Infrasoft rides the bomBora wave!

In a previous article to NonStop Insider we opened with the observation about change being the destiny for many particularly when it comes to IT. Rarely a day passes without one vendor or another talking up new products or features with the potential to change the whole course of computing as we currently know it. However, for many of them, the headlines will be short-lived as interest wanes for one reason or another. On the other hand, when it comes to Server Side JavaScript and Node.js the interest level among development shops everywhere continues to climb. To make no small point of this, Node.js is perhaps among the most critical element in the longer term future of NonStop – just see how HPE’s own IT has focused on Node.js which we find very encouraging to see.

Infrasoft has been involved in the deep port of Node.js to NonStop for the past couple of years. This involvement has been spurred by considerable interest and a lot of support coming from the NonStop Americas sales organization and we cannot say enough about how well we have been treated by these folks or about the access to NonStop X systems that the ATC has provided Infrasoft. At the last couple of NonStop Technical Boot Camp events there have been demonstrations of the work we have done that is being productized under the banner of bomBora and for participants at NonStop product management and development roadmap presentations, it would be hard to miss the inclusion of Infrasoft and bomBora on the NonStop slide, Today’s Modern Stacks on NonStop that include references to JEE / EJB, Web Container JMS, Frameworks and yes, under the heading of Microservices, Node.js (bomBora) and with it, access to Server Side JavaScript and the V8 engine.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise then to read that Infrasoft is now fielding more questions from the NonStop community than ever before. These breakdown into just four areas which will be addressed here starting with the most obvious –

What is Node.js? Let’s start with just one description that can be easily found on the web, via Wiki:

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment for developing a diverse variety of server tools and applications. The runtime environment executes JavaScript using Google’s V8 JavaScript engine. Node.js has an event-driven architecture capable of asynchronous I/O. These design choices aim to optimize throughput and scalability in Web applications with many input/output operations, as well as for real-time Web applications (e.g., real-time communication programs and browser games).

In an April 12, 2016, article New Node.js Foundation Survey Reports New “Full Stack” In Demand Among Enterprise Developers there were details that proved a surprise to many and the number continue to go up:
“With over 3.5 million users and an annual growth rate of 100 percent, Node.js is emerging as a universal platform used for web applications, IoT, and enterprise. The Node.js User Survey report features insights on emerging trends happening in this massive community that serves as a leading indicator on trends like microservices architectures, real-time web applications, Internet of Things (IoT). The report paints a detailed picture of the technologies that are being used, in particular, with Node.js in production and language preferences (current and future) for front end, back end and IoT developers.”

Perhaps the biggest story of all for the NonStop community is that unlike Java, there’s very little, to no, multithreading issues arising when running on NonStop and being “event-driven architecture capable of asynchronous I/O” makes it an ideal platform for NonStop. It’s almost as if those contributing to the original architecture of Node.js and JavaScript had the NonStop architecture in mind all along!

Who will use bomBora? How is it being distributed? The effort behind Node.js is strongly connected to open source and as such, raises flags with enterprise users. Like other open source projects in time, the concept of “distributions” emerges whereby a continually updated technology is frozen in time in order to provide support and have a base upon which to introduce bug fixes as and when they arrive.

In many respects the best way to think of bomBora is as a Node.js (plus) distribution where the added value – the plus, if you like – is the work Infrasoft has done to better integrate the bomBora distribution with the rest of NonStop. This includes access to Pathway, IPC, etc. and even NS SQL/MX in the future.

The objective of creating a supported bomBora distribution is to make it an attractive platform for three distinct users – the NonStop vendor community, those in the NonStop user community that continue to develop applications and yes, even HPE’s own IT organization.

There is still much that needs to be done by both HPE and Infrasoft as Node.js continues to evolve to reflect the many new use-case scenarios developers worldwide are bringing to market. This work includes:

• New release of Node.js requires significant work to bring to NonStop
  • The V8 engine now requires c++ 11 support
    • Included as part of L17.02 RVU which has just been released by HPE
  • Major changes to existing APIs internal to Node.js and V8.
• Ongoing help from HP engineering and the field

If your enterprise or development shop would like to know more about bomBora and there is an interest in having a release of Node.js made available for the purposes of testing simply contact me directly.

Peter Shell | Managing Director | Infrasoft Pty Limited
peter.shell@infrasoft.com.au | tel +61 411 105 330
www.infrasoft.com.au