Are you load testing? Great. Are you counting on load testing to protect your organization from a catastrophic system failure? Well, that’s not so great. I bet if you surveyed enterprise application development teams around the world and asked them how they would ensure the elasticity and scalability of an enterprise application, they’d answer (in unison, I’d imagine): load testing. Do it early and often. Well, that was the world view at NASDAQ before the Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) IPO — perhaps the highest profile IPO of the past five years. And we saw how well that worked out for them. NASDAQ has reserved some $40 million to repay its clients … Read More
Category Archives: Application Failure
Did NASDAQ’s App Glitch Cause FB’s IPO Hitch?
Isn’t it ironic? Facebook, the galactically popular social networking site that for so long has weathered friction regarding weaknesses in its software – particularly around security and privacy issues – may have seen its own IPO effort submarined by a software glitch in the NASDAQ stock exchange. In reporting on NASDAQ’s response to the technical difficulties it encountered on Facebook’s IPO day, Bloomberg’s Nina Mehta writes: Computer systems used to establish the opening price were overwhelmed by order cancellations and updates during the “biggest IPO cross in the history of mankind,” Nasdaq Chief Executive Officer Robert Greifeld, 54, said yesterday in a conference call with reporters. Nasdaq’s systems fell into … Read More
Fix a Hole, Stop a Bug
After a very mild winter this year, the Northeast part of the country found itself stuck in a prolonged “early spring” where it seemed like but for a couple of days temperatures refused to warm up from the 40’s and 50’s. We seemed to be stuck in the ether between “actual cold” and “comfy warm” for quite a while until the past week or so. When finally the temperatures turned upwards into the 60’s and 70’s, I happily threw open all my windows in the house to “air the place out.” Apparently, though, the insect population of my neighborhood seemed to be waiting for this moment as well and took … Read More
Gartner Webinar: Get Smart about Technical Debt
Over the past 10 years or so, it has been interesting to watch the metaphor of Technical Debt grow and evolve. Like most topics or issues in software development, there aren’t many concepts or practices that are fully embraced by the industry without some debate or controversy. Regardless of your personal thoughts on the topic, you must admit that the concept of Technical Debt seems to resonate strongly outside of development teams and has fueled the imagination of others to expound on the concept and include additional areas such as design debt or other metaphors. There are now a spate of resources dedicated to the topic including the industry aggregation … Read More
Is your Critical Application the next Titanic?
Technical Debt and the Titanic? Almost everyone has heard about the Titanic and the sinking of the unsinkable. I guess if you assume your ship is unsinkable, having only 20 lifeboats for a few thousands people seems reasonable. Maybe it gets overlooked when there are so many important “features” to get right on the maiden voyage. I’m sure the pressure to ensure the comfort of hundreds of VIP’s must have been immense. Sometimes it takes a real disaster for change to take place. Shortly after the sinking of the Titanic, the US Coast Guard formed the IIP “International Ice Patrol” in response to this tragic event. The IIP has continuously … Read More
Replaying the Data Breach Blues
My tastes in entertainment are pretty broad. While I really enjoy attending sporting events and when Bruce Springsteen is in town I lay aside nearly everything else to attend his concert (as I did in Boston on March 26), I’m also one who enjoys catching a Broadway or Off Broadway Show now and then. In fact, I over the next six weeks I will attend two Red Sox games and two shows at the New World Stages theatre in Midtown. For a simple night out, though, give me a small club featuring one of the area’s top Blues performers. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s a cover band playing … Read More
New Year, Same Fear
I’ve never been much of a horror movie fan. I think my deep-seated love and background of history and my fascination for things that are real diminishes my ability to kick back and allow my wits to be uprooted by monsters and other ghoulish figures like Jason from Friday the 13th or Freddie Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street. That doesn’t mean I don’t like scary movies. Movies featuring psychotic predators that do not exceed the realm of possibility keep me both glued and frightened. If you want to frighten me, give me Max Cady from Cape Fear or Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. Of course, even these characters are … Read More