Software performance guru Martin Thompson (@mjpt777) gave an illuminating talk on event-sourced architectures, and why event-driven, state-machine designs are the way forward for complex, multi-path software systems (“Event Sourced Architectures and what we have forgotten about High-Availability”, [slides: 700KB PDF]).
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In a previous post I mentioned how Microsoft LogParser can be used to discover HTTP endpoints in legacy applications. Another great use for LogParser is to generate files to drive load test scripts.
A few years ago, I was working on a project for a UK client who needed to replace or rewrite a legacy inventory management web application written in classic ASP. The problem: no documentation, and complicated, spaghetti source code with many apparently duplicate or redundant ASP files and ASMX web service endpoints.
Which ASP pages were actually in use? We had to find a way to limit our application migration efforts to only those pages which were used by the application. A colleague at the time introduced me to what must be one of the best-kept secrets in the Windows developer world: Microsoft Log Parser.
Jon Allspaw (@allspaw) from Etsy talked about the role that Anomaly Detection, Fault Tolerance and Anticipation play in producing highly scalable software systems (Fault tolerance, anomaly detection, and anticipation patterns, slides [PDF, 5MB]).
As head of technical operations at Etsy, whose web traffic is pretty substantial, Jon focused on resilience in software systems: what it is, and how to achieve it.
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Stefan Tilkov (@stilkov) from innoQ gave an excellent talk on the importance of a “system-of-systems approach” to software architecture (Breaking the Monolith, slides [PDF, 1MB]).
In essence, he argued for a distinction between micro-architecture (the design of the individual [sub]system) and macro architecture (the design of interacting systems).
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