The Digital Press

GitHub Pages upgraded its infrastructure from a single pair of machines to a horizontally scalable system using MySQL routing and ngx_lua for faster site publishing and improved reliability.

Why it matters: New architecture enables instant publishing of Pages sites, eliminating up to 30-minute delays from the old system.

The big picture: The upgrade supports scaling storage horizontally and reduces cold restart times by avoiding large static routing maps.

The stakes: Dependence on MySQL introduces potential availability risks, mitigated through caching, retries, and Fastly caching to maintain uptime.

Commenters say: Users appreciate the improved speed and scalability but discuss concerns about MySQL dependency and potential failure points.