Building a Web application today means using a variety of different software technologies, each executing in a different domain. JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in the browser; PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, or the like on the server; MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MongoDB, or any of a growing list of database servers as your persistent storage back-end. With Opa, an open source Web development technology from the French company MLstate, building a Web application tomorrow could be much more straightforward -- and safer.
When you consider the cloud, you typically imagine a realm of deployed, production applications. Zend Developer Cloud (ZDC) adds a twist: ZDC creates a place in the cloud where PHP-based applications can be developed for the cloud. No more developing locally, then deploying into the cloud -- ZDC pushes both into the ether.
Amazon's Relational Database Service (RDS) creates a MySQL database server in the cloud.
2
Signifying a formless haze of computing power and storage that is somewhere "out there," computerdom's current buzzword is as difficult to get one's arms around as a real cloud. A seemingly limitless pool of processors and memory and disk space, and you just scoop out what you need. Sounds great, doesn't it?
Have you got a few hundred gigabytes of data that need processing? Perhaps a dump of radio telescope data that could use some combing through by a squad of processors running Fourier transforms? Or maybe you're convinced some statistical analysis will reveal a pattern hidden in several years of stock market information? Unfortunately, you don't happen to have a grid of distributed processors to run your application, much less the time to construct a parallel processing infrastructure.
The day of the mold-your-own OS has come, and Linux is the clay.
Linux is, among other things, a customizable operating system. Clever developers can craft a Linux whose kernel and packages are configured for a specific purpose, to serve as a sort of vertical-market operating system. The benefit to users is somewhat akin to walking into a hardware store. On the shelves are tools, each suited to a specific task. And it's particularly nice that all the tools are free.
Amazon's Web Services (AWS) are based on a simple concept: Amazon has built a globe-spanning hardware and software infrastructure that supports the company's Internet business, so why not modularize components of that infrastructure and rent them? It is akin to a large construction company in the business of building interstate highways hiring out its equipment and expertise for jobs such as putting in a side road, paving a supermarket parking lot, repairing a culvert, or just digging a backyard swimming pool.
Connecting your application into the Amazon Web Services (AWS) isn't complicated, particularly if you've done Web service programming on other projects.
In the beginning, Mainsoft released Visual MainWin for Java EE, which compiled .Net CIL (Common Intermediate Language) code into Java bytecode. As technically fascinating as that was, on its own it provided limited traction. Much of Microsoft's attractiveness to the enterprise goes beyond its .Net languages and runtime frameworks. It is Microsoft's enterprise applications such as SharePoint and SQL Server that -- for many enterprise programmers -- make the .Net environment worth using. A tool that simply moves .Net code into Java moves that code out of reach of Microsoft's enterprise applications.
If you believe the documentation, the white papers, and the news releases, iTKO's recently released LISA 4 is an SOA testing tool. That descriptor, however, is modesty riding on the back of the still trendy acronym "SOA" because LISA goes well beyond testing what are typically understood to be SOA components: Under one roof, it houses the abilities to test Web and Java applications, the ESB (enterprise service bus), JMS (Java Message Service) systems, EJBs, databases, combinations of the above, and -- oh yes -- Web services.
Android is Google's foray into the handheld OS realm. It follows a path trodden by -- among others -- Symbian's Quartz, the SavaJe operating system, and J2ME. In fact, one of Android's stated goals is to overcome some of J2ME's shortcomings. Whether or not Android succeeds, either at that specific goal, or in general, remains to be seen.
SOAP is the currency of the SOA marketplace -- for now, anyway. Though SOAP's significance may diminish as Web services evolve, its importance for the time being is unquestionable. Therefore, a substantial portion of the QA work by Web service providers and consumers must entail verifying the accurate exchange of SOAP messages. Not surprisingly, several SOAP-focused Web service testing tools have appeared.
Imagine if you will: you are the chief database administrator for a large corporation. Your organization's databases are on different continents, which has never been a problem. What is a problem is that those databases have been written by different divisions, using different database technologies: Oracle here, Sybase there, some Cobol down there, and so on.
Parasoft continues to send its Jtest Java testing suite out to hunt down bad Java code. And Jtest knows that the definition of bad Java code continues to expand: One bit of code might be bad because its developer didn't follow best practices for coding style, making it difficult for other programmers to understand and interface with it. Yet another bit might be bad because it is poorly factored and overly complex, or because it crashes when executed. A different bit of code might be bad because it was written with no consideration for security and could be easily compromised by a malicious hacker.
