The Stack Exchange network is a huge success story counting 109 sites, many millions of visitors per month. What software architecture powers a global top 100 website? How is our software structured? How many servers are there? Come find out! More details on: http://2013.howtoweb.co/

1. The Architecture Of
Marco Cecconi
@sklivvz
sklivvz@stackoverflow.com

4. #49 network for traffic*
…and #14 in Romania, thank you!
*source: Quantcast, Alexa

5. 559,634,880 pageviews in the last 30 days*
(~100% growth year over year)
*source: Quantcast

7. search
http
rest
tag engine
protobuf
http
http(s)
sql
sql
load balancers
protobuf
redis
web servers
database

9. We are still scaling up…

10. Few projects :-)

11. Few projects :-)
Few lines of code :-)

12. Few projects :-)
Eeek! very few tests :-S
Few lines of code :-)

13. Few projects :-)
Few lines of code :-)
Awesome community to help :-D
Eeek! very few tests :-S

14. YAGNI*.
It works.
* You Ain’t Gonna Need It!

15. BATCAVE

16. BATCAVE
DEV.SO

17. BATCAVE
DEV.SO
META.SO

18. BATCAVE
DEV.SO
META.SO

19. BATCAVE
NETWORK
DEV.SO
META.SO

20. Move fast and break things

21. Move fast and break things*
* Not the home page or question page :-)

22. Move fast and break things*
* Not the home page or question page :-)

23. Network Level Caches (CDN, etc.)
Server Level Cache (HttpRuntime.Cache)
Site Level Cache (Redis)
SQL Server Database Cache (384 gigs of RAM!)
Solid State Disk

27. * Source http://bit.ly/1eSLr8Z

31. Reinvent a better wheel!
Open source all the wheels!

33. WE <3 GEEKS

34. DOWN
TO THE
METAL m/

35. HIRE THE BEST TALENT
FROM ANYWHERE

36. BAT
CAVE

37. $_='@mk=uf=radimdp1Z--&ewxuhhl';tr/=1m-za-l@&Z/ !a-zP@n/&print;
Marco Cecconi
@sklivvz
sklivvz@stackoverflow.com
Ir=kag=omz=pqoapq=ftue,=ymknq=iq=omz=fmxw=vane1Zewxuhhl&efmowahqdrxai.oay