1. Extreme Scale: Thin Server
Architecture
Mitch Pirtle
codeworks new york city 2009

2. Wha?
As website interactivity demands put a bigger strain on
your beautiful code, faster internet connections and
more website visitors don't make it any easier. There is
a way to dramatically drop the overhead of rendering a
page, by asking the browser to do all the work. Learn
how to scale your applications to absurd extremes with
this simple, ingenious concept.

3. Before we begin
Coffee?
Breakfast?

4. How it all started

5. Internet
Web server
Data server
Data Center

6. Hey, this thing is taking off

7. Internet
Web server
Data server
Data Center

8. Ok, we can handle that

9. Internet
Web server
Data server
Data Center

10. See the pattern?

11. Problems with this approach
Ties computation with display
Significantly increases load
Significantly reduces opportunity to cache
IT DOESN’T SCALE

12. But wait, there’s more
Most developers suck at design
Most designers suck at code
We just mixed a huge load of markup and code
together in a big, amorphous glop

13. There’s got to be a better
way.

17. Thin Server Architecture

18. Wha?
Keeps display and logic separate
Pulls unique information separately
Cache is simpler to implement
Cache reused objects separately from dynamic

21. What it looks like

22. TSA to PHP developers
M M
V V
C C
PHP PHP Browser

23. Problems solved
Seperates display from computational work
Simplifies cache implementation
Lowers network latency, bandwidth usage
Users perceive fast, snappy response
Opens the door to rich internet applications (RIA)

27. Great example: Dojo

28. Dojo Toolkit
http://www.dojotoolkit.org/

29. TSA is platform agnostic
CODE: You can use Perl, Ruby, Python, PHP, etc.
CLIENT: You can use Dojo, jQuery, MooTools, etc.
DATA: The simpler the better...(next slide, Mitch)

30. Why develop in an
object language, just
to stuff mismatched
chunks of your
objects in a non-
object data store?

31. MongoDB
Document store with speed, scale of key/value
and creature comforts of relational systems

32. What MongoDB can do
Simplifies development
Stores in binary JSON objects
Return data directly to browser in JSON
Store data, binary objects, whatevah!

36. Time for my favorite game
Stump the Nerd™

37. Great resources

38. Thin Server Architecture
http://www.thinserverarchitecture.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/rajivmordani/practical-thin-
server-architecture-with-dojo-peter-svensson-
presentation

39. Rich Internet Applications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Internet_application

40. Thanks!
http://www.spacemonkeylabs.com
http://www.mitchitized.com

41. Photo credits
Bulldog Frances (stock photo by jaimo)
Cat (stock photo by klsa12)
Sleepy zoo lioness (stock photo by Meeshoo)