Volume Changes Everything

Even if you do not currently work in a large volume environment that may change before you realize it.

Say you want to look up a value in an array. If the size of the array is 5 elements, then how you look in the array is of little importance. Something like the following is fine:

Loop 5 times

If found,
     then break out of the loop

End-Loop

However, if the size of the array is 8,000 elements, then using a serial search wastes resources. You need to look at a different solution such as a binary search. Volume changes everything.

Lets say you use a "black box" to do some security type processing. The "black box" can handle up to 500 requests per second. You have an absolutely, positively maximum of 200 requests per second. How you send and receive requests to and from the "black box" doesn't really matter.

Now, the geniuses in engineering come up with a new product that puts your company on the world map. The number of request per second goes past 5,000. Oops, you need more "black boxes". But, as you soon find out, just adding more hardware doesn't solve the problem. You also need a means for scheduling, error recovery, load balancing, etc. that only backend processing can handle. Volume changes everything.

This type of a problem constantly pops up in the computing world. The more successful a venture, the more volume. Someday, the volume becomes more than the current configuration can handle. This is when the system architect must have a new set of eyes -- to see the solution in a different light. Simply adding more hardware ("parts") to the current configuration is seldom the best solution ("smarts" vs. "parts".) It is for this reason -- volume changes everything -- that Tymeac was born.