Steve's Networked Programming Newsletter

Making Nets Work
April 2008

Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter. This month I have news concerning last month's survey of ACE Support customers regarding current platform usage and the resulting platform support changes coming May 1.

I also have a quick note about a project Riverace is doing for an important customer with Apache Qpid.

As always, be sure to forward this note to other people you work with to be sure they know what's happening in the world of networked application development.

In This Issue

ACE Platforms Survey: The Results

Apache Qpid Being Ported to Windows

Did Your Last Project Run Late? Want to Prevent That?

ACE Platforms Survey: The Results

Last month Riverace surveyed our ACE Support customers to stay updated on what computing platforms are still in active use. The survey also asked which ACE version(s) are still in use, and the results are very interesting. Here are the highlights:

Percentage of respondents using ACE 5.5: 67%
Percentage of respondents using ACE 5.6: 47%

Surprising? Not especially... Riverace customers are building and supporting commercial products using ACE. They can't (and shouldn't) try to keep up with the ACE development stream, but still need fixes and answers to important questions that arise.

As for particular computing platforms, here's a high-level view of what our customers are using:

AIX: 28%
HP-UX: 14%
Linux: 44%
Solaris: 39%
Windows: 56%

Those percentages add up to much more than 100 because many of our customers use multiple platforms (and multiple versions of multiple platforms). Since Riverace has a well-equipped lab, our customers rest assured that we're actively maintaining ACE on platforms that matter to them. They need not learn ACE's internals, run and interpret regression tests, and migrate fixes to their ACE versions. They have more important things to do developing cutting edge products in their own fields of expertise.

Over time, of course, certain platforms fall out of use and are no longer needed. That's the case now, after reviewing the survey results in detail and consulting with our customers. Effective May 1, 2008, the two following platforms will be removed from Riverace's supported platforms list:

AIX 5.2 (and the IBM Visual Age C++ 6 compiler on all AIX versions)
Solaris 10 x86

How did we decide to remove these? When evaluating which platforms remain supported, we count the whole-year ACE support customers and their reported platform usage. When usage falls below a threshold, the platform is removed. This ensures that we focus resources only where our customers need it.

Does your project have a dependency on ACE? You can ensure that ACE remains supported where you need it by taking advantage of Riverace's support programs. See http://www.riverace.com/support.htm for more information.

Apache Qpid Being Ported to Windows

I'm working on a strategic project for an important customer. The needs for this system involve reliable message queuing across a number of platforms, including Windows. Of course, when you think "comms" and "multiple platforms" the first idea to come to your mind is (of course ;-) ACE. And that's just how this all started. However, the reliable message queuing space has gotten interesting. A few years ago, reliable message queuing meant big bucks, non-portability, vendor lock-in, or all three. Windows has MSMQ; IBM has WebSphere; etc. So building a message queuing system using was has always been a likely course of action (in fact, I've done that very thing a few times). But the picture has changed recently.

In the past few newsletters I've mentioned AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol) and a particular implementation of AMQP being developed by the Apache Foundation named Qpid. Since AMQP is an open specification, multiple implementations can be developed that should be able to interoperate. Also, Qpid is open source, so it's available for a low entry cost as well. How fortuitous! AMQP/Qpid are a great solution to my customer's project need with the only hitch being that the C++ version has not been ported to Windows. So all I need to do is port it to Windows and off we go! That work is underway as we speak.

Also, since I've begun the Qpid port to Windows, a few others around the world have contacted me to offer assistance. The snowball is gathering mass...

Do You Need Help Designing Your Next System?

Nobody has to tell you that designing a well-formed, efficient, maintainable networked application is hard. You've had to deal with it. The problem is that networking functionality is usually in a supporting role to your system's main purposes, and your skills and experience are much better used to focus on specific business and technology issues. It may make more sense to bring in seasoned expertise to help design a solid networking base in your next system.

I've helped many companies get great networked applications built - I may be able to help you as well. Let's talk and see if I can help take care of the networking, and let you focus on applying your expertise and experience to the business features that'll really help your system stand out.

Call me at 508-541-9180 or email me at shuston@riverace.com.

If you have any ideas for areas of networked programming you'd like to hear about in future issues, please email me with your suggestions. In the meantime, keep those nets working!

Sincerely,

Steve Huston
Riverace Corporation