Hadoop Hardware @Twitter: Size does matter!

At Twitter we started out with a large monolithic cluster that served most of the use-cases. As the usage expanded and the cluster grew accordingly, we realized we needed to split the cluster by access pattern. This allows us to tune the access policy, SLA, and configuration for each cluster. We will explain our various use-cases, their performance requirements, and operational considerations and how those are served by the corresponding clusters. We will discuss what our baseline Hadoop node looks like. Various, sometimes competing, considerations such as storage size, disk IO, CPU throughput, fewer fast cores versus many slower cores, 1GE bonded network interfaces versus a single 10 GE card, 1T, 2T or 3T disk drives, and power draw all need to be considered in a trade-off where cost and performance are major factors. We will show how we have arrived at quite different hardware platforms at Twitter, not only saving money, but also increasing performance.