Jim Falgout

I target customers who have large data processing needs. These come in various forms, but generically look like this: the customer gets huge data drops in some form or another and must process the data and output results in a very specific time frame. The customer has written some scripts, maybe some code and SQL. They have attempted some optimizations that helped a little, but they're not meeting their timeline. They have opportunities to take on even larger processing jobs, but don't have the capacity. They need help, now! This is not an uncommon scenario. What to do? And what does this have to do with Java? Good questions. Hold onto the Java question, I'll get to that next. First, there are many products and frameworks for processing large amounts of data (such as r... (more)

It's a Multi-Core World: Let the Data Flow

The multi-core buzz is everywhere. Pick up a newspaper and the local electronics mega-store is advertising multi-core desktops and laptops to the consumer. Interesting, but what does it mean to the everyday Java programmer? Maybe nothing. If you live in the application server world writing EJB-based applications your application server does most of the heavy lifting for you. It handles c... (more)