[ineedasername]

It's not just remote deployments where it matters.

There is no deployment scenario that is not heavily dependant on logistics. This is more true in protracted land deployments of troops across large distances, not less so. No matter the strategy, logistics must match it or success is significantly more difficult.

Take Napoleon w/ Russia, where Napoleon's ambition out ran his logistics. His strategy and tactics had yielded results until then, and despite a large effort to supply his troops, he was woefully under prepared and in the end it was his logistics that failed him: Russia's retreating scorched-earth strategy meant Russia was retreating into friendly territory with resupply, the French were extending into a no man's land. The Napoleonic forces originally outnumbered Russian forces about 2.5 to 1, but forced marches through barren terrain and cities left stripped of resources, ahead of their supply lines and the limited supply buffer they'd planned, resulted in failure. 200,000 troops, about 1/3 of his total, died from starvation or froze to death, far more than actually died in battle. Napoleon won or fought the Russians to a standstill in pretty much all battles, yet lost the war for lack of supply and other planning for the rigors of campaigning in that area of the world.

A few thousand years of military history offer plenty of examples of what happens when a force fails to consolidate gains and outruns or otherwise has inadequate supply lines. This is has not changed from ancient times through to modern warfare.

[philwelch]

Sure, but there are circumstances where logistics become more and more challenging, and I’d say Napoleon’s invasion of Russia was another clear case of such a circumstance. The more challenging the logistics are, the more you have to worry about them. American Marines need to worry about logistics a lot, and Napoleon probably should have worried about logistics more than he did in 1812. But, to pick an example off the top of my head, I don’t think the Finns needed to worry about logistics quite as much in 1940; logistics were the least of their challenges.

[javajosh]

Bringing it back to software, I find it interesting that the word "deployment" is used in both contexts. And indeed, there is something to be said about the "logistics of data" - as in, how it flows through your system(s) to combine, in the end, into a rapid fire, accurate, useful, valuable response to specific request.