- Microsoft ALM tool offered on CodePlex
- Microsoft boosts Office apps
- Test Center Tracker: BeyondTrust review and Tablus Content Sentinel screencast
- Test Center Tracker: Review of PGP NetShare, and iPhone countdown continues
- Agiliance weaves together governance, compliance, and security management
- Test Center Tracker: Cover your data assests
- Compuware offers IT portfolio management
- Test Center Tracker: The trials and tribulations of keeping data safe
- Open source tools project set by JBoss
- Test Center Tracker: Full OS X 10.5 Leopard preview now online
June 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft ALM tool offered on CodePlex
Microsoft has posted version 1.0 of its TFS Migration and Synchronization Toolkit on its CodePlex site for hosting of open source projects.
The toolkit enables users of the company's Team Foundation Server software to build custom tools to migrate and syncrhronize with other version control and work-item tracking systems. Team Foundation Server is Microsoft's application lifecycle management software.
"Customers have asked us for this toolkit to help them integrate TFS into their existing development environments," the company said on CodePlex.
The toolkit provides bi-directional synchronization of data between TFS and another system, so that transition can be done over time, Microsoft said. Microsoft is asking developers to try out the toolkit and provide feedback.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 29, 2007 04:51 PM
June 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft published Friday two additional Office Business Application (OBA) Reference Application Packs (RAP), which guide developers and architects on the applicability of Microsoft's Office Business Applications to industry-specific challenges.
New reference applications packs include OBA RAP for Public Sector Electronic Forms Processing, highlighting the use of forms and automated workflows, and OBA RAP for Plant Floor Analytics, for plant floor operations. The packs are free.
The reference application packs published Friday, along with one for health plans published last week, are part of a series of whitepapers and technical resources to guide development of Office business applications.
Previous reference application packs covered supply chain management, retail store management, financial service loan origination and oil and gas price management.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 29, 2007 12:45 PM
June 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: BeyondTrust review and Tablus Content Sentinel screencast
Fresh from the Test Center: Think you have to allow everyone admin rights in order to keep those pesky installation requests from bogging down your inbox? Not a good idea, especially considering the security risks of extending installation rights to all employees. BeyondTrust Privilege Manager will lend a hand, overseeing group policy, rights and privileges, and security - and according to Roger Grimes' review, it's a good tool for "a Windows shop that insists on the insecure practice of granting users Administrator privileges so they can install software and make configuration changes."
Tablus Content Sentinel in action: You've read the review, now see the movie! Mike Heck follows up his review of Tablus Content Sentinel 3's data-protection prowess with a screencast demonstration of how all the pieces come together. Watch and learn.
What, me worry?: Oliver Rist is sick of the iPhone hype. Why the worry over its impact on the enterprise?, he wonders. After all, "the little white pill may be the biggest thing for summer beach-going entertainment since Danielle Steele, but for those of us managing a network, June 30 isn't going to be a heckuva lot different from the day before. 'Cause it's just a phone, see?" With that in mind, Oliver offers up five things that are more worry-worthy than Apple's latest foray in this week's Enterprise Windows column.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 29, 2007 10:12 AM
June 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Review of PGP NetShare, and iPhone countdown continues
Fresh from the Test Center: Encryption is the name of the game, and PGP's NetShare version 9.6 does a good job of locking down folders and files. It's user-friendly, letting the employees themselves create the authorized user lists for protected folders. The downside? It really needs to work in tandem with PGP's Universal Server to rise to its full potential, according to Roger Grimes' findings.
License to drive (development): The Open Sources blog takes on an interesting topic, spurred by a recent slashdot posting: Does GPL v3 alienate developers? Savio Rodrigues examines that question, as well as the effect GPL licensing may have on VC or other acquisitions. Take a look and weigh in with your own comments.
iPhone countdown continues: If you're already standing in line for an iPhone (or if you're paying someone to wait for you), or if you're waiting for the first rush to run its course before putting down the big bucks, check out Tom Yager's take on the iPhone rate plans and service questions, as well as distribution details, iPhone alternatives, and more on the Enterprise Mac blog.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 27, 2007 10:08 AM
June 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Agiliance weaves together governance, compliance, and security management
IT governance involves measuring risk, taking appropriate security measures, and reassessing both risk and security at regular intervals. It's a difficult job made harder by the fact that these processes are typically managed separately. A new solution from a Silicon Valley startup called Agiliance brings them all together.
