Hacking the Pachyderm: Scaling Servers and People

Tuesday, March 21, 2023 - 11:50 am12:35 pm

Hazel Weakly, Hachyderm; Preston Doster, Hachyderm and Twilio

Abstract: 

Cast your mind back to November 2022: Twitter's on fire, and Hachyderm has grown from its small 700 users to a roaring 30,000 users in one month. Now, not only is Twitter on fire, but our servers are too.

In this talk, we're going to go over how we handled this, the decisions we made, the limitations we faced, and the friendships we found in each other.

We migrated a distributed system across the Atlantic ocean while dealing with multiple types of failures and limitations in operational capabilities. Yet, we suffered zero data loss and we kept the trust of our beloved community by not letting them down.

Not only that, but nobody burned out! We came out stronger and more prepared than ever. Come along with us on this journey. Together we'll relive the race against Time and the battle against the very fabric of Systemic Chaos itself.

Hazel Weakly, Hachyderm

Hazel spends her days working on building out teams of humans as well as infrastructure, systems, automation, and tooling to make life better for others. She's worked at a variety of companies, across a wide range of tech, and knows that the hardest problems to solve are the social ones. One of her favorite things is watching someone light up when they understand something for the first time, and a life goal of hers is to help as many people as possible experience that joy. She also loves swing dancing, both as a leader and a follower.

Preston Doster, Hachyderm and Twilio

Preston is actively involved in Hachyderm.io's infrastructure team, keeping its services online and scaled ahead of the community's growth.

Outside of Hachyderm, he works for Twilio, Inc. as an Architect in its Platform Engineering group, responsible for building and maintaining a modern, reliable cloud platform Twilio's customers can depend on. Previously, he was Principal Architect at Toyota Connected, Inc., focusing on designing an in-car telematics platform connecting Toyota's drivers to life-critical and convenience services. Prior to that, he spent many years consulting with Slalom Consulting and Sungard Consulting Services, which saw him through many industries and engagements.

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BibTeX
@conference {286311,
author = {Hazel Weakly and Preston Doster},
title = {Hacking the Pachyderm: Scaling Servers and People},
year = {2023},
address = {Santa Clara, CA},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = mar
}

Presentation Video