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2012 - The Year Performance Pays Off

Contributed Article by Sven Hammar, CEO, Apica

The explosion of web applications and websites moving to the cloud has, in some respect, caused a fair amount of problems with regards to capacity. Given this, not all services have fully kept pace with demand in terms of performance and reliability. But, in 2012, the market will take performance and stability to a new level.

Prediction #1
The new web standard, HTML 5, will become a huge splash and introduce a new and much better way to work with web applications. Most new applications will take advantage of HTML 5 features, local storage, computing capabilities and also WebSocket support.
 
Prediction #2
Adobe Flash will take a big step back. With HTML 5 moving forward, Flash will, in many respects, become obsolete. Apple has not been shy about their hard resistance to this technology and Microsoft has announced they will not support Flash in Metro. So, if you are developing a new application, Flash isn’t the best way to go in the new year. It might be too soon to claim the death of Flash, but 2012 should be a defined year in the trend that development will move away from Flash in huge volumes.

Prediction #3
It’s interesting that there are no cloud providers out there that can give you a true indication of how good the performance of your applications will actually be. There are no guaranties for load times or transfer speeds. So, let’s be bold and say that one of the big 5 cloud providers will step forward in the new year and provide both guarantees and also independent validation of performance as new offers to its clients. This trend will then escalate to application and services. In short, just “uptime” will not be enough.

Prediction #4
Anyone serious about achieving exceptional performance will start to use WebSocket for transaction and data-intense applications. AJAX calls are just not good enough to transfer data in client server speed. Updating real-time graphs and dealing with large volumes of transaction will greatly benefit from WebSocket instead of working the state less challenge to send data back and forth via HTTP is great for content, but will come up short for frequent data updates.
 
Prediction #5
With social media setting the stage for more and more of the Internet’s overall web traffic, a lot of the typical social manifestation will be moved to .Net in 2012. Product demonstrations and such from companies will become a much more frequent event on the web.
 
And consider the role Facebook played during the rising in the Arabic world. DDOS attacks used to be the main problem, now you can be shut down just by a Twitter feed to your website in a snap – if the activating person has 10 million followers on Twitter or Facebook. You can easily get 20-30 Gb/s load towards your site.
 
Load testing your applications and monitoring your site on-going to tune scaling and other queuing systems to withstand extreme traffic will become a must for any successful website in 2012.

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About the Author

Sven Hammar, founder and CEO of Apica, is an expert in application testing and performance monitoring. He has both business and technical experience with start-ups and has established companies in the United States and in Europe. Sven has served in many positions throughout his career, including CEO, VP of Sales and VP of Marketing. Sven's expertise includes presenting and receiving major venture capital funding, establishing distribution and partnerships with leading industry players and leading mergers and acquisition transactions.