Google, which has had to claw its way back into cloud relevance in the shadows of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, suddenly finds itself playing catchup again, thanks to the rise of serverless computing. Although Google Cloud Platform still trails AWS and Azure by a considerable margin in general cloud revenue, its strengths in AI and container infrastructure (Kubernetes) have given it a credible seat at the cloud table.Or would, if the world weren’t quickly moving toward a serverless future.[ A developer’s guide: Get started with serverless computing. Then learn how to use Microsoft‘s Azure Functions and how to use AWS Lambda for serverless computing. | Build ’em now! 5 uses for serverless frameworks. ]In serverless computing, as Server Density CEO David Mytton points out, “Google is quite far behind” because of a dearth of services. Although Google will continue to churn out new functionality for its customers, its pace of innovation … [Read more...]

Russell Smith is cofounder and CTO of Rainforest QA. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, or MTurk, is a powerful, under-appreciated platform that allows you to allocate work to humans programmatically and at scale. Businesses get access to a vast, scaleable workforce, and workers can select from a variety of tasks whenever they want to work. MTurk can get work done very quickly, with tasks performed in parallel by a multitude of workers. Part of its power lies in the fact that, while it’s programmable, tasks are written in plain English, meaning almost anyone can use it.The use cases are almost infinite. If work can be sent and returned electronically, it can be performed through Mechanical Turk. Lately, companies have been using it to prepare data for machine learning and data science — think of tagging objects in images or cleaning data. Other uses include transcribing audio, translating text, extracting data from documents, and searching for information, such as … [Read more...]

Fast, safe, easy to write—pick any two. That’s been the state of software development for a good long time now. Languages that emphasize convenience and safety tend to be slow (like Python). Languages that emphasize performance tend to be difficult to work with and easy to blow off your feet with (like C and C++).Can all three of those attributes be delivered in a single language? More important, can you get the world to work with it? The Rust language, originally created by Graydon Hoare and currently sponsored by Mozilla Research, is an attempt to do just those things. (The Google Go language has similar ambitions, but Rust aims to make as few concessions to performance as possible.)[ Download InfoWorld’s essential guide to microservices and learn how to create modern web and mobile applications that scale. | Cut to the key news and issues in cutting-edge enterprise technology with the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. ]Rust is meant to be fast, safe, and reasonably easy … [Read more...]

Like many of my high-tech colleagues I am an avid Game of Thrones viewer. However, its appeal is much broader. The series is set in a historical fictional medieval world made of seven kingdoms, all struggling for power in a tense battle between good and evil. No character is safe, and this unpredictably delights audiences by keeping them on their toes not being able to guess what comes next.In fact, Game of Thrones shattered HBO’s viewership record with more than 10 million global fans tuning in for its season 7 debut in July. No doubt this record-breaking show is the crown jewel of HBO and guarded like Fort Knox, right?As a published author on articles on content governance and analytics, my interest piqued as I learned about HBO’s data breach of Game of Thrones. How relevant to my recent article, “Think you can’t be breached? Think again,” where I discuss how 57 percent of breaches are internal and the steps companies can take to better protect … [Read more...]

For a decade, there’s a question that just won’t go away: Is the cloud killing open source? It still strikes up some emotions.Open source software has been the backbone of enterprise platforms for a long time—remember the LAMP stack of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl? But consuming open source software via the cloud could change open source’s enterprise footprint.[ Are you ready for the container invasion? Learn how to get started with Kubernetes. | Keep up with the latest developments in cloud computing with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing newsletter. ]‘Free’ open source is not cheaperFirst of all, open source’s no-cost attribute means less in the cloud. Public cloud providers will charge you for the time you use their cloud to access open source software—or any software.Thus, it doesn’t really matter if you AWS Linux, Red Hat Linux, or closed-source platforms from Microsoft, because they are all “free” yet cost the same … [Read more...]

Microsoft’s Event Grid is an important addition to Microsoft’s serverless options, providing the back end needed to build distributed applications that can work at scale, with minimal management and orchestration. It brings to Microsoft’s serverless tools an event routing fabric that simplifies subscribing to events raised by other Azure services and by external sources.There’s a lot to be said for using serverless computing models as the basis of a modern cloud application architecture. For one thing, there’s no need to worry about the underlying infrastructure, or even the network you’re using, reducing the management load on your application orchestration tools. But serverless models, like Microsoft’s Azure Functions, are themselves limited, launching on demand in response to events. If they don’t receive the appropriate signals, they don’t fire.[ A developer’s guide: Get started with serverless computing. Then … [Read more...]

Retailers have become so adept at capturing and analyzing consumer data that there is now a real risk that they might alienate customers by revealing just much they know about our lifestyle, habits, and preferences. So if retailers want their big data investments to pay off, they must tread carefully. Big data exploitation in retail is no longer restricted to tracking and responding to broad trends; it’s become very personal. Which is great if the result is that customers find exactly what they were looking for; less so if it feels intrusive or invasive.Analytics technology is now so sophisticated that, by drawing on an individual’s loyalty-card records, payment histories and browsing habits, retail marketing programs can detect an alcohol problem, whether someone has lost their job (because spending drops and premium brands are replaced by “value” purchases), if they’re away on holiday, and much more besides. (A few years ago, Target worked out that … [Read more...]

