

The Backend Engineering Show with Hussein Nasser
Hussein Nasser
Welcome to the Backend Engineering Show podcast with your host Hussein Nasser. If you like software engineering you’ve come to the right place. I discuss all sorts of software engineering technologies and news with specific focus on the backend. All opinions are my own.
Most of my content in the podcast is an audio version of videos I post on my youtube channel here http://www.youtube.com/c/HusseinNasser-software-engineering
Buy me a coffee
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hnasr
🧑🏫 Courses I Teach
https://husseinnasser.com/courses
Most of my content in the podcast is an audio version of videos I post on my youtube channel here http://www.youtube.com/c/HusseinNasser-software-engineering
Buy me a coffee
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hnasr
🧑🏫 Courses I Teach
https://husseinnasser.com/courses
Episodes
Mentioned books

Feb 16, 2022 • 11min
Accessing SSDs through TCP - NVMe over TCP
NVMe changed the game of fast SSD storage. The spec is being extended to support networked storage, I have some doubts that would like to discuss in this video. Fundamentals of Database Engineering udemy course (link redirects to udemy with coupon) https://database.husseinnasser.com Introduction to NGINX (link redirects to udemy with coupon) https://nginx.husseinnasser.com Python on the Backend (link redirects to udemy with coupon) https://nginx.husseinnasser.com

Feb 16, 2022 • 32min
What does it take to break Bitcoin’s encryption? | The Backend Engineering Show
I stumbled upon a research calculating how big of quantum computer required to break bitcoin public key encryption. It will take them 300 million quantum bits to find the corresponding private key given a public key. That wasn’t really the most instructive thing really from that research. The interesting thing is how bitcoin design carefully hides information about the original owner which makes breaking it really challenging.
In this episode I discuss what does it take to break bitcoin encryption.
0:00 Intro
3:00 Public Key Cryptography
6:30 Bitcoin Keys ( Private key/public key and bitcoin address)
8:18 Why do we need a Bitcoin address
11:13 How minors verify transactions
17:30 When is the bitcoin public key visible?
19:12 The Wallet
20:47 What does it take to break bitcoin?
-find wallet.dat file which contain all the keys, some upload that online
-obtain public key from digital sign during a transaction posting. If someone used that public key , obtained the private key, then used it to generate a new ransaction to a different address before this transaction get posted.
-have a bitcoin address in mine satoshi, find out the public key not possible, then find out the private key from the public key, you can take all the time you need here. Because once you find those puppiest you are off to the races
25:20 Bits of security
28:00 My thoughts
Resources
https://avs.scitation.org/doi/10.1116/5.0073075

Feb 14, 2022 • 16min
NodeJS introduces HTTPS Import from URLs
NodeJS introduces importing network based modules in their latest release. Importing network based modules using `https:` and `http:` is supported under the `--experimental-network-imports` flag. This allows web browser-like imports to work in Node.js with a few differences due to application stability and security concerns that are different when running in a privileged environment instead of a browser sandbox.
Import HTTPS
https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/36328/files

Feb 5, 2022 • 13min
First port your computer connects to browsing the Web | Backend Engineering Show
I asked a question on my community post What port does your computer connect to when you visit google.com on your browser for the very first time? The answer really depends on the network configuration and that's what I discuss in this video. The answer could be HTTP port 80, HTTPS port 443, DNS port 53 or other answers that aren't even listed here including DNS over HTTPS and DNS over TLS. Lets discuss

Jan 30, 2022 • 32min
Index page splits | The Backend Engineering Show
In this episode of the backend engineering show I discuss the ramification of index page splits which results in fragmented index yielding slow query performance when using indexes. I go through what a page is, how a page is read and written in the database and finally discuss the current solutions to address this problem such as reindexing, fill factor and choosing a good index key type.
Get my Fundamentals of Database Engineering Udemy course https://database.husseinnasser.com
0:00 Intro
1:50 What is a Page?
5:00 How to Read and Write a page
8:45 Batching Writes and WAL
11:45 The Order of Content in the Page
16:00 Page Splits
21:30 Solving Index Fragmentation
28:30 Summary

5 snips
Jan 23, 2022 • 26min
Multi-tenancy architecture | The Backend Engineering Show
Multitenancy refers to placing two or more clients, customers or tenants so they share a single resource. The idea behind Multitenancy is to save on resources instead of giving each client its own resource (storage, app, memory, network etc..). You slice each part and give it to dedicated client. The number one rule is those tenants shouldn’t be aware of the existence of other tenants, they need to be completed isolated, no one tenant can read or influence the other’s tenant share. If this is confusing don’t worry I’ll go through examples in this episode of the backend engineering show.
0:00 Intro
2:50 Ssd Multitenancy
6:45 Database Multitenancy
10:14 Networking Multitenancy (SDN)
16:55 VMs and Containers Multitenancy
19:00 Application Multitenancy

Jan 19, 2022 • 21min
Is ULTRARAM a game changer? | Backend Engineering Show
Scientists at the Physics and Engineering Department of the UK’s Lancaster University published a new paper describing ULTRARAM. A Low-Energy, High-Endurance, Compound-Semiconductor Memory on Silicon.
I think this tech is a game changer but I still have my doubts. Let us discuss
0:00 Intro
0:30 RAM
4:00 SSD
11:00 UltraRAM
17:30 Doubts
* RAM (Dynamic RAM)
* Fast access with capacitors
* random access
* requires power to be refreshed
* Flash NAND (SSD)
* Pros fast random access (FTL)
* Block storage
* Requires high voltage (20V to erase/ 7.5 to program)
* Low durability endurance which then (write amplification + garbage collection )
* UltraRAM uses a new novel approach to the memory cell design that only need 2.5 V to program/erase, low power which saves the memory cell lifetime https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/fowler-nordheim-tunnelling
* High endurance program/erase last longer
* High retention
* GC/WA not required
* Limitations: still we know very little
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aelm.202101103

Jan 16, 2022 • 26min
My website went down - enom outage analysis
enom my DNS registrar had an outage which took down my site husseinnasser.com lets discuss 0:00 Intro 5:00 How DNS Works 12:00 Outage report 16:00 Will I migrate my DNS? 21:40 Does decentralize mean anything anymore?

Jan 5, 2022 • 21min
Thoughts on Low code | The Backend Engineering Show
In this episode of the backend engineering show, I’ll discuss the low code movements and their pros and cons.
0:00 Intro
2:00 Evolution of Languages
8:40 Low Code Movement
10:00 Side Effect of Low Code
13:00 Leaky Abstractions
Fundamentals of Database Engineering udemy course (link redirects to udemy with coupon)
https://database.husseinnasser.com
Introduction to NGINX (link redirects to udemy with coupon)
https://nginx.husseinnasser.com
Python on the Backend (link redirects to udemy with coupon)
https://nginx.husseinnasser.com

Jan 3, 2022 • 21min
Tech I want to explore in 2022
These are some fundamental technologies that I want to explore in 2022. 0:00 The Way I learn 4:20 Database Engineering 7:00 Network Engineering 9:30 Hardware and Operating Systems 15:00 The problem with software engineering Collateral Knowledge Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YKbVpWmeLM&t=3s Become a Member on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_ML5xP23TOWKUcc-oAE_Eg/join 🔥 Members Only Content https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUMO_ML5xP23TOWKUcc-oAE_Eg Fundamentals of Database Engineering udemy course (link redirects to udemy with coupon) https://database.husseinnasser.com Introduction to NGINX (link redirects to udemy with coupon) https://nginx.husseinnasser.com Python on the Backend (link redirects to udemy with coupon) https://nginx.husseinnasser.com


