Have you ever noticed that some systems don't seem to perform better as you scale them? No matter how many machines you throw at the problem, it never seems to get materially faster. Sometimes it feels like swimming through molasses. Have you ever wondered why?

This talk will explore such phenomena by discussing how coordination and synchronization protocols introduce costly overhead. We will examine experimental evidence from both academic settings and industrial sources. Together, we will learn about mental and conceptual models to help structure problems such to prevent runtime slowdowns.

Come for the distributed systems content, stay for the pragmatic solutions.