 | | From: | jrefactors at hotmail.com | | Subject: | enterprise application development versus traditional software development | | Date: | 14 Jan 2005 21:37:59 -0800 |
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 | I try to compare enterprise application development with traditional software development. Looks like the major difference is that enterprise application development has deployment phase, but not in other applications such as desktop applications.
please advise. thanks
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 | | From: | Phlip | | Subject: | Re: enterprise application development versus traditional software development | | Date: | Sat, 15 Jan 2005 05:58:11 GMT |
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 | jrefactors wrote:
> I try to compare enterprise application development with traditional > software development. Looks like the major difference is that > enterprise application development has deployment phase, but not in > other applications such as desktop applications.
Where are you getting this stuff?
"Enterprise" development is a big y word for "in-house" development. Compared to "shrinkwrap", you can cheat on a few issues.
The pipeline to your customers is much shorter. You typically don't need to find a way to make them pay for your software. In return, you give them _exactly_ what they ask for, not what your marketing department tells you might sell.
Because the pipeline is shorter, you can take many shortcuts. You might need to build full-featured installers, or localize to many languages, or adapt to many different kinds of databases. Because so many technology decisions are already made, you can save time hard-coding links to specific databases and other "enterprise" applications. None of these links must be "productized", or made optional.
These forces allow you to focus on giving specific customers exactly what they need. That's why "enterprise" is lucrative if you do it right, like Thoughtworks does. And it can be lucrative if you do it "wrong", too. The right way is to deploy teams to enterprises to help customize the computers at the centers of their businesses. The "wrong" way is to build One True Program that can configure and tweak and deploy to any possible enterprise.
That kind of program is typically very lucrative to tune and configure for a very long time, but not very lucrative to its clients.
-- Phlip http://industrialxp.org/community/bin/view/Main/TestFirstUserInterfaces
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 | | From: | Shayne Wissler | | Subject: | Re: enterprise application development versus traditional software development | | Date: | Sat, 15 Jan 2005 10:29:22 -0700 |
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 | "Phlip" wrote in message news:Th2Gd.17418$by5.15702@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com... > jrefactors wrote: > >> I try to compare enterprise application development with traditional >> software development. Looks like the major difference is that >> enterprise application development has deployment phase, but not in >> other applications such as desktop applications. > > Where are you getting this stuff?
School?
I don't think your answer is going to impress his teacher ;)
Shayne Wissler http://www.thoughtsonsoftware.com
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 | | From: | Leif Roar Moldskred | | Subject: | Re: enterprise application development versus traditional software development | | Date: | 15 Jan 2005 13:49:40 +0100 |
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 | "Phlip" writes:
> jrefactors wrote: > > > I try to compare enterprise application development with traditional > > software development. Looks like the major difference is that > > enterprise application development has deployment phase, but not in > > other applications such as desktop applications. > > Where are you getting this stuff? > > "Enterprise" development is a big y word for "in-house" development. > Compared to "shrinkwrap", you can cheat on a few issues.
Since he mentioned a deployment phase, I'd assume he's talking about Enterprise Java development, which is basically development of a system under the J2EE architecture where the system will be run under an application server such as Websphere, JBoss or WebLogic.
The term "enterprise application" is basically used for large back-office business applications - accounting systems, directory management systems, order tracking systems and similar. It does not have any particular connotations of the system having been developed in house, nor that it's created for one particular customer only.
-- Leif Roar Moldskred Never turn your back on a gabbleduck.
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 | | From: | Alan Gauld | | Subject: | Re: enterprise application development versus traditional software development | | Date: | Sat, 15 Jan 2005 12:42:14 +0000 (UTC) |
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 | On 14 Jan 2005 21:37:59 -0800, jrefactors@hotmail.com wrote: > I try to compare enterprise application development with traditional > software development. Looks like the major difference is that > enterprise application development has deployment phase, but not in > other applications such as desktop applications.
Enterprise class geneally refers to large scale. The applications might not be significantly different to other business type apps but they have to cater for very large volumes of users(10000 plus) in many geographic locations (often including many counties and time zones), they will be running 24x7x365 often with reliability in excess of 99.99% so full high availability, failover and recovery need to be built in. Also security may be an issue.
In addition Enterprise apps usually have to integrate with lots of existing applications, so there will likely be lots of middleware technology involved, and the database may well be a single corporate entity so you are restricted in the schema you can use. Sumilarly printing may be done by a print factory or external publishing house rather than traditional printers (lasers etc).
As you mention Enterprise projects typically cover the end to end lifecycle so in addition to developing the software itself you need to provide deployment (and probably training and support) The need to rollback a release and be able to operate several versions of the software concurrently are also quite common. Also hardware specs and even dedicated network designs may be needed.
I think those are the key characteristics of enterprise as I saee them. Others no doubt will have other factors to consider.
Alan G.
Author of the Learn to Program website http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld
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 | | From: | H. S. Lahman | | Subject: | Re: enterprise application development versus traditional software | | Date: | Sat, 15 Jan 2005 21:08:36 GMT |
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 | Responding to Jrefactors...
> I try to compare enterprise application development with traditional > software development. Looks like the major difference is that > enterprise application development has deployment phase, but not in > other applications such as desktop applications.
I agree with Phlip that it is mostly a marketing buzzword with very little information value.
Nonetheless, as Gauld points out, there are certain vague implications associated with it. Generally the term implies large architectures and infrastructures for supporting individual applications. It also implies reuse of software content at various scales. In IT, that primarily means shared data storage and associated middleware facilities. But good luck on finding an substantive definitions of what that might mean in practice.
I don't think deployment has much to do with it. Deployment is a major hassle for large applications and infrastructures. But is it also part of development of small, individual applications. IOW, the only thing that is changing is the scale of the aggravation.
************* There is nothing wrong with me that could not be cured by a capful of Drano.
H. S. Lahman hsl@pathfindermda.com Pathfinder Solutions -- Put MDA to Work http://www.pathfindermda.com blog (under constr): http://pathfinderpeople.blogs.com/hslahman (888)-OOA-PATH
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