding another 9 to the 99.999's type model is more expensive than your client is paying you for the whole contract. In essence don't promise 99.9% over 99.0 percent if the .9 improvement will cost $10,000 in additional hardware and the contract is only worth $10,000. Many would argue but it is only a 9/10ths of a percent improvement how big of a deal can it be? Remember the first 1% of keeping up a server is not the same as the last 1%.

    The chapter on regression and line fitting was mostly a refresher. The chapters on cloud computing were excellent as real world examples are always useful for me. I also liked the fact he referred to flickr a lot, so there was a sense of walking the path vs. knowing the path.

    Some co-workers did joke that they must not know what they are doing because the seats are all empty on the cover. I'd be curious to see if the same book sold better with the same cover and seats filled. Other comments criticize the book for being only 150 pages but I would rather have 150 good pages than 300 bad pages any day of the week. Also the author explains the smallish size in the preface.

    All in all a great quick read that cut to the details and made me feel more confident I could bridge the gap between business and IT in a short amount of time.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Nils Valentin
    3.0 out of 5 stars Lightweight Overview of CP Process
    Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2008
    Capacity planning is one of those areas where not many books are published yet.

    One reason might be that it's a complex task. You need the right mixture between a certain practical approach, measuring the right system parameters, putting them into meaningful context, making educated guesses and doing the right maths.

    The author(s) shows in his book examples on how to gracefully plan extending your server farm. Examples show how to find the limites of your web, cache, DB, storage or image processing server and how to mitigate or live with them.

    As you can see the book is trying to cover a lot of ground.
    Its also going into discussions on curve fitting and trend prediction.
    Its even going into a description of cloud computing in the appendix.
    Overall the author(s) trys to give many useful advice on a sitenote which actually deserve more detailed exploration.

    The fact of the books "diet" from the originally announced 300 to only 150 pages doesn't work for its advantage. A few more case study scenarios or more detailed instruction like tutorials would have proven useful.

    So its mostly up to the reader to exercise and follow up on the author(s) intentions.
    That's also what will make the mileage vary for many readers.

    Unfortunately, I got the impression that the book is rushed to the marcet.
    F.e. the search index contains no page numbers.

    For the PDF version I thought the Images are at times difficult to read.
    When opening the PDF on Linux you might find the images are not displayed correctly.

    The book serves as an extension to the public session "Capacity Planning" which you might have seen on the Velocity Event on 23rd/24th June in Burlingame.
    h**p://en.oreilly.com/velocity2008/public/schedule/detail/3208

    The compact book is split into two major parts.

    The Main Body - 110 pages
    The Appendix - 22 pages

    Summary:

    The overall idea of this compact book is sound.
    It covers topics that hasn't been explained anywhere before.
    The wide coverage of the book is a blessing and a curse at the same time.

    On the one side there are a real gems hidden in the text, especially in the 20+ page appendix which is even going into cloud computing.
    On the other side the author(s) do give many useful advice on a sitenote which actually deserve more detailed exploration.
    That's why, the book needs to major to a second edition to really bring out the author(s) original intention in full.

    As of now (1st edition) the book does serve as a lightweight overview of CP for consultants and managers. From a system engineers point of view I feel the book should have delivered more on how to perform capacity planning.
    8 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • David Heiser
    5.0 out of 5 stars It really gives a high overview on what you need ...
    Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    It really gives a high overview on what you need think about and plan so that your prepared on how to tackle any situation when it comes to capacity planning.
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

  • Ed
    5.0 out of 5 stars Simple, concise and honest practicality explained well
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    It's a small paperback but Ullyssian in importance.
    A good reference to any questions arising when your business friends do drive-bys at your desk and tell you they've just released something to your site that some coder-in-a-cupboard-you-don't-know-about spent the last week on and uses APIs that may, or may not be under sudden load as a result.
    Would highly recommend.
    Report
  • Simon Rowland
    5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and practical.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 10, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    The Art Of Capacity planning is an excellent summary of the subject. It is also very practical, I have tried many of the techniques it recommends and found all of them really useful.
    Report