Category: The Web As Platform

Want to Grok The Google File System?

Then start here, with the paper describing it. And here, with a blog entry that describes the virtues of having a product platform. Excerpt: We have designed and implemented the Google File Sys- tem, a scalable distributed file system for large distributed data-intensive applications. It provides fault tolerance while running…

Then start here, with the paper describing it. And here, with a blog entry that describes the virtues of having a product platform.

Excerpt:

We have designed and implemented the Google File Sys-
tem, a scalable distributed file system for large distributed
data-intensive applications. It provides fault tolerance while
running on inexpensive commodity hardware, and it delivers
high aggregate performance to a large number of clients.
While sharing many of the same goals as previous dis-
tributed file systems, our design has been driven by obser-
vations of our application workloads and technological envi-
ronment, both current and anticipated, that reflect a marked
departure from some earlier file system assumptions. This
has led us to reexamine traditional choices and explore rad-
ically different design points.
The file system has successfully met our storage needs.
It is widely deployed within Google as the storage platform
for the generation and processing of data used by our ser-
vice as well as research and development efforts that require
large data sets.

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Grokking Furl: Storage, Search, and the PersonalWeb

Today I finally got to talk with Mike Giles, the fellow behind Furl. He's based near Amherst, Mass, but used to work out in California, most recently at Vitria, a businessprocessenterpriseapplicationsoftware (ie, BigBoringButImportant) company. He started there when it had 20 employees, rode it out as it went to 1200…

furlToday I finally got to talk with Mike Giles, the fellow behind Furl. He’s based near Amherst, Mass, but used to work out in California, most recently at Vitria, a businessprocessenterpriseapplicationsoftware (ie, BigBoringButImportant) company. He started there when it had 20 employees, rode it out as it went to 1200 and went public, then bailed (it’s now at about 300 or so). Before Vitria he founded a startup, then, closed it. In other words, he’s one of us – he’s been through the roller coaster, and he’s wiser for it.

Something tells me he’s pretty happy in his current gig. He’s the only full time employee, but works with a small cadre of contractors and friends. He’s got between 5-10K users since announcing the beta in January.

Mike started Furl about a year ago to solve a problem he – and a lot of us – had with bookmarks. Namely, bookmarking is a lame, half-assed, unsearchable, flat, linkrotten approach to recalling that which you’ve seen and care to recall on the web. Now, a lot of folks have made stabs at solving this particular problem, but Mike’s got a lot of very cool features built into his beta, and more on the way.

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The Web As Platform

I've decided to add a new category to Searchblog, and with it a new facet of coverage, which I'm calling The Web As Platform. For reasons I hope to make clear over time, I think search represents critical binding for this particular erector set. This meme has been around for…

I’ve decided to add a new category to Searchblog, and with it a new facet of coverage, which I’m calling The Web As Platform. For reasons I hope to make clear over time, I think search represents critical binding for this particular erector set. This meme has been around for a very long time, in various flavors, but any number of circumstances are gathering which have given it significant traction and I find it important and fascinating. I’ve been doing a fair amount of work in this space, work I’ll be announcing later in the year, but for now, I hope you agree this is a space worth watching.

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