Architecture Weekly #159
Architecture Weekly Issue #159. Articles, books, and playlists on architecture and related topics. Split by sections, highlighted with complexity: 🤟 means hardcore, 👷♂️ is technically applicable right away, 🍼 - is an introduction to the topic or an overview. Now in telegram and Substack as well.
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Highlights
In S3 simplicity is table stakes 🍼
S3 is an amazing product which became a standard de-facto in object storage: literally every cloud provider offers the same API. That API is spectacular: it allows you build complex distributed systems while giving clear and concise API surface, which is truly remarkable. How strive for simplicity helped to evolve S3 API, read the AWS CTO post.
#aws #s3 #distributedsystems #objectstorage
(Un)coupling in distributed systems - Part 1 🍼
Developers discuss technical coupling first as it's the most understandable part of the product for them. But for architects, Uwe makes a point, functional coupling - or an ability to make the job independently of other components is of outmost importance - even before any technical aspects. Follow the thoughts.
#architecture #coupling
Building Confidence: A Case Study in How to Create Confidence Scores for GenAI Applications 👷♂️
Adding generative AI is a trend now, and Spotify didn't make an exception. Their financial team applied LLMs to classify invoices and extract data from them. However, how confident they can be in the result? Spotify applies majority voting for it. Figure out the details inside.
#genai #casestudy
Follow-Up
Cloud Security Governance 👷♂️
Going multicloud is a nightmare from the security standpoint: applying controls and providing needed transparency is hard enough in one cloud, not to mention juggling several ones. This article provides good enough introductionary guide on how to think about tackling this challenge.
#cloud #security
Finding leaked passwords with AI: Copilot secrets scanning 👷♂️
Secret scanner already helps finding the cloud secrets and API tokens in the source codes, but it can do much better if it new the context. This is where LLMs render being useful. But just applying it to a single repo is one thing, and scaling on millions of repos is a completely different story. Follow the post.
#security #ai
How I've run major projects in Anthropic 🍼
Architecture evolution projects are the most complex ones. Aside from coming up with the technical solutions you will frequently need to manage the transition as well. Ben Kuhn from Anthropic shares how he does it.
#projectmanagement
Premature optimization 👷♂️
"Premature optimization is a root of all evil", right? Optmizations are actually about doing 3 "T" properly: a right thing at a right time and about the right trade-offs. Alex Ewerlöf wrote a new great piece of advise that I found incredibly relevant, at least my former experience proofs so.
#performance #optimization
Impossibility of distributed consensus with one faulty process 🤟
Somebody argues this is the most difficult paper in Distributed Systems, but it covers extremely important point: even if you have a single faulty process a reliable consensus is not possible. Happy reading!
#paper #distributedsystems
Big thanks to Nikita, Constantin, Anatoly, Oleksandr, Dima, Pavel B, Pavel, Robert, Roman, Iyri, Andrey, Lidia, Vladimir, August, Roman, Egor, Roman, Evgeniy, Nadia, Daria, Dzmitry, Mikhail, Nikita, Dmytro, Denis and Mikhail for supporting the newsletter on Patreon! If you like the newsletter, feel free to support it there - with one-time support for example!