The Middle Age of the cloud

When I say I believe we are in the Middle Ages of the Cloud, people questions what I mean, and I have to tell a story.

Around the year 2000, Java was considered “the” language of the Internet, with Java Enterprise, offered as the final solution to all problems of Internet development.

The promise was: write Enterprise Java Beans and use Application Server Java EE and you have solved all your problems.

That was simple and easy… on paper. The EJBs were actually very complex, the Application Servers huge, and development extremely expensive. A bargain, as always, for JavaEE producers, a bit less for companies adopting it.

The Java world finally entered the modern with the Spring Framework revolution, born as a revolt against the Java Enterprise. Simple Java classes replaced EJB torture tools replaced, and huge application servers were replaced by Apache Tomcat.

Now replace Kubernetes with JavaEE, call the EJB Containers, and you will see the situation today is more or less the same.

I believe the revolution is underway with the appearance of Apache OpenWhisk, similar to using the Spring Framework, replacing containers with just functions, running everything under a simplified infrastructure like Tomcat.