Integration Technologies - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 128

The following lists the most important aspects of a platform:
• Technical aspects define the software technologies that are included
in the software platform, the architecture of the applications devel-
oped for that platform, interoperability, scalability, portability, avail-
ability, reliability, security, client contracts, possibilities to grow and
accommodate new solutions, and so on. In terms of integration, a
very important aspect is the interoperability with other systems.
• Openness enables the application server vendors and third-party
companies to have some possibility of influencing the development
of the platform. Different solutions exist, from fully closed platforms
that bind us to a certain vendor to the fully open platforms, for
example, the open-source initiative, where everything, even source
code, is free and can also be freely modified. Open platforms are
often defined with specifications. These are documents that strictly
define the technologies included in the platform and enable differ-
ent vendors to implement the platform (e.g., as application servers).
A tight specification guarantees consistency, and a platform defined
in terms of specifications can also have a reference implementation
and a set of compatibility tests.
• Interoperability among platform implementations is crucial for the
adoption of a certain platform. Particularly, the way the platform
regulates additions and modifications is crucial. The stricter a plat-
form is with the implementation of the core specification, the bet-
ter chances it has to be successful and to gain a large market share.
Each platform, however, has to provide ways for application servers
to differentiate their product, possibly through implementing some
additional functionality.
• The Cost of the platform is also an important factor, and it is prob-
ably the most difficult to assess because it includes the cost of the
application server and other development software, the cost of hard-
ware, the training, and the cost of the maintenance of the applica-
tions through their lifecycle.
• The Last factor is maturity, from which we can predict how stable
the platform is. The more mature the platform is, the more it has
been tested and the more has been proved that it is suitable for large-
scale applications.
5.10 Web Services
Web Services are the latest distributed technology. They provide the tech-
nological foundation for achieving interoperability between applications