The document discusses several contemporary themes in software platform evolution:
- Open-source software like Linux is developed collaboratively by programmers and available for free, improving rapidly.
- Java is a leading programming language for the web and in devices.
- Web services use web standards to exchange data between different systems.
- Outsourcing involves contracting software work to outside firms, often in low-cost countries.
The document discusses several contemporary themes in software platform evolution:
- Open-source software like Linux is developed collaboratively by programmers and available for free, improving rapidly.
- Java is a leading programming language for the web and in devices.
- Web services use web standards to exchange data between different systems.
- Outsourcing involves contracting software work to outside firms, often in low-cost countries.
The document discusses several contemporary themes in software platform evolution:
- Open-source software like Linux is developed collaboratively by programmers and available for free, improving rapidly.
- Java is a leading programming language for the web and in devices.
- Web services use web standards to exchange data between different systems.
- Outsourcing involves contracting software work to outside firms, often in low-cost countries.
The document discusses several contemporary themes in software platform evolution:
- Open-source software like Linux is developed collaboratively by programmers and available for free, improving rapidly.
- Java is a leading programming language for the web and in devices.
- Web services use web standards to exchange data between different systems.
- Outsourcing involves contracting software work to outside firms, often in low-cost countries.
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While the cost of computing has fallen, IT
infrastructure expenditures have grown due to
the rising cost of computing services, software, and the increase in intensity and sophistication of computing. Telecommunications and computing platforms have converged: at the client level, with the merging of PDAs and cell phones, and at the server and network level, with the rise of Internet telephony. Grid computing utilizes the idle computational resources of separate, geographically remote computers to create a single virtual supercomputer. In this process, a server computer breaks data and applications into discrete chunks that are parceled out to the grid's machines. Grid computing offers increased cost savings, computational speed and agility. utility computing refers to firms off-loading peak demand for computing power to remote, large-scale data processing centers. This allows firms to reduce their investment in IT infrastructure by investing in only as much computing power as needed on average and paying for additional power on an as-needed basis. This arrangement offers firms much greater agility and flexibility in their infrastructure. Autonomic computing is an industry-wide effort to develop systems that can configure, optimize, repair, and protect themselves against intruders and viruses, in an effort to free system administrators from routine system management, reduce costly system crashes. Today's virus software with automatic virus updates is one example of autonomic computing. Virtualization is the process of presenting a set of computing resources (such as computing power or data storage) so that they can all be accessed in ways that are not restricted by physical configuration or geographic location. Server virtualization enables companies to run more than one operating system at the same time on a single machine. Most servers run at just 10 to 15 percent of capacity, and virtualization can boost utilization server utilization rates to 70 percent or higher. . Multicore Processor is an integrated circuit that contains two or more processors. This technology enables two or more processing engines with reduced power requirements and heat dissipation to perform tasks faster than a resource- hungry chip with a single processing core. THERE ARE FIVE MAJOR THEMES IN CONTEMPORARY SOFTWARE PLATFORM EVOLUTION: LINUX AND OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE JAVA ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE WEB SERVICES AND SERVICE-ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE SOFTWARE OUTSOURCING OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE IS SOFTWARE PRODUCED BY A COMMUNITY OF SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSANDS OF PROGRAMMERS AROUND THE WORLD, AND IS AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE TO BE MODIFIED BY USERS, WITH MINIMAL RESTRICTIONS. THE PREMISE THAT OPEN- SOURCE SOFTWARE IS SUPERIOR TO COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE IS BASED ON THE ABILITY OF THOUSANDS OF PROGRAMMERS MODIFYING AND IMPROVING THE SOFTWARE AT A MUCH FASTER RATE. IN RETURN FOR THEIR WORK, PROGRAMMERS RECEIVE PRESTIGE AND ACCESS TO A NETWORK OF OTHER PROGRAMMERS, AND ADDITIONAL FOR-PAY WORK OPPORTUNITIES. THE PROCESS OF IMPROVING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE IS MONITORED BY SELF-ORGANIZED, PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMMING COMMUNITIES. THOUSANDS OF OPEN-SOURCE PROGRAMS, RANGING FROM OPERATING SYSTEMS TO OFFICE SUITES, ARE AVAILABLE FROM HUNDREDS OF WEB SITES. LINUX
AN OPERATING SYSTEM RELATED TO UNIX, IS ONE OF THE MOST WELL-KNOWN
OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE, AND IS THE WORLD'S FASTEST GROWING CLIENT AND SERVER OPERATING SYSTEM, ALONG WITH RELATED LINUX APPLICATIONS. THE RISE OF OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE, PARTICULARLY LINUX AND THE APPLICATIONS IT SUPPORTS, HAS PROFOUND IMPLICATIONS FOR CORPORATE SOFTWARE PLATFORMS: COST REDUCTION, RELIABILITY AND RESILIENCE, AND INTEGRATION, BECAUSE LINUX WORKS ON ALL THE MAJOR HARDWARE PLATFORMS FROM MAINFRAMES TO SERVERS TO CLIENTS. BECAUSE OF ITS RELIABILITY, LOW COST, AND INTEGRATION FEATURES, LINUX HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BREAK MICROSOFT'S MONOPOLY OF THE DESKTOP.. JAVA
AN OPERATING SYSTEM-INDEPENDENT, OBJECT-ORIENTED
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE, HAS BECOME THE LEADING PROGRAMMING ENVIRONMENT FOR THE WEB, AND ITS USE HAS MIGRATED INTO CELLULAR PHONES, CARS, MUSIC PLAYERS, AND MORE. WEB SERVICES
LOOSELY COUPLED SOFTWARE COMPONENTS THAT USE WEB COMMUNICATION
STANDARDS, CAN EXCHANGE INFORMATION BETWEEN DIFFERENT SYSTEMS REGARDLESS OF OPERATING SYSTEM OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. WEB SERVICES TECHNOLOGY IS FOUNDED ON EXTENSIBLE MARKUP LANGUAGE (XML). XML WAS DEVELOPED AS A MORE POWERFUL MARKUP LANGUAGE THAN HYPERTEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE (HTML), A PAGE DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SPECIFYING HOW CONTENT APPEARS ON WEB PAGES. BY MARKING DATA WITH XML TAGS, COMPUTERS CAN INTERPRET, MANIPULATE, AND EXCHANGE DATA FROM DIFFERENT SYSTEMS. OUTSOURCING
A FIRM CONTRACTS CUSTOM SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT OR
MAINTENANCE TO OUTSIDE FIRMS, FREQUENTLY FIRMS OPERATING IN LOW-WAGE AREAS OF THE WORLD. WITH THE GROWING SOPHISTICATION AND EXPERIENCE OF OFFSHORE FIRMS, MORE AND MORE NEW-PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT IS OUTSOURCED.