Latest [wldjlatest] from Weblogic Journal

Citizen Developers Will Build New Business Apps

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:33:00 EDT

By 2014, citizen developers will build at least 25 percent of new business applications, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner said that this advance should both enable end users and free up IT resources. However, analysts warned that IT organizations that fail to capitalize on the opportunities that citizen development presents will find themselves unable to respond to rapidly changing market forces and customer preferences. Gartner defines a citizen developer as a user operating outside of the scope of enterprise IT and its governance who creates new business applications for consumption by others either from scratch or by composition.

Oracle Fusion Middleware Delivers World Record Single-Node Result

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:11:00 EDT

Today, Oracle announced that Oracle® WebLogic Server, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, together with Oracle Database 11g running on an HP ProLiant DL785 G6 server, achieved a world record single-node result with the SPECjAppServer2004 industry standard benchmark(1).

Tactical Cloud Computing Panel at 1st Annual GovIT Expo

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:00:00 EDT

I'm proud to announce that representatives from Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and Unisys will join me in a "Tactical Cloud Computing" Panel at SYS-CON's 1st Annual Government IT Conference & Expo in Washington DC on October 6, 2009.

As Technical Chair of this conference, my goal has been to provide useful and actionable information to the conference attendees. While the industry has engaged in a rigorous discussion around "enterprise" cloud computing, information on tactical or deployable cloud computing possibilities has been scarce. To address this, I've asked Dataline partners to join me and share their views on this issue.

Tactical Cloud Computing refers to the use of cloud computing technology and techniques for the support of localized and short-lived information access and processing requirements. Use cases could include:

“Cloudbursting” to support cyclic data processing requirements
Establishing a cloud-based collaboration environment in order to coordinate firefighting resources during a wildfire
Virtually binding shipboard IT infrastructures in order to create a battlegroup infrastructure-as-a-service platform
Virtually binding land vehicle based servers and storage resources into a battlefield data center
Dynamic provisioning of virtual cloud-based servers in order to automate exploitation and dissemination of unmanned air vehicle (UAV) streaming video feeds
This discussion panel will explore how defense, homeland security and law enforcement organizations are looking to leverage this new and exciting IT capability.

Please register and join us for this unique opportunity. First 50 registrants are eligible for a VIP pass !!

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - KLJ )

Cloud Computing Best Practices

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:45:00 EDT

Some of the key things to think about when putting your application on the cloud are discussed below. Cloud computing is relatively new, and best practice is still being established. However we can learn from earlier technologies and concepts such as utility compute, SaaS, outsourcing and even internal enterprise centre management, as well as from experience with vendors such as Amazon and FlexiScale.

Licensing: If you are using the cloud for spikes or overspill make sure that the products you want to use in the cloud can be used in this way. Certain products restrict their licenses to be used from a cloud perspective. This is especially true of commercial Grid, HPC or DataGrid vendors.

Data transfer costs: When using a provider like Amazon with a detailed cost model, make sure that any data transfers are internal to the provider network rather than external. In the case of Amazon, internal traffic is free but you will be charged for any traffic over the external IP addresses.

Latency: If you have low latency requirements then the Cloud may not be the best environment to achieve this. If you are trying to run an ERP or some such system in the cloud then the latency may be good enough but if you are trying to run a binary or FX Exchange then of course the latency requirements are very different and more stringent. It is essential to make sure you understand the performance requirements of your application and have a clear understanding of what is deemed business critical.

One vendor who has focused on attacking low latency in the cloud is GigaSpaces and so if you require cloud low latency then these are one of the companies you should evaluate. Also for processing distributed data loads there is the map reduce pattern and Hadoop. These type of architectures eliminating the boundaries created by scale-out database based approaches.

State: Check whether your cloud infrastructure providers have persistence. When an application is brought down and then back up all local changes will be wiped and you start with a blank slate. This obviously has ramifications with instances that need to store user or application state. To combat this on their platform Amazon delivered EC2 persistent storage in which data can remain linked to a specific computing instance. You should ensure you understand the state limitations of any Cloud Computing platform that you work with.

