InfoQ - Infrastructure

Article: Time-Series Storage: Design Choices That Shape Cost and Performance

Nirmesh Khandelwal — Tue, 12 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Every time-series database makes a set of storage design decisions: how to lay out rows, when to compress, what to partition on. These decisions determine cost and query performance more than the choice of database itself. This article works through those fundamentals from first principles, using widely available tools like PostgreSQL and Apache Parquet to make each trade-off measurable.

By Nirmesh Khandelwal

Presentation: Evolution of a Backend for a Streaming Application

Daniele Frasca — Mon, 11 May 2026 11:45:00 GMT

Daniele Frasca explains the architectural evolution of Joyn, a German streaming giant. He discusses moving from fragile single-node setups to resilient serverless architectures using AWS. He shares insights on the Hub and Spoke pattern for data consistency, cell-based isolation to reduce blast radius, and cost-optimization strategies for achieving affordable multi-region active-active setups.

By Daniele Frasca

Presentation: How Netflix Shapes our Fleet for Efficiency and Reliability

Joseph Lynch, Argha C — Tue, 05 May 2026 14:00:00 GMT

The speakers explain the inherent tension between service efficiency and reliability at Netflix's global scale. They share a mental model for "risk-adjusted net value," moving beyond simple CPU utilization to focus on capacity buffers. They discuss hardware shaping, proactive traffic steering, and reactive levers like "hammers" and prioritized load shedding to protect critical playback.

By Joseph Lynch, Argha C

Article: From Batch to Micro-Batch Streaming: Lessons Learned the Hard Way in a Delta Index Pipeline

Parveen Saini — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:00:00 GMT

This article describes how a production delta-index pipeline migrated from scheduled batch to micro-batch Spark Structured Streaming. It covers why record-level streaming was rejected, how partition-based watermarks replaced fragile S3 completion markers, overlap-window correctness, and restart-as-design strategies for better predictability in object-store–based ingestion systems.

By Parveen Saini