Agiliance takes on risk management, compliance, and auditing, creating a single place to view your organization's stance on all of these previously separate information silos. Agiliance IT-GRC pulls in risk and vulnerability assessment data from sources including nCircle, Foundstone, Nessus, and ArcSight, and even incorporates access control policies with information from Microsoft Active Directory and CA SiteMinder. Stakeholders then use this information to assess the level of risk to their data, as well as to their hardware and software assets.
Agiliance provides a variety of survey templates and questionnaires to query business users about how they are using information assets and the importance of the business processes that those assets serve. These risk and value factors are then mapped to compliance policy templates to help you identify where deficiencies exist in relation to regulatory compliance requirements and to your organization's overall security policies and standards. Dashboards and reports help you monitor your success in meeting specific security and compliance goals.
For example, this dashboard provides information on assets and risks for a specific Finance group (click the image for a closer view):
The process that Agiliance IT-GRC guides you through is more complex than I've described here, but the end result is a unified dashboard that graphically displays your organization's overall security risk and compliance status. And because the Agiliance solution creates a feedback loop that measures current security posture and standards compliance against previous levels, it's easy to track progress over time.
Agiliance IT-GRC
Available: Now
Pricing: Pricing is based on factors such as number of compliance packs, number of assets, and number of connectors for integration with external data sources. Customers can get started with one compliance pack or risk management pack for a group of 100 assets for as little as $50,000 for a one-year subscription.
Summary: Agiliance's automated processes will ease the collection of risk and value information from business users and vulnerability data from security information systems, reducing the manual effort involved in tracking your organization's security stance. This solution can help you manage risks and vulnerabilities while increasing security awareness and measuring compliance with existing standards.
Posted by Victor R. Garza on June 27, 2007 07:21 AM
June 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Cover your data assests
Fresh from the Test Center: Hidden throughout every nook and cranny of your corporate LAN is an assortment of sensitive information, like private data and intellectual property. Surely you want to protect it, but keeping track of it all is no easy task. InfoWorld Contributing Editor Mike Heck got a chance to review a solution to the problem from Tablus, called Content Sentinel. Using grid processing, the system "helps you gauge gaps in your data security by identifying content at risk on laptops, desktops, and servers. You can then take measures to protect this information before it moves or is misused."
The cost of data loss: Continuing with this week's theme off data protection, check out a rather harrowing data-recory tale in the most recent edition of Off the Record. Seems an unfortunate company practically found its backup data being held hostage by a rather incompetent and inflexible third party. Those of you attending our Enterprise Data Protection Executive Forum will hopefully learn some better techniques.
Posted by Ted Samson on June 26, 2007 08:32 AM
June 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Compuware offers IT portfolio management
Compuware is announcing the release Tuesday of Changepoint 12, an IT portfolio management package that can automate IT processes.
With version 12, users can define decision-making scenarios encompassing existing and potential demand on IT, with graphical comparisons. The Web-based Client Portal in the package has been enhanced to enable participation by clients involved in key business processes, Compuware said. Web-based resource leveling and management of project dependencies also are featured in the new product, enabling more responsiveness to business change.
Users can develop decision-making scenarios that encompass a range of IT activity including projects, planned work and request-driven work. These scenarios are analyzed via a new interface.
Changepoint 12 can be coupled with Compuware Changepoint Supply and Demand Accelerator, featuring prepackaged business metrics, process automation, templates, management portlets and reports based on industry standards.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 26, 2007 06:51 AM
June 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: The trials and tribulations of keeping data safe
To dream the impossible dream: It's an ongoing nightmare for business management and IT staffs alike - how to protect enterprise data from misuse or theft, while still making it available to the applications and systems that need it? Throw in those fun disaster recovery and business continuity planning, and you've got quite a data-protection stew. There is hope, though - check out how these large companies got a handle on their own data vulnerabilities, and keep an eye on our Enterprise Data Protection Executive Forum (kicking off tomorrow in New York City) for presentations and news that might lend another helping hand.
