- Test Center Tracker: Make your meetings meatier
- Coverity checks source code
- Test Center Tracker: When updates attack
- Review: Not flipping for the FlipStart micro PC
- Test Center Tracker: MacBook health check, and network rabbits
- Review: Appro XtremeWorkstation mixes Opteron horsepower and superior graphics at a nice price
- Review: Put some ZIP in your data and e-mail security
- Test Center Tracker: Filers shatter language barriers
- Test Center Tracker: Wednesday smorgasbord
- Preview: McAfee's DLP product stops your host's data leaks
April 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Make your meetings meatier
Exclusive review: There's little in the work day that's less satisfying wasting time in an unproductive meeting. Test Center Contributing Editor Mike Heck has found an excellent remedy for those time-wasting experiences in his exclusive hands-on look at Yon Software MeetingSense 2.0. The product provides an ingenious way to prepare for meetings and capture essential information during the gatherings, Mike finds, plus it works seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook.
VMWare freebie: Version 3.0.1 of VMware's Converter tools has materialized, announces David Marshall in the InfoWorld Virtualization Report. The tool gives companies a means of migrating machines, both physical to virtual and virtual to virtual, sans downtime. Version 3.0.1 has some new interesting features, too, like the capability of importing VMware Consolidated Backup images and certain StorageCraft ShadowProtect images.
Dell does Ubuntu: Confirming the speculative buzz, Dell has announced that it will start shipping systems pre-loaded with Ubuntu Linux, IDG News Service's China Martens reports. "Canonical will certify the Dell models that feature preinstalled Ubuntu and will also provide support for the Linux distribution, which users will have the option to purchase from Dell's Web site," she writes. Notably, Michael Dell himself runs Ubuntu on his home PC. Will greater Linux adoption follow?
Posted by Ted Samson on April 30, 2007 11:52 PM
April 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Coverity has unveiled Coverity Prevent Plug-in for Eclipse, which allows developers to find software defects in source code as it is being written.
An extension to the company's Prevent source code analysis system, the plug-in enables a fast analysis of local source code that can be run multiple times throughout the workday. The plug-in features integration with the Eclipse development environment.
The plug-in is available to Coverity Prevent users at no additional cost.
Posted by Paul Krill on April 30, 2007 06:45 PM
April 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: When updates attack
A cure worse than the disease?: Cringely may be in an all-digital format these days, but he hasn't lost his nose for rumors, gossip, and sundry news items. His latest post on some killer updates (distributed by Microsoft) fans the flames of an earlier proposal that Microsoft's monopoly is crumbling. Got some fuel to add to the fire, or want to dump a bucket of water on Cringely's musings? Post your comments and join the discussion.
MySQL's next release: InfoWorld contributing editor David Margulius talks to MySQL's Marten Mikos about the next release of this open-source database. Watch the video here.
In case you missed it: Don't forget to check out the Test Center's most recent reviews: the super-sized comparison of four iSCSI file systems from Adaptec, Celeros, Dell, and NetApp; our head-to-head matchup of virtual desktop management tools (Kidaro and Sentillion), and a roundup of four tools to prevent data loss and keep your company in compliance with government regulations.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 30, 2007 10:30 AM
April 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Review: Not flipping for the FlipStart micro PC
Vulcan’s entry into the burgeoning mini PC, micro PC really-small-thing-running-a-full-PC-OS-almost market has a lot about it that's small. You can see just how small in the photos of the unit next to my fat hands that ran in my March 8 preview.
Unfortunately, the smallest thing about the FlipStart is its reason to live. I think it's Klingons who leave the no-purpose runts of their litters on rocks as otherworldly snacks for predators. That way, the kid can go back to Sto-Vo-Kor and try again. (Yeah, I looked that up and probably still got it wrong.)
Vulcan needs to try again, too. Because I'm nuking the FlipStart itself, not the micro PC concept -- though I have yet to see one I respect. For me, respect requires purpose. And so far, while colorful little dwarven PCs certainly look cool, they can't sing "hi ho hi ho off to work we go" because, well, they're too small for work. Sony's UX, OQO's 02, and the FlipStart are all too small to serve as effective work machines. And it's not about horsepower, or even the display: it's all about the keyboard.
I've only seen the OQO's annoying keyboard, but I've handled both the Sony's and the FlipStart's, and they're impossible for more than a few SMS-style taps. Writing a report -- hell, even just editing a report -- will put you in a church tower waving an AK-47 in less than an hour. And it's not just my fat male fingers that are troubled by FlipStart's keyboard. I lent the device to a dainty-digited female acquaintance (hey, it could happen) and she couldn't work it accurately either.
But let's put that aside for a moment. Let's pretend you can work on a FlipStart. And not only that, let's pretend there's an application out there that's not only specifically designed for a micro PC, but it's even useful. I would still drop the FlipStart for the following reasons:
Anemic hardware. A 1.1GHz CPU and 256MB of RAM? That's going to have to jump to 2GHz and 1GB of RAM. I didn't just play Cheers videos on my FlipStart. I loaded Office documents and a 1.84GB Outlook mailbox downloaded from my backup machine. The Flipper hiccupped a bunch during standard Office duties, but it choked hard after loading that mega-Inbox.
Scant disk storage. I actually rubbed my eyes when I read 30GB hard disk. Are they kidding? My Archos handheld media player has 60GB for crying out loud. Since media playing is really the main thing this little thing is good for, sticking a tiny disk in there truly doesn't make sense.
No broadband wireless pre-installed. The boys at Vulcan really stepped on their hoopas in that department. Web surfing is the only other thing the Flipper might do well, so limiting connectivity is kooky.
A mere 8MB of video RAM. Where are we? 1998?
Short on battery life. Small things are supposed to run for longer peri-ods. At full media-playing blast, this thing gave me three Cheers episodes and a third of Inside Man before it died hard. That would have been okay for the native battery, but that was with the long-life battery attached.
I did have a few fun experiences with the Flipstart. The integrated 1.3MP Webcam turns the Flipper into a decent Skype video phone. The bundled port replicator gives you two USB ports and a video port, though the latter failed to drive any of my flat panel displays, which Vulcan says is a beta bug. Though with 8MB of video RAM, I'm not eager to see this thing drive a big screen anyway.
The Flipper also proved useful at a trade show at which I was doing long-term coverage. Since I wasn't responsible for reporting breaking news, I only needed e-mail access during the day -- just enough to type "Thanks, I'll get back to you tomorrow" to the really important messages. For that, the FlipStart is great, since hauling even a 15-inch MacBook around a trade show all day is lethal for the lumbar. Had I really been covering the show, however, with an article or two due from the show floor, I'd never have taken the little thing.
In sum, the Flipstart isn't too late, but it is too little. Except for one aspect: Its price tag. An oversized PDA running a full copy of Windows sounds cool on paper, but it just isn't worth $1,999 in the checkout line. Fix the problems above; maybe add an expandable keyboard that wouldn't have me going Hannibal Lecter on the passenger next to me in less than 15 minutes; add a stacked optical drive; some cell phone on-demand action; GPS and tablet functionality... now for that I'd pay two grand. Maybe FlipStart 2.0.
FlipStart 1.0
Price: $1,999
Verdict: Vulcan's FlipStart makes a push into the ultra-cool world of full-featured micro PCs. Too bad it's neither cool enough nor full featured enough to make us think the price tag is worth it.
Posted by Oliver Rist on April 30, 2007 06:00 AM
April 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: MacBook health check, and network rabbits
Open up and say "Apple": Tom Yager's trusty MacBook Pro is showing signs of advancing age, from shorter battery life to an unfortunate failure incident. Read his dispatch on the laptop's health over the past six months and let him know if you're seeing the same problems on the Enterprise Mac blog.
Basic training: Inspired by an NPR interview, Roger Grimes outlines a few ways that thinking inside the box - and reapplying traditional, basic policies - can make your security strategy more successful.
