Dovetail Software Blogs: Scalability
“In
earlier models of growth, the ability to scale depended on reliable
replication, as in the franchise model of business, with expandable,
but not necessarily changeable, IT governance. Nowadays a primary
benchmark of health of a company is also the ability to change, and
this has to be tied in with its ability to scale. When we look at
massive scale that is also changing, adapting and growing in other
ways, we see flexible architecture.”
Flash drives: your mileage WILL vary
“This
experience made it clear to me that flash performance and capacity
cannot be assumed from the vendor specs. Perhaps my thumb drive is
poorly engineered, or optimized for capacity over everything else. In
any case, this example made me realize just how different flash storage
can be and how little we actually know about performance of specific
implementations.”
Future iPhones could share data over non-GSM channels
“Future iPhones could utilize technology that converts text to voice messages and do so over voice channels instead of GSM.
Such a system is described in a recently-published patent filed by
Apple called “Multimedia data transfer for a personal communication
device,” which would essentially turn the mobile devices into walkie
talkies for multimedia data. It could also serve to benefit users who
are visually impaired by providing vocalized versions of the data being
sent.”
New NCR Machines May Shorten Teller Lines
“Banks will soon offer self-service workstations designed by NCR
that will allow customers to perform a variety of transactions without
the help of a teller. The technology should reduce waiting time for
customers and free tellers and other bank employees to focus on more
complex transactions and sales.”
Making Phone Systems More Human
“Meeting
customer needs may mean making it more convenient for callers to “get
human” when necessary. However, “getting human” just isn’t enough.
Meeting customer needs should always mean ensuring the quality and
performance of the automated systems and self-service applications on
which customers rely, and having the confidence that applications and
systems will work as an organization and its customers expect.”
What will next-generation multicore apps look like?
“The
cloud-services model meshes well with multicore, Mundie said, given
that multicore apps will be more asynchronous, loosely coupled,
concurrent, composable, decentralized and resiliently designed. These
kinds of features almost by their very nature call for a
cloud-computing model with giant datacenters’ worth of power.”
SOA Governance and IT Portfolio Management
“Many analysts talk as if IT can start SOA with a clean slate and the software vendors talk as if you can buy SOA in a box. Anne Thomas Manes says SOA
is about rationalizing the existing IT portfolio and changing the
system development process through governance. She describes the SOA
migration as a 15-20 year effort. Now I don’t perscribe to mapping
goals to decades but her point that your starting point should be
current portfolio and leveraging value there first should in fact not
be missed. She also stresses the importance of semantics in addition to
interfaces.”
