Virtualization is one of the today’s key words of modern .IT. Today hardware and software vendors do offer virtualization solutions for nearly everything and all.
Regardless it is a CPU, your memory or hosting package, the disk access or finally an middleware or application runtime layer it needs to share and virtualize, the ready to use managing framework for it is already developed and offered on the market.
Even Apple, this so far manufacturer of nice and trendy hardware for geeks - "Show me one person not being aware about this brand new iPhone 3G!" - is now part of the game. Finally since opening their world, no longer using own hardware for their MACs and porting OSX to Intel CPUs things like Parallels and VMware are part of the big game and the world has changed.
But …. What does this mean for customers and application owner. Do we have to forget about all? Or perhaps to throw away all our nice but old applications and sites? …. What kind of world we developers have to work in tomorrow?
Good Question!
Following actual market researches, lower costs for application development, system integration and application maintenance,
accelerated integration of applications, more flexible adaptation of existing applications to future changes in technology and, not least, the ability to develop and market new products and services more quickly – are just some of the many benefits that
companies are expecting from a new approach to application design resulting from the introduction of service-oriented architectures (SOA).
Will this influence the work of small business owners? Such one or two man shows designing special and individual tailored customer solutions?
For me the answer is YES. Perhaps not today and with a bit of luck not right tomorrow (the reprieve to learn about!). But certainly in a predictable time frame we all will have to deal with it …… Why?
Experts are in agreement that an infrastructure that is not flexible quickly comes up against its limits, resulting in logistical, as also performance problems. Today only a service-oriented software design (using web service technology, for example) involves the development of modular, reusable software units that can be distributed across different systems. And therefore is able to deal with common hassles and business impacts like software upgrade, maintenance, server crashes and downtimes in a reasonable and appropriate way.
Early this year I changed my hosting provider because of feeling more and more disappointed about their leak of professionalism. For years my former hosting partner offered a solid hosting at a fair and reasonable price to me - At the end and shortly before I left they just and basically had ignored and /or missed to do their homework!
Two years ago I was able and willing to wait a few hours until my mail host was up and running again. Today I’m no longer and I really insist in receiving all my sms, emails and micro blog postings instantly without any service interruptions.
I basically expect - as for my feeling all customer do - my site and services up and running all time! There is no way for me to think about missing inquiries and business I might loose out of some service disruption.
The new provider I decided for does now offer grid-Services to me. Oh!! … How exciting you may now throw into our discussion.
Sure there are still issues and hassle to deal with, but since then my pages were never down for more than a few minutes and my emails came always through - Not to speak about the plenty of more resources I do now get at a similar rate like before!
You see?! There are impacts on our daily business. And virtualization and a service orientated application design does for sure have a serious impact and direct impact on our all business.
Thats my opinion and my 5ct on the topic! You have another one?
