Architecture pattern used by Dropbox

[Akhil_M_S]

As we have many software architecture patterns available like peer-to-peer, client server, Observer and a lot more, which one does Dropbox uses ? and why it has selected that specific architecture? Please list out its pros and cons as i am unable to find much info on these topics.

[prasanthkp]

Thanks Walter.  I am doing good. How about you?

Your explanation helps.  I appreciate that. I am reading the docs and will revert if I have more questions.

Cheers.

Prasanth

[Walter]

Hi again Prasanth! I'm fine as well; thanks for asking. 

I'm glad to hear the information I provided helps and should you come up with any additional Dropbox questions, please feel free to let us know.

Until we speak again, have a wonderful weekend @prasanthkp! 

[prasanthkp]

Hi Walter,

Hope you are doing great.

I went through the security whitepaper. Thanks for sending this. It had lots of information. I would like to understand more about how you shard the MySQL db.  As you mentioned below in the previous post.

"And (2) File metadata is stored in a MySQL-backed database service, and is sharded and replicated as needed to meet performance and high availability requirements."

I assume you use hash partitioning.

• How is sharding done?
• How edgestore routes to the correct "shard"?
• How is it replicated across different DC?
• Also is it still benefical to go with MySQL than a NoSQL db?
• Is there a detailed paper or blog around the sharding alone?

Thanks in advance.

Prasanth

[Walter]

Thanks for the follow up and happy Friday Prasanth!

When it comes to sharding, please take a look at the following resources; I think they make an excellent read: 

• https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2018/11/cross-shard-transactions-at-10-million-requests-per-second/
• https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2016/03/magic-pocket-infrastructure/  (this is an older blog post from 2016)

If you're still having questions, let me know if it would be OK if I reached out to you via a ticket to your Dropbox associated email address so I can then forward your queries to the relevant team and we'll take it from there. 

Thanks a bunch and have a lovely weekend @prasanthkp!

[prasanthkp]

Thanks Walter. Am reading through the blog post.