Monthly Archives: December 2019

Evolution of Managed Network Services

Network

… or how to get rid of monolithic service architectures.

1991 – CORBA
A distributed management framework for network services. The father of it all. First on Uni* systems, later on other operating systems as well.

Pros:
– Not monolithic as everything before.
– The “O” stands for “Object”, so it must be totally awesome.

1996 – DCOM
A distributed management framework for network services. The Microsoft way. Back in the days Microsoft reinvented everything to set new standards and own them.

Pros:
– Not monolithic as everything before.
– The “O” stands for “Object”, so it must be totally awesome.

1997 – Java JNDI and RMI
A distributed management framework for network services. Along came the bytecode revolution with Java, and yes, of course Java wanted to do it the Java way.

Pros:
– Not monolithic as everything before.
– It’s Java, so it must be totally awesome.

1999 – Java JNDI and EJB
A distributed management framework for network services. Way cooler than RMI.

Pros:
– Not monolithic as everything before.
– Even more object-oriented, so it must be totally awesome.

1999 – Java JNDI and Tomcat
A distributed management framework for network services. Way cooler than EJB.

Pros:
– Not monolithic as everything before.
– Everyone is using it, so it must be totally awesome.

2003 – SOAP
Distributed network services. Can be used by other programming languages than Java. In case there are any. Lacks service discovery, as e.g. CORBA already provided out of the box more than 20 years ago. So you need an additional layer called ESB.

Pros:
– Not monolithic as everything before.
– The “O” stands for “Object”, so it must be totally awesome.

201? – REST
Distributed network services. Advancement of SOAP.

Pros:
– Almost the same as SOAP, just a bit smaller.

2015 – Cloud Microservices
A distributed management framework for network services. Based on REST. Lacks service discovery though, as e.g. CORBA already provided out of the box more than 20 years ago. So you need an additional layer called service mesh.

Pros:
– Not monolithic as everything before.
– It has the word “Cloud” in it, so it must be totally awesome.

202? – …
Not sure what it will be called, but sure as hell it will be a distributed management framework for network services. And it will be way hotter than everything before, because it will not be monolithic.

Criswell Predicts … IT in 2020

It Predictions

As new year is approaching, there are – inevitably as every year – predictions about what’s coming up in IT in the next year.

Unfortunately everything I have read so far is bleeding obvious: Moving to the cloud, AI will be used everywhere, and Python is becoming the most dominant programming language. Without merely continuing the trends from 2019, here are my wild predictions for 2020:

  • With yet another devastating side channel security breach in Intel and AMD processors, all major cloud providers are moving their server hardware to ARM processors.
    Update 14.11.2020:
    Amazon Launches a Killer ARM Server Chip With the Graviton2
    Apple Silicon M1 Chip in MacBook Air Outperforms High-End 16-Inch MacBook Pro
    Update 22.12.2020:
    Microsoft is designing its own Arm-based data-center server
  • An unnamed whistle blower reveals that the NSA is using quantum computers and AI to profile every single citizen in the world in real-time. Data is retrieved from decrypted TLS connections by quantum computers, and numerous micro satellites orbiting the earth.
  • Chinese smartphones running their own Chinese Open Source operating system are becoming the defacto standard for secure and affordable mobile devices.
    Update 14.11.2020:
    Huawei to shift phones to its own Harmony operating system from 2021
  • Large companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft are launching their own space missions to mine natural resources on moon and mars.
  • Large companies like Apple, Google and Facebook begin to span their own micro satellite networks to provide mobile phone and internet services around the globe. National telecommunication companies become obsolete.
    Update 04.08.2020:
    Bezos’ internet from space plan moves a step close    r
  • Deep fake videos are banned by all major industrial countries around the globe. Social media platforms are legally obliged to detect and delete deep fake videos.
    Update 07.01.2020:
    Facebook bans ‘deepfake’ videos in run-up to US election
  • In a rather controversial press conference Microsoft announces it will discontinue Outlook as an installable email program and urges Windows users to migrate to the corresponding cloud service Office365. Users will have to pay a monthly fee for using Outlook email services. Alternatively Microsoft recommends Mozilla’s Thunderbird as an installable email client on local Windows computers.