Data Regulations: If you are storing data in the cloud you may be breaching data laws depending where your data is stored i.e. which country or continent. To combat this Amazon S3 now supports location constraints, which allow you to specify where in the world to store data for a bucket and provides a new API to retrieve the location constraint for an existing bucket. However if you are using another cloud provider you should check where your data is stored.

Dependencies: Be aware of dependencies of service providers. If service ‘y’ is dependant on ‘x’ then if you subscribe to service ‘y’ and service ‘x’ goes down you lose your service. Always check any dependencies when you are using a cloud service.

Standardisation: A major issue with current cloud computing platforms is that there is no standardisation of the APIs and platform technologies that underpin the services provided. Although this represents a lack of maturity you need to consider how locked in you are when considering a Cloud platform or migrating between cloud computing platforms will be very difficult if not impossible. This may not be an issue if your supplier is IBM and always likely to be IBM, but it will be an issue if you are just dipping your toe in the water and discover that other platforms are better suited to your needs.

Security: Lack of security or apparent lack of security is one of the perceived major drawbacks of working with Cloud platform and Cloud technology. When moving sensitive data about or storing it in public cloud it should be encrypted. And it is important to consider a secure ID mechanism for authentication and authorisation for services. As with normal enterprise infrastructures only open the ports needed and consider installing a host based intrusion detection systems such as OSSEC. The advantage of working with an enterprise Cloud provider, such as IBM or Sun is that many of these security optimisations are already taken care of. See our prior blog entry for securing n-tier and distributed applications on the cloud. Be sure to check out Amazon’s new VPC inititative as well as looking at VPN-Cubed by CohesiveFT if you have to tie together public Clouds with private applications, services or infrastructure. If you need to keep costs down and evaluate free then look at OpenVPN.

Compliance: Regulatory controls mean that certain applications may not be able to deployed in the Cloud. For example the US Patriot Act could have very serious consequences for non-US firms considering U.S. hosted cloud providers. Be aware that often cloud computing platforms are made up of components from a variety of vendors who may themselves provide computing in a variety of legal jurisdictions. Be very aware of the dependencies and ensure you factor this into any operational risk management assessment. See also my prior blog entry on this topic

Quality of service: You will need to ensure that the behaviour and effectiveness of the cloud application that you implement can be measured and tracked both to meet existing or new Service Level agreements. We have discussed previously some of the tools that come with this option built in (GigaSpaces) and other tools that provide functionality that enable you to use this with your Cloud Architecture (RightScale, Scalr etc). Achieving Quality of Service will encompass scaling, reliability, service fluidity, monitoring, management and system performance.

System hardening: Like all enterprise application infrastructures you need to harden the system so that it is secure, robust, and achieves the necessary functional requirements that you need. See my prior blog entry on system hardening for Amazon EC2.

Content adapted from my book “TheSavvyGuideTo HPC, Grid, DataGrid, Virtualisation and Cloud Computing” available on Amazon.

