Growing Web Infrastructure
Despite difficult economic times, this isn't surprising. How many people do you know who added super high speed Verizon FIOS service or AT&T Uverse since the last holiday season, or purchased an iPhone or other smartphone? Think any of those folks did more online shopping this year than last?
Building ever more scaleable web infrastructure is simply not an easy task. First, you have to have available space and power in your data center, and more and more data centers are running out of power every day. Even if your data center has enough power for as many racks of new servers as you want to add, hardware is just half the problem. Many web outages are due to software scaling issues. Can you say how many of your Glassfish app servers are trying to open a particular file right now? If you were running your web site on Sun's Unified Storage Servers you could answer that question with a few clicks and perhaps avoid a web site meltdown. And while over half of all web sites use Sun's MySQL database, only a small percentage use the MySQL Enterprise Monitor which can help you spot potential bottlenecks before they occur.
Now to see how many people spend their break shopping from work on Monday!
"Can you say how many of your Glassfish app servers are trying to open a particular file right now?"
None. I strictly prohibited and forbade Java in my shop. The mantra goes:
"Use Java(TM) - get fired!"
It would be foolish to run a Java only web server, when Apache runs at full speed on the hardware, and when Apache has so many modules.
Nice try, but believe me, pushing Glassfish and MySQL as aggresively as your firm does only angers customers and would-be customers like myself.
The only thing your firm will accomplish with such tactics is to alienate long standing customers, people like myself that know your hardware and technology inside and out and that are the primary customer target and base.
If you want to engage customers, then engage them, like Apple Computer does theirs, and don't alienate them. For example, why isn't Sun pushing PostgreSQL more?
And where are Oracle packages? What about PHP being capable (linked against) Oracle client libraries?
Posted by UX-admin on December 01, 2008 at 01:26 AM PST #
Hi UX-admin,
Thanks for the comments. Sun ships PostgreSQL with Solaris and has for many years. But here is a pretty interesting example of the types of things future customers are doing with GlassFish and MySQL:
http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/entry/glassfish_and_mysql_student_contest1
Posted by Marc Hamilton on December 01, 2008 at 06:49 AM PST #
I know this. In fact, had you asked me, I could even tell you which version of PostgreSQL in which release of SunOS can be linked with what (like for instance, Postfix needs at least PostgreSQL 8.3).
Like I wrote above, and it seems it was missed, I belong to a segment of SUNW customers which know SUNW products and technologies inside and out.
My point is that it is frustrating that Sun is trying to push MySQL and Glassfish and Java extremely aggresively, while one doesn't even hear a peep about PosgtreSQL (I had to go on a hunt through Sun blogs to find out more about PostgreSQL at Sun).
It is frustrating, it doesn't build brand identification, when one lands at sun.com main website and there is a MySQL button big enough to shoot one's eye out, but not a single peep about PostgreSQL.
If your firm paid one billion dollars for buying MySQL, please understand that it is not our fault your firm chose to do so.
It's almost as if your firm ended up in an "oops!" moment, and is now trying to salvage some of that investment.
But how are your customers to blame for your management's poor business decisions? It's unfair.
You worked in marketing before, didn't you? Can you tell me what happens to a business, any business, that ignores his own customers, and that fails to deliver that which the customers are asking for?
Please don't pull X amount of websites saying "look, this is what customers want". Anybody can do that. Take a look at the balance sheet instead, that should be your firm's guide and compass.
Finally, I leave you with this thought: how did your company find herself in the position it is in today?
Posted by UX-admin on December 01, 2008 at 10:00 AM PST #