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"Testing Distributed Systems w/ Deterministic Simulation" by Will Wilson

Strange Loop Conference · talk · Watch on YouTube

Distributed systemsTesting, debugging & developer toolsDatabases & storage

What it is

Will Wilson of FoundationDB explains how the team tested their distributed database using deterministic simulation. By running the whole system in a simulator with injected faults and reproducible seeds, they could find rare concurrency and network bugs.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN treats it as the canonical talk on simulation testing and a mind-blowing example of how far rigorous testing can go.

  • 12 people recommended it
  • 11 different months
  • 5 strong recommendations
  • first 2014, last 2024

What HN commenters said

  1. “It's well worth a watch if you want to understand the punishment that they put this database through”

    Shows the extreme simulation testing FoundationDB was subjected to

    teeray, 2015-03 · Strong recommendation · in “Apple Acquires FoundationDB”

  2. “I recommend watching the whole thing”

    How determinism tames the infinite interleavings problem in testing

    chubot, 2018-05 · Strong recommendation · in “The Problem with Threads (2006) [pdf]”

  3. “this is one of the most amazing talks on distributed systems”

    Mind-blowing talk on testing distributed systems at FoundationDB

    rubyn00bie, 2018-11 · Strong recommendation · in “FoundationDB Document Layer”

  4. “Here's another excellent talk at Strangeloop on FoundationDB's simulation testing by Will Wilson in 2014”

    Excellent talk on FoundationDB's simulation testing

    sgk284, 2021-06 · Strong recommendation · in “FoundationDB: A distributed, unbundled, transactional key value store [pdf]”

  5. “Well worth a watch for anyone interested in distributed systems & reliability.”

    Built the database simulation first, then plugged in real storage and network

    LAC-Tech, 2023-09 · Strong recommendation · in “How FoundationDB works and why it works”

  6. “you should take a look at the talk my colleague Will Wilson gave at Strange Loop”

    In-depth look at FoundationDB's deterministic simulation framework

    itp, 2014-12 · Recommendation · in “Databases at 14.4Mhz”

  7. “Few ideas what could go wrong you can get from this video”

    Shows what error scenarios can break a homemade key-value store

    StreamBright, 2018-09 · Recommendation · in “CrimsonDB: A Self-Designing Key-Value Store”

  8. “There is a great talk about this testing”

    Great talk on deterministic seeds and testing

    drej, 2020-02 · Recommendation · in “Challenges with distributed systems”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: deterministic simulation, foundationdb, fault injection, concurrency bugs, strange loop

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