New San Jose Law Firm Focused on Complex Litigation

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:00:00 EDT

San Jose, Calif. –Sept. 28, 2009 – Seasoned trial attorney and litigator Robert M. Vantress announced today the formation of Vantress Law Group, a new San Jose boutique firm that is focused on complex litigation matters including intellectual property, computer and Internet, employment, real estate and other complex or commercial disputes. Vantress was formally with international law firm Baker & McKenzie and co-founded Silicon Valley Law Group, a business law firm, 15 years ago. “Given the current changes that are occurring in the business, financial and legal markets, it is the right time for a highly specialized litigation law firm that can provide top quality service,” said Vantress, who has 27 years of expertise resolving litigation matters. “A smaller more focused practice with lower overhead can offer clients the same quality services but at significantly lower cost structure, and remain competitive despite today’s demanding economic market.” The firm provides a full range of trial, litigation and dispute resolution services, representing both corporations and individuals during discovery, trial and appeal. Vantress Law Group helps clients prevent, resolve, win and fund litigation, including arbitration or trial if necessary. "Rob Vantress is a top-drawer litigator, has tried more cases than most litigators, so his trial light is always on as he evaluates and re-evaluates evidence and builds the trial in his head. Ironically, this is precisely the kind of thinking that brings to settlement those cases that should never go to trial,” said Lee Green, general counsel at K-Swiss. “I don't think I have ever worked with anyone who can outwork Rob or who has ever been better prepared for a hearing, a deposition, or trial. His experience and skills were critical to K-Swiss in our long trademark and trade dress litigation against Payless ShoeSource and our very successful settlement of that case." Vantress has successfully represented individuals and small to medium-sized businesses against large corporations such as Payless ShoeSource and Oracle Corporation. Most clients are based in Silicon Valley; however he has appeared or tried cases in many California cities and throughout the United States. Vantress has achieved positive outcomes for his clients as he opposed large, well-known national law firms including Latham & Watkins, Fenwick & West, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliff, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Baker & McKenzie, McDermott, Will & Emery and Lathrop & Gage. The three primary Vantress Law Group Practice Areas are: • Intellectual property, Computer & Internet, including copyright, patent, trademark, trade dress, trade secret and related unfair competition claims; i.e., protection of a business’ most valuable assets, including protection of its name, domain name or URL, reputation, style of doing business, business methodology, goodwill, contracts, customers and customer information, employees, confidential information, computers and networks, website content and original media. • Labor and employment, i.e., Ownership of property and inventions, protection of trade secrets and other confidential information including inventions, customer information and customer lists, employee information, product specifications and marketing and business plans, hiring, discipline or other employment discrimination, retaliation, family medial leave, termination and wage and hour claims, defamation, violation of civil rights, sexual harassment, whistle blowing, employment policies and procedures and contracts, executive compensation, and training both for human resources departments and other staff; • Real estate; i.e., Sales, lease, license, construction payments and defects, financing and development, condominium, easements, nuisance and noise, water and earth movement disputes, and real estate agency or commission disputes

Cloud Computing Strategy

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:45:00 EDT

VMware: I already have the most popular virtualization software and I will integrate Spring Source and create the best PaaS offering. Amazon EC2: I am extending my cloud facility to a virtual private environment so that you security concerns are taken care. Microsoft: I am giving you a platform which is very similar to what you use so that you can seamlessly extend your application to the cloud and even the developers can continue to use the same set of tools. SalesForce.com: I am giving you a Force.com with which you can build what you need over and above what I provide out of the box.

Build Reliability into Cloud Computing for SMBs

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:30:00 EDT

With IP networks taking on many new challenges from VoIP, rich multimedia and other high-bandwidth consuming and high-priority applications, SMBs need to be sure the network connectivity between their business and Cloud Computing provider is protected with controls for reliable Internet circuit availability, and for optimizing delivery of traffic to critical applications.

GovIT Expo Highlights Cloud Computing

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:15:00 EDT

I happy to announce my appointment by SYS-CON to be the Technical Chair of the 1st Annual Government IT Conference & Expo. This event is a 1-day deep dive into how cloud computing is changing the way that Federal agencies leverage, procure and utilize IT. GovITExpo, which is being held October 6, 2009 in Washington, DC, builds on the success of SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo.

EC Wrong, Wrong, Wrong – and Sloppy to Boot: Intel

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:00:00 EDT

Intel’s appeal to the Court of First Instance of the European Commission’s monopoly abuse decision against it claims that the EC didn’t prove that it hammered AMD into the ground with its discounts. According to a summary of the otherwise sealed appeal published over the weekend in the Official Journal of the European Union, Intel says that the EC made an error of law in assuming that its discounts were per se abusive simply because they were conditional.

Tips for Efficient PaaS Application Design

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:00:00 EDT

On yet another application review with a prospective client the issue of potentially troublesome data entity relationships came up. A number of our clients are existing QuickBase users who have made an initial attempt to design their applications and find that some assistance is needed. The first thing we look at to understand their application requirements are the data entity relationships.

Five Reasons to Choose a Private Cloud

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:45:00 EDT

As enterprise interest in cloud computing offerings and concepts continues to increase, the number of solutions in both the public and private cloud spaces increases as well. Theres been much debate over public versus private cloud, even to the point of debating whether there can be such a thing as a private cloud. Im not here to debate the latter (in my opinion the location of the service has nothing to do with whether or not it is a cloud), but rather I want to take a look into why consumers would choose private clouds over their public counterparts.

The Benefits of Virtualization in a Cloud

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:15:00 EDT

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) that have previously considered virtualization in the cloud but decided that it is too expensive or simply not viable should think again. Virtualization and cloud computing enables SMBs to green their operations and build IT infrastructures that are agile, resilient and highly scalable.

WebLogic Server - Identity vs Trust Keystores

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:30:00 EDT

In computing most technologies have lots of terms and acronyms to learn, it's par for the course, you get used to it. However in computer security the frustration is multiplied as there are often many different terms that mean the same thing. It makes implementing security hard, because understanding it is hard, and I'm not surprised why security is considered badly implemented because the average Joe will struggle (and for the record I'm the average Chris so I struggle too ;-).

I've been trying recently to get straight in my head what is stored in the WLS identity and trust keystores, and what the difference between identity and trust is anyhow. Thanks to kind assistance from Gerard Davison, I think I can now post my understandings, and as usual, hopefully the post is helpful to other readers. As noted however security to me is a difficult area, and so be sure to check the facts here, your mileage with this post may vary.

The following WLS documentation attempts to explain the concepts of identity and trust:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E12839_01/web.1111/e13707/identity_trust.htm#i1170342

...in ripping out one of the core paragraphs, with a slight rewrite of my own we can see the concept of identity, and how it relates to the public and private keys:

"The public key is embedded in a digital certificate with additional information describing the owner of the public key, such as name, street address, and e-mail address *as well as the hostname*. *Along with this the digital certificate containing the public key, and the separate related private key, provide identity for the server*."

...ultimately to identify the server, to assert the server is who the server says it is.

The digital certificate containing the public key is also referred to as the "server certificate", as for example in 1-way-SSL traffic between the server and client, the server certificate containing the public key is what is initially passed to the client.

There is a missing piece in the puzzle. Regardless that the digital certificate states the owner of the public key, their name and so on, how does a client know that the "identity" asserted by the digital certificate is true? That's where Certificate Authorities (CAs) come in.

Ignoring self signed digital certificates, a typical digital certificate used on the internet containing the public key and owner details is signed by a trusted CA who has verified the identity of the owner. Presumably when purchasing digital certificates from CAs, this is what some of the cost covers, the CAs research into ensuring that the identity details embedded in the digital cert are actually true.

At runtime on receiving the digital certificate, the client checks the CA and if the CA is one that the client trusts (or a CA in a chain of trusted CAs), then the identity of the server is established/verified.

Thus the "identity" of the server is established by what's stored in the "identity" keystore, and its contents are what are farmed out to clients establishing secure connections with the server, who then verify the supplied digital certificate's CA against the clients own list of trusted CAs. The "identity keystore" is also referred to as the "server keystore", because it establishes the server's identity (ie. I am who I say I am).

WLS side note: As mentioned the digital certificate also includes the host name of the server, or in other words the digital certificate is pegged to that server and that server alone. This implies on that server with its relating digital certificate, *all* of the applications will share that single digital certificate for secure communications. Occasionally a requirement will arise where each application must have its own digital certificate. In WLS because keystores are configured under an individual WLS "managed server", if you have two separate applications, it is not possible to use separate digital certificates for each in one managed server. The solution is to create another managed server with its own keystores.

WLS web service side note: Following on from the previous side note, for web services that use in-message encryption and digital signatures, there is often the requirement for multiple different digital certificates. Under WLS to provision the WS-Security model, WLS has a separate Web Service Security Configuration (WSSC) to provision this setup.

Finally regarding the trust keystore, what is its job in all of this? The trust keystore is typically used for storing CA digital certificates, essentially the CAs who will be used to check any digital certificates that are given to the server at runtime (just the same as the client did above). In the standard 1-way-SSL between a client and the WLS server, the trust keystore doesn't come into the equation as the client has its own trust keystore (containing the CAs) and the server has nothing to verify. Yet in the case of mutual SSL (aka. 2 way SSL) between the client and server, the client and server actually swap each other digital certificates to establish identity of both parties, and in this case the server must be able to test the identity of the client through the CA of the client's digital certificate.

Mutual SSL side note: the setup of mutual SSL is more complicated than this. Readers are advised to refer to the following Oracle article.

Final author's note: if any readers find anything particularly wrong with the ideas presented in this post I'd be keen to hear them please. As I've really only experience with 1-way-SSL, it's hard to know if what I've said applies to the concepts of mutual SSL and other security configurations.

The Difference Between Web Hosting and Cloud Computing

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:15:00 EDT

Yesterday a friend of mine was asking me what I've been doing lately in my spare time. When I mentioned that I'd been doing a lot of messing around with Windows Azure, he was naturally curious. After explaining what Azure is, he asked me what the difference was between Windows Azure, a cloud computing environment, and traditional web hosting scenarios. On a really high level, he's got a valid point : With Azure you can develop your application offline locally and then when you're done you can publish it to a remote host. To the casual observer, this looks exactly like what you might do with a web hosting company that provides space on an IIS box and let's you use ASP.NET and maybe even a little SQL server database.

Product Evaluation: JBoss TCO Calculator

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:00:00 EDT

Are you still using expensive, proprietary middleware? Tired of rising license costs? Enterprises such as Priceline.com, Citistreet, and many more have decided there is a better way. There are compelling reasons to switch to JBoss Enterprise Application Platform including more capability for less cost, no vendor lock-in, award-winning support, performance, and modular architecture that enables superior agility and flexibility.

SYS-CON White Paper: JBoss Migration Guide

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:45:00 EDT

IT organizations are constantly faced with the challenge to produce high-quality solutions with a lower total cost of ownership. With the growing recognition that open source software provides quality, stable solutions, migrations of existing enterprise applications to products such as JBoss Enterprise Application Platform have become increasingly popular.

Oracle Announces New Financial Services Analytical Applications

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Demonstrating its commitment to help financial services institutions grow profitably and optimize risk-adjusted performance, Oracle today announced a comprehensive and integrated suite of financial services analytical applications for enterprise performance management (EPM). Now more than ever, financial institutions and regulators are focused on the need to measure and meet performance objectives adjusted for risk, price products to reflect their true risk, and better understand how performance is impacted by threats to liquidity and capital adequacy.

ESB Pattern: What Is the ESB?

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT

ESB products emerged around 2002 from message-oriented middleware (MOM). Faced with market domination by IBM, MOM vendors were the first to jumpstart the ESB concept with the aim of developing a unique selling proposition. They added Web service and EAI capabilities on top of existing message broker capabilities, and with analyst support coined the term ESB. ESB was positioned as a low-cost alternative to EAI and panacea for all integration needs – tell-tale signs of hype.

Business Martial Arts Lesson – It Will Take You Twenty Times to Learn This Move

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:45:00 EDT

It will take you twenty times to learn this move – New students come into class and see all of the Hapkido techniques on sheets on the wall. The list is intimidating to say the least. Korean terminology, foundational moves, nuanced techniques and sometimes small notes written in pen on top of the typed sheets. White belts get very impatient because they want to be as fast as the higher belts. What they can't embrace is that we were all white belts once and if you want to be fast, you have to allow yourself to become masters of the foundation which is going to take more time than you thought.

Platform as a Service Journal Launched on Ulitzer

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:15:00 EDT

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a big piece of the cloud computing puzzle, the other pieces being Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and Application software as a service (SaaS). PaaS enables the delivery of solution frameworks and components as on-demand, pay-as-you-go services. Some examples of these are Google Apps Engine, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure platform, SalesForce Force.com platform, Cisco WebEx Connect platform. PaaS will allow developers to create SaaS applications with agility and will be critical to the success of cloud computing. Also launched by Vinay Singla are IT as a Service, and Saas Journal.