Holding the promise of faster web applications, the WebAssembly portable code format is moving beyond its initial implementation, with its backers at the World Wide Web Consortium, ready to fit WebAssembly with more language accommodations and performance improvements.WebAssembly, introduced with great fanfare in 2015, is a low-level format intended to exceed JavaScript’s performance when it comes to executing computationally intensive operations in a browser. WebAssembly provides a binary code format that is smaller over the wire, loads faster, and has better performance than JavaScript. It could prove useful in applications such as web-based CAD programs, 3D models, calculators, and games.[ Also on InfoWorld: 6 best JavaScript IDEs and 10 best JavaScript editors. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld’s App Dev Report newsletter. ]Browser vendors back WebAssemblySupport for WebAssembly in browsers is critical. And all four major browser … [Read more...]

The CPU’s cache reduces memory latency when data is accessed from the main system memory. Developers can and should take advantage of CPU cache to improve application performance.How CPU caches workModern CPUs typically have three levels of cache, labeled L1, L2, and L3, which reflects the order in which the CPU checks them. CPUs often have a data cache, an instruction cache (for code), and a unified cache (for anything). Accessing these caches are much faster than accessing the RAM: Typically, the L1 cache is about 100 times faster than the RAM for data access, and the L2 cache is 25 times faster than RAM for data access.[ 9 lies programmers tell themselves. | 9 bad programming habits we secretly love. ]When your software runs and needs to pull in data or instructions, the CPU caches are checked first, then the slower system RAM, and finally the much slower disk drives. That’s why you want to optimize your code to seek what is likely to be needed from the CPU cache … [Read more...]

Today, we are excited to extend intelligent cryptographic processing and data compression to the farthest edge of the network with the launch of our Intel Atom® C3000 platform. Designed for low power, efficient intelligence and scalability for a variety of network and storage workloads, the new Intel Atom C3000 platform is a purpose-built offering for the unique edge requirements of small physical size, very low power, and extreme temperature range.Extends Intelligence to the Network EdgeWith up to 3.4X network performance improvement2 over prior generation (Intel Atom C2000 processor), the new Intel Atom C3000 processor delivers enhanced, efficient performance for the intelligent edge. It features integrated Intel® QuickAssist Technology, delivering up to 20 Gbps of cryptographic processing and data compression offload at the network edge; complementing data centers based on Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors that support aggregated workload demands with 100 Gbps … [Read more...]

Companies that need to deliver applications quickly and efficiently—and today, what company doesn’t need to do this?— are turning to Linux containers. What they are also finding is that once they get past the “let’s see how these container things work” stage, they are going to end up with a lot of containers running in a lot of different places.Linux container technology is not new, but it has increased in popularity due to factors including the innovative packaging format (now Open Container Initiative (OCI) format) originally invented by Docker, as well as the competitive requirement for continual development and deployment of new applications. In a May 2016 Forrester study commissioned by Red Hat, 48 percent of respondents said they were already using containers in development, a figure projected to rise to 53 percent this year. Only one-fifth of respondents said that they wouldn’t leverage containers in development processes in 2017.Like … [Read more...]

Companies that need to deliver applications quickly and efficiently — and today, what company doesn’t need to do this?— are turning to Linux containers. What they are also finding is that once they get past the “let’s see how these container things work” stage, they are going to end up with a lot of containers running in a lot of different places.Linux container technology is not new, but it has increased in popularity due to factors including the innovative packaging format (now Open Container Initiative (OCI) format) originally invented by Docker, as well as the competitive requirement for continual development and deployment of new applications. In a May 2016 Forrester study commissioned by Red Hat, 48 percent of respondents said they were already using containers in development, a figure projected to rise to 53 percent this year. Only one-fifth of respondents said that they wouldn’t leverage containers in development processes in 2017.Like … [Read more...]

Isaac Asimov once said, “I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.” That quote has stuck with me to this day. There’s no doubt that computers and computing have changed our lives. Without them, we would be slaves to processes and paper.I was reminded of Asimov’s quote when I saw the results of a recent poll done by Comvault of 100 IT leaders. More than two thirds said that they were worried about keeping up to date with the latest products and iterations across the major cloud providers. In other words, they fear missing out.[ What is cloud computing? Everything you need to know now. | Also: InfoWorld’s David Linthicum explains what exactly is edge computing. ]About a quarter (24 percent) of those polled said they were a cloud-only organization, which perhaps means they are very small or very new businesses. Additionally, 32 percent said they are cloud-first, with plans to become cloud-only, so they are likely mid-sized businesses. Also, 6 percent … [Read more...]

