DocAndersen
The path to tomorrow lies in where we came from. It is an interesting thought in the technology world, and not always one that people consider. The first part is simple, consider where technology has come from — a world of connection by cabling. The original mainframe computers were mountains that did not go to the user; the user came to the computer system. The tape libraries of some of those old mainframes were huge rooms built off the end of the data center floor. Consider the mainframe for a moment to be a spider on a giant went. The spider stays in one place in this web, and the web brings dinner to the spider. Rather than the spider moving around the web.
Out of that spider, the web grew client server. Client-server is different than the mainframe. If you think of that spider web, there is only one spider on each web. The same for a mainframe, in the sense that you connect to one system at a time. With client-server solutions you might be connecting to multiple computers in the process of getting a web page, paying bills with your bank, or connecting to Virily! Client-Server solutions use two different things to make sure they operate in a highly available manner. The first is called load balancing. That is often, either a server or a piece of hardware that sits in front of the web site or application and makes sure that no one server has to carry the entire load.
Load balancing is like defense in soccer. Everyone has an assigned role. The goalie patrols the goal area. The back line is responsible for stopping the ball before it is shot at the gaol. Now, the example, if we were not using load balancing, would be the goalie doing all the jobs of defending the goa0l and trying to stop the ball and then trying to stop the shot on the goal. Not many teams could win with a non-load balanced goalie system. Normally client-server solutions are setup with front ends (in the case of Virily that is the web page). Then there is a backend (sometimes you will get an error on Virily that says “back end fetch failed” that is the front end Virily.com talking to the backend (the database).
Lots of moving pieces keeping something like Virily working!
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Question of
had you ever heard the term front end server?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Did you know load balancing wasn’t just for truckers?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Have you ever gotten a back end fetch error on Virily?
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Yes
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No
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I did not know these things until a few years ago, when I got my first laptop .
The world is a constant whir of change!
Q: had you ever heard the term front end server?
Yes (9 votes) – 69%
No (4 votes) – 31%
Q: Did you know load balancing wasn’t just for truckers?
Yes (6 votes) – 46%
No (7 votes) – 54%
Q: Have you ever gotten a back end fetch error on Virily?
Yes (9 votes) – 75%
No (3 votes) – 25%
you take it all for granted until you try and set up a server…
It is all fun and games until somebody loses an eye!
mum always said “don’t set up render farms in the house”
My mom just said, no tech outside your bedroom.
Do you want an internal stack overflow? Because *that* is how you get an internal stack overflow…
🙂 back then my mom was tech-free.
every time my system crashed my mum would say “that’s why we can’t have nice things”
ROFL
I think my mom would argue, computers aren’t nice stuff.
I’m just thinking of standard mom lines and trying to hijack them for computers
Don’t play Tetris before dinner you’ll spoil your appetite.
Computers don’t grow on trees.
What am I, made of bandwidth?
oh man, those are classic! I would do IPv4 addresses don’t grow on trees, but otherwise…
that bandwidth one? priceless
One of the things I have on my phone is a wonderful application called Fing. One day the twins were being particularly difficult. I said in my best dad voice, what happens next you are not going to like.
They continued.
I shut off every single device they touched that day. We haven’t had that issue again!
There is the “because I am your father.”
now replaced with:
“because I can shut off your internet!”
the achilles heel of millennials
The twins say its dad jokes not internet access. But internet access is a close second.
Man, what my dad would have done had he the power to shut off access to the outside world.
my dad just sent me to my room, which was the analog version of denial of service
of course, my room had two bookshelves and art supplies. later a console and then a computer, so it wasn’t much of a punishment. but then I think he just wanted me out of his sight…
My dad used to send me to my room. Then he wandered down (my room was on the far side of the house). I was playing music and reading.
After that, he would send me to my room and turn off the power in my room. So I read by flashlight and had fresh batteries in my old radio.
So then he sent me to my room, walked in and took the portable radio and the flashlight.
He never knew I had a really small portable radio. I still have it in my office!
yeah, my dad didn’t care. I couldn’t play music on restriction but that just reinforces my suspicions that he was just trying to pretend that I’d run away…
I always knew my dad cared. He and I just had different world views often. Later, dad became a great friend. But it took a few years.
I am tight with my father now, too. it’s a great feeling!
It is a wonderful feeling. I know, my dad and I were cool. His passing really knocked me for a loop for a time. But, I know we were good!
sorry again about the loss of your father
Thank you. He was as the Irish say “A grand man” and I am the better for having known him!
and a foine figure of a man he surely was, to have such a son…
I’ve already heard of the server and knowingly what the task is. But it’s true that technology is progressing every day.
It really is, faster each year. I wish other things were keeping up with technology!
I think I had a mistake last week.
I suspect I have a mistake most days!
For some of the terms I’ve heard … many things are unknown to me … this technology is developing rapidly for my brain … rightly I say, if I had no wife at all I would not be able to use my computer … all she explain and more – what she does
I understand – the world is changing very quickly@
When I was young, it went slowly and calmly
I suspect if we considered society when I was young the world moved quickly but not because of technology.
I agree about this….youth is too fast to pass
that is so true, by the time you are ready to be young, you aren’t anymore!
I have gotten those errors in the past but thankfully not lately.
I mostly get the error sharing Galleries, but I also haven’t seen it in a couple of month.
There are no new terms that I don’t know yet about in this article but neither has I really understood any of it… lol
If I consider all this as complexity, then if there is a problem, I prefer to understand that they (admin for example) are working hard to improve, renew, develop, enhance, improve, beautify this place. Indeed, such conditions are often unpleasant.
Truly it can be. Thanks Albert!
You are most welcome, Doc.
That was quite something to digest. Some terms were new to me and as technical advances terms become more advanced. I can imagine the first generation computers. The computers have really evolved.
Things have evolved a lot, since the first computers arrived!