- Top 5 WAN accelerators
- Test Center Tracker: Adobe Apollo had landed
- Hands on: Sun shines on Adobe Apollo
- BEA touts Web 2.0 products
- OASIS approves Web services standards
- PeakStream offers tool for multicore apps
- Oracle upgrades Web apps tool
- Test Center Tracker: Compliance outsourcing, laptop security, and dead fish
- A Bluetooth speakerphone for your mobile
- Test Center Tracker: Virtualization battle royale
March 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
If you missed today's chat with Silver Peak Systems CEO Rick Tinsley, you can find a transcript of the discussion here . If you didn't miss it, and you're looking for the links to the reviews I promised, here they are:
Riverbed Steelhead with RiOS 3.0 = Excellent, 9.0
Silver Peak NX Series = Very Good, 8.5
Blue Coat SG Appliance = Very Good, 8.4
Cisco Wide Area Application Engine = Very Good, 8.4
Packeteer iShared = Good, 7.9
The links are listed in order of overall scores received in our reviews (by Doctor WAN himself, Keith Schultz). Now, Keith would be the first to note that your mileage may vary. Every one of these solutions has a sweet spot, so picking the right one will depend on the nature of your WAN link and the kinds of traffic you're running.
But to get down to the nitty gritty, read Keith's reviews. And check out the chat with Rick Tinsley. The Silver Peak CEO was also featured in a two-part interview at NetworkWorld.com this week.
Posted by Doug Dineley on March 30, 2007 02:52 PM
March 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Adobe Apollo had landed
A galaxy of mashup opportunity: Developers eager to delve into the world of application mashups would be well-served by checking out the alpha version of Adobe's new Apollo IDE. Contributing Editor James R. Borck had a chance to dabble with innovative SDK, which enables developers to create desktop/Web app hybrids based on technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, Flash, and beyond.
IBM tackles phishers: With its ISS MS3004 e-mail security appliance, Big Blue attempts to take on several scourges of the Internet communications stream, including spam and phishing. The intent is certainly laudable, observes Test Center analyst Logan Harbaugh, but unfortunately, the machine's capability of separating the good from the bad isn't quite up to snuff, compared to rivals. But it does deliver other security benefits, such as a fireweall and IPS, which makes it a worthy security consideration.
Choose your own blog-venture: Like every journalist-type, Strategic Developer Martin Heller gets a plethora of PR pitches in his e-mail box. There's no way he can write about all things app-dev, so he's giving readers a chance to weigh in on some topics. Among them: Backbase's AJAX framework kits; salesforce.com's Spring '07 release (which includes AppSpace, "a facility for building customer-facing portals using AppExchange applications and other assets built on the Apex platform"); IBM's developerWorks Exchange developer community, and IBM CODESTATION, Big Blue's 3-D area in the virtual world of Second Life. Let Martin know what interests you.
Posted by Ted Samson on March 29, 2007 10:03 AM
March 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hands on: Sun shines on Adobe Apollo
Adobe last week launched the alpha SDK of its Apollo runtime engine, a developing framework that boasts the hallmark cross-platform deployment capabilities availed through Flash, yet its slant toward widely adopted standards opens the door for developers to build some fairly rich Internet desktop mashups.
The Apollo framework enables development of desktop/Web application hybrids based on Web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, Flash, and beyond. Unlike with Flash, however, the resulting apps connect more tightly to underlying resources, thanks to provisions for read/write to local storage, system- and app-level notifications, drag-and-drop, and the like.
I like the abilities for local storage, as well as the network-detection taps being built into the API, which will open a wealth of opportunity for getting occasionally connected apps re-synced upon connection.
Really exciting, too, will be the ability to bridge Javascript/Actionscript models without serialization. Direct object access will help developers more easily hurdle the Actionscript wall.
The HTML engine here has a fairly light footprint - based on a snapshot of the open source Webkit project - leaving the door open for future mobile deployment opportunities, no doubt.
Development is command line driven. But, Adobe has also provided an extension to integrate Apollo projects within Adobe Flex Builder (the Flex IDE).
Builder brings to the table some decent project management tools, debugger, and packager to bundle up Apollo AIR files for deployment. Builder is not free, unlike the basic SDK, but the wizard-driven project launcher did a good job at jumpstarting the requisites XML configuration skeleton and MXML, with added guides for working on ColdFusion and Flex Data Services projects.
Flex extensions also deliver Apollo control components for HTML, windowing constructs and file access display (such as data grids, trees, and lists). And, the debug launcher for Apollo did a decent job while Flex debugger does the dirty work. For anything serious, Builder will likely be worth the investment.
There remains much to be done before this application is ready for primetime deployment – currently targeted for late 2007. You still can't create library projects, and there are a number of rendering issues. Apollo resource security options are limited, and performance was rough. But, this is clearly stamped alpha – so there's no surprise there.
So, while I'm not yet singing paeans for its worth, I do find Apollo to represent a well-formed alpha, showing good promise at influencing the opportunity for future desktop-to-Web application development in the coming years.
Apollo SDK Alpha 1
Availability: General release planned for Q4 2007
Pricing: SDK, free
Verdict: Adobe Apollo is pushing into the desktop space with an experience more in line with the vision of Windows WPF and .Net. Although the product is alpha, it shows good underpinnings for enhancing desktop apps (as well as users' Web UI experience) with data access, interaction, and rendering facilities currently unavailable through other means. Although Apollo's foresight is warmly welcomed and seemingly well lit, final execution on the promise will ultimately decide if this goes supernova or fades to a black hole for Adobe.
Posted by James Borck on March 29, 2007 10:00 AM
March 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
BEA Systems this week detailed three products that the company said are geared to Web 2.0 and social computing in the enterprise.
These include the Pages, Ensemble and Pathways products from the BEA AquaLogic line. They are intended to provide for user participation in the workplace while giving IT management and governance control.
Ensemble, formerly known as Project Runner, is infrastructure software for developers and IT operations to develop and manage enterprise mashup applications. Pages, which had been known as Project Builder, lets users surface enterprise data and build simple Web applications for day-to-day business situations.
Pathways, formerly known as Project Graffiti, provides for collaborative information discovery and expert identification. It combines social book-marketing and tagging with search and activity analytics. Users can discover and share information through social networks.
The three products are expected to ship in the second quarter of this year.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 28, 2007 12:04 PM
March 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
OASIS approves Web services standards
OASIS announced on Tuesday approval of WS-SecureConversation version 1.3 and WS-Trust version 1.3 as OASIS Standards.
This status is the organization's highest level of ratification. The two standards define policies and extensions to WS-Security to enable trusted exchange of multiple SOAP messages, OASIS said.
WS-Trust provides for issuance, renewal and validation of security tokens and establishment, detection and brokering of trust relationships. The specification builds on WS-Security by introducing an XML syntax and a protocol to enable the issuance and dissemination of credentials between different trust domains vi a Security Token Service.
WS-SecureConversation allows for security contexts to be created and key material to be exchanged more efficiently, said OASIS.
IBM, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have verified implementations of WS-SecureConversation and WS-Trust, OASIS said.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 27, 2007 04:32 PM
March 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
PeakStream offers tool for multicore apps
PeakStream is announcing on Tuesday availability of a beta release of PeakStream Workstation for Microsoft Windows Edition, which enables application developers to leverage multi-core processors.
The product gives Windows developers the same PeakStream functionality already available for Linux. Developers can program high-performance processors such as multi-core CPUs and graphics processor units (GPU) on their desktops.
Featured in the Windows offering is a set of math libraries in C/C++ with an optimizing runtime and a set of Visual Studio 2005 tool extensions for rapid application development. An API insulates code from low-level hardware details and ensures portability across future hardware platforms without recoding, PeakStream said.
PeakStream recommends the product be used with an AMD Opteron or Intel Xeon workstation or server running a GPU such as the ATI Radeon 1950 or the AMD Stream processor.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 27, 2007 06:14 AM
March 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Oracle on Monday plans to announce availability of Oracle Application Express Release 3.0, which is a free tool for building and managing Web application using only a browser.
Users with limited programming skills are able to develop secure Web applications that run inside an Oracle database and scale to support thousands of users, Oracle said.
New enhancements and features in version 3.0 include:
* PDF Printing, for exporting a report region to PDF.
* Flash Chart integration, for incorporating Flash charts into Web applications.
* Microsoft Access Migration Workshop, to migrate Access applications to Oracle Application Express.
* Enhanced Web services capabilities, with support for document-style Web services such as those produced in the Oracle JDeveloper tool or Oracle BPEL Process Manager Web services.
