Distributed Computing: RPC sustains, REST disrupts

7 March 2009 Geoff Zeiss

One of the readers of this blog pointed me to a fascinating article by Steve Vinoski, a name I remember because he was a technical leader at Iona, one of the companies which committed very early on to CORBA and some of the technologies that built on that approach for distributed computing.

His thesis in a nutshell is that “RPC sustains, REST disrupts”. In the context of Clayton Christensen’s well-know book on disruptive technology The Innovator’s Dilemma, he makes the case that that RPC (remote procedure call) technologies, which include Sun RPC, DCE, Corba, RMI, J2EE, and SOAP are sustaining innovations, improvements but evolutions of RPC. REST in contrast, because it has adopted a fundamentally different approach to distributed computing, is disruptive.

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss has more than 20 years experience in the geospatial software industry and 15 years experience developing enterprise geospatial solutions for the utilities, communications, and public works industries. His particular interests include the convergence of BIM, CAD, geospatial, and 3D. In recognition of his efforts to evangelize geospatial in vertical industries such as utilities and construction, Geoff received the Geospatial Ambassador Award at Geospatial World Forum 2014. Currently Geoff is Principal at Between the Poles, a thought leadership consulting firm. From 2001 to 2012 Geoff was Director of Utility Industry Program at Autodesk Inc, where he was responsible for thought leadership for the utility industry program. From 1999 to 2001 he was Director of Enterprise Software Development at Autodesk. He received one of ten annual global technology awards in 2004 from Oracle Corporation for technical innovation and leadership in the use of Oracle. Prior to Autodesk Geoff was Director of Product Development at VISION* Solutions. VISION* Solutions is credited with pioneering relational spatial data management, CAD/GIS integration, and long transactions (data versioning) in the utility, communications, and public works industries. Geoff is a frequent speaker at geospatial and utility events around the world including Geospatial World Forum, Where 2.0, MundoGeo Connect (Brazil), Middle East Spatial Geospatial Forum, India Geospatial Forum, Location Intelligence, Asia Geospatial Forum, and GITA events in US, Japan and Australia. Geoff received Speaker Excellence Awards at GITA 2007-2009.

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