Leveraging the
“Cloud” for
E-Commerce
Chris Wells
CEO - Nexcess
Overview
A Typical Cloud Session Outline
• The problem: Scaling
• The process:
• The solution: Cloud
The “Why”
• Operational efficiency
• Economic efficiency
• In other words: Sales without FAILs
The Problem
• Scaling is hard
• Application architecture can make it easier!
• Or more difficult 
Types of Scaling
1) Vertically (scaling up)
Types of Scaling
1) Horizontally (scaling out)
Let’s scale out some bare-metal!
Horizontally Scaling Metal
Metal Problems
Metal Problems
The Cloud Promise
• Infinite scale, instant and seamless
• Infinite redundancy
• Set-it-and-forget-it
“People want to treat the Cloud like they
would a toilet. Input is simply provided and
ideally everything else ‘just works’.”
- Chris Wells
Toilet user
The Cloud Reality
• Cloud was never meant to scale
– Vertically
– Reliably
– Infinitely
– Easily
The Other Cloud Realities
• Cloud implies an environment is:
– Redundant
• But it shouldn’t
– Scalable
• But it shouldn’t
– Performant
• But it shouldn’t
– Cost efficient
• But it shouldn’t
Cloud marketing sucks 
I’m Sorry Cloud, It’s Not Your Fault
• Cloud can be great for quickly scaling*
• Cloud can help with redundancy*
• Cloud can help balance OPEX/CAPEX*
Cloud itself can be pretty awesome
The “Cloud” Version 1
Scaling the V1 Cloud
V1 Cloud Issues
• Inefficient use of virtualization
– Is it even needed?
• Inherits many of metal’s problems
– Shared storage
– Configuration management
– Networking
How do we actually leverage the cloud?
Move beyond simply cloud clustering
Start thinking in terms of (micro) services
A Service View of Magento
The Cloud Version 2
• Built on (micro) services
• Ensure service elasticity
• Use services to augment metal
Leveraging The V1/V2 Clouds
• Don’t believe the hype
• Focus on architecture
• Elastisize all the things (services)!
So, is bare metal dead?
(hint: no)
The best technology
is the one that works (for you).
Thank you!
More info @ booth 507
Thank you!
• Please also check out:
– Human Element / Nexcess 2-factor authentication plug-in
• FOSS
– Nexcess Percona (PXC) Whitepaper
– Nexcess Magento 2 Performance Overview Whitepaper
– https://www.nexcess.net/imagine2015