* Drag and Drop Item Layout, allowing users to re-order items, change select attributes and add and delete items.
The tool supports development of AJAX-enabled (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) Web applications. Also, version 3.0 works with Oracle Application Express packaged applications available for download on the Oracle Technology Network, such as Bug Tracker, Discussion Forum and Online Store.
The tool is integrated with Oracle Database 10g and Oracle 9i Database release 2. It can be downloaded on the Oracle Technology Network.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 25, 2007 09:12 PM
March 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Compliance outsourcing, laptop security, and dead fish
Lost and found: With the increase in lost (or stolen) laptops and other devices, as well as the increasing acceptance of wireless networks and mobile computing in the enterprise, setting up a security system to protect data stored on devices is no longer optional. And as Roger Grimes points out in this week's Security Adviser columns, if a LoJack-style remote lockdown system works for police departments, why can't it work on laptops?
The regulation race is on: Compliance issues may seem like security concerns at first (privacy, access control, and so on), but pretty soon they turn into storage issues. How are you going to archive and manage all those e-mails and documents, and how are you going to keep an eye on those automatic processes to make sure they're sucessfully doing their jobs? According to Mario Apicella, outsourcing that kind of remote management may soon be an option, if the AXS-One/EDS partnership bears fruit. Find out more in today's Storage Insider column.
Friday funny: What's the difference between a laptop and a dead fish (it has ceased to be!)? John Cleese explains in this early-80s Compaq ad. I'll leave it up to you to decides what's funnier: the dry humor or the fact that this "portable" computer weighs over 20 pounds...
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 23, 2007 11:50 AM
March 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A Bluetooth speakerphone for your mobile
A little larger than the typical cell phone or PDA, the Spracht Aura Mobile BT conference phone is a versatile little unit. You can use the Aura as a Voice over IP (VoIP) conference speakerphone for Internet phone calls with a Bluetooth enabled PC or Mac -- without the need for any additional software to make it work. If your computer isn't Bluetooth enabled, you can use the included cable to connect the Aura to your computer's headset and microphone jacks. The Aura can convert a cordless landline phone into an instant conference phone as well.
Best of all, though, the Aura can turn your cell phone into a professional-sounding speakerphone. I'd been using a Bluetooth headset in my office for conference calls, but even in my very quiet office, I was often told (not always politely) that my headset wasn't cutting it. After using the Aura on a few calls, I was hooked. This 9-ounce, full-duplex device really packs some decent sound, and the 3-watt dual speaker pushes the volume far beyond where your ears are willing to go.
On the downside, I sometimes had trouble making the Bluetooth connection. To be fair, it's possible that my Treo 700P was to blame, but I experienced a few false starts connecting the device to the phone. Still, the Aura easily beats the Treo's built-in speakerphone, and it has other nifty features to boot. At $149.95, it's not a bad deal overall.
The Aura comes with a wall-plug power adapter, car charger, VoIP cable, cordless phone cable, and external microphone. It gives you up to four hours of talk time between charges and even has a nicely integrated car visor grip for hands-free calls while driving.
Victor R. Garza
Victor R. Garza is senior contributing editor to the InfoWorld Test Center.
Posted by Victor R. Garza on March 22, 2007 11:34 AM
March 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Virtualization battle royale
Desktop virtualizers vie for position: If you haven't noticed, we're strong advocates of virtualization here at InfoWorld. Those of you hungry for some insight on the desktop virtualization space would be well served reading Randall C. Kennedy's recent roundup of four competing solutions from big-names like VMware, Microsoft, and Parallels, as well as a potential up-and-comer, InnoTek. In general, Randy observed some room for improvement across the board: Only one of these solutions scored above an 8. Check out the review and find out why.
XenSource vs. VMware: Speaking of virtualization, David Marshall over in the InfoWorld Virtualization Report is keeping a tab on the ongoing battle between the XenSource and VMware camps as they argue over which solution is the superior performer. Well, XenSource is poised to release a white paper later today -- which VMware has signed off on -- that says, among other things: "Our performance results show convincingly that XenEnterprise 3.2 performs equally well or better than VMware ESX Server 3.0.1 in all but a couple of tests." David will link to the white paper when it's available, so stay tuned.
Freebase and the Semantic Web: The promise of the Semantic Web has tickled and tantalized the fancy of many a techie, including InfoWorld Strategic Developer Martin Heller. Now Martin has stumbled across a promising building block for the Semantic Web: an ontology, or system of classification, called Freebase, "something like a modifiable database already integrated with a Web application." To find out why he's so excited, click on.
Posted by Ted Samson on March 22, 2007 09:45 AM
March 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Teamprise links CodePlex, Eclipse users
Teamprise, which links Eclipse and Unix developers to Microsoft's application lifecycle management server, is offering complimentary licenses for CodePlex users to to use Teamprise Client Suite.
CodePlex is Microsoft's open source community service.
An Eclipse member, Teamprise provides access to the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server from non-Microsoft platforms.
"After talking with the CodePlex team we discovered that many open source projects would like to use CodePlex as their home but were unable to because some of the developers were working on Linux or the Mac. We wanted to remove that restriction," said Martin Woodward, senior software developer at Teamprise, in a statement released by the company this week. "Since CodePlex is based on the popular Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, we decided to provide developers of this open source community access to the same tools we offer to the enterprise."
"Developers can now use Teamprise to access CodePlex directly from the Eclipse IDE or from their Linux and Apple Macintosh computers," said James Newkirk, product unit manager for CodePlex, in a statement released by Teamprise. "I am excited to see where the community takes this and what new projects will develop as a result."
CodePlex users who want a complimentary license for Teamprise can access the Teamprise Web site. These users will be able to access features provided by the 2.1 release of Teamprise.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 22, 2007 09:38 AM
March 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Multitasking's Achilles heel
When too much is too much: Computers may be renowned for their multitasking abilities (crunching numbers, formating files, playing video, and searching for extraterrestrial life nearly simultaneously ain't half bad), but Tom Yager says that virtualization and multi-threaded software is exposing the x86's limits. Can the hardware -- and all the other computing components -- catch up to our demands? Read this week's Ahead of the Curve column to find out.
Every second counts: It's the scenario no one wants to think about... the day The Big One hits the San Francisco Bay Area, or a tornado wipes out power and phone/Internet lines to half your city, or an act of sabotage paralyzes your corporate headquarters. That's when disaster recovery plans become less of a nuisance and more of a godsend. IBM and Cisco recently teamed up to put together a disaster response and recovery service that focuses on keeping communications and networks running. Plus, they've got some nifty equipment for doing so - check out our slideshow for photos.
Video killed the radio star?: How hip is your code? David Margulius found a YouTube breakout that's all about the evolution of technology, and features "lots of raw, naked, pulsating code!" He's got the scoop on the Kansas State U. professor who created the video and how the video came together - check it out.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 21, 2007 09:31 AM
March 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Vista's hunger for power
Aero's a CPU hog: Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall C. Kennedy digs a bit deeper into the Vista's slick yet ridiculously processing-power-hungry Aero interface. It "chews up more CPU cycles (an average of 22%) with desktop composition enabled than with it disabled. In other words, turn on the "bling" and you toss nearly a quarter of your CPU bandwidth out the window." Maybe that's why HP is seemingly struggling to develop a PC that comes with Vista and also complies with Energy Star 4.0.
Taking on Dell's rugged laptop: Stephanie Bruzzese is really putting Dell's resilient Latitude ATG through the wringer in an effort to see how truly rugged it is. "Usually when you grab the sides of a laptop screen with both hands and try to twist it, you get a decent amount of bend. But I hardly got any bend at all with the Dell, even when I twisted just about as hard as I could." The laptop's not without it's flaws, though. Read her entry and find out why.
Linus on GPLv3: Over in Open Sources, Matt Asay shares some comments from the king penguin himself, Linus Torvalds, on his reasons for not supporting GPLv3. Among them, he cites the unknown issues ("I would be totally crazy to accept a license for my code sight unseen."); technical problems in the draft; and the fact that " the GPLv3 drafts have not been about developing code in the open, they've been about what you can do with that code."
Posted by Ted Samson on March 20, 2007 09:49 AM
March 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
JBoss improves Java persistence software
JBoss on Tuesday said it has added search and data clustering capabilities to its Hibernate Java persistence and object/relational mapping software.
New features enable users to better abstract data sources from where they are consumed. Google contributed to the release bundle.
Key improvements include Hibernate Search and Hibernate Shards. Implemented through Java Message Service, Hibernate Search is a search engine framework for business applications, providing clustering for search features embedded in users' applications. Asynchronous indexing is used to increase response time.
