As developers, you're constantly being asked to respond to change with both flexibility and speed, and often with nothing more than a vague set of goals. While there is no absence of discussion on the topic, it's rare that a combination of concepts, tools, and resources is offered to help developers overcome these challenges. IBM recognizes these challenges and has developed a conceptual methodology for delivering software solutions around a concept called On Demand Business.
On Demand Business is a model, complete with all the necessary tools, for developing enterprise-scale software. It provides an open standards-based blueprint that allows you to integrate software components from business partners and other enterprises, efficiently manage your available technology resources, and take advantage of responsive autonomic capabilities. The benefit for developers is that the tools, APIs, middleware, and other artifacts that IBM delivers are inherently based on this concept.
In a networked world, on demand delivery is essential for business survival. You have to do more than simply integrate everything inside your enterprise. You have to connect your enterprise with other enterprises, other business processes, other applications, and myriad pervasive computing devices. This is why the On Demand Business model is relevant. It's based on open standards and provides a comprehensive, yet flexible environment in which to build these types of solutions. Developers can ultimately deliver on the promises that executives began making in the previous decade -- delivering real business solutions through intelligent uses of technology.
Three essential capabilities support the fundamental concept of an On Demand Business:
It's integrated. Creating an integrated environment means an infrastructure built on Web services, new development tools, and open standards that can address this integration. Applications will need to be written to the middleware layer rather than to the operating system. The On Demand Operating Environment is built with the flexibility to allow for this.
It's virtualized. Almost every organization has enormous computing capacity at its disposal. With an emerging technology called grid computing, distributed computing resources can be shared and managed as if they were a single, large, virtual computer. In an on demand structure, your focused development efforts can effectively use this abundance of computing power.
It's autonomic. The upward spiral of complexity will soon exceed the ability of skilled technical human capital to keep up with it. The solution? Computing systems that take on more of the management themselves. In the same way that the human nervous system manages basic bodily functions, an autonomic system manages functions such as:
The following sections contain resources to help you begin developing for an On Demand Business. We suggest you take the following route in your approach to gaining a better understanding of these concepts:
Sample IT projects. Begin by getting an understanding of what an On Demand Business looks like, and how you can develop for it with these scenario-based technical articles. These will guide you through the development process for several high-profile projects.
The model. The IBM On Demand Operating Environment is a model for running IT systems that allows you to leverage your existing technology investments and build on them to enable faster integration, automated management, and access to computing power where and when needed through virtualization. Learn more about the IBM On Demand Operating Environment and how you can apply this concept in your enterprise.
Tools and downloads. We've compiled a list of applicable products and tools that are essential ingredients in your on demand development efforts. Explore this list to find the products and development kits that are most relevant to your needs.
The On Demand Business environment is a roadmap for your development efforts. We hope that with these resources, and others in developerWorks, you'll be able to begin solving problems and delivering solutions.
