The Boston Scalability User Group was started by Anthony Chaves in February 2008. The potential audience for multi-user software applications grows every day. Most of the time the software’s capacity for users and data is far lower than what is required of it. Dictionary.com defines scalability as “how well a solution to some problem works when the size of the problem increases”. This includes an increase in user size, page views, data stored, data processed and more.
The group was started to address the lack of ongoing professional discussion about application scalability. The goal of a scalable application is to have the ability to add capacity without diminishing the user experience. There are so many methods that can be used to achieve this goal and BostonSUG will enable software developers, architects, DBAs, and IT guys (and anyone else interested) in exploring and discussing the tools, strategies and challenges involved with scaling a software application.
Scalability doesn’t apply to just one platform or just one programming language or just one application architecture or just one DBMS. At this point in time scalability considerations permeate almost all aspects of software development. There is no silver bullet that will instantly make your application scalable. Instead you have to work at it. BostonSUG will line up the foremost experts in the field to give presentations at each of our monthly meetings. Their presentations will be technical and encourage detailed discussion on some of the most cutting-edge software and best practice design considerations out there to give you the tools required to build a scalable software package.
The list of upcoming meeting topics includes enterprise .NET applications, JVM clustering and Amazon Web Services. There is also the possibility of having round-table discussion meetings in which BostonSUG members propose topics to explore or hear advice from other members that have encountered the topic.