Wascally wi-fi wabbits: If your tech equipment just isn't cute enough, check out these little rabbits - also known as Nabaztag and made by a company called Violet - that handle your wireless connections as well as doing network monitoring, email, playing music, and other tasks. The folks at TheTechStop.net give you the full rundown in this video:
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 27, 2007 10:06 AM
April 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Review: Appro XtremeWorkstation mixes Opteron horsepower and superior graphics at a nice price
In the old days, a workstation was an expensive Unix system running a RISC processor and proprietary graphics system, often with a price tag in the six-figure range. Today a workstation is typically a beefed-up desktop PC, and it might run Unix, Linux, or even Windows. The Appro XtremeWorkstation is typical of the new breed, supporting as many as four Opteron dual- or quad-core processors, as much as 128GB of RAM, an abundance of internal disk space, and dual 16x PCI-E slots for high-end graphics.
The system I received for testing was configured with four dual-core Opteron 8216 (2.4GHz) CPUs, 16 GB RAM, dual 120GB Seagate 10K RPM drives and an NVidia Quadro FX 4500 X2 graphics card. This system would be exceptional as a CAD, imaging, or video processing workstation. It would also be perfect for running multiple virtualized operating systems in a software development or testing environment, even with a less powerful graphics card.
The system is remarkably quiet for the horsepower it provides, and the case is heavy and well-built, with lots of room for expansion as well as good cooling. At $11,822 as tested, plus $2,950 for the FX 4500 X2, the system also delivers a whole lot of performance for the price. I tested the system with the supplied Red Hat Linux Enterprise Server 4.0 as well as with Windows XP Pro. Standard benchmark packages like Futuremark's PCMark and 3DMark are not intended for systems of this caliber -- they don't support the FX 4500 X2, and they aren't equipped to get results with eight cores. In fact, a 64-bit server OS (Red Hat Enterprise Server, Suse Linux Enterprise Server, Windows Server 2003) may be necessary to take full advantage of the large amounts of RAM and the eight or even 16 cores this system can provide.
The XtremeWorkstation could also be used as a server, of course, especially in branch office environments where rack mounting isn't necessary and noise levels are a factor. Running VMware or Xen, you should be able to host as many as 50 or 60 OS images running simultaneously. If you have applications that are optimized for multithreaded operations, they will fly with this system. While eight 2.4GHz cores are not the same thing as one 19.2GHz core, they're as close as you can get for now.
Appro XtremeWorkstation
Price: $14,772 as tested
Verdict: Considering the bang for the buck, the Appro XtremeWorkstation is hard to beat. For CPU- or RAM-intensive applications such as CAD, audio/video processing or rendering, or virtualization, where server hardware (redundant power supplies, redundant RAM, etc.) is not required, this system will serve well.
Posted by Logan Harbaugh on April 27, 2007 06:00 AM
April 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Review: Put some ZIP in your data and e-mail security
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You might remember (or even still use) the original ZIP for DOS -- initially developed to save precious network bandwidth by compressing files. And you're probably aware that over time, PKWare improved this ubiquitous technology to keep up with enterprise needs, such as archiving multi-gigabyte-sized files and providing easy deployment tools for IT staff.
But you may not know about a different branch of the product, SecureZIP, which I've watched evolve since Version 4. I just finished testing the new SecureZIP v11, and I found that its strong encryption and central management features (available in the Enterprise Edition) are especially appropriate for helping organizations protect data against theft or unauthorized access.
The Enterprise Version's built on top of the free SecureZIP, which itself has a number of improvements, plus three major new features. To start, SecureZIP has the staples of PKZIP: a very simple user interface and various data compression settings. Just drag files to the main window and they're compacted. Using a wizard or options listed on the Secure Toolbar, I then applied encryption, which can be a passphrase, X.509 digital certificate, or a combination of both.
SecureZIP had no trouble recognizing my certificates and those of my business colleagues. I could digitally sign files (or the entire archive) so recipients could validate that the data wasn't modified.
The new features extend Outlook, making it persistently secure. For example, I secured the e-mail message body in addition to file attachments. The process is very transparent: SecureZIP displays a clear dialog prior to sending the message, asking if you would like to zip and secure your message. Moreover, when someone forwards the message he or she can automatically change the encryption, so that file attachments don't have to be manually opened and re-encrypted.
I also appreciated the third new option, which encrypts Outlook calendar attachments. This addresses a possible security gap if your staff sends sensitive documents inside of meeting invitations.
The Enterprise Edition allows IT administrators to centrally manage security policies through integration with Microsoft's Management Console. For instance, I easily set a Policy that ensured e-mail attachments were compressed and encrypted. Similarly, you could enforce a policy where every e-mail attachment is secured with a complex passphrase. These policies are then distributed to desktops using standard tools, such as Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS).
Further, the enterprise version integrates with Active Directory so certificates are automatically retrieved. And to reduce work for helpdesk staff, there's a master key to recover data and also to audit what data is sent over e-mail.
SecureZIP is clearly a Microsoft-centric product. But for the many organizations invested in Windows and Outlook, I think it's a worthwhile security alternative to more complex agent and network scanners for protecting e-mail and data files.
PKWare SecureZIP v11
Cost: Free for individual use; Enterprise Edition lists at $49.95 per user.
Verdict: SecureZip v11 adds multiple layers of strong security when compressing files and also sending e-mail using Outlook. The underlying SecureZIP software is just as easy to use as WinZIP, while including options to protect complete e-mail messages. The Enterprise Edition lets IT staff centrally manage and deploy security policies.
Posted by Mike Heck on April 26, 2007 11:51 AM
April 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Filers shatter language barriers
Fresh from the Test Center:: Trying to meet your file serving needs while juggling NFS, CIFS, and up-and-coming iSCSI can be a tricky. Fortunately, an increasing number of storage vendors are creating filers that can handle all those standards at once. Test Center Senior Contributor Paul Venezia got his hands on four such jacks-of-all-trades from Adaptec, Celeros, Dell, and NetApp, and for the most part, he liked what he saw. They won't rival the capabilities of higher-end, and more expensive, options, but "buying a few simply to maintain a nearline backup is a terrific idea."
Bypass the Internet-tiering scam: InfoWorld's Chief Technologist Tom Yager expresses his frustration with telcos who are sticking smaller subscribers with shoddier Internet service. But a promising alternative has emerged from Towerstream: The company supplies scalable Internet connectivity to businesses in metropolitan areas through a web of WiMax transceivers.
Live from Davey Jones' Locker ...: Senior Contributing Editor aand Geek in Paradise Brian Chee has access to some of the coolest high-tech gear at the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology. One of his latest products: setting up a raw audio feed, five kilometers beneath the waves, via an open source streaming audio server called Icecast. "This stream from a broadband hydrophone is being used for real science, but it's still pretty cool to be able to listen to whale song live from the middle of the Pacific Ocean."
Posted by Ted Samson on April 26, 2007 09:32 AM
April 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Wednesday smorgasbord
Pictures worth a thousand words: Conference calls and slideshows may be the way of life for remote workers, but as Brian Chee points out, once those talks start involving drawings or notes made by the presenter, the remote folks are out of luck. A new little device from Virtual Ink, called the Mimio, may change that - it records and sends out what you write, so remote workers can see it and so you have a permanent record of all those cocktail-napkin ideas for the next big thing. Learn why Brian thinks the Mimio is "even better than sliced bread" on the Geeks in Paradise blog.
The host with the most: Oliver Rist's latest Enterprise Windows column explains why hosted services make sense: for one thing, there's someone else to call if something goes wrong. Intrigued? Learn more about hosted services and SaaS here.
Game on: Microsoft's connecting the Xbox 360 with Windows PC with hopes of giving gaming an extra boost - we've got the video of its introduction in Tokyo. Check it out.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 25, 2007 09:48 AM
April 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: McAfee's DLP product stops your host's data leaks
Data leak prevention (or protection) is all about making sure that data doesn't leave your organization without approval - a laudable goal. 
