SolTech Blogged

What is cloud computing and how does it affect my IT budget?

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:57:00 GMT

Cloud computing is the use of shared IT resources as a service. Instead of having a server to make sure your office emails are sent, another server to house your accounting system, and that dusty old desktop (do not unplug that machine) that houses the timecard system you pay a cloud vendor to handle these needs.

Should I build a mobile version of my existing product?

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:05:00 GMT

Everyday more people are using their smartphones and tablets to do their daily activities. Does your system need to adapt to your changing customer base by providing a mobile version of your current product?

In the Web Rink, Think Async, Part 1

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:49:00 GMT

It is very prevalent throughout the web development environment to follow the conventional HTTP paradigm of a synchronous request and response. Whether in the standard context of HTTP/HTML or performing web service calls, frameworks and developers have elected to follow this methodology for various reasons. Introducing asynchronous components to this standard web paradigm may provide performance benefits at critical points in a web-reliant application.

Our application worked great when testing with the load of one user. The web server responded in a timely manner so we decide to promote to production. Within a short period of time, the web server begins timing out, rejecting requests, and responding very slow back to the clients. We add a quad-core processor and more memory to the server, but the time outs and rejected requests remain largely unresolved. Why didn’t the expensive hardware alleviate the issue?

Our production example failed because the web server couldn’t complete the high volume of requests. A simple exploration of how web servers handle requests will reveal that EACH web request has its own dedicated thread. If ten requests come in, ten threads are started. During the processing of each request, the thread attached to each request enters a blocking state.

The image above is Microsoft’s illustration of the request operation pipeline for ASP.NET. A thread is taken from the thread pool starting with the runtime step and is not released until the handler at the bottom is finished processing. Back to our numbers, given ten requests, ten threads are in a blocking state until completion. No problem! We have a quad core server and each core is more than capable of handling every request on its own. What happens when we have 10,000 requests simultaneously? Is our thread pool large enough to accommodate this load? I doubt it. If we convert to an asynchronous model, we can send the request threads back to the thread pool for other requests while the handlers are performing slow operations.

The image above illustrates how different threads are started when utilizing MVC’s AsyncController. ASP.NET web forms (IHttpAsyncHandler) and MVC (AsyncController) are both equipped to implement asynchronous server calls. The fact that the request thread is released early and placed back into the thread pool facilitates the success of a high volume web server.

It is important to note that not every web call should be asynchronous. In fact, a majority of your standard web calls should remain synchronous. Your asynchronous calls should be focused around the specific calls that are network or I/O reliant or serve as bottlenecks. You should continue to utilize the synchronous model when dealing with the short-running, simple, or CPU-reliant calls. Introducing the asynchronous model to CPU-reliant calls may result in slower performance due to the added overhead.

In closing, it is very easy to see how asynchronous server web calls can benefit high volume web applications. The release of the initial request thread is crucial to permit the web server to answer the next caller in the queue. Explore and experiment! A wise developer once said, “Don’t stink, think async!”

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Emerging Mobile Trends

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:23:00 GMT

As we all know, it is hard to keep the pace with the mobile marketplace. My iPhone 3G is a mere three years old but I feel like I'm living in a relative stone age. New technology is appearing at least on an annual basis, but the enticing marketing campaigns make it difficult to sort out the mundane from the game changing and it can become overwhelming.

Protect Your Business's Critical Software with a Software Escrow

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:26:00 GMT

What would you do if tomorrow you woke up and the vendor who licensed you a software program critical to your business had disappeared or gone out of business? Would your operations be delayed, your customers upset, and your revenues decreased? In today’s economic environment, this is a very real scenario— your software vendor could be insolvent or otherwise unable to provide software support to your business, leaving you scrambling to put your business back together.

Microsoft ASP.net MVC Framework, Overlooked and Underrated

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:56:00 GMT

Imagine, a competitive framework to ASP.net Web Forms that runs faster, is easier to develop, and has a 75% code footprint. Stop short, because it doesn’t exist. However, it does raise concern to some of the shortfalls of ASP.net Web Forms. It does, in fact, run slow, is sometimes troubling to make it work to your liking, and arguably does have a large code footprint. The MVC framework makes steps to attempt to alleviate these issues.

The Best of Both Worlds? C# on Linux/Unix is a Real Option

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:49:00 GMT

As sacrilegious as it may seem to zealots on either side of the aisle, the ability to combine C#’s hallmark rapid development capabilities with the renowned stability and security of Unix can be a pretty compelling reason to overlook our petty differences and embrace the possibilities that such a marriage offers.

How a Simple Copyright Registration Might Save Your Business

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:09:00 GMT

Author: John Monahon, Attorney & Counselor, Trusted Counsel (Ashley) LLC

You have finally gone live with a software program that you hope will be the “crown jewel” of your business. Unfortunately, soon after launch, you discover that one of your licensees has been embedding your software into their own product and distributing it to thousands of end users—all of which occurs outside the scope of the licensing agreement. This copyright infringement is costing you thousands, if not millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Unit Tests, Testing Frameworks, and Continuous Integration, a Time Investment Worth the Price

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:14:00 GMT

“Unit tests”. Even the sheer mention of the words can send shivers down the most veteran developers’ spines and recall memories of unrelenting QA engineers. Okay, enough with the drama! Just tell your developers they are going to write them and they don’t have an option.

Time invested into writing unit tests should never be deemed as time wasted. In fact, it should be viewed as just the opposite: time saved. As a former rejecter of writing unit tests, it only took one large scale project to radically reverse my views and accept unit tests for what they are: time savers and debugging assisters. The best thing about the adoption of unit tests is the utter fact that it is never too late to begin writing them. The simple selection of an open source testing framework will instantly begin enhancing the quality of your company, team, or project’s solutions.

The Mobile Web - What's Your Strategy?

allan.regenbaum@soltech.net — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:02:00 GMT

According to Apple, the average iPhone user spends 30 minutes per day using iPhone apps. With over 200,000 iPhone applications available and Apple selling over 1 million iPads in less than 30 days, it is clear that this is a massive, influential and captive market. In addition to the iPhone market, the use of Google’s Android operating system is rapidly increasing and with HP’s recent purchase of Palm, the market’s growth potential is infinite. With more than 234 million mobile subscribers in the U.S. alone, mobile devices are now more widely available and affordable than ever. With such staggering statistics, it is reasonable to assume that mobile apps are on the verge of creating a marketplace gold rush that we have not seen since the dot-com boom.