Comment Many banks use multiple server platforms (Score 2, Informative) 223
I work at one of the largest vendors of software for banks, and diversity of server platforms is a fact of life for our clients. Many banks are quite happy to continue using applications that were written 20 years ago, in RPG, for the IBM AS/400 platform. And it makes sense; those applications work quite well, and they represent millions of lines of code, which can't be thrown away just because RPG isn't a modern language.
Many of those same banks also have applications running on all sorts of Unix systems. And of course, Windows is widely used for front-office applications. Oh, and they all use different RDBMSs, too.
If you think it's easy to write, say, C++ applications that are portable across all those environments, I suspect that you've never really tried.
We've written our in-house middleware in Java; we develop on Windows desktop machines (alas!), and the code works out of the box on AS/400, Solaris and Linux, as well as with every RDBMS we've come across. It's an easy sell to our customers, many of whom have strict requirements about which operating systems they're willing to use for which projects. And we haven't spent any time porting our software.
Many of those same banks also have applications running on all sorts of Unix systems. And of course, Windows is widely used for front-office applications. Oh, and they all use different RDBMSs, too.
If you think it's easy to write, say, C++ applications that are portable across all those environments, I suspect that you've never really tried.
We've written our in-house middleware in Java; we develop on Windows desktop machines (alas!), and the code works out of the box on AS/400, Solaris and Linux, as well as with every RDBMS we've come across. It's an easy sell to our customers, many of whom have strict requirements about which operating systems they're willing to use for which projects. And we haven't spent any time porting our software.
