Leases: An efficient fault-tolerant mechanism for distributed file cache consistency - Gray & Cheriton 1989 This paper introduced the leasing model for distributed systems. Leases are conceptually very straightforward and bring a surprising number of benefits for such a simple mechanism. Also in this paper you'll find the simple formulas that can help you figure … Continue reading Leases: An efficient fault-tolerant mechanism for distributed file cache consistency
Month: October 2014
The Google File System
The Google File System - Ghemawat, Gobioff & Leung, 2003 Here's a paper with a lot to answer for! Back in 2003 Ghemawat et al reported that We have designed and implemented the Google File System, a scalable distributed file system for large distributed data-intensive applications. It provides fault-tolerance while running on inexpensive commodity hardware, … Continue reading The Google File System
A few useful things to know about machine learning
A few useful things to know about machine learning - Domingos 2012 Developing successful machine learning applications requires a substantial amount of 'black art' that is hard to find in textbooks This paper looks at twelve key lessons including pitfalls to avoid, important issues to focus on, and answers to common questions. The paper was … Continue reading A few useful things to know about machine learning
Enabling blockchain innovations with pegged sidechains
Enabling blockchain innovations with pegged sidechains - Back et al. 2014 A very topical choice today. Last week a number of key players in the Bitcoin ecosystem published a paper (see link above) discussing a mechanism ('pegged sidechains') to allowed continued innovation and evolution of Bitcoin and related blockchain-based solutions. From the abstract: Since the … Continue reading Enabling blockchain innovations with pegged sidechains
Improving Cloud Service Resilience using Brownout-aware Load Balancing
Improving Cloud Service Resilience using Brownout-aware Load Balancing - Klein et al 2014 This is what the previous two #themorningpaper selections have been building to. What happens when you apply brownout techniques to a set of load-balanced servers? We study how to extend the classical cloud service architecture composed of a load-balancer and replicas with … Continue reading Improving Cloud Service Resilience using Brownout-aware Load Balancing
Brownout: building more robust cloud applications
Brownout: building more robust cloud applications - Klein et al. 2014 How can we design cloud applications to be resilient in the face of varying resources and user load, and always deliver the best possible user experience? That's a pretty important question these days, and Klein et al. report on a very interesting new development … Continue reading Brownout: building more robust cloud applications
Analysis of join-the-shortest-queue routing
Analysis of join-the-shortest queue routing for web server farms - Gupter et al 2007 What's the best way to balance web requests across a set of servers? Round-robin is the simple algorithm that everyone knows best, but there is a better way... This paper analyzes the Join the Shortest Queue (JSQ) routing policy and shows … Continue reading Analysis of join-the-shortest-queue routing
Coverage and its Discontents
Coverage and its Discontents - Groce, Alipour, and Gopinath, 2014 Yesterdays discussion of the effectiveness of code coverage seemed to leave us with as many questions as it answered. Today's choice provides an overview of the situation and helps us to focus on some key questions relating to test effectiveness. We're bang up to date … Continue reading Coverage and its Discontents
Coverage is not strongly correlated with test suite effectiveness
Coverage is not strongly correlated with test suite effectiveness - Inozemtseva and Holmes, 2014 Is code coverage a useful metric? Inozemtseva and Holmes won an ACM Distinguished Paper award at ICSE 2014 for this paper which asks whether code coverage is a good indicator of test suite effectiveness. How do we know if our test … Continue reading Coverage is not strongly correlated with test suite effectiveness
Compiler Error Notifications Revisited
Compiler Error Notifications Revisited: An interaction-first approach for helping developers more effectively comprehend and resolve error notifications - Barik et al 2014 A short and easy to read paper this morning picking up on the Debugging Reinvented theme of challenging the tools we use everyday. Error notifications and their resolutions, as presented by modern IDEs, … Continue reading Compiler Error Notifications Revisited
the morning paper 