Google's contribution, Hibernate Shards, provides data clustering and support for horizontal partitioning, also called Shards. Customers now can keep data in more than one relational database without adding complexity.
"The ability to improve scalability by seamlessly distributing data across multiple databases is crucial for enterprise applications that transact against large or physically distributed datasets," said Google software engineer Max Ross, in a statement released by JBoss. "We're pleased to contribute our implementation for horizontal partitioning to open source via Hibernate, and we look forward to working with the Hibernate team to further this technology."
Also featured in the release bundle are:
* Improved support for legacy mapping, including better native SQL customization and fetching strategies. This cuts down on coding.
* Integration between all Hibernate components, to ease configuration.
* Improved integration with third-party environments such as IBM WebSphere and BEA Systems WebLogic.
The release bundle is available here and is licensed under the open source GNU Lesser General Public License.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 20, 2007 09:33 AM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
InBoxer adds Notes support to Anti-Risk Appliance
Insider threat protection and data leak management are certainly making waves in light of government regulations and data-loss scandals. Tracking e-mail is one important part of ensuring not only that business communications are on the up-and-up, but also that private data is staying private.
InBoxer has just such a goal in mind, and this week announced it is adding support for Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino to its InBoxer Anti-Risk Appliance. The appliance now handles both Notes/Domino and Microsoft Exchange, among other e-mail systems, and will archive messages as well as scan for compliance and policy violations.
Look for the InfoWorld Test Center's review of InBoxer and other data leak gateways to appear online in a few weeks, around April 23. In the meantime, check out our other data security reviews.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 19, 2007 03:43 PM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft offers Expression Design beta
Microsoft last week released a second beta of Microsoft Expression Design, which is the company's planned tool for graphic and illustration design.
Beta 2, available here, supports the Microsoft Expression Blend Release Candidate and features enhanced XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) Export with a live preview feature, to make it compatible with the latest version of Microsoft .Net Framework 3.0.
Expression Blend provides for the interactive design aspect of an application, for adding capabilities such as 3D or animation.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 19, 2007 02:36 PM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: A handy guide to open-source VoIP
DIY VoIP: The days of complete rip-and-replace VoIP installations may be waning, as open-source VoIP options (like Asterisk) and more mingling between traditional PBX vendors and VoIP vendors make for a more even playing field. If you're considering trying your hand at open-source VoIP -- or want to know more about how it all fits together -- we've got everything you need to know in this special report. Be sure to read Test Center Senior Contributing Editor Paul Venezia's tale of deploying his own Asterisk platform (a process he's mentioned a couple of times on his blog). And don't miss his screencast demonstrating how to use Trixbox 2.0, which combines Asterisk and a "whole bunch" of management tools.
Apps on the go: Randy Kennedy is dubbing PortableApps.com a "stealth technology" for its ability to become a potential app virtualization aide. Do you agree? Learn more about PortableApps.com and post your comments on the Enterprise Desktop blog.
Catching up with IBM Rational: Martin Heller got an update on IBM Rational's road map and their work on Jazz, a project that's "about integrated, globally distributed, Web-centric life-cycle development, with an emphasis on governance." Read more on the Strategic Developer blog.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 19, 2007 10:13 AM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Black Duck Software announced on Monday protexIP/development 4.3, an upgrade to the company's platform for software compliance management.
Featured in version 4.3 is the ability to ensure software code complies with rules of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3, which is to be finalized later this year, Black Duck said. Version 4.3 is being announced at the SD West conference in Santa Clara, Calif.
Two key enhancements in version 4.3 address the new GPL, including changes to the user interface to allow users to compare how code matches to more than one version of the same software code. This is important when open source projects start moving to a new GPL version and will contain code that matches both versions at the same time, Black Duck said.
Black Duck cited an example of how this improvement assists with compliance. If a manager runs version 4.3 to review a project and protexIP indicates an 80-percent match with a version of code under GPL v2 and a 98-percent match with a version under GPL v3, the manager can conclude most of the component is governed by the new GPL. The manager can then determine if use of this code under GPL v3 is approved based on company policy.
The second enhancement pertains to the protexIP KnowledgeBase, which is the library of open source, proprietary and other third-party code used to compare components under development. The Code Print Knowledge Base in version 4.3 has been restructured to provide improved capability to handle more than one version of the same open source component at the same time. This is necessary to enable the interface to evaluate a project against two or more versions of the component in the KnowledgeBase to determine which might be under which version of the GPL, Black Duck said.
Also in version 4.3, a reporting function called Code Label is featured to let users build a report indicating the percentage of code governed by various open source licenses.
New capabilities in the protexIP Software Development Kit allow for access to additional reporting information when integrating protexIP with an existing development system.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 19, 2007 09:42 AM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Parasoft sets AJAX apps testing
Parasoft is adding AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) testing capabilities to its WebKing testing tool.
WebKing 6.0, which is available on Monday, tests Web applications and Web sites to ensure they meet reliability, security and performance goals. The product determines where errors have been introduced into AJAX and rich Internet applications. It gauges whether errors were the result of problems on the client side or on the server, through generation of reusable test cases.
Users do not have to rewrite scripts as Web applications evolve, Parasoft said.
Separating the new version of WebKing from the old is its ability to isolate different components and create specialized tests for them. This includes server- and client-side components. "What makes AJAX applications so complex is that they have so many moving parts," said Nathan Jakubiak, WebKing product manager at Parasoft.
Previously, WebKing was more geared toward testing applications with synchronous calls. But AJAX applications feature interactivity and pages in which only piece parts are refreshed.
With WebKing 6.0, JUnit tests are generated that use an AJAX-enabled library, to assist with collaboration between development and quality assurance persons.
Pricing for the enterprise version of WebKing 6.0 is about $50,000 for five users. Training is included with that pricetag.
Parasoft is making its WebKing 6.0 announcement at the AJAXWorld Conference & Expo event in New York City.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 19, 2007 06:48 AM
March 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Quest upgrades Java performance tuner
Quest Software announced this week an upgraded version of its JProbe product for Java performance tuning, featuring support for Java Platform, Standard Edition (SE) Release 6.
Version 7.0 of JProbe also supports advanced memory diagnostics offered in the IBM Java Virtual Machine. JProbe is a Java profiling tool that fine-tunes Java application performance by diagnosing and resolving performance and scalability issues, Quest said. Developers can diagnose the root cause of performance and memory issues within Java applications.
Java SE 6 was recently released, featuring enhancements in areas such as Web services and scripting. JProbe 7.0 leverages the Java Virtual Machine Tool Interface feature of Java SE 6 for diagnostic data collection.
Other new features in JProbe 7.0 include stronger memory analysis to provide deeper statistics, tracing of object references and "what-if" resolution testing. Support is offered for IBM Portable Heap Dump Analysis, a data format that provides a memory image of the Java heap.
Version 7.0 also offers optimized performance analysis workflows and visualization of performance data for improved workflows and simplified analysis. A unified console features tools for memory, performance and coverage and uses tables for configuring these three tools.
JProbe integrates with Quest's PerformaSure, for Java application diagnosis, to allow for multi-JVM and multi-tier Java application and portal performance diagnostics. The products linked together constitute the Quest Application Assurance Suite.
JProbe 7.0 is available now with prices starting at $2,000.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 16, 2007 01:06 PM
March 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Security Friday
Today's edition pulls together a healthy dose of security content from our Test Center analysts and contributors -- just in time for a Friday systems check before the weekend.
Fresh from the Test Center: Defending the network used to be as simple as running a couple of scans and warning users not to open strange attachments. Nowadays, it's the Web traffic that brings in a whole host of threats (although warning those employees about those virus-bearing attachments is still a good idea). CP Secure wants to cut off threats at the pass with its CSG-2500 appliance that blocks dangerous traffic at the network edge. How does it do? Read Keith Schultz's review and find out.
Locking down Linux: Securing your Linux files doesn't need to require a major full-disk encryption purchase, says Josh Kuo. Over at the Geeks in Paradise blog, he's got a rundown on how to hide your entire file system or encrypt it the usual way.
Encryption on the road: Mario Apicella is often on the road, but he admits his laptop isn't as well-protected as it could be. Will the forthcoming ASI C8051 notebook and its built-in encryption and fingerprint scanner be the answer to his data encryption prayers?
