Analysts predict that cloud middleware will move into a hyper growth stage beginning in 2010. As a message-oriented cloud middleware (or cloud messaging for short) provider, I can add to the discussion by letting you know what has been going on at Linxter.
In mid-July, four months after our commercial release, customers had sent a total of 161,000 messages using Linxter. As of today, 9.7 million messages have been sent. This dramatic pick-up in use is not from traditional message-oriented middleware customers, but instead from innovative developers creating new products and services. The notion of software plus services seems to have taken root, where in developers are blending the best aspects of the smart client and cloud service models.
We have received a lot of feedback from developers. Some who have just been tinkering with Linxter’s cloud messaging and some who have Linxter enabled apps installed and under evaluation at customer locations. The inquiries have ranged from implementation and deployment practices, latency, security, and issues of reliability, and when our SDK will work with Silverlight, Windows Mobile and Java. The interest has been vast and varied, from the one person IT shops to large enterprises.
On September 23rd we released Linxter v1.0 SP4. In addition to performance improvements, we made it even easier to retrieve file attachments associated with received messages. We plan to release version 1.5 by the end of November which will contain greater performance improvements, and also clear the way for us to begin porting the Linxter SDK to other platforms.
On the performance side, my ancient laptop is now on average sending 14 and receiving 26 messages per second. An old blade server of ours is now on average sending 68 and receiving 66 messages per second. For the performance testing, we use our open source VB console app against our public platform-as-a-service offering.
After the release of version 1.5 estimated for end of November, we plan to port the Linxter SDK to both Silverlight and Windows Mobile. This will enable web and mobile device developers to begin taking advantage of Linxter’s cloud messaging platform. After those, our next port will be a Linxter SDK for Java.
Gauged off our current adoption rate, I am very optimistic for 2010. Not just for providers of easy to use cloud services, but for the developers creating new innovative products and services using cloud solutions. When it comes down to it, Linxter and other cloud middleware platforms are tools. It’s the developers who are venturing out and creating new things, filling needs and even discovering new problems that need to be solved. 2010 will be a good year for cloud middleware and innovation.
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