Scalability

June 15, 2009 at 12:04 pm (design, engineering, systems)

From this website:

Scalability is the ability to keep solving a problem as the size of the problem increases.

Scale is measured relative to your requirements. As long as you can scale enough to solve your problem then you have scale. If you can handle the number of objects and events required for your application then you can scale. It doesn’t really matter what the numbers are.

Scaling often creates a difference in kind for potential solutions. The solution you need to handle a small problem is not the same as you need to handle a large problem. If you incrementally try to evolve one into the other you can be in for a rude surprise, because it won’t work as you pass through different points of discontinuity.

Scale is not language or framework specific. It is a matter of approach and design.

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From Windows to Linux

May 27, 2009 at 7:10 am (ramblings, systems)

I finally installed Linux on my laptop and I feel like I have more powers now. Given that the office environment is tightly coupled with Windows eco-system, there is some trouble in getting somethings done like – accessing communicator, outlook, editing documents (ppl may yell if edited in ooffice and sent across). Nevertheless, with Linux, I am getting my personal things done. The very availability of command line gives good sense of control.

When I was at the academia, there was only Linux. No support for Windows. Still we adapted to it for our needs. We used ooffice, we used mutt, pine, kmail etc. for our needs. When I came to the corporate world, there was Windows everywhere. For close to 4 years now, I have been using Windows. I am used to it, I am adapted to it and I need it now to get somethings done. Installing Linux on my laptop is a step to focus away from Windows.

One advantage with Windows is that – the same cathedral makes most of the software that we use – to they are all tightly integrated. We can see and feel it when we use those software – outlook, office, communicator etc. That is one positive factor with Windows environments.

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The Elegance and Simplicity of Cloud Computing

May 27, 2009 at 6:56 am (problem solving, systems)

A pharmaceutical company describes how they got their job done in the cloud:

“We were recently able to launch a 64-machine cluster computer working on bioinformatics sequence information, complete the work, and shut it down in 20 minutes,” Lilly’s Dave Powers told the magazine. “It cost $6.40. To do that internally—to go from nothing to getting a 64-machine cluster installed and qualified—is a 12-week process.”

This says – users are not interested in buying machines and software, but are just interested in getting their job done in a most efficient manner. Cloud service providers will have business for long.

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Flexibility vs Capability

June 18, 2007 at 3:20 pm (systems, wisdom)

John McArthur writes in his blog that flexibility is as valuable as capability.

He suggests to the inventors and innovators:

For entrepreneurs and inventors who are looking for opportunity, I highly recommend that you look for opportunities to unlock chains of inflexibility for companies that are trapped by current applications, systems or processes.

And to the person in charge of supplier selection process:

For buyers of technology, before adopting any new technology, always remember to consider these two flexibility factors:

  1. What is the financial and operational impact, if the supplier or product ceases to exist?
  2. If my current supplier with whom you have entrusted your information, your applications, or your processes, ceases to perform to your satisfaction, how do you migrate back to your own environment or to another supplier?

There are two things to learn from this piece.

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