Tags / Architecture

 

Like Kubernetes but Sqwished!

- what would it be if I fixed all the things I don't like about Kubernetes?

Last April, as Covid took hold, and as we were locked away in our homes, many took to baking. Instead I decided to re-implement Kubernetes. Those that gave me incredulous looks and suggested i’d gone of the rails - you were probably right. But the thing is, there was so much that frustrated me about it. I know technologies for building distributed, scalable, fault tolerant systems are intrinsically complex. But if there’s one thing i’ve learned in the last decade it’s that it’s important to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic complexity.
Published Mar 8, 2021  7 min read   netkernel · architecture · optimisation
 

Why Microservices and not Yoctoservices?

So we’ve heard a lot about microservices and there have been some good discussions comparing the benefits and disadvantages over the status quo of monolithic enterprise deployment. What is interesting me at the moment is the question of scale. When we break a monolith into parts we need to make choices of what those parts should be and inevitably how large they are. Mereology Mereology is the study of parts and wholes.
Published May 1, 2014  8 min read   resource oriented computing · architecture · microservices
 

Cut to the Chase

“Cut to the chase” is something you’re only likely to hear me say if I’m enduring some kind of Dickensian wordfest drawn out from the changing of a single bit of information. However in this case I’m not the actor but rather it’s a new architectural endpoint for NetKernel that can keep your web apps on track and up-to-date. Let me explain. Whilst working on the recent representation cache update I noticed that the standard pattern of issuing AJAX requests from the browser was causing a problem.
Published Dec 20, 2012  3 min read   netkernel · architecture · optimisation
 

Separating Architecture from Code

The MP3 format is a great technology for compressing audio because it can be progressively configured to reduce the complexity in an audio stream in the parts that humans are less able to perceive. It understands the psycho-acoustics of human hearing and the typical waveforms that constitute music. By working in a constrained domain it can represent the data in a more concentrated form. Similarly JPEG is a great technology for compressing photographs because it can reduce the complexity in parts of an image that humans are less able to perceive.
Published Mar 5, 2010  7 min read   architecture · philosophy · resource oriented computing