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A Start-Up is Born: Page 3 of 3

We've set up a bona fide enterprise environment, warts and all, where business applications under test will have to play nice with our installed infrastructure and data sets. That's important because, no matter what application vendors tell you, software integration and interoperability are way, way behind hardware standards compliance. In fact, this endeavor gave new meaning to the term real-world lab. Got politics? So did we. Got red tape? Yup. Got hardware that breaks the first time you plug it in? Oh yeah. Got integration issues? Do you really have to keep asking? But the worst part was having a camera watch us constantly so our online team could stream us live. If you've checked out the NWC Inc. cam (at inc.networkcomputing.com/), you've probably seen some pretty impressive temper tantrums!

Still, despite all the frustration and caffeine consumption, we're glad we did it. NWC Inc. is as real as it gets without actually being part of an enterprise. As NWC Inc. grows as a "company," its data set and the complexity of its hardware and software infrastructure will grow right along with it. And that's going to make for some kick-ass reviews. Stay tuned.



click diagram to enlarge

Here is a diagram of NWC Inc.'s Business Applications Lab Network. Click on the thumbnail to view the image full screen. Then click your browser button back to return to the article.