Devops is one of the key trends in software development to emerge recently. But the term is often not fully understood.An amalgamation of “development” and “operations,” “devops” describes the organizational structure, practices, and culture needed to enable rapid agile development and scalable, reliable operations. Devops is about the culture, collaborative practices, and automation that aligns development and operations teams so they have a single mindset on improving customer experiences, responding faster to business needs, and ensuring that innovation is balanced with security and operational needs.[ From IDEs to test frameworks: Must-have devops tools for Windows admins. | The InfoWorld review: Chef 12 fires up devops. | Download the Deep Dive: Monitoring in the age of devops. ]For development teams, that usually means standardizing platforms, following an agile development process, and participating in operationally driven initiatives. For … [Read more...]

Oracle wants to end its leadership in the development of enterprise Java and is looking for an open source foundation to take on the role.The company said today that the upcoming Java EE (Enterprise Edition) 8 presents an opportunity to rethink how the platform is developed. Although development is done via open source with community participation, the current Oracle-led process is not seen agile, flexible, or open enough. ”We believe that moving Java EE technologies to an open source foundation may be the right next step, to adopt more agile processes, implement more flexible licensing and change the governance process,” Oracle said in a statement.[ What to expect in Java EE 8. |  Keep track of what’s changed in Java 9 in InfoWorld’s live changelog, “What’s new in Java 9.” | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld’s App Dev Report newsletter. ]In the past, James Gosling, considered the father of Java, has urged Oracle … [Read more...]

Oracle wants to end its leadership in the development of enterprise Java and is looking for an open source foundation to take on the role.The company said today that the upcoming Java EE (Enterprise Edition) 8 presents an opportunity to rethink how the platform is developed. Although development is done via open source with community participation, the current Oracle-led process is not seen agile, flexible, or open enough. ”We believe that moving Java EE technologies to an open source foundation may be the right next step, to adopt more agile processes, implement more flexible licensing and change the governance process,” Oracle said in a statement.[ What to expect in Java EE 8. |  Keep track of what’s changed in Java 9 in InfoWorld’s live changelog, “What’s new in Java 9.” | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld’s App Dev Report newsletter. ]In the past, James Gosling, considered the father of Java, has urged Oracle … [Read more...]

Version 5 of Apple’s Swift language used for iOS and MacOS application development will arrive in late 2018 with ABI (application binary interface) stability in the standard Swift library a primary focus—delaying a feature originally intended for the upcoming Swift 4 release.Locking down the ABI iin Swift 5 will mean any future compiler versions can produce binaries that conform to the stable ABI. “Once an ABI is stable, it tends to persist for the rest of the platform’s lifetime due to ever-increasing mutual dependencies,” according to Apple documentation.[ Download InfoWorld’s essential guide to microservices and learn how to create modern web and mobile applications that scale. | Cut to the key news and issues in cutting-edge enterprise technology with the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. ]This stability only affects invariants of externally visible public interfaces and symbols. Internal conventions, symbols, and layouts can keep changing without … [Read more...]

Microsoft’s Visual Studio leads the way in desktop IDE (integrated development environment) popularity, with Eclipse close behind, according to PYPL’s August index of IDE popularity. Android Studio was a distant third.Visual Studio takes a 22.4 percent share in this month’s index. Eclipse follows with a 20.38 percent share. Much further back was Android Studio, with a 9.87 percent share. “It’s surprising how a couple of IDEs have about half the popularity,” PYPL’s Pierre Carbonelle said.[ Also on InfoWorld: 6 best JavaScript IDEs and 10 best JavaScript editors. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld's App Dev Report newsletter. ]The index is based on an analysis of how often IDEs are searched on in Google, similar to PYPL’s monthly language popularity index. The more searches for an IDE, the more popular it is presumed to be. The 10 most popular IDEs for August: Visual Studio, 22.4 percent Eclipse, 20.38 Android … [Read more...]

With the newest Docker Enterprise Edition, you can now have Docker clusters composed of nodes running different operating systems.Three of the key OSes supported by Docker—Windows, Linux, and IBM System Z—can run applications side by side in the same cluster, all orchestrated by a common mechanism.[ What is Docker? Linux containers explained. | Go deeper with InfoWorld’s beginner’s guide to Docker. ]Clustering apps across multiple OSes in Docker requires that you build per-OS images for each app. But those apps, when running on both Windows and Linux, can be linked to run in concert via Docker’s overlay networking.New APIs also allow cluster configuration to be automated.Docker Enterprise Edition also introduces secure multi-tenancy. Containers have long spurred concerns about how well-isolated they are from each other, because they operate through a shared operating system kernel. To address such concerns, Docker now offers ways to create … [Read more...]

Today, we launched the new Intel® Xeon® Scalable platform that will fuel the next generation of personalized medicine, product development, energy exploration, weather modeling, and numerous other high-performance computing (HPC) applications. Across virtually all industries, HPC systems give engineers and researchers the tools they need to drive innovation and discovery to solve the big challenges — problems that may have seemed all but unsolvable on yesterday’s systems. The use of HPC to gain actionable insights is fundamental.This march forward to tackle ever-larger problems involves harnessing ever-larger data sets and creates the need for new generations of HPC systems. Today’s HPC users need systems with innovative technologies in compute, memory, fabric, storage, and optimized software that provides balanced, scalable performance and breaks system bottlenecks to unleash the next generation of innovation.That’s the idea behind the new Intel Xeon … [Read more...]