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Categorizing Cloud Platforms: Beyond IaaS and PaaS  
# Tuesday, April 21, 2009
 
The most common way to categorize cloud platforms today is to split them into two chunks: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). This dichotomy is simple, which is good, and it's useful in some situations.

Still, I've become convinced that the IaaS/PaaS distinction is too limited; it hides more than it reveals. The reality is that the cloud platform world has become significantly more complex since the IaaS/PaaS split was created. We need something that does a better job of helping people decide which cloud platform is right for them.

A scenario-based approach can do this. By categorizing the kinds of applications we want to build on cloud platforms, then working out exactly what capabilities a cloud platform needs to support each of those application styles, we can better match our requirements with what the various platforms offer. The result isn't as simple as the IaaS/PaaS split, but at least in some cases, it's more useful.

I'm planning to write a paper on this sometime soon. In the meantime, here's the keynote presentation I gave at a conference in Silicon Valley last week. Along with a few other things, this talk illustrates the scenarios I currently find most representative, then shows how the leading cloud platforms match with what each of those scenarios requires.

My goal isn't to figure out which cloud platform is best--they all have pros and cons. Instead, the intent is to help people decide which platform makes the most sense for whatever they're trying to do.

The scenarios I've chosen certainly aren't exhaustive--this is a work in progress. As always, comments are very welcome.

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What is Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)?  
# Saturday, April 11, 2009
 
I've written a group of short articles on application lifecycle management, all of which will be published over the next few weeks. They were sponsored by Microsoft, but they're not focused on Microsoft technology or products. Instead, my goal was to help people think about ALM in what I believe is a more useful way.

The first of these papers to appear is What is Application Lifecycle Management? Its main argument is that ALM is much more than just the traditional software development lifecycle. As usual, I think that understanding the big picture--having the right context for what you're doing--is essential.

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SOAP vs. REST: Complements or Competitors?  
# Tuesday, April 07, 2009
 
ESRI, a leading firm in geographic information systems (GIS) software, invited me to keynote their developer conference last month. I spoke about SOAP and REST, something that's relevant to most people building software today.

ESRI has posted a slightly edited video of the talk, along with a PDF of the slides. There's a bit of ESRI-specific content, but for the most part, the presentation is a general look at SOAP and REST.

The talk runs for more than an hour, so here's the punchline: Exposing services RESTfully is a better choice in a majority of situations, especially over the Internet. SOAP and the WS-* technologies still have some role, however, particularly inside enterprises.

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Conference: Shaping the New Age of Application Development  
# Monday, April 06, 2009
 
SDForum, a Silicon Valley non-profit focused on technology, is sponsoring a two-day conference on the future of application development. The event is in Santa Clara, California on April 17-18, and big chunks of the agenda are focused on cloud computing.

The first day's opening keynote is by Forrester's James Staten, one of the absolute best analysts in this area. I'm doing the keynote for the second day, talking about cloud platforms. If you have a couple of days to spare and you care about what's next in application development, I encourage you to take a look at this event.

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