Read more here
HP, IBM and Akamai Bring Web Services to Grid Computing
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_14/b3675036.htm
http://www.akamai.com/en/html/about/facts_figures.html
http://xent.com/aug00/0958.html
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Google and Akamai: Distributed Computing Platforms
Technology Review article discusses the commonalities in the distributed computing platform both Google and Akamai have built, and at the same time contrasts their different culture: Google's "cult of secrecy" and Akamai's "kingdom of openness."
Google buys the cheapest computers that it can find and crams them in racks and racks in its six (or more) data centers. ?PCs are reasonably reliable, but if you have a thousand of them, one is going to fail every day,? said Google's vice president of engineering Urs Hoelzle . ?So if you can just buy 10 percent extra, it?s still cheaper than buying a more reliable machine.? Working at Google, an engineer told me recently, is the nearest you can get to having an unlimited amount of computing power at your disposal.
There is another company that has perfected the art of running massive numbers of computers with a comparatively tiny staff. That company is Akamai.
Akamai?s network operates on the same complexity scale as Google?s. Although Akamai has only 14,000 machines, those servers are located in 2,500 different locations scattered around the globe. The servers are used by companies like CNN and Microsoft to deliver Web pages. Just as Google?s servers are used by practically everyone on the Internet today, so are Akamai?s.
Because of their scale, both Akamai and Google have had to develop tools and techniques for managing these machines, debugging performance problems, and handling errors. This isn?t software that a company can buy off the shelf?they require laborious in-house development. It is, in fact, software that is one of Akamai's key competitive advantages.
To be fair, there are important differences between Google and Akamai?differences that assure that Google won?t be breaking into Akamai?s business anytime soon, nor Akamai moving into Google?s. Both companies have developed infrastructure for running massively parallel systems, but the applications that they are running on top of those systems are different. Google?s primary application is a search engine. Akamai, by contrast, has developed a system for delivering Web pages, streaming media, and a variety of other standard Internet protocols.
Looking forward, a few business opportunities have obvious appeal to both Google and Akamai. For example, both companies could take their experience in building large-scale distributed clusters to create a massive backup system for small businesses and home PC users. Or they could take over management of home PCs, turning them into smart terminals running applications on remote servers. This would let PC users escape the drudgery of administering their own machines, installing new applications, and keeping anti-virus programs up to date.
Ted Schadler, a vice president at the market research firm Forrester, says that it?s possible to envision the two companies competing because they are both going after the same opportunity in massive, distributed computing. ?In that sense, they have the same vision. They have to build out a lot of the same technology because it doesn?t exist. They are having to learn lots of the same lessons and develop lots of the same technologies and business models.?
Schadler says Akamai and Google are both examples of what he calls ?programmable Internet business channels.? These channels are companies that offer large infrastructure that can offer high quality services on the Internet to hundreds of millions of users at the flick of a switch. Google and Akamai are such companies, but so are Amazon.com, eBay and even Yahoo!. ?They are all services that enable business activity?foundation services that [can be] scaled securely,? Schadler says.
?If I were a betting man,? Schadler adds, ?I would say that Google is much more interested in serving the customer and Akamai is more interested in provide the infrastructure?it?s retail versus wholesale. There will be lots and lots of these retail-oriented services.?
Google buys the cheapest computers that it can find and crams them in racks and racks in its six (or more) data centers. ?PCs are reasonably reliable, but if you have a thousand of them, one is going to fail every day,? said Google's vice president of engineering Urs Hoelzle . ?So if you can just buy 10 percent extra, it?s still cheaper than buying a more reliable machine.? Working at Google, an engineer told me recently, is the nearest you can get to having an unlimited amount of computing power at your disposal.
There is another company that has perfected the art of running massive numbers of computers with a comparatively tiny staff. That company is Akamai.
Akamai?s network operates on the same complexity scale as Google?s. Although Akamai has only 14,000 machines, those servers are located in 2,500 different locations scattered around the globe. The servers are used by companies like CNN and Microsoft to deliver Web pages. Just as Google?s servers are used by practically everyone on the Internet today, so are Akamai?s.