Dumping passwords in the name of security: In this week's Security Adviser column, Roger Grimes presents the case of a client company who decided to get rid of passwords entirely, replacing them with stronger two-factor authentication. The biggest challenge? Getting back-end RSA and Citrix systems to work together. Would they succeed? Read the column and find out.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 16, 2007 09:16 AM
March 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
OpSource bolsters SaaS platform
OpSource, which provides SaaS (Software as a Service) delivery services to software companies, announced this week its Optimal On-Demand 2.0 platform.
OpSource offers mission-critical application components such as hosting while letting software companies focus on solutions. The company has developed Optimal Services Bus to allow on-demand applications running on Optimal On-Demand to take advantage of OpSource and third-party application components. A Web-based development environment for SaaS and Web companies is planned.
Optimal Insight, which is available now, offers insight into the business and operational health of applications. In April, OpSource plans to introduce integrated, on-demand end user billing services, known as Optimal Billing, to Optimal On-Demand. Afterward, OpSource intends to introduce Optimal Research, providing market research capabilities for On-Demand customers.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 16, 2007 07:06 AM
March 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hands-on preview: Adaptec's newest RAID controllers mix SAS and SATA drives
One of the hottest segments in storage this year will be SAS (serial attached SCSI), the more flexible, more scalable successor to parallel SCSI that brings new models of disk drives and controllers to the market.
Adadptec announced this week a new family of RAID controllers offering several models with 4, 8, 12, and 16 ports that can host dedicated or mixed arrays of SAS and SATA drives.
The new controllers, which Adaptec dubs the 3405, 3805, 31205, and 31605 according to the number of ports, have some points in common. All have the PCIe (PCI Express) interface and a low profile that should fit easily in most boxes. The 3805 is also available with eight external ports and dual path failover.
Adaptec is understandably proud of the performance achieved by the new controllers, and has published the results of some internal benchmarks where the 16 port models outperform competing controllers from LSI and HP using SAS drives, and yield only to the speedy AMCC 3Ware controllers when mounting SATA drives.
To the best of my knowledge, those results have not been independently verified, so taking them with the usual grain of salt is highly recommended.
I took an early peek at the 4-port model, probably the most likely choice for an end user planning a server update. I mounted the 3405 in an HP Proliant ML370 running Windows Server 2003 with SP1 (the controller comes with driver for a variety of OSes, including Linux, Novell Netware, and Sun Solaris). A comprehensive spec sheet for these controllers is available here (it's a PDF file).
Using an octopus cable , I connected my Seagate Cheetah 15K SAS drives to the controller with four connectors on the drives side and a single compact port to fit the controller.
Having only four drives, I chose to implement RAID 5 over three drives and leaving one hot spare. The 3x05 controllers can also run RAID 6, which uses dual parity and can survive double drive failures.
Defining the LUN was a snap using the Java-based Storage Manager. After a quick format in Windows Disk Management, I filled about 30 percent of the 136GB available on the new volume with test files.
To create some traffic on new controller, I started Iometer and targeted the new volume. To simulate a drive failure and force the controller to use the spare drive, I forcibly powered off one of the three active drives. The controller immediately began beeping to signal the error condition.
Back at Storage Manager, I silenced the alarm and watched while the controller automatically began rebuilding the LUN over the spare drive. Iometer was still running, but at a much slower pace.
It took about 40 minutes to completely restore the LUN -- not a bad time considering the amount of data and the relentless pounding with Iometer during the recovery.
My thoughts? If you're planning a server update, do not overlook the new unified SAS/SATA controllers from Adaptec.
Adaptec SAS/SATA Controllers
Availability: March 30th
Cost: $390
Verdict:
The new line of controllers from Adaptec has already some powerful challengers and more are coming to the market.
Among its strong points, Adaptec can count on a well rounded management application that controls both internal and external devices with a single GUI.
Add to that support for just about any OS I can think of, 128MB of cache that grows up to 256MB (with the option of battery back-up) on larger models, and the ability to choose the model with the number of ports that best fits the application.
If the street price of the new controllers will settle at a competitive figure, Adaptec might be able to add also an enviable price/feature ratio to that bundle.
Posted by Mario Apicella on March 16, 2007 06:06 AM
March 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Foundry beefs up wireless LAN products
Foundry Networks gave their IronPoint wireless line a boost yesterday with the unwrapping of two new infrastructure products and an update to its IronPoint Wireless Location Manager application.
The new IronPoint Mobility RS4000 Radio Switch is a thin access point (AP) that can handle a large number of clients -- up to 256 -- making it useful for environments such as college campuses that have many concurrent users (such as 300 students in a lecture hall all logging on to the wireless network). It has two 802.11a radios and two 802.11b/g radios
for service to multiple 802.11a/b/g channels.
Scalability was also a driving force behind the new AP150 access point, which supports 802.11 a, b, and g. The AP150 is a single-channel solution, and will intelligently interact with other APs on your network to prevent interference and eliminate the need for an admin to carefully plan out channels when deploying APs.
New updates to the IronPoint Wireless Location Manager 2.02 (WLM) focus on security. The application can now do real-time mapping and scanning of the wireless network and location tracking, helping to sniff out rogue APs. Existing APs act as a sensor network, eliminating the need for a second set of sensors to detect location information.WLM combines the network mapping with location-based access information to detect unauthorized users and send alerts to admins when problems crop up.
All three IronPoint Mobility products will be available in April. The RS400 will be priced at $2,075 for the 180-degree directional antenna and $2,195 for the 360-degree omni-directional antenna. The AP150 is priced at $525. WLM 2.02 is available at a price of $7,995.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 15, 2007 11:31 AM
March 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Silver bullet storage for SMBs
All-in-ine backup: For SMBs, implementing an effective and winning mix of backup technologies can be overwhelming. Who has the time and the know-how to make it work? Well, InfoWorld's Master of Storage Mario Apicella has found an appliance that may be a dream-come-true for small and midsize businesses: the Breece Hill BizGuardian, "a self-contained appliance that combines tape drives, disk space, and a backup application under the easy management tools of Windows Server 2003."
Don't sweat OpenBSD security: Geek in Paradise Josh Kuo observes that, after a decade with a clean remote-security record, a new vulnerability has been discovered in OpenBSD. That's a pretty impressive track record indeed, Josh says, compared to OSes like Linux and Windows. "It's obviously super secure, and there are some pre-built OpenBSD-based firewall appliance installers that you can easily use with any regular PC hardware."
Cisco, please fix WebEx: The big news of the day is, Cisco has bought online conference provider WebEx for a cool $3.2 billion with the aim of delivering "a stronger combination of communications and collaboration platforms for business customers," the IDGNS reports. Well, Matt Asay over in Open Sources has a simple hope: "that maybe WebEx will actually work now." He says that his company is "already in the process of cancelling our account due to shoddy technology - it crashes all the time."
Posted by Ted Samson on March 15, 2007 09:30 AM
March 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Gateway notebook review, and arguments for open source
Gateway comes through again: He may have already swooned over Gateway's M255-E, but Oliver is liking most of what he sees from the Gateway M685-E notebook: a 17-inch behemoth that performed well over the months but could use a smidge more oomph for those who use a notebook for multimedia work (or viewing). Get all the specs and details at the Enterprise SMB blog.
Open source freedom: The Geeks in Paradise blog is planting its flag in the sand when it comes to the use of open source in business. The verdict? It's a good thing, and not just because you can save some money. Josh Kuo argues that the benefits of open-source software "freedom" -- freedom from vendor support schemes, freedom from worries that a vendor will abandon a product, and so on -- are just as important, if not more so. (Hey, even Microsoft says that if you're going to steal software, steal Microsoft products - something Matt Asay considers a sign that the open-source business model might even making advances in Redmond.) Agree? Disagree? Post your comments and join the discussion on open-source's pros and cons.
Sit, roll over, shake: Do you have tales of that must be heard to be believed? Send 'em to us! Oliver Rist is putting together a second series of "Stupid User Tricks," and while he's got a few gems of his own, we want to hear your tales from the trenches. E-mail Oliver and score some shwag if we print your war stories (anonymous or not, either is OK).
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 14, 2007 09:52 AM
March 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Krugle adds code search to CollabNet
Krugle is announcing on Wednesday a partnership with CollabNet to provide code search capabilities to developers on the CollabNet platform and CollabNet Subversion.
Code search functionality will be made available on CollabNet customers' development sites, enabling them to search for code without leaving their CollabNet environment. CollabNet provides a collaborative software development platform; the company also sponsors the Subversion open source project for version control.
Founded in 2005 around the idea of contextual search, Krugle crawls, parses and indexes code found in public and partner repositories. Developers can find code and related technical and licensing information to evaluate and use the code.
With Krugle tools, developers can search an index of more than 1.5 billion lines of code, more than 400 million Web pages and more than 100,000 projects.
The arrangement with CollabNet follows last month's addition of 6.5 million lines of code from Microsoft's shared and open source initiatives to Krugle's index. Also, Krugle in February announced code-searching plans for the Yahoo Developer Network.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 14, 2007 07:31 AM
March 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Data Management 101
Getting a grip on data: It's not an easy task, making a silk purse out of the sow's ear that is enterprise data: there's too much of it in too many places, it's constantly changing, and it's got to be always available to handle any request that comes in. But there are solutions that work, and InfoWorld's got the goods - check out our special report on data management and find out which data management strategies are best for keeping your information both secure and accessible.
Monday morning Xen: Big enhancements in the new beta of XenEnterprise 3.2. Check out today's Virtualization Report post for more on the added features and information on downloading it for a trial run.
Good, bad, and... ugly?: Can you spot the good SOA tech vendors? Dave Linthicum has a few tips to make sure you don't end up on the wrong side of the architecture tracks, taken in by false promises.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 12, 2007 07:49 AM
March 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Database deployments made standard
Fresh from the Test Center: More applications mean more databases mean more problems - sometimes. Standardizing deployments reduces the chance of errors, but can be an admin pain. The answer? Try a product like GridApp's Clarity 3.5. According to Sean McCown's review, this product is extremely scalable and "excellent at provisioning Oracle and RAC installations, although it delivers less functionality for SQL Server." Read the full review here.
Cancel or allow?: Vista's User Access Control may be a little extreme, but Martin Heller has more of an issue with the inability to create an elevated privilege command shell. Read more on the Strategic Developer blog, and post your own thoughts about the availability (or lack thereof) of a su command for Vista.
Watch and learn: The newest InfoClip is posted for your viewing pleasure, and it's all about SOA. If you've got three minutes, you can learn the basics of service-oriented architecture. Then, check out Dave Linthicum's Real World SOA blog for more on the link between AJAX and SOA.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 9, 2007 09:40 AM
March 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hands-on: Ghost 2.0 so useful for Vista upgrades, it's spooky
Ask just about any IT person what tool has saved their bacon more than any other, and they will probably say a disk imaging utility. One of the most widely used disk imaging tools out there is Symantec's Ghost, recently updated and released as Ghost Solution Suite 2.0.
This release includes new features destined to keep it in the front of the CD wallet with full support for Windows Vista, 64-bit operating systems, centralized console for all migration tasks, and migration support for the latest software releases.
I've been a long-time user of Ghost, using it exclusively to image customer hard drives during upgrades or repairs. Working from within the Ghost management console was a real eye-opener for me, however. With Solution Suite 2.0, I could inventory my client PCs (for installed hardware and software), image clients in the background, create a report based on hardware type, and then push out software changes or updates to multiple computers simultaneously based on the results from the report. Deploying new applications or OS updates was never easier. The big red mark on my forehead was from me smacking myself for not using the suite sooner.
What I was most interested in was Ghost's ability to image and deploy Windows Vista upgrades to target PCs. I tested this by pushing the Ghost agent out to a Windows XP Pro PC and a Windows Vista PC from the management console. I created base images of each and stored them on my local hard drive. I then pushed the Vista image out to the XP Pro PC. After about 45 minutes, I had a fully restored Vista computer up and running. (If you do this, make sure you use the Microsoft's sysprep utility to detect the new hardware on the re-imaged PC as well as the SID Change option in the Ghost management console.)
Ghost Solution Suite 2.0 provides a wealth of functionality and flexibility for time-strapped IT. Admins can keep an eye on the hardware and software assets on the network and easily maintain those assets from one handy console. I really like how easy it was to image and deploy Vista to different hardware, and the reporting
Bottom Line:
Ghost Solution Suite 2.0
Platforms: Client: Windows 95b/98 SE, Windows NT 4.0 (SP4), Windows 2000 Pro, Windows XP Pro, Windows XP Tablet Edition, and Vista (Windows ME and XP Home are not supported); Server: Windows 2000 (all versions), Windows XP Pro, Windows Server 2003 (all versions), Vista
Cost: $39.20 for 10 to 24 licenses
Verdict: Ghost Solution Suite 2.0 is a veritable Swiss army knife of useful management tools for small networks or large. The hardware and software inventory function is very useful for tracking just what is on the network, and its support for 64-bit Windows and Vista leaves no Windows system unmanaged. This is one tool that no admin should be without.
Posted by Keith Schultz on March 8, 2007 12:36 PM
March 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Though cool, diminutive FlipStart micro PC falls short
It's got well-known investors; it has loads of buzzwords, including ultra-mobility, WWAN, InfoPane, and Vista. It's the FlipStart "micro PC" from Vulcan. So let's check it out.
First, it's small. Damn small. Shots of the Flipper next to my hand and a CD case for scale:
It comes with amenities, including a docking station and that much-hyped but little-seen InfoPane technology that's lately supported by Windows:
InfoPane allows you to check on e-mail, appointments, and contacts if you're in a work mood, but your FlipStart is closed. Or you can goof off and use it to play music straight out of your My Music collection.
It also comes with a long-life battery that basically "stacks" onto the bottom of the case:
Ours came installed with Windows XP Pro, though we'd requested a model running Vista Business (the only other option). Vulcan couldn't make Vista Business work in time, so we're stuck with XP Pro. Not a bad thing, actually, because most of what I'm probably going to use this thing for is watching movies or listening to music, and Vista Business makes you install Media Player as an option.
Now don't get me wrong; I'm not going to pan it right away. I've only had the little munchkin for a day, so a full review seems premature. I'm taking it to InfoWorld's Editorial Retreat next week, where I'll be stacking it up against normal-sized notebooks, Sasquatch Venezia's Toshiba Libretto and hours and hours of meetings.
Meanwhile, I am going to point out a few things:
1. The keyboard is flat out unusable for work. If all I'm doing with my $2,000 FlipStart money is text messaging, then I suppose it's OK. But I can't see taking it to a meeting and keeping accurate notes.
2. Why make it so small as to make an optical drive impossible? As you can see from the scale shot, a CD is wider than the FlipStart. But if they'd just made it an inch or so wider, they could have tacked on an optical drive that "stacked" the same way as the battery. Now that would have been cool.
3. 30GB of storage space? My music player has more than that.
And aside from cool, it would have made it way easier to use. I haven't quite figured out Vulcan's target demographic with this thing, but it does seem like a gadget. Gadget means a large swath of beginner/home users. Without a CD drive, you're asking those users to figure out how to install software off a home network or a USB drive. Or you're asking them to drop another $200-plus on an external CD or DVD drive -- which Vulcan really should have as a bundling option. You'd have fewer issues with that segment if you just gave them an internal drive. As it is, this thing is a walking advertisement for BitTorrent.
There's more that Vulcan could have done here. Most of which was done in the Flybook, which I wrote on back in January.
That box is slightly larger (there's another Oliver's Hand comparison shot in that post, so check it if you want to compare), but it's still small enough to qualify as an ultraportable. It's got a usable keyboard and also turned into a tablet, which the Flipstart doesn't.
And while both the Flipper and the Flyer have WWAN broadband wireless built-in, only the Flybook takes this as far as it can go -- adding the ability to take a SIM card and actually turn the Flybook into a phone and also supporting a GPS service so you can just flip the Flyer open and it'll tell you where to go.
'Nuff on this puppy for now. Maybe I'll find a killer app for it in the next few days. I'm not only going to put it through its paces this week, I'm also going to give most of the InfoWorld staff a crack at it and we'll arrive at a mass consensus in the upcoming official review.
Posted by Oliver Rist on March 8, 2007 11:41 AM
March 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Order from database chaos
A DBA's dream come true: The prospect of managing multiple databases not only spread out across the country (or globe), but also written using varying technologies, is a bit daunting. seeMore Virtual Database Server Version 2.8.0, fortunately, provides
"a brilliant tool that will enable a large enterprise to gather its far-flung databases – regardless of their origins – under a single, relational roof," writes Test Center Contributing Editor Rick Grehan. Even with its steep price-tag, the solution is impressive enough to earn an Excellent score of 9.1.
Tuning in to VOIP: The InfoWorld LIVE! series, featuring Test Center senior contributor Oliver Rist, continues this week, and the topic du juor: voice over IP. Does it have a future? Does Oliver? Guests from Packet 8 and Linksys weigh in.
