While Amazon is a SOA, Flipkart backend is mostly micro services.
The talk given by Yogi at GCRC 2014 about the architecture in the backend systems at Flipkart would give contexts on how things were built.
Its a micro services world.
After losing my iPhone 3 years ago, I lost hope of ever buying an iPhone again. I lived on with Nokia phones without access to internet, relying on my laptop for source of real time information. I adored smartphones, but despised Android because of lack of quality, security and consitency of buttons, features, app store. After buying my first Mac 4 years ago, my world has changed. I was into iPhone, Apple news, develpers who have their working environment on Mac. Linux is a solid server rather than a development environment. TextMate, iTerm and Alfred are the best applications. Adopting a Android phone seemed an unlikely fit.
Flipkart launched the phone at 12am where the stock was ordered in minutes. There was a relaunch in the afternoon to take in preorders for both 8 and 16 Gigs. There was a review by a lost and frustrated soul that it was harder to book the Moto G than to book a Tatkal ticket.
The good: WhatsApp was the biggest hype of all. Most of my friends stopped using conventional email and started WhatsApp since its easier on the go and easier for group messaging. Remember the desktop client which had group messaging ? - Yahoo. You can send the same message to all members. The nicest and most annoying feature was a ‘Buzz’. You buzz a person to get notice of the chat window. Well, Google killed it. From my perspective, WhatsApp is a group messaging app on the phone where Yahoo Messenger was to web. Obviously, this is a perspective from an eighty thousand feet view. There is security, scale, laws, hacking etc., Its worth $19 billion for Facebook because of the users and the ads and the content being flown around to understand people and direct advertisements.
Email is the normal thing you expect to be in touch with. Camera, pictures, Clock, Alarm, Contacts are the standard set.
Being new to the Bangalore City, Google Maps is the best feature I use, but it drinks up the battery like I consume water (Gulp, gulp, gulp and the bottle is left with only 50%). I started attending meetups - Docker and Ruby for now. The usability of few of the features is not as expected. I cannot find the address of where I am (I usually get lost) when I want to notify a cab or a friend. I wish it took information from my calendar to display where I need to go.
The Calendar, When you are in a meeting, you wont be disturbed with calls. You can configure and customize it so that you notify my caller over SMS or only get the calls from your contacts.
I keep in sync with the web with Feedly (after the homicide of Google Reader). ReadMill for ebooks. Asana for tasks or errands.
JustEat should remake their app. Meru has a nice interface, but if only we could send the location to the driver without the address information. That reduces the time of conveying the information a lot.
The Flip Cover is nice. You wont get your sweat on the phone especially in the summer or after hours of talking. My parents appreciated the clarity and hands free.
If you want a talking buddy, you can talk using ‘OK Google’. I never got to talk to Siri.
The ugly: It does not have 4G. Not so great touch like Nexus 5. Moto G is 1/4th the price of Nexus 5 in India. Battery, well its only when I am using Wifi Networks or Location services.
I feel that I now moved to a smarter life. I only wish I had bought a smartphone sooner.
Woke up at T-2:45 hours to get ready after an unconventionally lazy combined along with a sleepy yesterday. I was awake more time when the sun was down. I beat the alarm by a steep 10 minutes. My lazyness kicked in, but my bodily function overrode the mind. Crazy how the overrides are configured and dynamically change the complete environment. Its hard to get a right architectural diagram and a way to represent it.
I tried to reach the auto driver like 3 times at 5am. He never picked up. Losing hope, I wanted to try out the routine route of catching an auto and thoughts swirled my mind about the non-positive aspects of not making the journey. I called up the auto driver several times after when he said he would reach there in 5 minutes which literally took 20 minutes (it doesnt take that much time even in the traffic Vijayawada experiences). He assured me that I was going to reach on time. The roads were filled with air with a mix of dust. The outskirts of the city were dominated by fog over the vehicles.
The auto driver was amazed about the Rs. 25/- entry fee which I still doubt would not ideally exist when they dropoff the passengers and is unconvetional to charge for entering the airport premises. Upon the normal security check to get inside, I found the waiting area to be smaller than I imagined. It can only fit in 1 airplane full of passengers - say 25. 1 seat for the passenger, 1 for their luggage considering no one knows who are after their luggage. The small hall was cramped up. They adjusted 2 boarding counters side by side for 3 airlines under the assumption that no 2 sets of passengers have the flight at the same time. To improve sales, there was a person who came near each person and enquired if they missed their early morning coffee and could find if he can get a replacement for the same.
Using my reference to one of my dumb theories, I prefer going in last in medium sized lines. When they called up for the security check right after the checkin, I informed a co-passenger that I would wait, he followed suite after looking at the line. The airhostesses were calling up informing the security line was empty which was when we made the move.
There was a much fancier coffee shop after the security check, selling obviously on the inflated rates and as usual, no one questions the concept of MRP though which is usually waived off in these cases.
I was rethinking my strategy about the queues when the call was made for us to move out to the airfield. Needless to say, the speakers are an overkill and the acoustics are horrid. Beware you might feel as if you were listening to a broadcast from an alien ship on who could not get the encoding right along with a little hard to modify bass. (Remember the Superman 2013 movie?).
I have never stepped foot in the Vijayawada airport. My sister has visited the airport as part of a school trip that happened atleast 15 years ago. I always was jealous about that. I came to pick her up once last year, but never saw the airfield.
Once my mind and body passed through the last glass door into the airfield, I was greet with a luxrious helicopter like the one from the movies, with its wheels on the ground hold on by a fancy stopper. Its conventional to use random sized rocks from the nearby area to prevent large vehicles like lorries from moving out of place.
If Vijayawada becomes the capital, they need to up the capacity of the airport since they mean serious infra issues and foriegn investment. Lets first fix the roads before we start the work for the Airport.
Its time for the noise canceling technology produced by Bose. The time I spent on the flight was 1 hour, but to enter the city, it took about 2 hours. We really need to work on solutions for the last mile problem.
A soundscape that gives you ambient awareness without mental effort. It’s the part of your monitoring stack you never knew was missing. - https://choir.io/
Example : Github real time activities