These days, I spend most of my time trying to convince people of the simple things they can do to prevent data loss, including authentication, encryption, and compartmentalization of sensitive and proprietary data.
Unfortunately, there are a variety of ways that data can still sneak out the door unfettered, leaving your organization open to regulatory compliance and legal issues -- not to mention the potential harm to your organization's reputation which can substantially and negatively affect your bottom line.
That being said, I recently took a look at McAfee's newest offering in the desktop DLP space and I'm impressed. Regardless of the method I tried to use to remove data off the host, McAfee DLP stopped me every time.
I tried to take a screenshot of the data I wanted to steal, copy and paste it to other applications, use Web and desktop mail programs to move it, and encrypt the data, among other methods. No success. Short of taking a picture with my camera phone, I couldn't get past the desktop agent monitoring my nefarious activity.
Of course, good data protection requires that you first identify and quantify your sensitive data. McAfee DLP's management console has a number of prebuilt templates that allow sensitive data types (like the nine-digit Social Security number) to be easily locked down so that they don't escape from your enterprise.
While DLP is all about making sure data stays safe and secure, McAfee's product is somewhat limited by its focus on the endpoint. It still leaves data vulnerable in all of its other potentially exposed locations -- since it's host based, it can't protect network, servers, databases, and so on. Nevertheless, McAfee DLP does what it says: it keeps data from leaving the desktop.
While I haven't had a chance to take a look at it, McAfee Data Loss Prevention Gateway is a way to mitigate the shortcomings of the endpoint. The DLP gateway is policy based and can manage endpoint deployments for a more comprehensive data loss prevention solution.
McAfee Data Loss Prevention
Available: Now
Pricing: Approximately $79 per seat
Verdict: Organizations looking to stop the potential or existing loss of critical data need to look at McAfee's host-based DLP solution. While the product does require a desktop agent, this data loss product can protect your enterprise from costly and embarrassing theft and unintentional disclosure. It's a good first step, but remember that desktop lockdown only stops those using your existing endpoints and does nothing to stop data moving out of your organization from other locations and origins.
Posted by Victor R. Garza on April 25, 2007 06:00 AM
April 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Infragistics leverages Microsoft WPF
Infragistics is shipping a toolset that extends Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) for graphical presentation.
Called NetAdvantage for WPF 2007 Volume 1, the toolset provides editable DataGrid-style controls for developers. Leveraging WPF capabilities such as vector-based graphics, animation and stylization, NetAdvantage for WPF helps developers build a new breed of user interfaces, Infragistics said.
DataGrid functionality in NetAdvantage, offered through the toolset's xamDataGrid control, supports traditional grid UI features such as inline data editing, hierarchical data display and sorting and grouping of data.
Other capabilities in NetAdvantage include xamData Presenter, featuring tools to build user interfaces. These tools include xamDataCarousel, xamCarouselListBox and xamCarouselPanel, providing UI layout capabilities not previously possible prior to WPF, Infragistics said. Designers can build innovative UI patterns with layout controls and developers can choose the control based on the complexity of their needs, Infragistics said.
Downloadable here, NetAdvantage for WPF is available for an introductory price of $395 or $895 with priority support. It is sold on an annual subscription basis.
MSDN subscribers can get a free WPF xamDataGrid with one year of online support.
Posted by Paul Krill on April 23, 2007 12:47 PM
April 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Aptana has added the Ruby Development Tools (RDT) project into the Aptana IDE and also has hired the lead developer of RDT, Chris Williams.
The company announced the moves at the SDForum Second Annual Silicon Valley Ruby Conference in San Jose, Calif. this past Saturday.
The IDE is an AJAX-focused (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) open-source IDE supporting JavaScript, CSS and HTML. It also features integration with FireBug for JavaScript debugging.
Both the RDT and RadRails IDE project will be integrated into the Aptana IDE within a few months, Aptana said.
Adding RadRails and RDT to Aptana IDE makes "AJAX on Rails" a reality, Aptana said.
"With numerous Web 2.0 startups using Ruby on Rails, our embracing of these two projects will have a tremendous and positive effect on the development community," said Paul Colton, Aptana CEO, in a statement released by the company. "We're looking forward to providing these developers with a powerful, consistent, end-to-end development environment, spanning all layers: database, Ruby, Rails, HTML, CSS and JavaScript."
Posted by Paul Krill on April 23, 2007 12:12 PM
April 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: DIY high performance computing
Paging Bob Vila: High-performance computing (HPC) isn't just for massive conglomerates with billion-dollar budgets anymore. These days, clustered servers running basic processors and programs are making HPC a do-able DIY project -- albeit one that's going to require some dedicated resources and committment to ferreting out complex solutions. Read our special report and see if you'd like to leap into the world of homegrown HPC, too. No hard hat required.
Useful wallpaper: Brian Chee likes the way Microsoft's BGInfo tool puts machine info onto your wallpaper automatically - check it out on the Geeks in Paradise blog.
Also useful as wallpaper: Now that InfoWorld is running in an online-only mode, we've heard that some readers miss the quiet moments they shared with the print magazine while travelling, or commuting, or... um... in the bathroom. Good news: you can have those moments again with InfoWorld Express, a weekly, printable PDF. Register for it now and enjoy!
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 23, 2007 09:31 AM
April 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Storage nuts and bolts, and video from TED
Storage roundup: It's a Very Special Storage Friday in the columnists' corner. Mario Apicella ponders 10 Gig switch technology that could lead to a real 100 Gigabit Ethernet fabric (not to mention more iSCSI and FCoE talk on the Storage Network blog). And Oliver Rist wonders if virtualization will be the key to increasing iSCSI adoption among SMBs (Microsoft's Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 doesn't ignore iSCSI, for one).
Who goes there?: Want to see if a site is running in IE7 Protected Mode on Vista? Martin Heller has the code you need, and the background on the detective work he did to find it.
Friday video break: This year, the TED folks posted a large number of videos (dubbed TED Talks) from their yearly share-and-share-alike conference in Monterey, Calif. Check out Jeff Han demoing a multi-touch, hi-res, full-screen touchscreen - and tell your mouse that its days may be numbered.
Want to see more from TED? They've got 99 videos of everything from a performance by Pilobus dancers to James Watson describing how he discovered DNA and Jane Goodall on the difference between humans and apes to Golan Levin's quest to see software as art.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 20, 2007 10:12 AM
April 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: HardMetrics goes for deep -- not broad -- BPM solutions
Most of the vendors in the BPM (business performance management) arena are working to diversify and broaden offerings, through development, acquisition or private labeling. HardMetrics, however, is going its own way with many of its choices, including making its products deeper and more focused rather than broadening their scope.
HardMetrics' four solutions are Java-based applications intended to run on the entire range of business workstations from either their hosted multi-tenant servers or from a licensed (perpetual or annual) version. I saw a demonstration of their Call Center Performance Manager (the other products include the Marketing, Collections, and Field Service Performance Managers).
One noteworthy difference is that HardMetrics doesn't use connectors or OLAP cubes from which to draw the many data sources customers need to integrate; instead, they use very simple out-of-the-box tools to bring data out of the original sources and into a discrete HardMetrics database. End-users work with highly-interactive pre-built or roll-their-own graphs and charts that operate within their browser and show off exceptions and trends they can drill down into. The results let you track and judge trends in effectiveness.
The company's avoidance of connector complexity has several consequences when it comes to the optimal use of Call Center Performance Manager and the other products. They're aimed square at time-series analysis -- and that makes sense because the value to be revealed is less dependent on real-time updates. However, it also means that the system doesn't auto-trigger alerts. And, the system is not meant as a standalone replacement for, or competitor to, offerings from broader-solution providers such as Cognos, Business Objects, or Hyperion/Oracle; rather, it complements those broader tools by delivering a sharper attack on a specific area of expertise.
I was wowed by HardMetrics' wizard for building data presentation. It was very linear in the design phase, as it should be for the types of users who will take on the analysis.
