Linux, Apache Platforms

Linux/Apache as a platform has been doing web-based networking, backed by large-scale community development, for a long time. The most mature SPAM filters , email handlers, RSS tools, web data-miners, and web automation tools are Linux/Apache based. For those tasks, that’s what we may recommend. These services or components can be integrated easily with Microsoft Exchange and other Microsoft servers and systems.

Are we talking about “Open Systems” or “Open Software”?

No. We’re really trying to discuss the important business move toward open architectures. Enterprise or service architecture is not related to “open systems” or “open software”. For open systems, think “UNIX-like systems which have been standardized”. For open software, think free Linux software, free licensing, and community development.

Is Linux more “open” for business software architectures?

No. What matters are your software applications, not your systems. Linux is important, however, because most of the web runs on Apache web servers running on Linux, and the internet (worldwide) and intranet (corporate) ARE vital to open architectures.

Written by Keith Mitchell, Senior Developer at NSKinc

Corporate Technology Buzzwords

Let’s examine some of today’s corporate technology buzzwords, to discover any
common principles for corporate software development. We’ll provide guidelines for investing in custom development of business tools.

To do this, we’ll take apart Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Portals, Open Source and Open Architecture, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and Web Services. We’ll clarify Web 2.0, XML, SOAP, AJAX, and SQL. We’ll see if Microsoft’s got anything new which may make our decisions easier. We’ll unravel .NET and the “Windows vs. Web” dilemma. We’ll briefly explain Apache, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby on Rails, and then we’ll talk about what has happened to Java, J2EE, and Oracle, and what is happening to tools such as Delphi and 4D.

Lastly, we’ll describe NSK's internal goals for long term software investment, and we’ll explain why our total cost of maintenance on a software application is low, only when our client’s total cost of ownership is low. We’ll show you how business buzzwords happen.

Written by Keith Mitchell, Senior Developer at NSKinc