I'm a *very* longtime GAE user and former googler and I love it... but for now, I usually recommend it as an *ingredient* and not as the backbone of the whole system.
Specifically, GAE can't support certain libraries (e.g. anything with C/C++), so you inevitably need another service like AWS, linode, etc. I use Linode to run SOLR for us and another PC instance for our offline pipeline (maybe move to Tasks???) GAE makes a nice frontend-- just be prepared for whining about short outages, limitations, etc. -- OTOH, I love not carrying a pager, instant scaling, etc. I once did 600 QPS on appengine, effortlessly. I've run $MM businesses on appengine, painlessly. One thing: if you start on GAE you can easily migrate away, but if you start elsewhere it's very hard to migrate to GAE. This argues for giving it a shot, then re-evaluating (say) monthly. For my latest startup, we're based entirely on GAE and it's love-hate, but we've stuck with it and the issues haven't been big enough to matter-- and v1.4 (any minute now!!!) should solve 50+% of the hassles. adam On Dec 2, 10:03 am, Grzegorz Machniewski <[email protected]> wrote: > > Do you know how Zynga's backend is set up on AWS? I would imagine it's > > pretty complex so, you have to have the system architects and administrators > to manage that. > > Zynga is using RightScale as a platform management software > (http://www.rightscale.com/)... it automates management and scaling of the > application. It's quite impressive solution, > > Regards > G. > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 6:34 PM, Eli Jones <[email protected]> wrote: > > Maybe one of the Google developers will see this and can provide you with > > an informed answer.. but, if it slips through the cracks, you should > > definitely ask during the IRC office hours (or just check #appengine on > > irc.freenode.net, since someone from Google may be there at any time.) > > > If your app becomes popular on a Farmville scale, you'd have to be prepared > > to automatically start-up new instances and balance load across them. Which > > means you'd need to spend time and energy designing this sort of system up > > front. > > > Though, if you just plan on cranking up an Extra Large EC2 Instance and > > running off of that (and maybe using SimpleDB on the back end).. and dealing > > with front end scaling issues later. You would probably be fine.. most apps > > do not become popular on the Farmville scale. SimpleDB will enforce a > > little database discipline, and, if you do "blow up", you could probably > > figure out how to load balance over multiple static instances until you > > cooked up some sort of automated scaling method. (Again, this depends on > > you using SimpleDB on the back-end.) > > > With Appengine, you avoid any sort of systems architecting (just code as > > fast as possible).. but you have to spend time coding ways to deal with the > > 99th percentile outlier Datastore issues. > > > Maybe there are some people here who have user facing apps who can speak > > about this from experience (I happily do backend processing where retrying a > > failed datastore operation or a failed cold start is no problem.. and there > > is no user on the other side to become frustrated.) > > > On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 1:10 AM, Shane <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> I know this has been asked one way or another before, but most of the > >> main issues to do with GAE stability seem to have been asked around > >> the end of 2008, early 2009. > > >> Basically, I have been arguing back and forth with my business partner > >> about whether to use GAE or AWS for the back-end of our social game > >> engine. I love GAE (Java) for so many reasons, and although it used > >> to be unstable, it's pretty good now. The main argument in favour of > >> AWS is the fact that AWS has proven itself with multiple games running > >> tens of millions of active users per day. The obvious pin-up child > >> for AWS is Zynga, with its Farmville peaking at 80+million DAU. And > >> that's just one of the hugely successful games running on the AWS > >> infrastructure. Remarkable achievement. > > >> So, one way or another it's KNOWN to work. GAE on the other hand > >> doesn't have any examples that I could find doing these sorts of > >> numbers. Not even close. So can I trust it? Is there a single > >> example of a large social game with millions of Daily Active Users, > >> using GAE? > > >> I look forward to your thoughts, but please also note, this is not > >> intended to start any sort of flame war. I love both systems, but > >> both have their positives and negatives, but I'm about to make an > >> architectural decision that likely won't be undone moving forward. > > >> Regards, > >> Shane > > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > >> "Google App Engine" group. > >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > >> [email protected]<google-appengine%2Bunsubscrib > >> [email protected]> > >> . > >> For more options, visit this group at > >>http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en. > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Google App Engine" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]<google-appengine%2Bunsubscrib > > [email protected]> > > . > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en. > > -- > Grzegorz Machniewski -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. 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