The document discusses the evolution of software development, highlighting the increasing fragmentation in technology stacks and the rise of microservices. It explains how the API economy and low-cost funding models have transformed access to computing resources, leading to more diverse programming languages and frameworks, creating a highly fragmented landscape. The future points towards an ecosystem of heterogeneous technology stacks that rely on microservices, requiring effective orchestration tools for managing applications without conventional server infrastructure.

1. The new stack isn’t a stack:
Fragmentation and terraforming
the service layer
Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D.
Research Director — Development, DevOps, & IT Ops

2. The new stack? An infinite array of possible stacks.
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3. Open source
Software acquisition became fast and
free.
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4. Why the divergence?
Around 2005, suddenly things
changed. More VC deals, smaller deal
size.
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Chris Tacy

5. Cloud
Amazon changed.
Cloud brought hardware acquisition
cost and time near zero. Anyone can
run a supercomputer for an hour.
This enabled low-‐cost funding models
like Y Combinator, amortizing risk
across more startups for the same
investment size.
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Chris Tacy

6. The API economy
The new mode for access and transfer
of data has become APIs.
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7. Developer experience is not just a thing, it’s the thing
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http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2012/04/18/adoption-‐of-‐software-‐is-‐a-‐funnel/

8. Polyglot
programming
There’s no obvious choice for the right
language, based on community
adoption.
8
http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2014/05/02/github-‐language-‐trends-‐and-‐the-‐fragmenting-‐landscape/

9. Polyglot databases
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https://orchestrate.io/blog/2013/09/11/11polyglot-‐persistence-‐and-‐nosql-‐more-‐flexibility-‐more-‐complexity/

10. Are we nearing
peak fragmentation
of languages?
The top 5 languages become less
popular every year, and they’re all
equalizing.
The #1 language used to be >30% of
open-‐source code; now it’s 10%.
Middle-‐tier languages are growing
more popular as well, further
equalizing usage and fragmenting
language choice.
But — this change is slowing.
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http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2015/04/02/are-‐we-‐nearing-‐peak-‐fragmentation/

11. Are we nearing
peak fragmentation
of languages?
Less-‐used languages increase in
popularity every year.
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http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2014/05/02/github-‐language-‐trends-‐and-‐the-‐fragmenting-‐landscape/

12. It’s not just languages; frameworks have the same problem
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http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2015/04/03/react-‐and-‐polymer-‐arising-‐among-‐javascript-‐mv-‐frameworks/

13. The UNIX philosophy
and the
accordion hypothesis
Different layers of the stack expand
and contract over time.
We can’t cope with everything being
fragmented all the time.
13
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gammaman/7274558212

14. Fragmentation
drives microservices —
different tools
for each service
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15. Loosely coupled services
Business-‐defined separations.
Bounded context based on cross-‐organizational empathy.
Steve Yegge memo — Amazon must be SOA, or you’re fired.
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16. Loosely coupled teams
“One of the biggest changes is that we no longer have an official ‘architecture’
team. Instead, we have made ‘architecture’ an ‘ingredient’ on each of our teams.”
– Lauri Apple, Gilt Groupe, 14 Nov 2014
DevOps is how you build and run microservices.
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http://tech.gilt.com/post/102628539834/making-‐architecture-‐work-‐in-‐microservice

17. Example: Netflix (﴾yawn)﴿
Amazing stuff, great open-‐source code
But hard for the rest of the world to envision becoming like them
Any others?
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18. Example: Software AG
• Launch a multitenant, elastically scalable, componentized cloud integration
platform
• Dynamically launch and run 100s of different demos in AWS
• Their own customers running hotel kiosks, retail POS
18
http://www.softwareag.com/blog/reality_check/index.php/integration-‐insights/microservices-‐fan-‐help-‐adopt/

19. Example: eBay ca. 2006
19
www.addsimplicity.com/downloads/eBaySDForum2006-‐11-‐29.pdf

20. Example: eBay ca. 2006
20
www.addsimplicity.com/downloads/eBaySDForum2006-‐11-‐29.pdf

21. Example: Ctrip
(﴾Chinese travel site)﴿
21
http://www.slideshare.net/yang75108/micro-‐service-‐architecture-‐c-‐trip-‐v11

22. Example: Hailo
22
http://www.slideshare.net/nathariel/scaling-‐microservices-‐architecture-‐on-‐aws

23. Example: REA (﴾realestate.com.au)﴿
23
http://techblog.realestate.com.au/a-‐microservices-‐implementation-‐retrospective/

24. Example: Karma
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https://blog.yourkarma.com/building-‐microservices-‐at-‐karma

25. What happens
when everybody
has microservices?
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26. What’s next? Tying all the services together
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27. Providers
• The usual IaaS suspects: AWS, DO, OS, etc.
• +Heroku. PaaS? Huh?
• +Mailgun, CloudFlare, DNSimple, DNSMadeEasy.
So now we’re in SaaS land.
Terraform lets you control,
orchestrate, and share configuration
data across low-‐ and high-‐level
services.
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28. A trivial example
See how the IP below is a variable
from above?
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29. A Heroku app
Add-‐ons, app config, and DNS
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30. Service layer – “easy.” But not.
Mixing on-‐prem code and external APIs is the biggest thing since Twinkies
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31. Example: Discourse
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https://hashicorp.com/blog/terraform-‐discourse.html

32. Application layer – the future
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https://hashicorp.com/blog/terraform-‐custom-‐providers.html

33. JS on AWS
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34. Look ma, no servers!
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http://lg.io/2015/05/16/the-‐future-‐is-‐now-‐and-‐its-‐using-‐aws-‐lambda.html

35. Conclusions
• Technology is increasingly fragmented.
• Microservices will have heterogeneous technology
stacks.
• Tooling will need to integrate internal + external
microservices.
• Developers will build apps using only browser-‐side
code and microservice orchestration — no servers
to manage.
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36. Thank you!
Donnie Berkholz
@dberkholz
donnie.berkholz@451research.com

37. Some images from this presentation are Creative-‐
Commons licensed.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-‐sa/2.0/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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