Curriculum
Module 11
Scale, Cost, and Limits
What more machines buy you, what they cost, and when to stop.
5 lessons · 4 videos · 3h 26m
- 11.01
Amdahl and the Ceiling
Compute the maximum speedup from the serial fraction alone, and see why 90% parallel caps at ten times.
- 11.02
When Machines Make It Slower
Use the work law and the span law to bound the maximum speedup available from parallelism, so you can see the ceiling before you buy machines.
- 11.03
Scaling Axes
Compare the common load balancing algorithms - round robin, least connections, hashing and the rest - and say what each one optimises for.
- 11.04
Autoscaling as a Control Loop
Recognise the general structure of a feedback system - measure the output, compare it to the target, correct - which is the structure an autoscaler implements.
- 11.05
Economics, and When to Leave
Weigh cloud spend against the cost of moving, and say why premature infrastructure work kills more startups than cloud bills do.