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Building a feature is not good enough anymore: all your work won't be of use if it's not performant enough. So how to improve performance? Performance is not an easy discipline to master; all slow applications are slow in their own way, meaning there is no silver bullet for these types of problems.
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In this presentation, we will guide you across patterns, strategies, and little tricks to improve performance. We will do this by sharing real stories from our daily experiences facing and solving actual performance issues in an application that serves billions of requests per day.
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Hello, Taipei! I'm really happy to be here. My name is Cristian. I'm from Barcelona, which is a nice city, and I currently work at Zendesk. Zendesk is a pretty big company, with around 1,000 engineers, and our architecture is still mainly based on Rails.
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First of all, I wanted to explain why we are doing this presentation. As math says, performance skills also grow, but the question often arises: does Ruby scale?
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In this session, some of you might have experience from computer science school. If you recall your first day, you probably remember learning about the various concepts that are crucial for software development. One reality is that scaling is an ongoing conversation and concern within our community.
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Just a couple of moments ago, we were talking about how Ruby is often criticized for not scaling. However, if you check the benchmarks, Ruby’s performance is comparable to Python’s. Yes, we are a little bit slower, but it’s a similar situation. Interestingly, you don't hear the same concern being raised about Django.
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The thing is that there are many companies using Rails at a large scale. In fact, it’s amusing to see many discussions on Twitter by people who have little idea about the subject, yet they frequently make claims.
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For instance, one of my favorite tweets was someone claiming that Zendesk doesn't use Ruby at all. I've been working at Zendesk for 10 years, and I can guarantee you that Ruby is a significant part of our stack. So when someone claims that a specific company does not use Ruby, it is often misinformation.
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Shopify, another major company, demonstrates the capabilities of Rails. Every Black Friday, they showcase incredible data on how Rails can scale efficiently. Last year, they served 76 million requests per minute. This emphasizes that Rails does indeed scale as needed; it’s a fact, not just a theory.
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So the question remains: why do some people believe that Rails does not scale? One potential explanation requires a bit of time traveling. Let’s go back to the year 2010, when I was building my first application, which was a movie magazine.
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I wanted to add authentication to my application. As many of you know, dealing with authentication can be complex, and I eventually transitioned into a tech lead role at Zendesk’s authentication team. However, during my early 20s, I had a lot to learn. I found a gem called Devise that made it easy to implement authentication in Rails.
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The simplicity of Devise illustrated that even complex problems, like authentication, can be manageable for developers using Rails. However, what about scaling? When I was the Technical Leader at another company, we faced the same scaling challenges despite having just one engineer.
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Through my experiences, I've found that scaling is an issue that emerges later in the development of an application. Initially, the focus is on building features. But as your application grows, you will need to address scaling, which can feel overwhelming.
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While scaling can be challenging, it’s important to know that every application is unique, and common practices won’t work for every situation. It’s critical to understand that no silver bullets exist for performance problems.
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I’d like to share techniques we've used to deal with performance issues at Zendesk, a customer support platform handling billions of tickets. As we scale, monitoring becomes crucial to understanding what's happening within the application.
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I recommend setting up error budgets to analyze performance breakdowns and identify our acceptable response times. For instance, if an endpoint has a specific response time requirement, tracking this data is essential to maintain good service.
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When discussing the aspects that are crucial for performance, I want to remind everyone about the importance of database indexing. Many performance issues arise simply from a lack of indexing, which can massively slow down processes.
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Moreover, sharing in databases is something that should not be overlooked. By dividing data efficiently, we can improve performance greatly. Data sharding allows for focused access, reducing the load on any single database.
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Another fundamental concept is to minimize the amount of data fetched by your application. It’s vital to select only the necessary fields rather than always using select all. Depending on your case, it may drastically reduce the amount of data transferred.
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Also, pay attention to how information is stored long-term. Archiving older or less frequently accessed data into special storage solutions can help maintain a quick response time for live applications, keeping your queries efficient.
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Now, regarding API design, pro-limiting your endpoints is essential. You need to anticipate potential spikes in usage since a lack of limits can result in severe performance issues down the line.
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As you implement new features over time, be mindful of how they affect system performance. Regularly evaluate the resources that your application is consuming to ensure that it does not become bloated with unnecessary data.
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The crux of performance engineering lies in making informed trade-offs and understanding the limits of what your system can handle efficiently. The best systems accommodate the specific needs of the business while maintaining a balance between speed and complexity.
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In conclusion, let’s remember that a strong focus on optimizing for developer happiness within the Rails community fosters an environment where performance can grow organically. A happy developer is a productive one, leading to better-performing systems.
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Thank you for your attention! Now we will have a Q&A session, so please feel free to ask any questions you might have.