Ruby on Rails update: Martin Heller lays out the (somewhat revised) landscape for the Rails IDE market, now that Aptana is overseeing RadRails. Several other IDEs, including Komodo, have also revved, so check out the Strategic Developer blog for the latest updates.
Video tours: Safari and Parallels 3.0: Apple's WWDC conference may have passed, but there's still lots to see (not to mention lots to double-check; Apple patched another Safari flaw today). Check out these two videos - courtesy of our sister pubs Macworld and PC World - that take a peek at the Safari browser and Parallels Desktop 3.0 for the Mac (the InfoWorld review of Parallels is here).
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 25, 2007 09:30 AM
June 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Open source tools project set by JBoss
JBoss.org will introduce on Monday Exadel Eclipse software development plug-ins as part of the new open source JBoss Tools project.
The intent of the project is centralize tooling for JBoss middleware. The Exadel plug-ins provide for split-screen development, instant synchronization and visual editing of JBoss RichFaces components and JavaServer Faces configuration files. Drag-and-drop capabilities also are included. These plug-ins, along Ajax4jsf and RichFaces, were contributed to Red Hat, which owns JBoss, in March by Exadel.
JBoss's efforts will contribute to the delivery of Red Hat Developer Studio, an IDE due later this summer that will be a superset of JBoss Tools. JBoss and Red Hat runtimes will be part of Red Hat Developer Studio.
Also part of JBoss Tools are Hibernate Tools, JBoss jBPM Tools, Drools IDE, JBoss Application Server tools and others. JBoss Tools features nightly builds and an Eclipse update manager for accessing the latest versions of plugins.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 25, 2007 06:00 AM
June 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Full OS X 10.5 Leopard preview now online
Four parts, no waiting: Now that it's been leaked to the masses, check out what makes Leopard so interesting. Tom Yager's four-part developer's-eye preview covers the major pieces of OS X 10.5. Click here to read all about it: Part I (Xray and Core Animation); Part II (Xcode 3.0 and Objective-C 2.0); Part III (Cocoa and object-oriented frameworks); and Part IV (64-bit support).
Tortoise-speed Vista: Randall Kennedy is working on a virtualization review, and he's finding that Vista's complexity is becoming even more of a performance issue when it comes to virtualization. What's the cause? Kennedy has some theories, but still isn't sure. Do you have an idea? Post to the Enterprise Desktop blog and share your own theories.
Column round-up: Roger Grimes is still exploring the options for a second, more secure Internet; this week, he's examining the network protocol changes required to trace packets from origin to recipient. Inspired by New York City, David Margulius takes a look at the roots of innovation and infrastructure in this week's Enterprise Insight column. And Oliver Rist bemoans paperwork (especially when associated with reregistering a Ducati with the DMV) but likes System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) 2007 Beta for creating planning paperwork on the fly.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 22, 2007 09:31 AM
June 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
SOA governance hailed in partnership
LogicLibrary and Mindreef plan next week to announce a partnership intended to produce an end-to-end SOA governance and testing solution.
The companies have integrated the LogicLibrary Logidex SDA (Software Development Asset) governance hub with the Mindreef SOA quality platform, which features SOAPscope Server and Mindreef Policy Manager. Logidex features an inventory of software development assets. SOAPscope Server provides for quality testing of SOA while Policy Manager is an add-on to SOAPscope for policy authoring and validation of services.
With the integrated platform, users gain governance capabilities extending from enterprise architecture and technical policy definition through to service development and deployment, LogicLibrary and Mindreef said.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 22, 2007 06:35 AM
June 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
From the Test Center: Document management reviews - NextPage and Xythos
At the core of every organization, you'll find documents. Just as these documents take myriad forms – from memos, e-mail, and word processing files to paper forms – there's a variety of systems at the enterprise level tasked with the inventory and management of these essential assets.
This week, we highlight two such products, NextPage 2 Document Retention and Xythos Enterprise Document Management Suite 6.0. This duo illustrates that enterprise document management systems (EDMS) don't have to be complex or costly.
It's a given that these solutions save effort and thereby improve productivity, since documents are more easily located. But that's just the start of Act I. With the mounting pressure to demonstrate legal compliance and corporate governance, having an effective EDMS system is no longer optional for most enterprises.
Consider just one aspect of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, Section 404, which deals with internal controls on finances. Proving compliance to auditors would be nearly impossible without the formal monitoring and the ability to centrally store electronic material that a document management solution provides.
In the world of compliance regulations, there are even more elevated procedures for records management, such as the standards described by DoD 5015.2. Put simply, documents need to be transformed into formal records with appropriate classification and then securely retained for a specified period.
Both systems we reviewed this week nicely address the fundamental need of sharing documents, tracking revisions, and notifying other users of changes. However, they diverge in how this is accomplished. NextPage tracks documents spread around desktops and laptops, then automatically stores a final version without a central repository. Therefore, users aren’t distracted with having to upload documents to a server.
Xythos follows a more traditional workgroup approach: documents start their life by being placed in the central storehouse, from where you perform typical jobs, such as check-in and check-out. This design helps reduce file redundancy, yet the process isn’t overly bothersome since Xythos’ repository behaves like a Windows network-mapped drive.
Regardless of which form you prefer, the key is to select a document management system that will get used by your employees both consistently and correctly. Retention policies, distributed or central storage, and standards support won't matter if the system is too difficult or disruptive for everyday use.
For more on enterprise document management, check out the new NextPage and Xythos reviews.
Posted by Mike Heck on June 21, 2007 11:24 AM
June 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Data Robotics Drobo
Our addiction to movie clips, photos, songs and whatever else grabs our fantasy is the primary reason for a data deluge that doesn't affect only corporations but is creeping also in our homes and home offices.
In my own backyard, the amount of data that two people and three pets have created from their home computers is simply ridiculous considering that our pets rarely touch the keyboard.
Keeping that data organized and protected is becoming one of the most taxing house chores because even the most capacious USB drive will fill up sooner or later, adding yet another island of data to the household archipelago.
For geeks like me that scenario is just an opportunity to stuff a PC with drives, add a RAID card and tie up all those loose ends into one bunch. However, a normal, non-geek person will resort to buying yet another, soon to become full drive, which in the long term adds to, rather than solving the problem.
Enter Drobo, a 4 bay box from Data Robotics that can host 3.5" SATA drives of any size and promises easy capacity updates with seamless, in place data migration.
Data Robotics rounds the deal with built-in automatic data protection that can survive the failure of one drive without data loss.
Drobo connects to a single Apple or Windows machine via a USB cable. It doesn't require an agent on the client machine, but before using Drobo for the first time you need to install a management application, the Dashboard, and run a one time formatting operation.
After doing that first step, I had a Drobo drive of 2 TB in my Windows XP machine, although the actual capacity of my drives was much less.
In enterprise storage lingo that capability is called thin provisioning, a feature that has many marketing folks thumping their chest in pride. For home and SOHO users that capability simply means that adding more drives will automatically expand their playground up to that 2 TB capacity.
Obviously, Drobo is not a dumb box and runs its own OS that can be automatically updated downloading new versions via Dashboard. In fact, during my evaluation I saw quick downloads of new versions of both the Dashboard and the OS.
You can start with just two drives and add more later to increase capacity. The Dashboard will let you know when Drobo is getting short on space and will also suggest which drive should be replaced with a larger one.
You don't need to worry about moving data, because Drobo will do that automatically in the background. Another nice touch: Clicking the "Show me how" button will start a movie clip that explains how to do that action in great detail, a boon for the less experienced users.
Drobo's automatic space management takes away some of the pain from the user but it's important to understand that the actual space available will be somewhat less than the raw capacity of the drives you mount, because the Drobo OS will reserve part of that space to ensure data integrity.
Figuring out how much space will be ultimately available is not so intuitive. For example, when I loaded Drobo with three 74 GB drives plus a 160 GB unit the Dashboard showed only 202 GB available.
Where did the rest of my capacity, about 180 gigs, go? Clicking on a link on the Dashboard I got my answer, well sort of.
However, you don't need to figure out by hand how much space a certain combination of drives will amount to because Data Robotics has an online calculator that will do the math.
Bear in mind that a more balanced combination of drives will translate in less space set aside unused. Regardless, that difference between nominal and actual capacity is the price to pay to keep data safe, something that Drobo does very well.
