As we continue to see more inroads made by cloud and SaaS technology, I have to admit to a downside...what can I work with in my local lab.
My local lab consists of two iMacs, an Apple Airbook, several arrays of 1-TB external hard drives from OWC, and a serious effort in leveraging virtual machines (I'm personally a VMware fan). It wasn't too long ago that I could run most Oracle technology on my little lab platform. And I like it that way...I prefer to have total control over all my prototyping and development environments.
But as Oracle transitions to the cloud, the software footprint for the various Oracle technologies I work with has just become too big for my lab platform. Fusion Applications, the Business Process Management Suite, OBIEE, the SOA Suite...heck, even E-Business Suite 12.2.x is pushing the limit. Some of the footprint growth is due to new features, some to code bloat or technical debt, and some is just the nature of the beast with enterprise applications built for the cloud.
I'll also admit to being cheap here. There's no subscription fees for AWS or Oracle Cloud coming out of my personal wallet. Just not gonna happen. And investing in new hardware seems to be akin to stocking up on buggy whips or vacuum tubes.
So, what's my plan? My intent is to go back to basics for my home lab. I can still run an Oracle database quite nicely (anything ranging from Enterprise to APEX to Express). I can also run Oracle ADF (but, due to performance issues, I choose Glassfish over WebLogic). OBIEE sample apps also fit and run well. But I'll have to look to my company, my customer, or some other kind-hearted soul for bigger sandboxes - Fusion Apps or Middleware, OBIEE, and anything having to do with SOA integration or business process builds. I'm not crazy about this solution, but it is what it is...
What about the rest of you out there? How do you folks (especially the non-Oracle employees) handle your personal sandboxes these days? Any ideas or suggestions? Comments welcome.
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