COVER FEATURES
DEVOPS: CONTINUOUS DEPLOYMENT
DevOps Origins
DevOps appeared first and foremost thanks to the development of the agile software development methodology along with the management of IT infrastructure as code. New ways of interaction between businesses, their customers and partners require new IT management processes, and vice versa, new IT infrastructure management technologies have opened up new opportunities for businesses. The rise of DevOps philosophy was just a matter of time.
Oleg Skrynnik (o.skrynnik@cleverics.ru), managing partner, Cleverics (Moscow).
The Top 10 Adages in Continuous Deployment
On the basis of discussions at the Continuous Deployment Summit, authors derived 10 adages about continuous-deployment practices. These adages represent a working set of approaches and beliefs that guide current practice and establish a tangible target for empirical validation.
Chris Parnin (cjparnin@ncsu.edu), Laurie Williams (lawilli3@ncsu.edu), professors at North Carolina State University, are the lead authors of the article co-written with researchers from IBM, Red Hat, Cisco Systems, Mozilla, Netflix, SAS, Google, LexisNexis, Microsoft, and Facebook.
ITIL and IT Revolution Inside IT Function
The paper deals with ITIL adaptation to massive technological change in core business and the IT function itself. New process frameworks like Agile and DevOps are discussed as well. The key conclusion is that neither Agile nor DevOps disrupts ITIL basic principles, and any of the two is more adequate for new technological solutions than traditional processes for ITIL waterfall model. So, it is natural for further ITIL development to replace waterfall process implementations with ones based on Agile or DevOps spiral model.
Kirill Skripkin (k.skripkin@gmail.com), Economic Informatics Department Associate Professor, Moscow State University, Economic Faculty (Moscow)
PLATFORMS
Power9: a CPU for Big Data
Cognitive era applications like predictive analytics and AI require not only new datacenter architectures, but also innovative CPUs based on microarchitectures enabling high performance, flexibility, scaling, and fast I/O. Today, Power9 claims to be just the chip that offers all of the above.
Mikhail Kuzminsky (kus@free.net), fellow, Institute of Organic Chemistry (Moscow).
Universal Big Data Processing Platform
With multi-platform tools for processing vast amounts of data being more relevant than ever in the digital economy era, the abundance of such tools leads to issues with application compatibility and stability. New approaches are needed to integrate disparate tools seamlessly and deploy them on alternative platforms.
Viktor Borodayenko (bvv@arenadata.io), senior adviser, developer, Alexander Yermakov (ean@arenadata.io), leading architect, Arenadata (Moscow).
Future Automotive Architecture and the Impact of IT Trends
Architectures for automotive electronics are quickly changing. Energy efficiency is evolving the classic powertrain toward highvoltage hybrid and electric engines. Autonomous driving demands multisensor fusion away from functionally isolated control units. Connectivity and infotainment have transformed the car into a distributed IT system with cloud access; over-the-air functional upgrades; and high-bandwidth access to map services, media content, other vehicles, and the surrounding infrastructure. Researchers from BMW outline the evolution of automotive electronics and IT.
Matthias Traub (matthias.traub@bmw.de), head of the E/EArchitecture platform, Alexander Maier (alexander.maier@bmw.de), head of BMW E/E-Architecture department, Kai L. Barbehon (kai.barbehoen@bmw.de), vice president for E/E and software architecture, BMW.
INTERNET OF THINGS
Changing Mobile Data Analysis through Deep Learning
The authors present common mobile context-aware applications and reference current mobile data analysis practices and approaches. They propose using deep learning to analyze sensor data from mobile devices and discuss open issues related to this approach.
Panagiotis Kasnesis (pkasnesis@icbnet.ece.ntua.gr), PhD candidate, Iakovos S. Venieris (venieris@cs.ntua.gr), professor, National Technical University of Athens. Charalampos Z. Patrikakis (bpatr@puas.gr), assistant professor, Piraeus University of Applied Sciences (Greece).
DBMS
Choosing Modern Database System
There is a widespread view that application developers almost always can choose a fitting database for their needs using formal criteria, with the only major issue being the immaturity of NoSQL systems. Yet, in practice the things tend to be more complicated since rational criteria are virtually non-existent.
Konstantin Seleznyov (konstantin_seleznyov@relex.ru), leading software engineer, RELEX Group (Voronezh).
EXPERIENCE
From PanDA to Mammoth
Approaches proven with analysing data from Large Hadron Collider experiments could have uses in solving other problems, too.
Alexei Klimentov (alexei.klimentov@cern.ch), Ruslan Mashinistov (rmashinistov@gmail.com), Alexey Poyda (poyda@wdcb.ru), researchers, The Kurchatov Institute (Moscow).
THE WORLD
Platform for Digital Era
In the digital economy era, proprietary ecosystems may prove non-viable as new ideas and their bringing up into functional software systems increasingly often become the domain of large open source communities.
Dmitry Volkov (vlk@osp.ru), editor-in-chief, Open Systems Journal.DBMS, (Moscow).
OPINION
Start-Ups Must Be Ready to Pivot
Twitter, Pinterest and Flickr are well-known, successful software start-ups. However, not many people know how they started. For example, Twitter was initially a podcast service and Flickr used to offer an online multiplayer role-playing game. This shows that even the most successful start-ups dont necessarily end up the way they started, and some change direction drastically.
Sohaib Shahid Bajwa (bajwa@inf.unibz.it), PhD candidate, Xiaofeng Wang (xiaofeng.wang@unibz.it), researcher, Free University of Bozen Bolzano. Rafael Matone Chanin, Rafael Prikladnicki, Leandro Bento Pompermaier ({rafael.chanin,rafaelp,leandro.pompermaier}@pucrs.br), associate professors, Pontifcal Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul. Pekka Abrahamsson (pekka.abrahamsson@ntnu.no), professor, Anh Nguyen Duc (anhn@idi.ntnu.no), researcher, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
Smart Contract Horizons
The article Smart Contracts, Dumb Idea (Open Systems Journal. DBMS, 2017, No. 2) claims that smart contracts are really dumb and offer zero economic benefit. The author, however, confuses the objectives of fulfilling contractual obligations with the objectives of digitalizing the law, thus skewing the evaluation of true benefits being promised by smart contracts.
Kirill Evkushkin (kirill@ivkushkin.name), area manager, Sberbank; Anton Vashkevich (anton.vashkevich@simplawyer.com), managing partner, Simplawyer (Moscow).
LIBRARY
Rebooting Computer Design
June, July and August issues of the Computer Magazine (IEEE Computer Society, V. 50, No. 6-8 2017) cover topics including very large scale integration for the Internet of Things, benefits of challenges and competitions for education purposes, and computer design innovations.
Alexander Tyrenko (shoorah@osp.ru), reviewer, Computerworld Russia (Moscow).
