Application Delivery with DC/OS

Chapter 2. Why Do We Need Modern Enterprise Architecture?

In this chapter, we explore the reasons that have motivated people to develop and use systems like DC/OS. Examples of similar systems are Google’s Borg cluster-management system and tools like Kubernetes or Docker Swarm. These allow software-defined systems to control and run tasks on clusters of computing nodes (which can be virtual or physical). The reasons for the development of these systems are diverse including organizational, infrastructure, and application requirements.

We’ll explore each of the different areas, and as we go through each, I will pick out specific requirements that I think DC/OS and Mesosphere’s Modern Enterprise Architecture (MEA) are addressing. If you think that you have some if these requirements, you might benefit from using DC/OS.

A common question I hear—and one that I faced myself when I began considering using DC/OS—is this: “I have been making software applications successfully for years without DC/OS: what has changed that means I should change my approach?”

Here are my personal reasons for adopting DC/OS:

• The operational requirements (reliability, performance, connectivity) of the internet-connected applications I was building have changed dramatically over the past five years.

• Data (storage, collection, and analysis) has become of paramount importance and great value to organizations and the technical requirements to support machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies ...