Software applications traditionally differ from server environments in several key ways:
Guest author Joe Masters Emison is VP of research and development at BuildFax, the only national provider of building, remodel, and repair records on homes and businesses. He designed BuildFax's cloud infrastructure and Pragmatic Extract-Transform-and-Load (PETL) data-processing pipeline.
- Traditional servers require humans and hours–if not days–to launch; Software launches automatically and on demand in seconds or minutes
- Traditional servers are physically limited–companies have a finite number available to them; Software, as a virtual/information resource, has no such physical limitation
- Traditional servers are designed to serve many functions (often because of the above-mentioned physical limitations); Software is generally designed to serve a single function
- Traditional servers are not designed to be discarded; Software is built around the idea that it runs ephemerally and can be terminated at any moment
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