How Instagram Scaled to 14 Million Users with Only Three Software Engineers

📈Instagram's rapid growth was fueled by the release of their app on the iOS App Store and the popularity of the iPhone 4 with its powerful camera.

🔀Instagram reinvented itself from an app called Bourbon to a photo sharing platform, stripping away unnecessary features.

🧩Instagram utilized Amazon's elastic load balancer to distribute traffic to different servers, enabling horizontal scaling and reducing the need for constant hardware upgrades.

🧪Instagram employed Django, an open-source web framework built on Python, to handle high CPU usage and manage routes, databases, and authentication.

📡Instagram used Redis, an in-memory data structure store, to read and write data quickly, reducing latency and offloading pressure from the database.

How did Instagram handle the massive traffic coming from millions of users?

—Instagram used Amazon's elastic load balancer to distribute traffic to multiple servers, ensuring efficient handling of user requests and reducing the need for constant hardware upgrades.

What technologies did Instagram use for their backend infrastructure?

—Instagram utilized Django, a Python-based web framework, to handle high CPU usage and manage routes, databases, and authentication. They also used Redis as an in-memory data structure store for fast read and write operations.

How did Instagram ensure the security and stability of their application?

—Instagram monitored their systems using tools like Graphite and Sentry to track bugs, set alerts, and ensure smooth operations. They also utilized connection poolers and load balancing to handle high traffic and avoid bottlenecks.

Did Instagram use any proprietary software for their infrastructure?

—Yes, Instagram implemented AWS load balancers and nginx (Engine X) as part of their infrastructure, along with open-source technologies like Django and Redis.

How did Instagram manage to handle high volumes of likes and push notifications?

—Instagram used Gearman for task queueing, allowing them to distribute jobs among over 200 workers and handle processes like photo uploads, sharing to social media, and sending push notifications with scalability.

00:19Instagram achieved massive growth by reinventing itself and focusing on photo sharing.

04:02Instagram used Amazon's elastic load balancer to distribute traffic and enable horizontal scaling.

04:41Django, an open-source web framework, was used to handle high CPU usage and manage routes, databases, and authentication.

06:26Instagram utilized Redis, an in-memory data structure store, for fast read and write operations and to reduce pressure on the database.

10:45Gearman was used for task queueing, allowing Instagram to handle high volumes of likes, photo uploads, and push notifications.