Grid computing, cloud computing, SOA and application development

By Jack Vaughan

Cloud computing is not that much different than grid computing. It is rather like a subset of grid, but that is misleading because its scale is much more massive than grid. A lot has happened in the more or less 10 years since grid computing had its day in the sun, and a lot of what happened – blade servers and virtualization, for example – has set the stage for something new. So, yes, cloud is new and different.

What shouldn’t be overlooked is that whole notion that services set the stage for the cloud too. If new cloud architects are to succeed, they won’t use kluged and misbegotten objects. They will use services. The SOA community knows how difficult it can be to form appropriately sized services, and so can help inform cloud architecture going forward.

SearchSOA recently began work with a sister site, SearchCloudComputing.com, to try to uncover the path of cloud application development. It has been interesting. We discovered that data architectures, especially, are up for grabs as people try things out on the cloud. Azure from Microsoft is a case in point. At one juncture, REST was the whole story for Microsoft data in the cloud, but, as the company moved closer to roll out, it made sure that established SQL scheme could be supported too. The theme for cloud these days is ‘set a course.’ Or maybe ‘set a course and do a course correction.’

Cloud: Re-make, re-model, or leave as-is?

The upsurge in cloud computing presents development teams with new challenges and opportunities. There is a school of thought maintaining that the best bet is to upload applications as-is to the cloud, doing as little rework as possible. Yet another school contends that applications should be dramatically recast if they are to exploit cloud architecture to full advantage. Continued »

Low-latency ESB solution relies on high-powered hardware

Content networking appliance maker Solace Systems pressed the case for its hardware approach to middleware with a recent high-speed message caching update for its Unified Messaging Platform. Think of it as an ESB accelerator! Continued »

A mobile developer’s tale: iPhone, therefore I am

Mobile applications have piqued the interest of developers. First, the iPhone redefined what a phone was: it looked a lot like a Web browser, really. Then, Apple opened an iPhone App store that promised developers an opportunity to write and sell application to a new mass audience. What self-respecting developer would not dream of writing a killer app at night, cashing in, and sailing the world in a yacht bought with mobile lucre? Continued »

Appian upgrades links to SharePoint, makes portals ‘actionable’

Interest in enterprise mash-ups should not entirely dim interest in enterprise portals, should it? They may blend. They both gather disparage system data into a single view. One can adjudge that mash-ups will get more robust, and portals will get more loosely coupled and flexible, if history is a guide.  Meanwhile, BPM is moving up in the mix. An Appian-SharePoint integration is a case in point. Continued »

What are the principles of code generation?

By Rob Barry, News Writer

What can help code generation succeed? Says Skyway’s Jack Kennedy,  code generation tools must offer options for post-generation changes. They must support round tripping, intelligent merging, user editable dependency injections, and more, he says. Check it out.

Also check out the discussion of Kennedy’s Top 10 principles for code generation  on TheServerSide.com. There is good give and take there.

While useful in getting large amounts of work done in a relatively short time, code generation does have its issues. It is sometimes far from popular with the rank-and-file developer corps. Some argue that this practice just reassigns a bulk of the human workload from writing code to configuring. What do you think?

Taking the long view of SOA and cloud computing

By Jack Vaughan

What were the problems with Grid computing? Basically, it was too complicated and of too narrow use. But, let’s be frank and earnest, its biggest problem was that the term ‘Grid’ was too rigid and inflexible. That problem of Grid computing has been easily solved. Its name was changed to ‘cloud computing,’ a light and airy term with flexible connotation. Of course, I am kidding; cloud will not solve all the problems of Grid just by the change of a name. Continued »

APM suite from Oracle updated with Composite Application Monitor and Modeler

As production distributed systems gain in variety and size, application developers are often drawn out of their development cubical to sort through the trail of a failed complex transaction. This is popular with no one. Oracle is seeking to address this and related issues, with the newest version of its Oracle Enterprise Manager for Application Performance Management (APM). Continued »

OMG call for input on UML roadmap

More than a few people feel UML took a turn with its 2.0 version that helped improve the lot of embedded systems vendors and their customers, but did not improve the lot of rank and file developers. All that was some time ago. Now UML steward OMG is calling for comment on future directions for UML. The OMG is inviting individuals to respond to a Request for Information ahead of a workshop dedicated to issues of future development of UML. What do you think? How should UML evolve.

Much watched: The hardware side of the Oracle-Sun deal

It is much watched as Sun is absorbed into Oracle. We refer to the hardware side of the story. Will Larry Ellison follow through on his stated intention to hold on to Sun’s hardware business? Some viewers suggest his original interest was solely in Sun’s software. Recent news that Sun is jettisoning its advanced Rock processor program, presumably at Oracle’s bidding,  does not indicate an aversion to hardware on Oracle’s part – but it does not betoken a forward looking hardware program either. There are a couple of ways one can look at this. For a good view, read writer Ed Scannell’s How will Oracle do when the chips are down?