Skip to main content

How to select a programming model for your enterprise software development

Microservices hype is not over yet. There are technologies like serverless computing and multi cloud platforms coming up and they will eventually increase the need for microservices style programming and application development. When it comes to enterprise software development, we can see that it is a mixture of traditional soa style systems, api driven systems which are backed my microservices or above mentioned soa systems, cloud based SaaS applications as well as proprietary software systems running on premise. Enterprise is going to be like this for a foreseeable future.
It is quite important that as an architect or a senior leader who is responsible for an enterprise software architecture to understand the proper approach to built your software eco system which will be an ever important factor to your business. When it comes to building such a complex system, there are 3 main approaches stands out
  • Polyglot programming model
  • Platform based programming model (open source)
  • Vendor specific programming model (proprietary software)
Let’s talk about each of these approaches in detail.
Polyglot programming model
The rationale behind this model is that you allow your development teams to choose the best programming language or technology to build the systems which they are building. In a microservices type architecture, this freedom is automatically there since each microservice is independent from the other. It provides more agility and maximum usage of internal talents. With the invention of cross platform tools like docker, you can bundle your applications in a common wrapper and deploy them like they have developed with the same technology. The main disadvantage of this model is that scattered knowledge and too many tools and techniques in the platform makes it complex to manage under a single platform. But this gives the maximum flexibility when it comes to selecting the best technology for a given task. Most of the architects and senior leaders are afraid to go with this approach due to the fact that they cannot build enough expertise on all different technologies.
Platform based programming model (open source)
Instead of selecting a technology per each and every application, you can select a technology platform which will cater most of your application development requirements. When it comes to selecting such a platform, we need to consider the following capabilities of the platform.
  • Stability
  • Extendibility
  • Performance
  • Maintainability
  • Transparency
Open source technology platforms have become the defacto standard of choice for platform driven use cases. All the above mentioned factors are well covered with a proper open source technology platform. Some of the most popular open source technology platforms for building open source based enterprise applications are
  • Spring framework
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • Netflix OSS
  • WSO2 Open source platform
This model provides advantages like easy maintenance due to common technology platform, easier to build in house expertise, less complexity and more stability. Based on the platform you choose to build your system, you can achieve goals like agility through this model.
Vendor specific programming model
This model of programming has been the choice in the past when there were few companies building enterprise software platforms. These large corporations built their own proprietary platforms and provided easy to use user interface driven tools to program their systems. No one knew how to debug these systems and what is happening under the hood and there were no open information about future road maps of these platforms.
Even though these platforms are proprietary and hard to debug, they have their own advantages.
  • Ease of use
  • Better stability
  • Purposely built software with quality features
One of the main disadvantages of this model is the lack of flexibility and vendor locking. Once you locked in, you don’t have a choice than pay what the vendor demands when you want to add a new feature. Sometimes, they will not add the relevant feature at all.
Conclusion
The 3 programming models described above have their own advantages and disadvantages based on your requirements and capabilities. Therefore, you need to weigh in all the factors before deciding on a specific approach.

Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing this valuable information. If you are looking for enterprise software development services visit our website today.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Custom enterprise software development offers a powerful way to transform businesses. By tailoring solutions to specific needs, organizations can achieve greater efficiency, productivity, and competitive advantage. By carefully selecting a development partner and following a well-defined process, businesses can ensure the successful implementation of custom software that drives growth and innovation. Enterprise software development

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WSO2 ESB tuning performance with threads

I have written several blog posts explaining the internal behavior of the ESB and the threads created inside ESB. With this post, I am talking about the effect of threads in the WSO2 ESB and how to tune up threads for optimal performance. You can refer [1] and [2] to understand the threads created within the ESB. [1] http://soatutorials.blogspot.com/2015/05/understanding-threads-created-in-wso2.html [2] http://wso2.com/library/articles/2012/03/importance-performance-wso2-esb-handles-nonobvious/ Within this blog post, I am discussing about the "worker threads" which are used for processing the data within the WSO2 ESB. There are 2 types of worker threads created when you start sending the requests to the server 1) Server Worker/Client Worker Threads 2) Mediator Worker (Synapse-Worker) Threads Server Worker/Client Worker Threads These set of threads will be used to process all the requests/responses coming to the ESB server. ServerWorker Threads will be used to pr

How puppet works in your IT infrstructure

What is Puppet? Puppet is IT automation software that helps system administrators manage infrastructure throughout its lifecycle, from provisioning and configuration to orchestration and reporting. Using Puppet, you can easily automate repetitive tasks, quickly deploy critical applications, and proactively manage change, scaling from 10s of servers to 1000s, on-premise or in the cloud. How the puppet works? It works like this..Puppet agent is a daemon that runs on all the client servers(the servers where you require some configuration, or the servers which are going to be managed using puppet.) All the clients which are to be managed will have puppet agent installed on them, and are called nodes in puppet. Puppet Master: This machine contains all the configuration for different hosts. Puppet master will run as a daemon on this master server. Puppet Agent: This is the daemon that will run on all the servers, which are to be managed using p

How to configure timeouts in WSO2 ESB to get rid of client timeout errors

WSO2 ESB has defined some configuration parameters which controls the timeout of a particular request which is going out of ESB. In a particular  scneario, your client sends a request to ESB, and then ESB sends a request to another endpoint to serve the request. CLIENT->WSO2 ESB->BACKEND The reason for clients getting timeout is that ESB timeout is larger than client's timeout. This can be solved by either increasing the timeout at client side or by decreasing the timeout in ESB side. In any of the case, you can control the timeout in ESB using the below properties. 1) Global timeout defined in synapse.properties (ESB_HOME\repository\conf\) file. This will decide the maximum time that a callback is waiting in the ESB for a response for a particular request. If ESB does not get any response from Back End, it will drop the message and clears out the call back. This is a global level parameter which affects all the endpoints configured in ESB. synapse.global_timeout_inte