Enterprise Applications (Revised)

Enterprise Applications really make people sweat. Look at this selection of StackOverflow questions. There are hundreds. People really get worked into a lather over this.

• What makes an application an “enterprise” or “enterprise-level” application?
• Is the LAMP stack appropriate for Enterprise use?
• What is “Enterprise ready”? Can we test for it?
• Python in the enterprise: Pros and cons

There's an important subtext to this. Your favorite tool (Python, PHP, LAMP) is not Enterprise Ready. My favorite tool is better because it's Enterprise Scale.

Some folks will reject the subtext and try to say that these are reasonable questions. Until push comes to shove and no one seems to be able to define "Enterprise Ready". Words like scalable and reliable crop up in vague hand-waving ways. But without a clear yardstick for Enterprise Scale, the term has no useful meaning.

It's import to separate useful considerations from deprecating something you don't like. In reading the Stack Overflow questions, I've figured out what the political consideration behind Enterprise Scale might be.

Mission Critical

In many cases, Enterprise-Scale is taken to mean that the software can be trusted to handle Mission-Critical or Business-Critical computing. Sadly, even this doesn't mean much. Numerous businesses do bad things and yet remain in business. For example, TJ Maxx suffers a huge theft of information, and they remain in business. In this case, the software that was compromised was -- somehow -- not actually business critical. The software failed; they're still in business.

[Information loss is not a zero sum game; information compromise is not like theft of tangible goods. However, everyone would say that credit card processing is mission critical. Everyone.]

We can use words like "critical", but actual destructive testing -- live business, live data, live bad-guys -- showed that is wasn't "critical". It was central, conspicuous and important. Based on the evidence, we need a new word, other than "critical".

Working Definition of Enterprise Scale

In talking with a sysadmin about installs, it occurred to me what the politically-motivated definition of Enterprise Scale is

The install is not "next-next-done" wizard

Desktop and "departmental" applications have easy-to-use installers with few options and simple configurations. Therefore, people who don't like them can easily say their not Enteprise Scale.

Some folks aren't happy with Enterprise applications unless they have configurations so complex and terrifying that it takes numerous specialists (Sysadmins, DBA's, programmers, managers, business analysts and users) to install and configure the application.

That's how some folks know that a LAMP-based application stack involving Python can't be enterprise-ready. Python and MySQL install with "next-next-done" wizards. The application suite installs with a few dozen easy_install steps followed by a database build script. They will then spend hours talking around numerous tangential, ill-defined, hard-to-clarify issues to back up what they know.

Anything that's simple can't scale.

This is the subtext of many "your application or tool isn't enterprise scale" arguments.