At the same time, the drag-and-drop screen designer, combined with Call Center Performance Manager's ease of iterative changes (preview, see possibility for improvement, adjustment), was extremely well-executed. And the ability to output deliverables to both PDF (for static, high-fidelity) or spreadsheet files (for others to add value to the analysis) is very sensible.
The manipulation and drill-down or drill-up actions are intuitive and surprisingly quick in the demo. I found the business-logic thinking of the company’s experts extraordinary and unusually perceptive.
On the downside, HardMetrics' targeted world view leaves a couple of interface elements with rough edges that more standard designers would have smoothed. For example, menus didn't provide visual cues that there were sub-menu choices underneath (in Firefox or in Windows desktop applications, designers cue submenus with an arrowhead pointing toward 3 o'clock).
And although alert mechanisms would complicate connections, they could come in handy, even in non-real time analyses. For example, if someone else examined the same data series you had already plumbed, an alert sent to both of you could trigger a collaborative discussion that might generate a synthesis of views.
IT personnel who are scared of original or eccentric models will be befuddled by HardMetrics; those looking for analytical solutions, though, should put this company on your list of innovators to examine
HardMetrics Call Center Performance Manager
Platforms: HardMetrics solutions (Call Center Performance Manager, Marketing Performance Manager, and Collections Performance Manager) are Java-based solutions designed to be delivered through browsers to any enabled workstation
Price: A perpetual license is $250,000 with an annual management fee; hosted and annual lease options available
Verdict: Enterprises looking to increase effectiveness in the areas HardMetrics' solutions are aimed at should take a deep breath before judging how original/non-standard their approaches are, and measure the potential benefits of this remarkable solution platform. Refined to handle specific problems in specific ways, a solution such as Call Center Performance Manager might just save you a significant hunk of currency in speed and simplicity of deployment at the front end, and insightful conclusions at the users' desks.
Posted by Jeff Angus on April 19, 2007 01:08 PM
April 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Desktop virtualization horse race
The virtual destkop evolves: Representing the next evolutionary phase of virtualization, desktop virtualization products are giving organizations a way to securely and inexpensively push application and data via VMs to users. Contributing Editor Randall C. Kennedy had a chance to examine a trio of desktop virtualization products: Kidaro Managed Workspace 1.0, Sentillion vThere 2.0, and separately, a beta of VMware's ACE 2.0. Randall's overall assessment: "Both Kidaro Managed Workspace and Sentillion vThere offer excellent, base-level management functionality that matches or beats VMware's ACE offering." Check out his reviews to find out why.
Pentaho and OpenOffice unite: Matt Asay, in the Open Sources blog, discovers that the Pentaho reporting engine will be integrated in the next iteration of OpenOffice. That means that users will be able to create reports with content from the OpenOffice.org Base database as well as a wide range of proprietary and open source relational databases, OLAP and XML sources. "I think this is really cool, and demonstrates the power of the open source development and distribution model. It also fulfills the promise of open source business intelligence," Matt writes.
Posted by Ted Samson on April 19, 2007 09:47 AM
April 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Apple cages Leopard for six more months
Leopard in waiting: Apple extended the wait time for Leopard (aka OSX 10.5) by six months, and Tom Yager says there's a greater goal behind the delay than just final tweaking of features -- and it involves the iPhone (speaking of which, Cisco just dropped a few more details on the Cisco-Apple iPhone interoperability agreement). Do you agree with Tom's vision? Read his blog and post a comment.
Mashup mania: It's more than just maps of housing prices or crime statistics -- mashup technology is ready for enterprise prime time, according to the CEOs of Kapow, StrikeIron, and Teqlo. Check out our video roundtable of these three execs discussing what drives enterprise mashups, and why they're a good thing for business.
Greener than thou: How do you measure energy efficiency? With vendors on a rambunctious quest to tout their own "green-ness" and stomp on their competitors' claims of eco-friendliness, there seems to be a lot of statistics-spinning going on. Ted Samson puts a point on the issue and raises a good question in his recent Sustainable IT post: is it greener to massively reduce the amount of energy and resources from your prior usage, or is it greener to be using less in the first place? Or... does it matter, as long as you're keeping sustainability in mind when making tech decisions?
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 18, 2007 10:06 AM
April 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Oracle reveals Project X
Does X mark the spot? Oracle has unveiled a flexible new platform called Application Integration Architecture (AIA) that may be the answer to the prayers of companies suffering the rigidity of ERP (enterprise resource planning) software. "Through the AIA framework, the functionality of Oracle's vast application portfolio -- Oracle E-Business, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards -- can be recombined and tailored to enterprise needs, reports InfoWorld Executive Editor at Large Eric Knorr.
Put virtualization to the test: Trying to get a handle on just how well your virtualization project is faring? Then you might want to check out VMWare's virtualization benchmark tool, VMmark, which has just gone public, as reported by David Marshall. The release "has undergone some key changes since that original specification was developed in order to simplify benchmark setup and execution," he notes, including the distribution of virtual appliances for Linux-based workloads.
SCA gets some love: On the SOA front, Dave Linthicum reports that the Rogue Wave Software has released the first product to directly support the Service Component Architecture (SCA) standard. "My take on SCA is that the specification seems to be blurry in many respects, however it is maturing rapidly and has evolved into something very interesting and something we should track," Dave writes.
Posted by Ted Samson on April 17, 2007 10:24 AM
April 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Spotlight on dynamic programming languages
Language lessons: Dynamic languages - PHP, Python, Ruby, and so on - are finding their place in enterprise software development, often spurred on by the need to get projects done quickly. But what exactly makes a dynamic language dynamic? And how do you figure out which language is best for which project? Today's analysis article answers these burning questions and more - check it out.
Apple security, round two: Paul Venezia's first missive on the better security of Apple systems garnered a good bit of interest, and after watching the discussion unfold on other sites, Paul is back to refute or address some of the most common rebuttals to his original post. Keep an eye on this discussion - it promises to be an excellent ongoing debate.
Listen and learn: The latest installment of InfoWorld LIVE radio show -- number 10, if you're keeping count -- lays out a primer on data protection: why it's important, why you should worry about it, and how to accomplish it. Looking for more InfoWorld LIVE episodes? They're all archived on the SMB IT blog.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 16, 2007 09:36 AM
April 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Reconnex 6.0 Endpoint Agent locks back doors on intellectual property leaks
I'm sure you don't need to be reminded of the consequences when confidential or personal data gets loose from your organization. If pressure from government officials isn't enough incentive to install a data leak solution, your stockholders will give you ample reasons if news of a breach hits the press.
Yet for any data protection system to be effective, it can't just scan e-mail or crawl file shares for suspicious content - a point I've suggested before. That's one reason why software agents are being added to the mix; they stop protected data from, say, being copied from laptops or desktops to removable media.
Based on a recent vendor briefing, the new Reconnex 6.0 Endpoint Agent appears to protect this third area -- data-in-use -- more meticulously than other products I've seen.
Like the competing products, there's a central server (the iGuard appliance) which is con-trolled by Reconnex's inSight centralized policy manager application. As I found in a past review of Reconnex iGuard, protection is comprehensive, including document fingerprinting that catches modified content and predefined policy sets covering most compliance regulations.
Now, policies recognize special capabilities of Endpoint Agent. For example, rules pushed to the agent software will discover unauthorized activity involving any removable media (including FireWire and SCSI external drives, Bluetooth connections, and printers). Once detected, the Endpoint Agent warns the user, logs the threat, and blocks file transfer if the policy specifies this action.
So far, so good - but competitive data leak products and agent solutions do much the same thing. With this 6.0 release, however, Reconnex seems to lead in preventing IP loss from public networks, such as WiFi hotspots or home networks. Put simply, the Endpoint Agent works like a baby iGuard when users are off the corporate LAN. For instance, if you are using Yahoo Mail while at your favorite Starbucks and try to send a restricted spreadsheet through their WiFi access point, the agent prevents the attempt. Importantly, Endpoint Agent reports all these actions to the central controller when you next connect to the corporate network. Incidents are later reviewed and analyzed with a detailed reporting system.
