Not to speak for Nathan, but distributed architecture means two things in my
mind (that I am thinking about right now anyway).
1) Running multiple application servers (i.e. PHP on Apache/ZendServer and
then RPG on OS/400)
2) Running processes on separate machines.
The above two things entail a lot more moving parts than keeping it all in
RPG on a single server. Many companies, including my own, blinding add
additional servers because it is easy to do. But the long term cost can be
a crazy amount of money. This is where server administration staff has
gotten to crazy levels.
Back in my operations days, most office people only had dumb terminals and I
spent maybe 1/30th of my time switching out terminals for a couple hundred
users in the building I was in. Compare that to now where we have desktops
on every workstation that have way more than the office personnel needs.
Now we have whole depts dedicated to PC support and they have big planning
meetings to install fix packs, software updates, etc. I use this analogy to
relate to how we also introduce new servers into our server farms because,
heck, it is REALLY easy with virtualization. But we rarely think of the long
term cost (i.e. man hours).
The same will be true for the application development stack in coming years
as people realize that having multiple language, multiple server, multiple
DB environments are incredibly inefficient. Right now hardware
consolidation is the big topic, but app development consolidation will be
soon to follow because it won't be good enough to just have a solid
ecommerce site with 100's of dynamic web forms and it will be instead
whoever can implement new features with the shortest amount of time with the
least amount of resources - only an integrated app dev stack can give you
that (so far).
Oracle sees this and will be giving IBM a run for their money in the next 5
to 10 years now that they own server hardware, operating system(s),
database(s), and a leading programming language (Java). What IBM has
refused to do (or has been incapable of doing), Oracle will do. Intimate
integration (zero loose coupling) will become king.
[Stepping down from soap box]
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 7:47 AM, Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
It's not just a question of learning multiple languages, it's more a
question of using distributed architecture.
If by distributed architecture you mean three-tier or multi-tier
architecture, that's the most common model for Internet programming. The
transition from client-server architecture to multi-tier architecture is for
me a defining feature of IBM i modernization. That's what truly brings IBM i
applications--and IBM i developers--into the Internet age.
I think resistance to multi-tier architecture can be a serious obstacle to
modernization. Some developers like the traditional client-server
architecture and have no interest at all in becoming Internet developers.
I've actually heard an IBM i developer say he doesn't want to switch from
green-screens to web pages because he's concerned that it's just the latest
fad. This same guy has been surfing web pages on the Internet for years.
If you meant something else by "distributed architecture," then my bad.
Never mind. :-)
Kelly Cookson
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Dot Foods, Inc.
217-773-4486 x12676
www.dotfoods.com
midrange.com
