Complex ≠ complicated: a fresh take on system design

The one and only Kevin Hoffman, our resident polymath and author of numerous tech books including “Cloud Native Go” and “Programming WebAssembly with Rust,” challenges the status quo in his latest blog post. His key insight? Large-scale distributed systems are inherently complex, but they don’t have to be complicated.

Kevin illustrates this with a sharp comparison between NATS and Kubernetes:

Aspect	NATS (Complex)	Kubernetes (Complicated)
Core Design	Self-forming clusters	Intricate orchestration
Scalability	Organic-growth	Explicit changes and migrations
Learning curve	Gradual	Steep
Extensibility	Composable servives	Ecosystem thriving on complexity

Drawing from his vast experience architecting systems for Fortune 500 companies and advising startups, Kevin argues for embracing simplicity in design, offering practical tips for building powerful yet maintainable systems.

Intrigued?

• Dive into the full article and join the conversation on simplifying complexity in software design.
• Catch Kevin’s talk “Nothing but NATS - Going Beyond Cloud Native” at KubeCon North America 2024.
• Find out if your system is complex or complicated via architecture review with the bright engineers at Synadia including Kevin.