Are you ready for DST? The new Daylight Saving Time (DST) is nearly upon us, and some companies are still scrambling to get their systems patched and prepped for the big change. Whether you haven't started yet (tsk!) or have had it wrapped up for days, you could stand to benefit from some tips and real-world advice on getting ready.
Posted by Ted Samson on March 8, 2007 07:03 AM
March 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Office Live -- the promise and the pain
Thumbs down for Office Live: Oliver's been using Microsoft's Office Live for a while now, and it's long enough for him to declare that the whole thing needs a do-over. Sounds like the distant drumbeats from Google are coming closer, and the natives are restless. What do you think of Microsoft's web apps, and why isn't more AJAX showing up in their products (despite the work going on over in ASP.Net/Atlas world). Check out the latest Enterprise Windows column and post your comments.
A question of collaboration: SOA governance can be a sticky wicket, but intense collaboration and a dedication to keeping the feedback loop open are key to good governance. That's the conclusion of this analysis article by Phil Windley, and if you're in the midst of SOA projects, you'll appreciate the advice he offers up on how to assemble an architecture with less pain. Need more SOA guidance? Take a peek and Dave Linthicum's Real-World SOA blog, and don't forget our special reports - including this one on building SOA the right way.
Vista videos: Want a peek at Vista in action before you decide to upgrade? Put that popcorn in the microwave and take a seat to watch these three videos - courtesy of PC World - on Vista's user interface, the multimedia aspects, and it's security features.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 7, 2007 10:01 AM
March 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Cape Clear beta promises more scalable SOA
Cape Clear is revving up to roll out Cape Clear Studio 7, the latest incarnation of the company's development platform for building Web services atop its ESB. I've been playing with the beta, and it strikes me that all of the enhancements are aimed at improving usability and enhancing development in larger IT camps.
For instance, although Studio remains a Windows-only application, it has been ported to Eclipse 3.2 (Calisto) and now installs off a single, wizard-driven executable that simplifies deployment. The new edition also takes good advantage of concepts like project builders and pluggable project facets -- encapsulated functionality specs that simplify project development and management.
BPEL composition benefits from easier viewing facilities, like zoom (a glaring absence in earlier runs), and enhanced wizardry for abstracting development. I also liked the improved partner link support, now more fully integrating third party services without requiring workarounds. Further, WSDL files are treated more dynamically, with external references replacing files previously hard-stored within projects. It all adds up to improved development flexibility.
Cape Clear has a strong commitment to educating customers on best practices for SOA migration -- through strong tutorials and integrated help samples, for example -- that consequently makes them a good starting point for smaller shops. The familiar Eclipse cheat sheets have even been filled out to offer developers step-by-step, point-and-click roadmaps for constructing and deploying Java-based Web services.
Other enhancements to the studio include simplified conversion of existing Java projects and stricter WS-I validation in the Web services test facility. Cape Clear is keeping mum on many additional goodies slated for the Cape Clear 7 platform release later this month. And, to be sure, there are still a number of important bugs to be worked out. I'm looking forward to the GA release. Keep an eye on the InfoWorld Test Center pages for our exclusive on Cape Clear 7 in coming weeks.
Cape Clear Studio 7.0 Beta
Availaility: GA due March 2007
Pricing: To be determined
Verdict: Strong team-based enhancements and enterprise-grade components like clustering, orchestration, and BAM promise to make Cape Clear a stronger consideration for larger SOA rollouts. Improved usability and development wizardry in Cape Clear Studio show the company is making good strides. Our final verdict must be reserved until the GA release in March.
Posted by James Borck on March 6, 2007 05:49 PM
March 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Virtual desktop skepticism
No ACE up VMWare's sleeve Try as VMware might to push its VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) initiative through announcements such as its ACE virtual machine management platform, the company isn't impressing Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall Kennedy. "The truth is that IT shops aren't buying into the whole 'VM as a desktop replacement' story," Kennedy writes. "These customers were burned once already by the server-based computing fiasco, so they're understandably skittish about any solution that purports to replace the desktop with 'something better.'"
Zend does open source right: Zend Core, an enhanced, open-source version of PHP, has officially hit the big two-dot-oh, reports Matt Asay in the Open Sources blog. In addition to the technology, Asay applauds the Zend business model that stays true to open source: "It's all about making the code open and free, and charging for the service around that code. If you're a developer, you probably don't want the service. If you're an enterprise with uptime requirements, you can't live without it. Zend is serving both."
Saved by the Tornado: If you're like Oliver Rist and in need of performing a quick desktop-data backup, he recommends checking out The Tornado. "Think of a cable coil device with a USB 2.0 connector at either end. Hook it up between two Windows XP machines and it pops up its own file transfer tool. Each window sees the disk tree of both machines. Find what you want on one and then drag-and-drop or cut-and-paste to the other machine." Pretty slick.
Posted by Ted Samson on March 6, 2007 10:34 AM
March 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: JRules 6.5 steers into SOA
As SOA continues to gain momentum, integration of business decision logic into service architectures becomes increasingly important. ILOG JRules version 6.5 smooths the way with a wizard-based deployment mechanism, called Transparent Decision Services, that gives technical business analysts the ability to develop and deploy SOAP-based business rule services without working with code. Other refinements in version 6.5 include a Semantic Query feature and an upgrade to Eclipse 3.2 for the Rule Studio.
With the recent focus on SOA and event-driven architectures in the enterprise, business rule analysts will appreciate the ability to deploy decision logic as enterprise services using the Rule Studio and Execution Server components of the JRules 6.5 stack -- no Java compilation steps required. Although the initial setup and deployment of the rules does require an analyst with some technical knowledge of Rule Studio and Execution Server, once setup is completed business users can manage the rules without technical assistance.
Transparent Decision Services only works with Business Object Models (BOMs) defined in XML, but since most SOAs pass XML data in and out of services anyway, this is not a significant limitation. Overall, Transparent Decision Services simplifies and streamlines the management of business rules within an SOA. It's a move in the right direction.
The new Semantic Query feature is an extension of the query tools introduced in version 6.0. These constructs allow you to query for rules based on the possible run-time conditions, as opposed to static rule conditions. An example of the new type of query this permits might be, "Find all rules such that each rule may lead to an application rejection." This makes it easier for a policy analyst to identify the rules of interest, since they may be located by action (or condition) values. This version also includes hooks for custom extensions of queries using Java.
With this release JRules takes a first step forward into the SOA space and enables decision services to be rapidly updated by business analysts. That alone makes the upgrade worthwhile for enterprises implementing SOA. On the downside, the documentation is still sorely in need of improvement. The user manual, now weighing in at 3,456 pages, is available in HTML and PDF, but neither of these formats is very good for working with such a large document set. I miss the Windows Help version of the documentation from JRules 5. It had a great search tool, extensive hyperlinks, and the docs were a lot easier to use.
Posted by Steven Nunez on March 5, 2007 04:27 PM
March 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
SOA Software adds infrastructure for IBM
SOA Software announced on Monday the availability of SOA infrastructure for IBM's WebSphere application server.
The company has released agents and delegates for WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Business Integraton Message Broker. These agents and delegates work with the SOA Software Service Manager product for managing and securing SOA. They ensure that applications using Message Broker and the application server can implement security, reliability and interoperability policies as part of a governance solution, SOA Software said.
The SOA Software SOLA (Service Oriented Legacy Architecture) product, meanwhile, adds the ability for WebSphere applications to consume mainframe transactions as Web services. SOA Software's Workbench product can govern WebSphere services, managing their lifecycle.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 5, 2007 04:23 PM
March 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Imation RFID tracking system brings tapes back to the future
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags have already been used for a variety of tasks, such as tracking people or animals or the movement of goods in a warehouse.
Why not use RFID to track computer tapes and make tape management, until now an error prone and mostly human-driven activity, more reliable?
The answer to that question comes from Imation, a vendor who has proposed in the past some daring and innovative products, such as Ulysses
a unique product blending together disk and tape technology.
Imation is announcing today DataGuard RF, a tracking system for removable media based on RFID that will ship starting in April as an all inclusive starter kit.
How does the system work? Think of replacing the antiquate barcode labels of your media with a new version that remains friendly to the barcode reader installed in your tape library but embeds also a passive RFID tag.
A passive RFID has no independent power source but comes to life when going through a scanner, for example. Obviously RFID scanners are also part of the DataGuard RF kit and they come in two models, a desktop and a hand-held version, the first directly connected to a Windows system, the second, much similar to a PDA, is connected via a docking station.
The two scanners have similar functionality, but if you are thinking that the hand-held is overkill imagine how easy it would make checking the inventory of your cartridges, either at your location or at an outside vault.
Part of the kit are also tape management applications from B&L Associates, and a bright yellow carrying case that can accommodate 20 half-inch cartridges and has removable inserts to custom fit different models.
The DataGuard RF kit will sell for about $40,000, according to Imation.
Later this year Imation plans to equip those carrying cases with an AGPS Tracking Transponder, essentially a GPS tracking device that will fall back to the cell phone system to call home if a direct line-of-site to the satellite is not available.
Remember that sequence in Goldfinger when James Bond is tracking the villain across the Alps?
Well, pretty soon you should be able to do the same if one of your carrying cases full of cartridges falls off the truck or off the screen. Stay tuned.
Posted by Mario Apicella on March 5, 2007 01:31 PM
March 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Oracle's big gulp: How will the Hyperion acquisition shake out?
Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion Solutions is wonderful for stockbrokers and people who play the markets for a living, but mergers always generate uncertainty... and uncertainty is a vicious overhead element for IT.
What does the merger mean for those responsible for choosing, deploying and supporting solutions? We won't know solid details for a while, but the underlying technologies, products, target markets, and missions of both corporate acquirer and corporate acquiree shape the probable outcomes.
Hyperion is itself a company put together through significant acquisitions and the integration of some pretty remarkable third-party tools, and their focus shifted over time from business intelligence (BI) to business performance management (BPM). They have been steadfastly platform-agnostic, supporting Microsoft’s various applications and database infrastructure. Oracle has been a somewhat closer partner on the database side, and with Oracle's acquisition of ERP players (the creation engine for the data that Hyperion’s technology analyzes), a lot of Oracle customer sites have already had a lot of exposure to Hyperion offerings.
There's a good deal of BI and BPM duplication (triplication?) in Oracle's product portfolio already. Hyperion has been digesting acquisitions and resolving overlap for a while now, and had seemed on the cusp of advancing with some remarkable looking original technology, including Smart Search (previewed here) and most especially Smart Space, a thrilling collaborative environment for BPM that due in August/September 2007. And since Hyperion is focused on BPM, most of Hyperion's products zoom in on the specific customers, interfaces and requirements of BPM and BI users. Oracle, on the other hand, is more focused on broadly-horizontal enterprise deployments and database back ends.
Because of the companies' different approaches, it remains to be seen how Oracle will proceed with deciding which of the overlapping technologies stay, which go into support-but-no-upgrade land, and which get chucked. It's the first problem one confronts when two big multiproduct tech companies merge: Best-of-Breed versus perceived convenience of single-source.
For example, Hyperion's Dashboard Builder is a single-purpose tool, designed to focus on one thing, while building dashboards is one of many things that Oracle BI Enterprise Edition supports. It probably costs Oracle less to maintain its own product and let Hyperion's go to seed, but customer IT may have already made the investment in training end-users to build their own Hyperion dashboards with the Hyperion tool. Which one wins out?
Given Hyperion's significant installed base of customers, it's unlikely in the near term that Oracle will liquidate the goodwill they paid for. The buyer has bought other significant companies recently, PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems, and they continue to support -- for the next few years contractually -- the products the purchased companies old and with only subtly-changed (if at all) names.
Longer-term Hyperion technologies that are still under development might be good candidates for re-naming and release under Oracle's name. If so, that's not a loss to innovation. But as Gary W. Patterson, principal at FiscalDoctor, a Wellesley, Mass. strategy consulting firm notes, "As someone who helps early stage software companies grow and provide new options for customers, I always hate to lose a major company like Hyperion as a potential exit strategy to motivate technology entrepreneurs to build the next great product." In other words, one less potential buyer reduces demand and competition for the fruits of creative designers' inventions.
Overall, it will come down to the age-old question about mergers in general, and tech mergers more precisely: Who will pay? The stockholders, the executives, the employees or the customers (through direct prices or losing superior technology)? In the near-term, unfortunately, it's almost never the executives and it's usually the customers.
Posted by Jeff Angus on March 5, 2007 01:04 PM
March 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Hyperion Smart Search puts friendlier front end on BI data
Hyperion Solutions is hammering against a trend that has seemed intractable to the entire analytical data vendor market: only 20 percent of the end users who are in a position to do something with BI deliverables receive data from BI systems. There's a huge number of reasons – including some of the vendors' own hinky past user-interface choices and many IT shops' overbearing security concerns -- that impair productive access to that BI data.
With that in mind, Hyperion has been cooking up a few components designed to address the 20 percent ceiling and open up the fruits of data output to a much wider audience. The first of these, Smart Search for Google OneBox, appeared in this month's version of their suite, Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3.
(Curious about how Oracle's purchase of Hyperion will affect this product and others in both companies? Read our analysis and find out more of the aquisition's details.)
Smart Search's objective is to use the ubiquitous Google search UI as a front end for data consumers to find the data they need. Once a report is prepped to run dynamically, or run regularly and stored, it is a potential hit in a user search run against the Hyperion data in this browser instance.
The demo gave me a strong sense that it's a positive move and one that is well-executed to raise that 20 percent ceiling. Not only does the component put one of the world's easiest to use interfaces in front of an organization's structured information, but it frees end users from having to know directory structures, the names of reports and queries, or other arcane details such as file extensions.
Hyperion built layered security into the mechanism – a user without authorization to see the data won’t get a hit delivered in the search list. And the value of bookmarks to browser-based viewers is as strong in this component as it is in any browser-based front end.
Note, however, that this feature doesn't pour hits into a generic browser instance, but a specialized one geared towards collections of static and dynamically run queries executed in real time. Hyperion said they provide tools for configuring the service to hit systems and data sources external to the Hyperion store.
Judging by Smart Search's set of abilities, I believe Hyperion's goal of rising through the 20 percent ceiling is a possibility. Smart Search makes it easier for the 80 percent of users who allowed ease of use issues to stand in their way to get at -- and make use of -- BI data. But Hyperion’s developers have a much more important component on its way, a genius of collaborative conception, coming later this year, probably late Summer or early Fall: Smart Space. I’ll discuss that truly heady demo in a subsequent Preview.
Hyperion Smart Search for Google OneBox
Platforms: Smart Search for Google OneBox comes with the currently shipping Release 9.3 and requires Google OneBox module; Java SDK or JRE 1.4.2; Tomcat 5.0.28; Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x
Cost: A 125-user deployment of Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3 starts at $100,000
Verdict: The addition of Smart Search to Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3 allows a wider end-user base to get at the BI and business performance management data. Thanks to the universally-known Google UI, Hyperion-standard organizations may find Smart Search generates more answers, and perhaps wiser follow-up questions.
Posted by Jeff Angus on March 5, 2007 01:03 PM
March 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Virtual PC woes and open-source definitions
Virtual bomb?: Randall Kennedy says Virtual PC 2007 isn't up to snuff (actually, he says it "sucks"), and he thinks it stems from Microsoft's reluctance to embrace desktop virtualization. What do you think? Post your comments on the Enterprise Desktop blog.
Don't fear the free: Defining open-source technology has been a tricky task, and the recent explosion of companies claiming to have some form of "open" business practice doesn't make it any easier. But there is hope, and there's no reason to accept watered-down "open source" technologies when real open tech is out there. Neil McAllister lays it all out in this week's Open Enterprise column.
Live on the Web: The latest installment of the InfoWorld LIVE! radio show discusses technology startups. How does today's startup market differ from (or mirror) the crazy times of yesteryear? Listen here.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 5, 2007 09:29 AM
March 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
New appliances squeeze more data into your SAN
Storewiz, Inc. is announcing today two new appliances, the STN-6300 and the STN-6500, capable of compressing files on the fly and without delays.
Data compression is certainly not a new technology, and has been applied with success to segments such as tape backups or cross-WAN transfers to compensate for the limited capacity of the medium or to improve the transfer rate of a connection.
On line, disk-stored data has also been selectively compressed using a variety of applications or OS features, but Storewiz is the first, and for now only, vendor I know of to propose appliances that promise seamless, transparent compression.
According to Storewiz their appliances can squeeze as an average three times the amount of data without adding delays or making any changes to existing application servers and storage devices.
Despite the declining cost/capacity ratio of storage solutions, Storewiz promise to stretch storage capacity has attracted the attention of many customers and numerous partners, such as IBM .
The two models announced today promise even higher compression ratio, up to 4:1 for databases and up to 3:1 for typical office files.
According to Storewiz its on-the-fly software compression adds negligible latency measured at 100 microseconds or less, and can actually improve storage access.
In fact, the smaller data footprint delivered by compression makes the cache of existing storage devices more effective, creating less cache misses which translates in faster random access.