In general, Reconnex does a great job of inspecting every port and communication channel for breaches, including e-mail, Webmail, and instant messaging. The system also prevents unauthorized file encryption, and within your network, Reconnex even ensures unmanaged devices are protected by scanning stored data or newly created files.
Reconnex 6.0 Endpoint Agent
Availability: End of April 2007
Pricing: Starts at $25,000
Verdict: Reconnex 6.0 Endpoint Agent broadens data leak prevention to enterprise end-points, including removable media and mobile devices -- even if they are used on public networks. Beyond monitoring for leaks, the system educates users with warning messages and will block communications according to detailed policies. With these multiple actions and coverage of additional data exits, Reconnex seems to be one of the most complete data leak prevention solutions.
Posted by Mike Heck on April 16, 2007 06:25 AM
April 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Metallect touts software risk management
Metallect with a release of its IQ Server software risk management tool this week is providing users with new capabilities to gauge application dependencies.
IQ Server version 2.7.1 features a new interface with visual application diagramming capabilities that display an application portfolio and how components relate to each other.
"You can actually zoom in and out from the highest level. You can look at your apps and your databases holistically," said Guy Hoffman, Metallect CEO. Users can drill in on parts of an application and view dependencies.
Previously, IQ Server offered just a text view that lacked the visual capabilities of the new release. Also featured in version 2.7.1 are embedded workflows to show dependencies between the database, interface and other application components.
IQ Server scans source code and a database schema to make determinations on the impacts of software changes. New builds are audited to ensure that changes were intentional.
With the new release, Metallect also has added capabilities to report on code that is no longer in use. Eliminating this "dead" code can dramtically improve build cycle times, Hoffman said.
IQ Server 2.7.1 costs $150,000 for a perpetual license or $50,000 per year.
Posted by Paul Krill on April 16, 2007 05:00 AM
April 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Noelios Consulting plans to announce on Monday the 1.0 version of the Noelios Restlet Engine, providing the reference implementation of the Restlet API 1.0, the company said.
The Restlet open source project was launched in 2005 as the first REST (Representational State Transfer) framework for Java. REST is an alternative to SOAP-based Web services.
The Noelios Restlet Engine was built based on the observation that no Java framework was available to assist developers with easily building REST-ful applications. Noelios is offering support services for the project.
Posted by Paul Krill on April 13, 2007 04:54 PM
April 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Cures for the data-loss blues
Keep private data private: In this age of Sarb-Ox and other regulations, companies are working hard to protect sensitive data from outsiders. But what about the insider threats? Fortunately, there's protection available, and contributing editor Mike Heck recently took a look at four solutions, all of which showed promise. We've also got a slideshow of the tools for you visual types.
PlateSpin gets green: Ah, sustainable technology! A topic near and dear to my heart. David Marshall over in the Virtualization Report blog looks at PlateSpin's move toward greenery, announcing enhancements to its data center planning and analysis solution to help organizations boost operational efficiencies while accelerating the path to environmental responsibility.
Posted by Ted Samson on April 12, 2007 11:23 AM
April 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Laser killer or wannabe? HP debuts fast, ink-based color MFP
HP's newest, fastest color MFPs, the CM8050 and CM8060, feature an ink-based printing technology called Edgeline (which HP has already been using in photo kiosks). An array of printheads spray ink onto the page, like an inkjet would; but instead of moving tediously across the page they span the entire page's width, like an LED printer. HP claims that these new MFPs combine an inkjet's richness of color with much faster speeds: for the CM8050, an average of 50 pages per minute (ppm) for monochrome pages, 40 ppm for color; and averages of 60 ppm monochrome and 50 ppm color for the higher-end CM8060.
But why choose one instead of a laser? HP hopes the MFPs' prices will turn heads. HP's estimated list prices for the CM8050 and CM8060 will be $18,930 and $25,530, respectively, which is within the range of competing laser- and LED-based products (although service-contract pricing makes the true cost murky). As for durability, the MFPs spray a fixative onto the page along with the machines' Vivera inks to help its prints stand up to highlighter sweeps, water spills, and the like.
We're as curious as you are, so stay tuned for speed tests and other hands-on experience from Infoworld's Test Center.
-- Melissa Riofrio
Melissa Riofrio is a contributing editor to the InfoWorld Test Center.
Posted by Doug Dineley on April 11, 2007 10:30 AM
April 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: xBox as HD DVD hacking device?
Your Atari 2600 can't do this: Turns out the xBox may be able to do more than just serve up Madden NFL. A resourceful individual figured out a way to hack HD DVDs using the xBox's DVD drive. Will blu-ray discs be next?
VMware Workstation revisited: The Test Center's recent desktop virtualization comparison pitted four solutions against each other: InnoTek VirtualBox, Microsoft Virtual PC, Parallels Workstation for Windows, and VMWare Workstation. VMWare's product was a Beta 3 release of the 6.0 version, so Randall Kennedy went back to run the test with a later build... and the results were interesting. Get the specifics on the Enterprise Desktop blog.
Microsoft security spotlight: It's been a busy couple of weeks for Microsoft's security fix teams. First, there was the rush emergency patch job to kill a bug in Windows' processing of .ani files. Then, Patch Tuesday arrived with fixes for seven critical flaws. Now, it looks like there could be more vulnerabilities in Word 2007. Ouch. On the other hand, Oliver Rist lays out the means to improve your WEP security by making a few straightforward tweaks in Active Directory.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 11, 2007 10:05 AM
April 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Virtualize with care
Virtually insecure: It's easy to get excited about virtualization, what with the numerous benefits it promises, like simpler management and potentially significant cost savings. But virtualize with care, cautions David Marshall, author of the InfoWorld Virtualization Report. David cites a recent report from Gartner, stating that when companies adopt server virtualization, they overlook many security issues, plus the proper tools and technologies for addressing security concerns range from immature to non-existent. What to do? Read David's entry for some guidance.
Apple goes 8-way: "For about $4,000, you can now buy a Mac Pro fitted with a pair of 3 GHz Clovertown Xeon CPUs, creating an eight core OS X workstation and the meanest Intel Mac in Apple history." So reports InfoWorld Chief Technologist and Mac fan Tom Yager. Alternatively, you could shell out $2K to manually upgrade your existing Mac Pro to an eight-core configuration. Does that price seem too high? Yager expects it will go down -- with time, and the performance benefits may well be worth the investment, depending, of course, on your processing demands.
Airport security: Speaking of Apple, the company has released a security update for its Airport Extreme Base Station wireless router, aimed at fixing two vulnerabilities, Matt Hines reports. The first vulnerability could lets potential attackers circumvent the router's security features when configured in default mode. The second flaw could enable other users within a local network to view other people's file names.
Posted by Ted Samson on April 10, 2007 09:02 AM
April 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Haley 6.0 extends business rules to business people
Haley Systems today introduced version 6.0 of the Haley Business Rules Suite, a BRMS that boasts both a strong pedigree and some unique features. The company was founded in 1989 by Paul Haley, the ex-Inference chief scientist who helped develop ART, one of the first commercially successful rule engines.
The Haley 6.0 BRMS suite consists of three components: Haley Authority, a rule authoring environment; Haley Rules Server, a rule execution engine; and Haley Collaboration Server, a Web application that enables distributed rule management and authoring.
The rule server offers two deployment options: either an all-Java version that will run in any J2EE compliant application server or a natively compiled version intended for speed-critical applications. Interestingly, both versions are compiled from the same code base. I did not have an opportunity to benchmark the preview version of the rule server, so performance measurements will have to wait until I get my hands on the final release.
HaleyAuthority is the thick-client, Java-based, desktop application for creating and maintaining rule ontologies; from here you can import existing business object models, configure rule services as part of an SOA, or build a new model from scratch. This is where all the heavy lifting is done in creating an environment whereby business analysts can author and maintain business rules.
