In my last post, I discussed why durability is important for enterprise-level marketing software and why it directly impacts the value of software solutions. I also noted that the durability of a software solution largely depends on its ability to address unpredictable future needs and that this, in turn, results primarily from how a software application is engineered, on the underlying architecture it uses.
This is the first of several blog posts that will discuss the key attributes that contribute to the durability of a software solution. In this post, I’ll cover scalability.
What is Scalability? The textbook definition of scalability is the ability of an IT system to maintain a specified level of performance as the workload on the system increases. So, in essence, scalability is what enables a technology system to meet growing demands without sacrificing performance.
The workload on an IT system can result from an increase in (a) the number of system users, (b) the number of operations the system processes, and/or (c) the complexity of the operations the system processes.
To scale an IT system, you increase the power of the hardware components of the system. However, software also plays a critical role in providing scalability. For a system to be scalable, the software must be designed and built with an architecture that enables the functionality of the application to be divided into multiple logical components and run on multiple hardware servers.
How Scalability Impacts Durability The acquisition of enterprise-level marketing software represents a significant investment for most companies. To avoid frequent software replacements (or the need to acquire and implement duplicate solutions), your software must have the flexibility to meet your company’s future needs, and scalability is one of the attributes that enables a software system to accommodate growing enterprise needs.
Scalability is particularly important for enterprise marketing software because of the inherent unpredictability of future marketing needs. The tactics and types of media used in marketing are multiplying rapidly, and the rapid change is likely to continue. For example, the growing use of “rich” media will certainly place additional demands on marketing software, but it is difficult to predict how quickly those demands will grow or how intense they will become.
Scalability makes marketing software more durable by providing the flexibility you need to meet unpredictable marketing demands as they appear and grow.
If you would like to learn more about the importance of scalability, we recently published a Technical Proposition dealing with this topic. You can obtain a copy of this Technical Proposition at www.adamsoftware.net.
This post was previously published on the ADAM Software blog.
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