![]() ![]() ![]() It’s on an organization’s leadership to highlight these distinctions, and set the tone for “good risk taking,” which is calculated, distributed, and hedged. With real risk taking, there isn’t perfect clarity between the two - “Risk taking can only occur within the space of the unknown” - and failure can be a positive outcome. The difference between success and failure is not a clear-cut issue. Accountability in its current state relies on a rigid and mechanical process to determine success (e.g., “If you don’t hit this KPI, you fail.”). By insisting on accountability, you concentrate risk in one spot - you’re setting up a single point of failure, an inherently bad design principle. ![]() According to Nick, today’s corporate culture is obsessed with risk, but current ideologies of risk taking and accountability are at odds. To tackle this dilemma, Nick sought to redefine risk in a corporate and technical context. Nick ultimately determined that the root cause of redundant infrastructure was risk aversion, “manifested as an unwillingness to take on projects that weren’t forced upon us by somebody else.” They did not have a CDN in place, and were hosting their content in four data centers, a “jumbled mess” of AWS services, three generations of web frameworks “lying around,” and “a whole slew of” unutilized foundational tech, such as languages and databases. The New York Times team is comprised of smart, passionate individuals - “everyone is very motivated around the mission.” When Nick came on board, he deemed the visible parts of the product ( and its mobile application) to be in great shape, but he saw room for improvement in the underlying infrastructure. In this post, we’ll recap The New York Times CTO Nick Rockwell’s talk, in which he gave us a peek inside the company’s stack and culture, and described how they prepare for major events - such as the 2016 presidential election. The New York Times on Prepping for the 2016 ElectionĪltitude NYC, the East coast edition of our annual customer summit, brought together customers, Fastly engineers, and industry leaders to tackle complex problems in security, cloud infrastructure, DevOps, and more. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |