The Grand Unifying Theory of Enterprise Computing: 2.0

Standing here in 2007, one thing is abundantly clear. Anything worthy of attention must have a "2.0" tacked on the end of it. I hate to be left out of such trends so now is my time to make a contribution to the meme.



Many moons ago (or so it seems), I wrote an article called "A grand unifying theory of enterprises, applications and everything"[1]. In that article, I drew an analogy between theories of Enterprise Computing and theories of Physics. In short: Physics and Computing are alike in that there are theories for how they both work "in the large" and theories for how they both work "in the small". Unfortunately, although the large theories work very well "in the large", they don't work "in the small" and versa visa. Think Remote Procedure Calls versus Asynchronous Messaging. Think Newtonian Mechanics versus Quantum Mechanics. Very good theories. Work excellently in their "sweet spots". Cannot be reconciled into a single theory. I am prone to finding that interesting. It goes with the territory.



I am not alone in drawing analogies between the physical world and the world of computing. Pat Helland - himself a recent target of the "2.0" phenomenon[2], has made a striking correlation between computing theories and the models of time espoused by Newton and Einstein[3].



I am paraphrasing Mr Helland here and co-opting his analogy into my own. Computing "in the small" uses a Newtonian model in which time is synchronized at all points. All the bits talk to each other in the "now". This is the world of objects and functions and sub-second call and response. Either the entire system is "up" or it isn't. Attempts to make this model work "in the large" across networks have proven time and again to fall foul of the fact that "now" is unavoidably relative. Parts of the system can be "up" while parts are "down". Events that happen at time T may have to travel for a long time before they get processed, resulting in T having moved on to T1 by the time the event arrives at its destination ... And so on.



If the details of all of this do not interest you, here is the takeaway: you cannot design away the network - you can only hide it behind tall banks of dollars bills. There are those who do not believe this of course. Everything - including truth - appears to be relative to a given point of view.

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