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[135.54 --> 142.12] digitalocean.com to get started and now on to the show we're joined today by aaron hammer to talk |
[142.12 --> 149.90] about happy a server framework for node.js and node black friday when walmart went node for black |
[149.90 --> 154.12] friday so aaron welcome to the show why don't you give us a introduction of who you are and what you do |
[154.12 --> 162.50] hey uh glad to be here i am uh the node uh lead architect at uh walmart uh i'm part of the mobile group |
[162.50 --> 171.34] and my team is uh basically focused on um moving the uh existing uh mobile services uh infrastructure |
[171.34 --> 178.62] from uh some legacy java stuff to node and uh we basically drive all the uh all the api for the |
[178.62 --> 187.68] mobile clients so what did you do before uh working at at walmart uh immediately before i was about |
[187.68 --> 197.32] uh three years at yahoo um focusing mostly on standards and focusing on interop and and um |
[197.32 --> 204.92] open web i was one of the uh the founder of the open web foundation and uh did a lot of ipr work |
[204.92 --> 210.70] um in terms of uh cla and agreement there and uh before that i spent about 10 years on wall street |
[210.70 --> 217.42] uh building uh high frequency trading systems and uh yeah that that's that kind of covers the last 15 years |
[217.42 --> 225.00] so you've definitely uh been deep into the business side of things um i've done a whole bunch of |
[225.00 --> 230.88] different uh different things and my my uh philosophy in life is that life is all about uh collecting uh |
[230.88 --> 238.26] experiences so i i tend to get bored with things uh and just switch to completely unrelated fields |
[238.26 --> 244.26] yeah so going from finance to you know just consumer web to retail well let's talk a little bit about |
[244.26 --> 249.78] the retail so uh what was behind the decision for walmart to to go to node and and what was that process |
[249.78 --> 260.16] like uh it wasn't it wasn't a very intense process uh to be honest basically two years ago uh ben and |
[260.16 --> 270.24] dion joined uh walmart mobile and they were looking for ways to kind of move it to the uh 21st century |
[270.24 --> 279.14] um from some some really uh old stacks on java it was using and what was clear is that we're not going |
[279.14 --> 284.40] to be rewriting all the all the back-end services but we are going to be building a new orchestration |
[284.40 --> 291.40] layer that's going to talk to a whole bunch of uh new and legacy systems uh some of them uh you know |
[291.40 --> 298.12] using you know like as400 and and you know offering you you know awesome soap apis and others |
[298.12 --> 304.04] use a little bit more modern with xml stuff and and so we don't want to implement any of that on the |
[304.04 --> 309.16] mobile clients and what you want to do you want to build an orchestration layer that kind of abstract |
[309.16 --> 316.54] all the crap in the back um or the good stuff in the back and then provides a uniform api to the mobile |
[316.54 --> 323.46] clients so we were looking at different technologies and we we just felt that node was the right choice |
[323.46 --> 329.78] that uh an orchestration layer that is mostly doing network uh it's basically a glorified proxy |
[329.78 --> 336.46] uh with some data manipulation or data transformation but it's not you know no calculation you're not |
[336.46 --> 342.44] pricing anything you're not uh you're not managing a complicated state um that that's all done by the |
[342.44 --> 348.74] upstream you know account management and and those so so node looked like a good choice and so we |
[348.74 --> 354.42] just went ahead and made a big bet that it's going to work out so you obviously walmart's one of the |
[354.42 --> 359.94] biggest you know companies in the world and um in my experience with larger companies it can be you |
[359.94 --> 365.42] know it's a lot harder to move a big ship right than a than a small boat and so what kind of like pain |
[365.42 --> 371.14] inside of walmart if any did you experience when you're presenting this you know this new newer |
[371.14 --> 376.28] emerging technology as an alternative to like a reliable uh stack that's that's been around for a while |
[376.28 --> 384.22] so it's still there's still resistance coming from other teams uh within mobile it it wasn't it was |
[384.22 --> 391.26] never an issue because uh mobile started out as a as a labs like environment where our mandate was to |
[391.26 --> 397.34] experiment and try new things and use whatever technology we want uh like you know we were already |
[397.34 --> 405.48] introducing new things if it's uh ios apps or android apps uh to to the existing uh it stack that was used |
[405.48 --> 410.38] there so that that wasn't a big deal but then going to the rest of the organization you know when we |
[410.38 --> 416.56] went to the uh the it folks and the data centers to try to get some some machines we can run it on |
[416.56 --> 423.06] uh one of the first bomb we hit is that the um the version of solaris that walmart was running at the time |
[423.06 --> 429.44] um could not support node we couldn't compile node on that operating system and so it took some time for us |
[429.44 --> 435.52] to convince uh enough people to get us some you know linux boxes or smart os boxes that we can actually |
[435.52 --> 441.12] uh run stuff so it was more once you start interacting with the rest of the it organization |
[441.12 --> 446.92] and it wasn't as much pushback as just uh we were asking them to do new things that they have never |
[446.92 --> 452.78] done before uh and those you know those things takes a lot of time um and if you think about uh walmart |
[452.78 --> 460.26] runs all i think it's like 17 countries now um so they're running all their operations um all from |
[460.26 --> 466.68] the same set of data centers so you talk about the retail stores and the online all coming from pretty |
[466.68 --> 473.56] much the same same spot so you can imagine the change control in those data centers is is quite |