Best Practices for Switching Application Servers

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:45:00 EDT

Thinking of moving to a different Java application server? Need to better understand the impact of your move? The state of the economy is driving a re-evaluation of all major technology decisions. As a result, more and more organizations are switching to a more flexible and cost-effective application server platform. In this webinar, Red Hat migration experts cover key technical differences between JBoss Enterprise Application Platform and the proprietary alternatives from IBM and Oracle.

Oracle To Keynote Cloud Computing Expo

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:15:00 EDT

Enterprises large and small are drawn by the advantages of cloud computing - pay-for-use, self-service, elastic scalability and the elimination of hardware management – resulting in very low barriers to entry and exit and high agility. However, enterprises are also concerned about security, quality of service, integration, compliance, lock-in, and the long-term costs of public clouds.

Is Your SOA Hammer Looking for a Nail?

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:30:00 EDT

ZapThink considers the SOA business case as an essential SOA artifact. Architects must have a clear picture of the business motivations for SOA, not only at the beginning of the initiative, but also as the architecture rolls out. Nevertheless, there is still frequently a disconnect between the business problems and the SOA approach. The challenge here is that the architects -- or more broadly, the entire SOA team -- are only one part of the bigger picture, especially in large organizations. In the enterprise context, how the business asks for IT capabilities in the broad sense is often at the root of the issue.

Making Cloud a Reality for Enterprises via SOA Governance

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:15:00 EDT

Cloud computing is slowly gaining credibility and traction in the enterprise world. As giants such as Google and Amazon productize their massive cloud infrastructures, moving enterprise applications to the public cloud seems a more realistic possibility. The advantages of an enterprise application leveraging the public cloud sound like utopia – lowered total cost of ownership and overhead costs, ease of maintenance, inherent high availability and scalability that is built into the infrastructure.

An Introduction to Abbot

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:45:00 EDT

The common methods for functional GUI testing are the "record and execute" script technique and writing test programs for different scenarios. In the "record and execute," the test designer interacts with the GUI and all the events are recorded in a script. The script can later be replayed to re-create user interactions for a particular scenario. In the test programs, the test designer tries to understand and write tests for the various GUI decision points. This article discusses how Abbot can be used to quickly and effectively come up with a comprehensive GUI test framework for Swing GUI applications. Abbot (http://abbot.sourceforge.net/) is a JUnit extension for Swing GUI testing. It provides an interesting framework that can be used for test case generation as well as "record and execute" scripting.

The Impact of Making Product Choices

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:45:00 EDT

As part of my job, I help customers to select the appropriate software to either fulfill a need or as a component of a larger solution. Fulfilling this role means comparing similar software offerings and selecting the best fit. The challenge in this goal is to map the vendor offering into a subjective requirement, such [...]

Development of an Enterprise Architecture Communication Plan

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:30:00 EDT

As a strategic activity for IT, communication is important for the effective management of both internal and external relationships. The IT function in many organizations operates with highly diverse stakeholders from different parts of the world. The

Cloud Computing Is the Next Great Land Rush and It Is Happening Now

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EDT

In theory, migration to the Cloud makes business sense; you’re enabling companies to rent computing power that would cost them too much to buy. I won’t bore you with yet another blog post on the ‘what is it’ topic. There is a great synopsis of Cloud Computing published by Mache Creeger and I recommend checking it out. In our model, we’re allowing companies to pool their resources on the supply side of Cloud Computing and leverage a much bigger, better shared infrastructure on the demand side of the equation.

Increased Productivity Due to Telecommuting

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:45:00 EDT

In the global networked economy, work is performed everywhere, at any time and any place. That said, what are the operational benefits? Cisco set out to evaluate the social, economic and environmental impacts associated with allowing and actively enabling employees to telecommute. Cisco announced the findings of its Teleworker Survey, an in-depth study of almost 2,000 company employees. The study, conducted to evaluate the social, economic and environmental impacts associated with telecommuting at Cisco, revealed that a majority of respondents experienced a significant increase in work-life flexibility, productivity and overall satisfaction as a result of their ability to work remotely.