The Collaboration Server is the basis for remote rule authoring and maintenance via a Web services interface. The collaboration server is also used as the back end for custom rule editors or maintenance tools. Haley provides a DHTML client (IE and Firefox only) for rule editing and an Excel plug-in for managing rules in a spreadsheet format ("tabular rules" in Haley parlance).
The Excel plug-in provides an interface very similar to the DHTML client; and though it is limited to tabular rules, it does illustrate the possibilities of custom interfaces. The source code for the Excel plug-in, as well as the JavaScript for the DHTML client, is available as part of the freely downloadable SDK to help get developers started.
Haley has taken an interesting approach to the problem of presenting rules to business users who will update and maintain the rule base. While most vendors offer a mechanism that allows for the substitution of various phrases, verbs, and nouns in business rules, the resulting rules still look like computer code and take a bit of getting used to on the part of the business analyst.
The Haley approach is almost like typing English sentences. The system has an auto-completion feature that suggests syntactically correct alternatives, and from what I saw it generally makes good guesses. Business rules written in this system almost read like ordinary sentences and paragraphs, easing the learning curve for non-programmers.
This NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology is used consistently throughout the product set, and it's available in all authoring environments, even the Excel plug-in. This is a fascinating technology, with applications beyond mainstream BRMS. I can think of some interesting uses in the Semantic Web, for example.
Building upon the NLP framework, Haley offers knowledge packs for two industry verticals, mortgage lending and insurance. Based on the MISMO and ACCORD XML standards respectively, these knowledge packs offer pre-built language customizations, meaning that all of the industry standard phrases and vocabulary are there from the start. All that remains is for a business analyst to start entering rules.
I was impressed by the fact that the system offers the same interfaces to external applications as it uses internally. The same goes for Haley's XML: everything in the system communicates using KML (Knowledge Modeling Language). This means that the Haley supplied components, or applications that your IT department creates, all use the same document format. The result is less likelihood of bugs and smoother integration for custom applications. This might explain why Haley is marketed as an OEM option for embedded rules engines.
Haley Business Rules Suite 6.0
Availability: Now
Pricing: Haley Authority authoring tool starts at $3,000 for a development and test environment; Haley Rules Server starts at $15,000.
Verdict: Haley 6.0 appears to be a well-designed and consistent business rule management platform, featuring advanced language modeling capabilities and solid XML support throughout. I'm looking forward to taking a closer look in the coming weeks.
Posted by Steven Nunez on April 9, 2007 10:07 AM
April 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Manage those databases
Fresh from the Test Center: More enterprise data means more databases, which means you'd better be up to speed on how to use those databases to your best advantage. Altova's DatabaseSpy may be able to help - Sean McCown likes its easy setup and numerous data-handling features, among other things. Read his review and see if DatabaseSpy is the answer to your company's data deluge.
Business desktops review: Oliver Rist got his paws on two desktops -- the Dell Optiplex 745 and HP Compaq dx220 MicroTower -- and compares them from head to toe. The winner? Read and find out. Then catch up on the SMB news of the day.
Virus-vulnerable iPods: It was bound to happen... there's an iPod virus making the rounds (though it only replicates on iPods running Linux, at least for now). Paul Venezia analyzes the connection between OSes and overall security on his blog, and has some interesting points to make on "The Myth of Apple's Insecurities."
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 9, 2007 09:46 AM
April 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
CollabNet, which enables collaborative software development, is partnering with Ohloh to provide project dashboards to more than 1 million users on the CollabNet platform and users of the Collabnet Subversion version control system.
Ohloh offers intelligence on thousands of open source and public projects, CollabNet said. Software metrics are collected from a variety of sources such as source code. CollabNet plans to make Ohloh development dashboards available within its collaborative platform. An announcement is being made this week.
CollabNet said it hosts more than 25 public developer communities; the partnership with Ohloh gives customers more intelligence about the level of activity on their developer networks and the effectiveness of open source strategies.
"Ohloh is the trusted provider of development metrics on thousands of open source projects," said Scott Collison, CEO of Ohloh, in a statement released by CollabNet. "By offering our metrics directly through the CollabNet platform, we bring advanced project information to their users so they know what is happening with their projects and how they stack up against other open source projects."
Integrating Ohloh into CollabNet also benefits companies evaluating open source software for internal use, CollabNet said. Companies can evaluate the health of a project via the Ohloh dashboard.
Users also can try Ohloh dashboards on openCollabNet, which is an extension to CollabNet accessible here.
"CollabNet hosts thousands of projects for its customers and these communities add up to over 1 million users. CollabNet is building a network of partners around openCollabNet to add value for these users." said Bill Portelli, president and CEO of CollabNet, in CollabNet's statement. "The partnership with Ohloh is consistent with our value-add strategy because it provides advanced project metrics for these users which leverages 8 years of content built by the open source and developer communities of CollabNet’s customers."
Posted by Paul Krill on April 9, 2007 06:35 AM
April 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hands-on review: PowerGadgets Creator is wicked cool
PowerGadgets Creator is a PowerShell development tool that allows you to create Windows Sidebar Gadgets for Vista and desktop gauges for XP. What can I say? If you like gadgets, you will love this tool.
I downloaded PowerGadgets and installed it on my Vista box, not really knowing what to expect. Starting up the tool immediately opened a wizard that walked me through connecting to a database and all the other options I needed to create my gadget. You simply choose the data set you want and a graph style, save it, and your gadget is created. It's that simple.
It took me around 10 minutes from start to finish to create my first gadget, and honestly, most of that time was spent perfecting the chart properties. The designer (shown below) lets you make any change to a gadget at any time. This means you can use certain gadgets as templates if you like.
The designer lets you make any change to a gadget at any time. This allows you to use certain gadgets as templates if you like.
DBAs (like me) can use gadgets to keep track of performance stats right on their desktops. A simple graph shows me stats from several systems. Likewise, business users could get metrics on anything they like without having to write any code. As long as the data is coming from a database, you can get it with the wizard.
That's not to say that you're limited to database queries. You can write any PowerShell, WMI, or VBScript script you want and package it up yourself. The wizard is a quick way to get started, but the command line is much more powerful. Anything you can get from the command line can be captured, and you can turn it all into nice graphs, gauges, pie charts, etc. I've already created several different gadgets, and I don’t know the first thing about PowerShell.
PowerGadgets Creator
Price: $299 for one Creator license; $599 for one Creator and 10 end user licenses; $999 for 25 client package
Verdict: This tool for creating real-time charts, gauges, and graphs for Windows Vista and XP is nothing short of amazing. You can choose any kind of data you like, and a wizard walks you through every step of the way. Using some simple tricks, you can also incorporate these dashboard components into Web pages and other applications.
-- Sean McCown
Sean McCown is the senior data warehouse DBA for First American Title and contributing editor to InfoWorld. He is author of InfoWorld's Database Underground and DBA Rant.
Posted by Sean McCown on April 6, 2007 11:10 AM
April 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Deduplication, identity theft, and virtualization, oh my!
Column roundup: Lots of good stuff out there this week: Mario Apicella takes on data management and suggests that deduplication technology could help with the looming problem of having too little space for storing all that data; Oliver Rist is impressed by Windows Meeting Space and its collaboration potential (check out the slideshow to see how you can set up Meeting Space for yourself); and Roger Grimes is incensed by the way credit card and identity theft is handled by the vendors -- with seemingly little concern, for the most part.
Tim Howes on managing virtualization: David Marshall over at the Virtualization Report blog sat down with Opsware CTO Tim Howes to discuss the challenges of managing virtual machines -- and why automation is the best route to follow.
Friday funny: Ye Olde Tech Support... some things haven't changed much...
