@neilmiddleton

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been trying to answer a question that popped into my head when CF 8 came out. That question is simple:

    “What is enterprise level software?”

This has mainly originated from the conversations that have been taking place surrounding the price increase of CF 8 Ent over CF 7 Ent, but one comment in particular made me want to write this post.

    ” First, ColdFusion Enterprise is Enterprise level software. $3,750 per CPU ($7,500 for a 2 CPU license) is nothing short of a steal. Seriously, go check out pricing of other Enterprise level software, then come back to me and tell me that ColdFusion isn’t a bargain.”

Please bear in mind, that none of this discussion is me claiming that CF isn’t Enterprise quality or anything like that, it’s simply me trying to define the term in my own mind.

So, let’s go back to the original question, what is Enterprise software. According to Google it’s:

    “Software that solves an Enterprise Problem (rather than a departmental one) and that is written with an Enterprise Software Architecture”

OK then, the vauge award goes to Google. So what about Wikipedia?:

    “Enterprise level software is software which provides business logic support functionality for an organization, typically in commercial organizations, which aims to improve the organization’s productivity and efficiency. “

Well, to me that sounds like a definition for all software and we appear to be no closer. So, what’s my definition of Enterprise level software? If I had to paraphrase it, it would be something like:

    “Enterprise level software is business software that requires very high levels of reliability, scalability and performance.”

I see Enterprise vendors as people such as IBM, BEA Weblogic, SAP, Oracle and Microsoft (to some extent).

So, let’s come back to the original product in question, CF 8, in the context of the post that made me get thinking on this. According to Adobe, CF8 Enterprise is:

    “Used for delivering multiple websites and applications on one or more servers”

Now, to me, this doesn’t sound very “Enterprisey”. At my employer, we are running hundreds of logical sites on several servers, we are running applications that businesses depend on, but do I see myself as an Enterprise developer…? Not by a long shot. Do I see myself as requiring the Enterprise features of CF8…?    Absolutely.

Looking at the differences between Enterprise and Standard editions, some things should identify your level of development (if we are sticking to the Enterprise theme). For instance, J2EE Deployment and Oracle DB Drivers. Just because I want to deploy a multi-instance server using a Oracle database does that make me Enterprise under any of the above definitions? I’m not so sure.

So let’s come back to the original question: “What is enterprise level software?”. I don’t think I’m any nearer a proper definition in my head but I’d be interested in hearing other peoples opinions on the subject.

What do you see as the definition of Enterprise software? Do you see yourself as an Enterprise developer or vice versa? For those that don’t, do you feel the need to use Enterprise level software in your projects?

(Incidentally, as a little footnote here, I remember the days where CF came in “Standard” and “Professional” editions. Does anyone know why/when it changed?)

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