Oracle Unveils Oracle SOA Suite 11g

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Oracle has announced the general availability of Oracle Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Suite 11g, which helps customers and partners to lower costs, improve efficiencies and increase visibility into their businesses and operations. This next-generation business application infrastructure makes today's enterprises agile and adaptable through its modular and flexible architecture.

Oracle Unveils Oracle WebLogic Suite 11g

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:32:00 EDT

As part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g launch, Oracle has announced the release of Oracle WebLogic Suite 11g, which includes Oracle WebLogic Server, the world's highest performance application server, as well as Oracle Coherence, Oracle JRockit, Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle Enterprise Manager.

Software AG Named "Gold Sponsor" of SOA World Conference & Expo 2009 East

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:00:00 EDT

Software AG is the world's largest independent provider of Business Infrastructure Software. The company's 4,000 global enterprise customers achieve business results faster by modernizing, integrating and automating their IT systems and processes. As a result, they rapidly build measurable business value and meet changing business demands. Based on Software AG solutions, organizations are able to liberate and govern their data, systems, applications, processes and services - achieving new levels of business flexibility.

SOA World Expo: Managed Methods Announces JaxView 5.0

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:00:00 EDT

Boulder, CO. Managed Methods Inc. (www.managedmethods.com ) the leader in SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) visibility and SOA runtime governance today announced the availability of their SOA management and runtime governance product JaxView 5.0. While providing full support for SOA and Web service management for the IT operations, JaxView 5.0 expanded runtime policy enforcement features such as expanded service virtualization and visibility into intra-container message communication.

REA Is Where RIA Becomes the Norm

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:00:00 EDT

Do you believe that the day when programmers could focus on one language in their jobs is gone? Thanks to the ever-changing IT landscape and the uncertain financial times, contemporary developers are expected to work with a wide range of platforms, frameworks, languages as essentially “masters of all and specialists in none.”

SYS-CON White Paper: Application Performance Management by Tidal Software

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:45:00 EDT

As the complexity, immediacy, and scope of enterprise processes increase, so does the risk of failure. Comprehensive, proactive management of next-generation information processes and services is critical. Traditional application management tools are inadequate to manage next-generation cross-application and, eventually, cross-enterprise business processes and services because they are static, invasive, and unaware of changing application context.

Evaluating Performance Management Solutions for Java and .NET Applications

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:45:00 EDT

Web Applications are now woven into the way that many enterprises operate, and the monitoring and management of these applications become extremely important to businesses that require nimble datacenters. The risks of failure rise with enterprise application complexity, immediacy, and scope. To mitigate those risks it is imperative to deploy a comprehensive, proactive approach to managing next-generation applications and services.

SYS-CON Webinar: The Four Dimensions of Application Performance Monitoring

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EDT

In this Webinar, Gartner analyst Will Cappelli talks about how applications have become central to enterprise IT operations, and how complex architectures have led to significant challenges in monitoring and managing the performance of applications. As enterprise application architectures become more modular, distributed, volatile, and interdependent; applications have become much more difficult to manage, and the need to proactively monitor and manage applications proactively has become stronger.

How to Simplify MDD to Speed Java Enterprise Development

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:15:00 EDT

A notable problem of Java Enterprise Development is its inherent complexity. The ideal solution for this problem could be the Model-Driven Development approach. However, for today, the MDD usage is still very complex. Fortunately you can enjoy the benefits of MDD without any pain.

Fort Worth Chooses Arrivos Software for Employees' Retirement Fund

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:45:00 EDT

Tegrit Technologies is pleased to announce that it has been chosen to implement its Arrivos pension administration system for the City of Fort Worth (TX) Employees' Retirement Fund (FWERF). Based in Livonia, MI, Tegrit Technologies will help FWERF manage and maintain its retirement program for over 9,000 members. Tegrit Technologies is a division of Tegrit Financial Group, a New York firm that develops management and financial solutions for the public sector.

Innovate with SOA - I

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 22:00:00 EST

The 80/20 rule has negative implications for traditional IT reousrce allocation, with the 80 percent going to maintenance, and only 20 percent to innovation. How can you innovate with SOA to flip this ratio on its head?