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 6, 2007 09:23 AM
April 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Judging from what I saw while testing Juniper's DX3680 load balancer, it's clear that these devices have come a long way from their humble beginnings. In its simplest form, a load balancer is a device that sends TCP/IP requests to more than one host, creating a cluster of servers that all present the same Web site. In fact, basic load balancing can be accomplished by adding multiple IP addresses to a host entry in the domain name service (DNS) system. However, doing this creates a blind round-robin system that will send the next request to the next IP address, whether that IP address actually has a working server on it or not and regardless of whether or not that server is the best server to handle the next request.
Most advances in load balancing technology are oriented toward ensuring that requests go to a server in the group best able to handle a request. Various algorithms decide which server gets the next request -- the least loaded server or fastest responding server, for example. You can also use proprietary algorithms and even agents running on each server to provide more granular and accurate information on how heavily loaded each server might be.
The process of determining whether servers are available has also grown more complex and precise, from the basic TCP/IP PING to check to see if the server has a responsive network connection to detailed checks that ensure that a particular service -- whether it's the HTTP daemon or a back-end SQL server -- are running and returning a proper response to a query.
As the basic capabilities expand and develop to a more useful level, load-balancer companies strive to differentiate themselves in other ways. From the early systems that were built on PCs with two Ethernet cards, load balancers have evolved to include up to 24 switched Ethernet ports and custom ASICs running routing rules at Gigabit wire-speed. Other systems add protection for Web servers and other types of application servers, guarding against buffer overflows, denial of service and other hacker attacks. Still others add the ability to route incoming traffic to specialized clusters of Web servers depending on the needs of the customer, so that e-commerce requests go to one cluster while video viewing is done on another.
A recent trend is to add Web acceleration technologies, including HTTP compression, caching, and consolidation of TCP/IP requests from hundreds to a few. Many products offer a basic level of load balancing functionality and allow the customer to add additional features via add-on software modules. F5, for instance, offers functionality similar to the Juniper system I recently reviewed. On the other hand, Zeus offers basic functionality at a lower price, as does the Coyote Point system -- I'll have a review of that in the coming weeks.
Posted by Logan Harbaugh on April 5, 2007 03:30 PM
April 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Juniper gives Web apps a boost
Heavy-duty load balancer: Senior Contributing Editor Logan G. Harbaugh got an exclusive look at Juniper's DX3680 5.2 load balancer, and finds that for the hefty price, you get plenty of value. Not only does it do Web server clusters, but also delivers SSL encryption, user authentication, and protection against hacker attacks.
Peer into Vista's p-to-p tool: For all his digging into Vista, senior contributing editor Oliver Rist just recently stepped into the OS's included collaboration tool, Windows Meeting Space. He's even put together a slideshow to help get you started. WMS is a pretty nifty tool, Rist finds, though it won't replace higher end tools that deliver whiteboarding or videoconferencing.
Posted by Ted Samson on April 5, 2007 09:53 AM
April 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
VersionOne extends agile reach
Looking to demonstrate the benefits of agile development methodologies to smaller user sites, VersionOne released this week a free five-user version of its agile lifecycle management application.
The full-featured community edition of the product, called V1: Agile Community, offers the same features as the enterprise-level release, VersionOne said. With the community edition, small teams can use a lightweight Web-based planning and management tool.
VersionOne provides lifecycle planning and management to support agile methdologies such as scrum and extreme programming.
V1: Agile Community is available for download here.
Posted by Paul Krill on April 4, 2007 10:48 AM
April 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Parasoft announced this week it is shipping two application testing tools for C and C++ development, which are focused on the embedded systems market but also can be used for enterprise-level applications.
The company is featuring the two products at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, Calif.
Version 7.0 of Parasoft C++test 7.0 and Parasoft Insure++ 7.1 automate best practices.
C++test enables coding policy enforcement, static code review and unit and component testing. The 7.0 release features plugins for the Visual Studio and Eclipse IDEs.
"It is completely IDE-based," said Sergei Sokolov, professional services product manager at Parasoft.
Also new in the product is Bug Detective, which traces and simulates execution paths to expose runtime bugs that would otherwise be difficult to find.
A new Code Review Module automates peer code reviews. C++test 7.0 integrates with Wind River Workbench for device development environments.
Insure++ 7.1 is a memory runtime checking tool. "It looks for things that crash your programs," Sokolov said.
The product verifies proper use of Standard Template Library during runtime to provide dynamic verification of STL containers, iterators, pointers and references. Users can find insidious bugs that result from improper STL usage, Parasoft said.
The enterprise editions of C++test 7.0 and Insure++ 7.1 cost about $50,000 each for a five-license configuration.
Posted by Paul Krill on April 4, 2007 10:15 AM
April 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Go virtual, get cash for your servers
Virtualization pays off: Well, it pays off if you're a Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) customer, at least. Ted Samson has the details on the Sustainable IT blog, but here are the basics: You develop a virtualization plan, apply for the program, let PG&E calculate your incentive amount (based on the energy savings "directly related to removing the computing equipment"), and once PG&E verifies you've implemented your plan, you get a nice check - incentives can range from $150 to $300 per server removed. Not too shabby!
Java IDEs under the microscope: Did you catch the Test Center's review of three Java IDEs? No? You should- it's an in-depth look at IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software 7.0, Borland/CodeGear JBuilder 2007 Enterprise Edition, and Sun NetBeans 5.5, and the results may surprise you.
Search this: We've all been frustrated by search tools that just don't seem to understand what we want - results that are too narrow, too broad, just not quite right. Is natural language search the answer? Check out our video interview/demo with Powerset and see for yourself.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 4, 2007 09:44 AM
April 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Imation StorSentry monitors the health of backup devices
If you are worried about the reliability of your tape drives and cartridges, a new product from Imation, called StorSentry, should interest you.
StorSentry was initially developed by HiStor, a French software company that entered a partnership with Imation earlier this year.
Using collection agents installed at strategic points in your network, typically on every backup server or media server, StorSentry records performance data about every read and write to tape devices and media and stores that information in a dedicated database.
A powerful reporting application helps you sift that data, allowing you to determine the frequency of use, the amount of data stored, and the errors registered for each backup device.
It's important to understand that StorSentry doesn't monitor the success or failure of backup or restore jobs. If that is your main concern you should look at other solutions, such as one from Bocada, for example.
What StorSentry does, and judging from a demo I have seen, does rather well, is to pinpoint how heavily each piece of hardware has been used and how well it is performing.
For example, you can find out how many times each drive has been used, how much data was written or read on that device, and the transfer rate for each execution.
A quite useful feature is the ability to set thresholds that trigger certain alerts, such as when a tape should be cleaned. StorSentry has default values for each criteria, but allows you to override those to generate early warnings if you like.
Tape drives and tape media are typically the most failure-prone objects in a data center, and we all know that the question is not "if" but "when" they will eventually show errors.
StorSentry maintains a log of those errors and assigns them ratings and color codes that allow you to quickly spot runaway devices -- such as the first tape on the left in this chart. 
Digging deeper into each tape drive's history, you can get more granular data, such as the number of mounts and how many bytes were read or written at each session. If you ever need to contact the tape vendor, the Profile Window groups all the pertinent information, including the make, model, and serial number of the unit and the version of firmware it is running.
Selecting a cartridge will bring up a similar abundance of information that you can use to monitor errors and spot degraded performance.
Some proprietary solutions from tape vendors (Quantum DLTSage, for example) offer some of the same capabilities, but none I know of comes even close to the powerful and flexible reporting and the extensive data collection that I saw in the StorSentry demo.
Imation StorSentry
Availability: Now
Pricing: Pricing for StorSentry is calculated based on three components; the operating system environment, the number of tape drives to be monitored and the media pool to be monitored.
Verdict: For companies that manage hundreds of tape drives, StorSentry can bring much-needed control over how frequently they are used. It won't make drives or reels more reliable, but offers the tools to predict and perhaps avoid catastrophic read failures.