For example, to simulate a failure I replaced one of the Drobo drives with a bad one, a faulty unit that I can't even format.
Drobo went immediately into red alert mode and began rebuilding the unreachable data from the failed drive, making also very clear that another broken drive would spell disaster.
Replacing the faulty drive brought everything back to normal after a while, but I never lost access to my files, even when Drobo was busy redistributing data across drives.
Data Robotics Drobo
Availability: Shipping
Pricing: MSRP $500 plus drives
Verdict:
I have mostly praise for Drobo at the end of my evaluation. The unit has robust management features and failsafe data protection logic that I hope Data Robotics will extend in the future also to larger units.
Performance is acceptable but limited by the USB connection and perhaps more by Drobo's built in priority for keeping data safe. For example, a 300 GB Windows backup targeting the Drobo volume took almost 11 hours. 
,
However, I never noticed any delay accessing files on the Drobo volume, and my movie clips ran without hiccups.
Drobo is noisy. It may depend on what drives I was using and on the weather, but in the hot Texan climate the Drobo cooling fan was annoyingly loud. Luckily it turns off occasionally, but I had to move the unit as far as possible away from me.
At $500 plus the cost of the drives, Drobo is not exactly cheap, but makes for an easy to use, dependable solution that you can let your mom use with confidence, even if she is not a geek.
Posted by Mario Apicella on June 21, 2007 03:37 AM
June 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Benchmarks and a new blog
Doing the benchmark shuffle: Tom Yager found a kindred spirit in Microsoft's Greg Leake - he and his team are tasked with benchmarking Java application servers against .Net. After a tough grilling on his processes, Leake gets the Yager Seal of Approval for selecting a bnechmark that trod the straight and narrow - and resulted in a fair measurements. Read all the details in this week's Ahead of the Curve column.
A New York state of mind: Say hello to our newest blog, New York CTO. Written by Jon Williams, the CTO of Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, the blog seeks to "assist great technologists become great managers, with (hopefully) significantly less pain than I went through. It's not hard (like writing a new operating system or learning a new programming language is hard), but it does require a different approach, a different point of view." Sound good? Read more of Jon's posts here.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 20, 2007 09:49 AM
June 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Expanding its Open ALM partner ecosystem, Borland Software on Monday is announcing integrations between its application lifecycle management software and third-party products providing capabilities such as build automation.
As part of this effort, the Borland Gauntlet integration and test automation package can be linked with Codefast PerfectBuild, for pattern-driven build automation. This provides for a continuous integration and test infrastructure, Borland said.
Also, Borland SilkPerformer, which provides load and stress testing, has been integrated with dynaTrace Diagnostics, for root cause analysis. The resulting integration offers improved detection and resolution of performance issues in .Net and Java applications.
Connectors from Ring-Zero Software to Borland products, meanwhile, are designed to protect investments in third-party tools by enabling better use of products such as HP/Mercury test tools.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 18, 2007 10:39 AM
June 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Get your storage in top business form
Data, data everywhere: If you're not making smart use of your storage resources, you could be in trouble. And we're not just talking about lost files or bad backups; nowadays, that also means compliance issues , quick-response data searches, and metrics, metrics, metrics. Is your storage network up for the challenge? Our feature will help you find out, as InfoWorld storage guru Mario Apicella analyzes out four technologies (data classification, continuous data protection, data deduplication, and tiered storage) that will be key to making sure your storage environment is business-aware. (And don't forget to take a look at the InfoWorld Enterprise Data Protection Executive Forum for more on securing all that valuable data you're storing.)
The 64-bit question: Martin Heller has been seeking a way to get a 32-bit app access to a 64-bit registry, and after lots of digging, he's found it. Now he's sharing the wealth over on the Strategic Developer blog - so you don't have to go through the same pain. Enjoy!
Video on the go: Because you never know when you'll need to see that sneezing panda, YouTube stealthily rolled out its mobile site over the weekend, says Stephanie Bruzzese on the Tech Treks blog. She's got a couple of points from the Gizmodo folks who tested it out - take a look.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 18, 2007 09:30 AM
June 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
BEA sets July release for Web 2.0 products
BEA Systems plans in July to ship three products that leverage Web 2.0 concepts.
