There are many potential problems with scaling business software products. Over the past few years, we at rinf.tech have seen some common problems, causing unexpected and sometimes serious damage, although seeming pretty obvious and preventable in hindsight.
This article explores why and when to consider scaling your digital product and how product managers can help support and encourage software scalability within development teams.
In the early stages of software development, developers usually do not prioritize product scalability. First and foremost, they focus on the software’s ability to solve problems quickly. However, after validation and user testing, it is time for developers to shift their efforts to scale the software solution. This process is essential to secure its place in the market and further growth. The question is – How to do it effectively? The answer is – scaling.
Let’s start with a simple definition to ensure we’re on the same page.
Scalability is your ability to effectively increase or decrease resources to meet the current and/or future demands.
In software development, scalability is the product’s quality that provides the flexibility to manage the growing demands and requirements of any number of users. Simply put, it is the software’s ability to respond to changing needs whenever they arise, regardless of their size and scale.
Scalability is about doing more with less. Having the right tools and processes in place, you don’t need to worry about growth, virality, or load fluctuations ruining your product (or your company!)
Scalability is important in everything from your business to your tech stack and software development team. Here are some examples.
As a business, you can think of scalability as the ability to serve more users. If you sell hamburgers and French fries, can you produce enough of them if your customer base grows 5x overnight? How about 10x or 100x?
Will your app/tool/solution be able to handle the spike in traffic without crashing or slowing down? What happens if the number of concurrent requests to your database jumps from 1,000 to 10,000 in a matter of seconds?
This may seem like a severe risk. Building scalability means you’ve done something right, and more people want your offering or value proposition (be it hamburgers or online services).
Scalability is frequently seen as a technical issue. However, having the right processes within your team is just as important as having the right technology stack to manage growth.
That’s why it makes sense to break scalability down into performance and processes. Let’s dive into both.
What does your engineering team think about scalability?
As a software company, your tech team may think about growth differently than you do as an owner or manager.
If usage spikes, will your technology solution give up and freeze under load? If a viral piece of news brings you 30x the expected traffic, can you effectively handle it? Or will you be burning money just to keep your site running?
Growth does not mean the excitement of new users and revenue increase. It means technical uncertainty.
When dozens or hundreds of factors affect the speed and efficiency of your software, any one of them can confuse you. How you handle all these scenarios determines the scalability of your software.
There are many discussions about what tech tools, systems, and infrastructures are best for scalability. As a project/product manager or non-technical lead, you don’t need to know the specifics of each. However, you must understand how your tech team deals with scalability issues.
Software scalability means increasing your infrastructure’s computing power. There’re two ways of scaling a tech solution: vertical and horizontal scaling.
Vertical scaling (a.k.a. scale-up) is when you add more computing power (RAM, CPU) to your existing machines.
The main difference between the two is that the first requires breaking your code into smaller pieces that can be run simultaneously on multiple machines. While this can add redundancy and flexibility to your system, it also adds complexity.
On the other hand, vertical scaling keeps your code together but runs it through a higher spec server. It’s easier and cheaper, but it limits you by the power of one machine. If something goes wrong or you need to upgrade, you might be in big trouble.
There are several factors to consider before scaling up:
Vertical scaling can be useful if you know the amount of tasks the system needs to perform. Unfortunately, this is not always the case in a rapidly changing market. Therefore, there is another approach.
Horizontal scaling (a.k.a. scale out) is when you add more machines (or servers) to your resource pool.
Here’s what you need to know about scaling out:
Whatever approach you choose to build a scalable software product, you need to align it with your long-term scaling strategy and take into account market conditions and user expectations in advance.
Your software development team is the best resource for addressing the performance-related aspect of scalability. So, if you are not actively involved in this process, how can you help?
The solution to the scalability problem is to eliminate the uncertainty. But instead of doing it with tools or stack updates, you can focus on the human element of scalability: processes.
As you build a larger and more complex system, w hat does your team need to know?
How are they preparing to handle more data?
Where can they learn about system architecture and how to flag problems?
Do you have scripts for errors or increased load?
What can you automate to give your team more time to resolve critical issues?
With rinf.tech, you can create your own knowledge bases and wikis to document all of your team’s processes. Think of it as an “idea gathering hub” – a centralized, customizable place to store information.
You can use such a wiki as a guide if you run into scalability issues. This means that whenever there are typical problems — whether it’s a spike in traffic or API calls — your team knows where to find a process to address them.
Scalability issues are often related to people hiring, process scheduling, resource management, and disguised process issues.
Here are eight ways to solve these problems and make scalability part of your team’s DNA.