Posted by Mario Apicella on April 3, 2007 01:28 PM
April 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Vista Service Pack snippets slip out
Vista SP1 comes early: If you're a Vista adopter, you might have discovered that Microsoft newest OS isn't without its flaws, such as a lack of certain device driver and software compatibility technology many users had expected. Well, if you just can't wait for Redmond to release Service Pack 1 of Vista, check out HotFix Blog author Ethan Allen's Vista SP1 preview and information center. Allen has posted more than 100 Vista fixes expected to appear in the first forthcoming Vista service pack. If you do plan to deploy these fixes, remember to test them first, OK?
A moment of security tranquility : Security Adviser Roger Grimes doesn't have any rants this week about the shoddy state of security affairs. Rather, he has some tasty tech tidbits to share, include information about an anti-EMI paint from Emsec "that blocks most EMI and wireless emissions from entering or leaving a room, confined space, or box."
Best products evar! Everyone likes products -- at least good ones, like Silly Putty and hybrid cars. And if you're an InfoWorld reader, you likely fancy tech products. Well, good news: InfoWorld sister publication PC World has compiled a list of the top 50 tech products of all time. I don't want to give away too much, but I'm willing to wager to AOL CDs aren't on the list.
Posted by Ted Samson on April 3, 2007 10:51 AM
April 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
JBoss, SOA Software partner on governance
JBoss and SOA Software this week announced a partnership through which SOA Software will offer governance and other capabilities for Web services deployed on the JBoss application server.
Enterprises deploying SOA applications on JBoss middleware are the intended beneficiaries.
Users of JBoss will be able to utilize SOA Software's Workbench for governance and service management for Web services. Closed-loop governance is provided for design time and runtime Web services, said Roberto Medrano, executive vice president at SOA Software.
Design time involves design, contract and policy creation while runtime enables enforcement.
Workbench includes a registry, repository and lifecycle management for Web services and the JBoss platform.
SOA Software's Service Manager furnishes authentication and authorization for Web services consumers using JBoss, as well as privacy and non-repudiation of Web services transactions on JBoss.
"Really, from the JBoss side of things, our SOA strategy really entails working with partners like SOA Software, helping our individual customers meet and roll out their SOA initiatives," said Shaun Connolly, vice president of product management in the JBoss division of Red Hat.
Future plans call for extending SOA Software's products to support the JBoss ESB (enterprise service bus) as well.
Posted by Paul Krill on April 3, 2007 06:41 AM
April 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Complex event processing in a nutshell
Corel8 Engine, reviewed today by James R. Borck, is the fifth complex event processing solution to meet our test bench, after AptSoft Director, iSpheres Event Server (now Avaya Event Processor), Progress Apama, and StreamBase.
For a quick and clean explanation of CEP, you can't beat Jim's introduction to the March 9, 2006, review of AptSoft and iSpheres:
It's no secret to IT people, or any business executive worth his Beemer, that an amazing wealth of actionable business intelligence is coursing through enterprise applications, databases, and even system logs nearly every moment of every day. The problem has not only been plucking the meaningful events from the unimportant ones but also finding the often seemingly unrelated patterns between them, and doing so before it's too late to make a difference -- before the supplier raises the price, the shopper leaves the Web site, or the scammer transfers the funds.CEP (complex event processing) promises to help you capitalize on the rich information hidden in your data streams -- information typically tossed away in log files and data warehouses. CEP helps users correlate complex events (often seemingly unconnected ones), spot trends, trap anomalies, and trigger alerts that can be used to seize opportunities or mitigate risks.
Tapping into distributed message buses to unearth important combinations and patterns of events that span multiple, disparate systems and lengthy, dynamic business processes, CEP meets challenges that traditional analysis and automation tools are inadequately suited to address. As a result, CEP is catching on in industries such as banking and insurance, where early adopters are using it to detect fraud and compliance violations. Other promising applications of CEP are RFID and CRM, where the objects, actions, and rules for handling them are constantly changing.
The science behind CEP is the ability to create high-level "business" events from numerous low-level system events. CEP events are created by filtering real-time data (from middleware, applications, databases, and Web services, for example) and infusing it with defining detail such as dependencies or causal relationships discovered by correlating other events.
For example, you could construct a CRM event from an "abandoned shopping cart" message (parsing out the transaction, customer ID, and time), using other filters to extract the value of goods in the cart and tapping the correlation capabilities of the CEP system to add causal indicators such as whether the commerce site was suffering performance problems. Your CRM event might also include customer value or rank from the customer database.
CEP solutions don't discover meaningful events and patterns on their own. You need to define what you’re looking for. One of the biggest challenges for CEP vendors has been to develop an EPL (event processing language) that is lightweight enough to run in real time, powerful enough to correlate complex data and manage anomalies, and yet easy enough to be used by business analysts.
Regardless of whether the EPL is accessible to humans, the ongoing participation of business analysts is key to the success of any CEP project.
Configuring meaningful CEP rules and filters -- and adapting them to evolving business conditions -- will require a deep understanding of the underlying business process.If you get it right, CEP can be far more flexible, responsive, and cost-effective than using traditional BAM (business activity monitoring) and BPM solutions. CEP doesn’t require ripping out or recoding existing systems, and it is actually best applied in modest increments -- allowing for frequent and easy comparison of ROI metrics to rule sets.
Avaya Event Processor? Yes, iSpheres was snatched up by the telephony vendor last year and made part of Avaya's Communications Enabled Business Process solution, a service-oriented approach to coordinating communications in response to business events. For more on that interesting development, see Philip Howard's "Whatever happened to iSpheres?"
For news, backgrounders, and even academic research on event stream processing, including papers by the godfather of CEP, Stanford University's research professor of electrical engineering, David Luckham, check out complexevents.com.
Posted by Doug Dineley on April 2, 2007 10:09 AM
April 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
As we were putting the review of Coral8 Engine 4.6 to bed on Friday, Coral8's director of product marketing, John Morrell, sent us news of version 4.8, which is now available for download. Some of the new enhancements:
* General availability of the BPEL process monitor generator (BPEL to CCL compiler, formerly in Preview mode)
* High throughput database connection enhancements including connection pooling, batched write operations, automated timeouts and reconnects, finer-grained database cache controls.
* A new RPC/RFC plug-in API and packaged SOAP/RPC plug-in to query remote services directly from CCL queries.
* Fine-grained latency statistics are now measured and displayed in the Coral8 Studio at the query level to identify and fine-tune queries that need to minimize latency.
* New CCL statements were added to define streams, declare stream schemas, attach adapters, and define module parameters.
* Microsoft MQ adapter
* SNMP adapter (for using SNMP event data streams in Coral8 CEP applications)
* Solaris 10 platform support (SPARC v9 and Intel x64)
Posted by Doug Dineley on April 2, 2007 10:00 AM
April 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Complex event processing review; print's last dance
Fresh from the Test Center: Agilty, speed, flexiblity... those seem to be the buzzwords du jour when it comes to building enterprise architecture. The goal is a system that can take in real-time data and analyze it for certain events - events that could trigger proactive or corrective action automatically, saving both time and money. Complex event processing (CEP) systems aim to do just that, and we've got an exclusive review of one CEP contender, Coral8 Engine 4.6. Check it out.
Workstation wrangling: Paul Venezia may be busy, but he's found time to do a little pounding on two workstations, the Sun Ultra 40 M2 and IBM zPro workstation. Get all the stats and Paul's opinion of the two systems on The Deep End blog.
InfoWorld print is dead, long live InfoWorld online!: After nearly 29 years in print, InfoWorld's going online-only - today's issue will be the last paper copy printed. From now on, you'll find all the content you know and love from InfoWorld's pages in a digitally delicious form here at InfoWorld.com. But we're still setting aside some time to reminisce about the past and pay respect to all those pages toiled over by so many veteran journalists, editors, copy editors, and production teams. Check out our special report for a look back at InfoWorld's past - and a glimpse at the future. Got an InfoWorld memory to share, or an opinion on the move to the Web? Post it here.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on April 2, 2007 09:50 AM