Because of their scale, both Akamai and Google have had to develop tools and techniques for managing these machines, debugging performance problems, and handling errors. This isn?t software that a company can buy off the shelf?they require laborious in-house development. It is, in fact, software that is one of Akamai's key competitive advantages.
To be fair, there are important differences between Google and Akamai?differences that assure that Google won?t be breaking into Akamai?s business anytime soon, nor Akamai moving into Google?s. Both companies have developed infrastructure for running massively parallel systems, but the applications that they are running on top of those systems are different. Google?s primary application is a search engine. Akamai, by contrast, has developed a system for delivering Web pages, streaming media, and a variety of other standard Internet protocols.
Looking forward, a few business opportunities have obvious appeal to both Google and Akamai. For example, both companies could take their experience in building large-scale distributed clusters to create a massive backup system for small businesses and home PC users. Or they could take over management of home PCs, turning them into smart terminals running applications on remote servers. This would let PC users escape the drudgery of administering their own machines, installing new applications, and keeping anti-virus programs up to date.
Ted Schadler, a vice president at the market research firm Forrester, says that it?s possible to envision the two companies competing because they are both going after the same opportunity in massive, distributed computing. ?In that sense, they have the same vision. They have to build out a lot of the same technology because it doesn?t exist. They are having to learn lots of the same lessons and develop lots of the same technologies and business models.?
Schadler says Akamai and Google are both examples of what he calls ?programmable Internet business channels.? These channels are companies that offer large infrastructure that can offer high quality services on the Internet to hundreds of millions of users at the flick of a switch. Google and Akamai are such companies, but so are Amazon.com, eBay and even Yahoo!. ?They are all services that enable business activity?foundation services that [can be] scaled securely,? Schadler says.
?If I were a betting man,? Schadler adds, ?I would say that Google is much more interested in serving the customer and Akamai is more interested in provide the infrastructure?it?s retail versus wholesale. There will be lots and lots of these retail-oriented services.?
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Types of architect roles
Ruby On Rails
The buzztalk on the web these days ..ROR, read more at http://www.rubyonrails.com/
Heres what other industry pundits have to say about ruby on rails:
“Rails is the most well thought-out web development framework I’ve ever used.
And that’s in a decade of doing web applications for a living. I’ve built my
own frameworks, helped develop the Servlet API, and have created more than
a few web servers from scratch. Nobody has done it like this before.”
-James Duncan Davidson, Creator of Tomcat and Ant
“Ruby on Rails is a breakthrough in lowering the barriers of entry to programming.
Powerful web applications that formerly might have taken weeks or months
to develop can be produced in a matter of days.”
-Tim O'Reilly, Founder of O'Reilly Media
“It is impossible not to notice Ruby on Rails. It has had a huge effect both in
and outside the Ruby community... Rails has become a standard to which even
well-established tools are comparing themselves to.”
-Martin Fowler, Author of Refactoring, PoEAA, XP Explained
“What sets this framework apart from all of the others is the preference for
convention over configuration making applications easier
to develop and understand.”
-Sam Ruby, ASF board of directors
“Before Ruby on Rails, web programming required a lot of verbiage, steps and time.
Now, web designers and software engineers can develop a website
much faster and more simply, enabling them to be more productive
and effective in their work.”
-Bruce Perens, Open Source Luminary
“After researching the market, Ruby on Rails stood out as the best choice.
We have been very happy with that decision. We will continue
building on Rails and consider it a key business advantage.”
-Evan Williams, Creator of Blogger and ODEO
“Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like watching a kung-fu movie,
where a dozen bad-ass frameworks prepare to beat up the little newcomer
only to be handed their asses in a variety of imaginative ways.”
-Nathan Torkington, O'Reilly Program Chair for OSCON
“Rails is the killer app for Ruby.”
Yukihiro Matsumoto, Creator of Ruby
Heres what other industry pundits have to say about ruby on rails:
“Rails is the most well thought-out web development framework I’ve ever used.
And that’s in a decade of doing web applications for a living. I’ve built my
own frameworks, helped develop the Servlet API, and have created more than
a few web servers from scratch. Nobody has done it like this before.”
