Enterprise Applications really make people sweat. Look at this selection of StackOverflow questions. There are hundreds. People really get worked into a lather over this.
- What makes an application an “enterprise” or “enterprise-level” application?
- Is the LAMP stack appropriate for Enterprise use?
- What is “Enterprise ready”? Can we test for it?
- Python in the enterprise: Pros and cons
There's an important subtext to this. Your favorite tool (Python, PHP, LAMP) is not Enterprise Ready. My favorite tool is better because it's Enterprise Scale.
Some folks will reject the subtext and try to say that these are reasonable questions. Until push comes to shove and no one seems to be able to define "Enterprise Ready". Words like scalable and reliable crop up in vague hand-waving ways. But without a clear yardstick for Enterprise Scale, the term has no useful meaning.
It's import to separate useful considerations from deprecating something you don't like. In reading the Stack Overflow questions, I've figured out what the political consideration behind Enterprise Scale might be.
Mission Critical
In many cases, Enterprise-Scale is taken to mean that the software can be trusted to handle Mission-Critical or Business-Critical computing. Sadly, even this doesn't mean much. Numerous businesses do bad things and yet remain in business. For example, TJ Maxx suffers a huge theft of information, and they remain in business. In this case, the software that was compromised was -- somehow -- not actually business critical. The software failed; they're still in business.
[Information loss is not a zero sum game; information compromise is not like theft of tangible goods. However, everyone would say that credit card processing is mission critical. Everyone.]
We can use words like "critical", but actual destructive testing -- live business, live data, live bad-guys -- showed that is wasn't "critical". It was central, conspicuous and important. Based on the evidence, we need a new word, other than "critical".
Working Definition of Enterprise Scale
In talking with a sysadmin about installs, it occurred to me what the politically-motivated definition of Enterprise Scale is
The install is not "next-next-done" wizard
Desktop and "departmental" applications have easy-to-use installers with few options and simple configurations. Therefore, people who don't like them can easily say their not Enteprise Scale.
Some folks aren't happy with Enterprise applications unless they have configurations so complex and terrifying that it takes numerous specialists (Sysadmins, DBA's, programmers, managers, business analysts and users) to install and configure the application.
That's how some folks know that a LAMP-based application stack involving Python can't be enterprise-ready. Python and MySQL install with "next-next-done" wizards. The application suite installs with a few dozen easy_install steps followed by a database build script. They will then spend hours talking around numerous tangential, ill-defined, hard-to-clarify issues to back up what they know.
Anything that's simple can't scale.
This is the subtext of many "your application or tool isn't enterprise scale" arguments.
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The mistake you make in TJ Maxx's case is assu...
Steve<noreply@blogger.com>
2010-02-15 12:01:50.473000-05:00
The mistake you make in TJ Maxx's case is assuming that data theft deprives the original owner of a copy. Without that data their sales and marketing operations may well have ground to a halt, but someone else taking an illicit copy (while it *should* have been fatal if there was any justice in the world) didn't stop them from operating.
As for the rest, that would normally fall under the umbrella of "complex operating environment". However the Python Software Foundation has a complex operating environment, but its applications aren't enterprise applications.
And Apache, which (on Windows at least) can be installed with a next-next-done wizard, needs complex configuration afterwards before it can truly be said to be operational, surely? So I am not sure how helpful this definition will be.