[473.56 --> 478.66] insane right um and for a good reason uh you know you're talking about you know if you if you take |
[478.66 --> 485.28] down those data centers in the u.s you're disrupting uh food supply for about 40 of the country so it's |
[485.92 --> 491.40] the the scale and the size and the magnitude of any change you're making is is significant so that |
[491.40 --> 498.58] that's still the issue um but it's been very manageable yeah so for for walmart mobile i guess |
[498.58 --> 503.46] and i'm a little i'm not i wouldn't say i'm fuzzy i just to i think i've made some assumptions but |
[503.46 --> 509.58] you guys did you launch the node client for black friday or when did that launch actually happen |
[509.58 --> 517.78] we deployed our so so we we are working with a proxy strategy we're basically the idea is to stick |
[517.78 --> 524.40] node as a as a dumb proxy between the mobile clients and the existing services and then slowly |
[524.40 --> 530.34] as uh based on business priorities and other requirements start to hijack endpoints at the |
[530.34 --> 537.12] proxy and implement them in node so we've started doing that um but we're still um proxying a large |
[537.12 --> 544.58] amount of the traffic through node to the upstream services so we first rolled this out in april and |
[544.58 --> 552.02] uh we kind of ramped up to 100 of all mobile traffic around june and we've been running with all mobile |
[552.02 --> 559.80] traffic going through node uh since june the problem was that uh we had uh we suffered from a pretty |
[559.80 --> 567.38] awful memory leak um that caused us basically to have to you know restart the services all the time |
[567.38 --> 576.34] and um so we were never sure up until the day of black friday that that our system is actually ready for |
[576.34 --> 583.22] for that capacity um and we had mitigation we had other plans we had failovers so so it wasn't like oh |
[583.22 --> 587.94] if this doesn't work we're we don't have mobile uh mobile services for black friday that clearly is |
[587.94 --> 594.68] not going to be acceptable right um but we really didn't know up until the the day of uh how well |
[594.68 --> 599.10] this is going to perform so how well did it perform oh it was the most boring thing ever |
[599.10 --> 604.50] you had a tweet i can't remember exactly but you it's something along those lines that the servers |
[604.50 --> 608.12] are bored out of their mind yeah the servers are bored out of their minds what you said that's that |
[608.12 --> 614.12] was uh pretty intense and then you were also doing a lot of live tweeting at that time too like |
[614.12 --> 620.02] keeping a lot of nerds uh on their toes i'm sure just kind of like watching your progress and i know |
[620.02 --> 625.66] i was shopping and watching at the same time i just was watching the you know node bf was the was the |
[625.66 --> 630.30] hashtag on twitter we linked out to it and we'll put this in the show notes too so y'all can catch up |
[630.30 --> 635.94] those listening but node uh had the servers that were that they were bored so what was that like |
[635.94 --> 644.22] i mean the servers were doing nothing uh they're averaged about 0.75 percent cpu that's not 75 |
[644.22 --> 651.14] that's 0.75 and by the way we had a we had a bug in our monitoring system for a while where |
[651.14 --> 656.76] uh we thought that the range was zero to one and we were really worried for a while because we were |
[656.76 --> 662.52] constantly hitting 50 to 60 cpu and then we started investigating like what is going on i mean that |
[662.52 --> 668.04] that we're not doing anything why is the cpu so high it should really be like 20 um and then we |
[668.04 --> 675.76] realized that it was a unit uh bug and we were actually at 0.5 percent cpu so that's good yeah it |
[675.76 --> 683.66] was very very uneventful um but uh no the node process was just sitting there doing nothing uh memory |
[683.66 --> 691.32] was completely stable uh people have uh nicknamed my uh rss charts is uh my um um um |
[691.32 --> 698.96] lasagna charts oh yeah where basically it just looks like a bunch of like you know swiggly but |
[698.96 --> 706.04] flat flat lines trending lines yeah um yeah no it it was really really boring and and as the night |
[706.04 --> 711.82] progressed and and you know my team was all up uh everybody was coming up with suggestions of how |
[711.82 --> 718.30] we can uh just just gently poke the servers to make something break just to kind of keep it a little |
[718.30 --> 722.68] a little more interesting everybody has their own suggestion of what we can do so i mean like you |
[722.68 --> 729.06] said black friday is like the biggest retail day you know of the year and you guys what were you |
[729.06 --> 733.80] planning for you said you had no idea what was going to happen but i mean really no idea or were you |
[733.80 --> 741.86] hoping for the best or like did what was in y'all's mind um so i mean the the industry uh as a whole |
[741.86 --> 747.70] the average is basically 40 to 60 percent of annual revenues online happen between thanksgiving and |
[747.70 --> 752.62] black and between thanksgiving and christmas which if you think about it for a business that's that's |
[752.62 --> 761.50] awful it's insane yeah and if you have a day downtime um with uh black friday and cyber monday being the |
[761.50 --> 769.62] the two busiest uh shopping days although now with all the retailers thanksgiving has become uh the |
[769.62 --> 775.36] number one shopping day it's a little crazy but um that that's that's where we've seen the most |
[775.36 --> 780.24] traffic especially since everybody's uh looking up the deals not necessarily buying but they're looking |
[780.24 --> 787.10] it up so we had the business every year the business gives us estimates of how much traffic uh what's |
[787.10 --> 793.84] the multiplier going to be from both last year and from um like from september of the same year yeah |
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