-James Duncan Davidson, Creator of Tomcat and Ant
“Ruby on Rails is a breakthrough in lowering the barriers of entry to programming.
Powerful web applications that formerly might have taken weeks or months
to develop can be produced in a matter of days.”
-Tim O'Reilly, Founder of O'Reilly Media
“It is impossible not to notice Ruby on Rails. It has had a huge effect both in
and outside the Ruby community... Rails has become a standard to which even
well-established tools are comparing themselves to.”
-Martin Fowler, Author of Refactoring, PoEAA, XP Explained
“What sets this framework apart from all of the others is the preference for
convention over configuration making applications easier
to develop and understand.”
-Sam Ruby, ASF board of directors
“Before Ruby on Rails, web programming required a lot of verbiage, steps and time.
Now, web designers and software engineers can develop a website
much faster and more simply, enabling them to be more productive
and effective in their work.”
-Bruce Perens, Open Source Luminary
“After researching the market, Ruby on Rails stood out as the best choice.
We have been very happy with that decision. We will continue
building on Rails and consider it a key business advantage.”
-Evan Williams, Creator of Blogger and ODEO
“Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like watching a kung-fu movie,
where a dozen bad-ass frameworks prepare to beat up the little newcomer
only to be handed their asses in a variety of imaginative ways.”
-Nathan Torkington, O'Reilly Program Chair for OSCON
“Rails is the killer app for Ruby.”
Yukihiro Matsumoto, Creator of Ruby
Cracking the Code: Breaking Down the Software Development Roles
Good article explaining the various roles in any IT development environment, find the article here
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Architecture Humor
* Beware, the difference between vision and hallucination is a credible migration plan followed by superb execution!
What can architects learn from history? Think big, start small, be deliberate, with hustle, move early, stay lean, innovate often, reward stake holders, shun bureaucracy, have fun!
What can architecture learn from Charles Darwin?
It's not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change!
Mutation and natural selection of the past and the present are the path to the future!
What can architects learn from history? Think big, start small, be deliberate, with hustle, move early, stay lean, innovate often, reward stake holders, shun bureaucracy, have fun!
What can architecture learn from Charles Darwin?
It's not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change!
Mutation and natural selection of the past and the present are the path to the future!
Principles of Service Design: Service Patterns and Anti-Patterns
Good article explaining the basic tenets of SOA and about the patterns and anti patterns involved in SOA approach. Find the article here
Developing Distributed Services
Good article covering the various distributed computing features in .NET( WebService, WSE, Enterprise Service/COM+, Remoting) and other servers like SQL Server and BizTalk Server, also covers how the Indigo framework is going to incorporate with existing technologies, find the article here
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Biztalk Sites/Blogs
http://biztalkblogs.com/
list of Biztalk webcast from microsoft here
Biztalk Server Virtual labs here
Biztalk Whitepapers @ Microsoft.com
list of Biztalk webcast from microsoft here
Biztalk Server Virtual labs here
Biztalk Whitepapers @ Microsoft.com
Shift to Service Orientation
Traditional Systems Vs Service Orientation
-----------------------------------------------
Connection = cost Vs Connection = value
Function Oriendted Vs Process Oriented
Build to last Vs Build for change
Prolonged development Vs Incrementally deployed
Application silos Vs Orchestrated solutions
Tightly coupled Vs Loosely coupled
Object Oriented Vs Message oriented
-----------------------------------------------
Connection = cost Vs Connection = value
Function Oriendted Vs Process Oriented
Build to last Vs Build for change
Prolonged development Vs Incrementally deployed
Application silos Vs Orchestrated solutions
Tightly coupled Vs Loosely coupled
Object Oriented Vs Message oriented
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Rules engine using SQL Server
Interesting article on building a rules engine using SQL server, lot of practical purposes. Many a time the actual values are determined from the Business Layer and passed through the DAL and eventually to the sprocs , these business layers may make several database calls to identify the right query/sproc/parameters to be called, alternatively the entire processing would be done in the stored procs by using dynamic query building .... get enlightned here
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