IT and Business Integration through the Convergence of Virtualization, SOA and Distributed Computing

Technologies associated with virtualization, SOA and grids in the sense of distributed computing have been on a convergence path during the past few years. This convergence allows separating data from the application that uses the data and from the computers that run the applications. Although new applications are certainly possible, perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of this convergence are the non-functional capabilities it brings, namely, the ability to deploy applications at a fraction of the time and cost compared to more traditional methods. Large, monolithic traditional applications will become an expensive minority in this service oriented environment. In their place, applications will be assembled as composites from smaller, granular services. We call these service components servicelets.We conclude that servicelets will play an increasingly important role in future IT organizations, as they will offer the agility and cost-effectiveness solutions businesses have been requesting for years. Virtualization, SOA and distributed computing technologies will define a new paradigm for application development and delivery promising radical reductions in development cost while accelerating the speed of deployment by orders of magnitude as compared with todaypsilas methods.