In addition to a 2U rack mountable form factor, the two new models have in common also a disk less configuration (their Linux based OS starts from a flash drive) with 4 64-bit processors and the possibility to add a second unit for active-passive or active-active fail over.
Customers set the configuration options of the appliance, for example choosing the shares to compress, from a browser based client.
Files will be typically compressed when created or modified, but customers can activate a background application to comb for and compress idle files.
A separate application that runs on the most common platforms makes possible uncompressing data when a Storewiz appliance is not available.
The STN-6300, a unit intended for departmental or remote office deployment, mounts 4GB of memory and 4 GbE ports that can be expanded to 8 ports. By contrast the STN-6500 offers 6 GB of RAM, can add up to 12 additional processors and start with 8 GbE ports with the option to add 4 more.
The starting MSRP price is $22,000 for the STN-6300 and $42,000 for the STN-6500. Both models are available immediately.
Posted by Mario Apicella on March 5, 2007 07:32 AM
March 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
USMT trumps Windows Easy Transfer for Vista upgrades
Tempting though it may to rely on Windows Easy Transfer Tool when upgrading user PCs to Vista, you'd be well served to read the documentation on Microsoft's User State Migration Toolkit (USMT). Now in Version 3.0, it can provide a superior OS-upgrade experience.
A basic USMT description begins with the SaveState command line prompt. You run it from the workstation that's being migrated, and it saves an admin-customizable snapshot of the user's OS settings, application settings and data. You can then wipe the machine and do a clean install of Vista -- definitely the preferred method.
Once Vista is cooking, you simply run LoadState from the new command line, and the system gets updated with that user's individual goodies.
USMT has a leg up on Windows Easy Transfer in that administrators can use the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) tools to make USMT an automatic part of a large-scale Vista deployment. So WAIK can be targeted at 20 machines, and each machine can initiate USMT off the network prior to installation, run a standard user migration script, then install Vista and then restore using LoadState automatically as well.
USMT is a sweet tool kit, though we have some caveats. Automating USMT means ensuring that your users not only have their data in the same locations, but also that their application portfolios are the same as well. You can certainly customize USMT to any individual user’s box, but that effectively takes that user out of the automated loop.
Another caveat with USMT is that it isn't all-encompassing in what it migrates. For one thing, you can't update settings from an older version of an application to a newer one -- except for Microsoft Office. That's great for Office 2003/XP users going to Office 2007/Vista. But for other applications that will get revved as they become Vista-certified, this will not work. Those settings will need to be migrated manually. Oh yeah, and for some reason, Project 2003 to Project 2007 doesn't work yet, either.
Posted by Oliver Rist on March 2, 2007 11:49 AM
March 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Analyzing Vista deployment tools
Fresh from the Test Center: This week's Test Center missive analyzes Microsoft's free tools for deploying Vista. According to Oliver Rist and Brian Chee, "The company — shockingly — has succeeded" with much thanks due to Vista's imaging technology. Learn more about Vista and Office (tricky!) setups and get cracking on your own to-do list.
Wi-Fi landing pad: Test Center Chief Technologist Tom Yager reviews the Apple AirPort Extreme over on the Enterprise Mac blog. He's impressed by how much you get -- fast authentication and IP address assignment, support for the 802.11n draft standard, easy management, etc. - for the low, low price of $179. Sound good to you? Read the review for more details.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 2, 2007 06:00 AM
March 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Attensity 4.1's Industrial-Strength Text Mining
One of the key tools in any truly knowledge-managed organization is a business analytics feature set for mining and analysing text. 
Attensity recently updated their line to version 4.1, and the results are impressive.
Text mining tools plumb unstructured and structured documents to find and expose relationships between various kinds of data. If the tool supports mapping of concepts and vocabulary, it can focus discovery in areas like product failure analysis, fact-based marketing clustering, and competitive intelligence as well as fraud detection. The more text an enterprise is larded with, the fewer clear possibilities most human analysts can latch on to and the more relationships a text analysis tool can condense and offer up for the analyst's consideration.
Attensity calls their multi-module text analytics product a "suite," and while I'm not ready to assign a specialized tool such a vaunted noun, the five browser-based functions do complement each other pragmatically. "Text Search" supports iterative exploration of text documents. "Discover" supports categorization, combining, and clarifying words, as well as structuring results for further exploration. What Attensity calls "Analytics" is a module that delivers graphical visualization tools to examine results (I have to say I really dislike the trend in BI where companies call graphics "analytics"). The "Alert" module triggers messages based on emerging conditions in data, allowing rapid event response.
The interface is fairly typical for text analysis tools: neither elegant nor confusing. An analyst working with the various modules will find a real but shallow learning curve to cope with.
Attensity 4.1 targets both data extraction (which operates in response to the organization's prepared knowledge engineering specs) as well as "exhaustive extraction" which seeks relationships without any specs, a significant potential benefit.
There are a few features not yet in Attensity's system that I'd like to see added. For one, I'd like the system to learn to distinguish ambiguous "hits" that fail by having the user identify them as "misses." And while Attensity can direct output for reporting in Business Objects' Crystal Xcelsius, it doesn't currently connect effortlessly with more compound Business Analytics solutions from SAS and SPSS (which have their own text mining tools).
Text mining is one of the vastly under-appreciated 21st century applications. Organizations that hop on this set of capabilities will find advantages over their competitors that are not soon evened out.
Attensity 4.1
Platforms: Runs on Windows and Linux; works with SQL Server, mySQL, Oracle, or Teradata source databases
Cost: Solutions start at $250,000 for the server application license; a hosted application suite starts at $15,000 per month
Verdict: Attensity 4.1 is a cleverly-formulated competitor in a vital but generally ignored category: text mining for knowledge management and business analytics. Its capabilities cover both targeted extraction (where you know what you're looking for) as well as untargeted (where Attensity discovers potential insights you may not know about). More prepared connections to popular platforms that would benefit from Attensity's features should be built.
Posted by Jeff Angus on March 1, 2007 12:39 PM
March 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft has released Version 4 of the Visual Studio 2005 Software Development Kit, enabling developers to build custom tools, editors, designers, languages and other extensions for the company's development environment.
The new SDK includes broader integration possibilities and new community resources, Microsoft said. Among the features of the SDK are a Toolbox Control Installer as well as a tool for generating managed class library documentation and a Visual Studio SDK Browser.
Microsoft has set up its Visual Studio 2005 Extensibility Center offering information on the SDK, which can itself be accessed here.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 1, 2007 11:22 AM
March 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Symantec probes Vista
Symantec points out Vista security holes: Microsoft poured lots of resources into making its newest OS secure, an effort that some analysts have praised. But now Symantec has released a report citing out security shortcomings in the OS. Among them: its ability to effectively ward off existing malware threats.
Google tackles click fraud: Advertisers pay good money for ad placement on Google, so it's no surprise they want to be sure that the clicks they get are legit. Alas, click fraud has been on the rise, but the search behemoth has announced plans for further-enhanced tools to combat the problem -- including giving advertisers the ability to blacklist select IP addresses.
Are you open or not? Matt Asay over in the Open Sources blog further probes the question of what makes a company open source. His definition: "My own definition of an open source company? The company must actually release code as part of its core business." And by that definition, he contends that EnterpriseDB, contrary to some opinions, is definitely not an open-source company. Why? "EnterpriseDB's business is in selling proprietary extensions to PostgreSQL. Period."
Posted by Ted Samson on March 1, 2007 08:04 AM
March 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft hails Orcas, beginning developers
Microsoft this week launched the March Community Technology Preview (CTP) of its Visual Studio "Orcas" release and also set up its Beginner Developer Learning Center.
The CTP, accessible here, features a WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) designer, said S. "Soma" Somasegar, Microsoft corporate vice president of the company's Developer Division, in his blog. Also featured are enhancements pertaining to the Team Foundation Server for application lifecycle management.
Orcas is the next-generation development tool for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System, and the Web, Microsoft said. The March CTP consists of two releases, Visual Studio Team Suite and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. These are available in a pre-configured Virtual PC image or as self-extracting installation files, Microsoft said.
The Beginner Developer Learning Center is intended as a centralized learning environment for beginning programmers, Somasegar said.
"This fun site provides a learning environment for anyone who is new to programming - the lessons start at a basic level with an introduction to general programming concepts, and gradually work their way up in difficulty to guide people through creation of complete Windows or Web solutions. It is a great way to learn to program, and a great way to increase your passion for coding by sharing this knowledge with others," Somasegar said.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 1, 2007 06:53 AM