The products are referred to as BEA's "enterprise social computing" products, said Ajay Gandhi, BEA director of emerging products in the company's Business Interaction Division. With the three AquaLogic offerings - Ensemble, Pages and Pathways, the company is looking to meld consumer capabilities for managing information and communities to the enterprise.
"We think Web 2.0 is a logical progression of Web 1.0, where you have this great content space and addressable network that was built and now we added on top of it interaction technologies on the consumer side to let people interact with each other," Gandhi said.
BEA touted the three products at a company event in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday evening.
AquaLogic Pages is a mashup builder designed to let business users build simple Web applications for different business situations. Different data and content can be brought together.
"You can do everything from a basic wiki to a blog," Gandhi said. A mashup could be built, for example, to track a customer support issue.
AquaLogic Ensemble is designed for Web application developers. "It essentially lets you build very flexible and developer-oriented mashups," said Gandhi. Web resources can be mashed with other applications; Ensemble is designed to work with XML widgets. Developers not have to code all the APIs, Gandhi said.
AquaLogic Pathways also is designed for business users. It brings social bookmarking and tagging and the ability to form social networks into the enterprise context. Pathways makes enterprise search more effective, said Gandhi. Users can create networks of relevant persons for a particular subject.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 15, 2007 09:27 AM
June 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Leopard preview, part deux
Fresh from the Test Center: Apple's Leopard upgrades are extensive enough to warrant a second look. Part I of Tom Yager's preview looked at Xray and Core Animation; Part II heads over to the developer side with an examination of Xcode 3.0 and upgrades to -C 2.0 language. Read and enjoy as we wrap up our week of Mac-related reviews and WWDC coverage (but stay tuned - there's more to come!).
A quest for Quest's rationale: Sean McCown has been waiting for Quest to release LiteSpeed for Oracle for a long time - waiting for years, in fact. So when he heard that this product was headed for the garbage bin, he wasn't thrilled. Why deny users the chance for unified database backups across all their platforms? Was it the rumor of Oracle developing a similar product, or a lack of faith? Read Sean's take on the situation and post your own comments on the Database Underground blog.
A closer look at health care tech: InfoWorld Senior Contributing Editor David Margulius stirred up a bit of a maelstrom with his April Enterprise Insight column on Kaiser Permanente's digital healthcare movement and the apparently less-than-acceptable way the project was going. So David invited Kaiser Associate Executive Director Dr. Andrew Wiesenthal to weigh in on how things are going - and the good doctor agreed. Watch our four-part video interview to learn more about how Kaiser's project evolved, what went wrong, and what went right.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 15, 2007 09:04 AM
June 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Wrong number for iPhone?
iPhone hang-ups for developers: InfoWorlders Ephraim Schwartz and Tom Yager are noting today that developers appear less than enthused by Apple's pronouncement that they won't be able to create native apps for the device, because it runs a full Safari browser engine. "Of all the ways to write and package software, none is less suited to mobile use than a Web application," notes Tom.
Tuning in to Apple TV: In addition to busily writing about the iPhone and Leopard during this week's WWDC show, Tom Yager has also taken a peek at the Apple TV. "Apple TV combines superior ease of use and superb output quality," Tom finds. "Video and audio quality are very high, and the menu interface is easy and familiar, but only wide-screen monitors are supported."
Linspire and MS sign patent pact: Joining the ranks of Linux companies such as Novell and Xandros, Linspire has penned a deal with Microsoft to guarantee protection for its customers from future patent claims from Redmond. Microsoft recently claimed Linux and related open-source software violate 235 of its patents.
Posted by Ted Samson on June 14, 2007 07:59 AM
June 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: VMware Fusion beta shows promise
Fresh from the Test Center: For once, VMware is following in someone else's footsteps: Now that Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac is out, it's VMware's turn to address the Mac market. Paul Venezia says the Fusion Beta 4 isn't quite up to Parallels' level of host OS integration, but the interface layout is similar. However, VMware Fusion has the advantage of possible integration with other VMware products - will that give it an edge? Read the full beta review and find out more. Want to see Fusion in action? Here's a snappy little video (with music!) that gives you a peek.
Share and SharePoint alike: Document sharing, quick communications, easy updates... ah, collaboration. Yet Oliver Rist has his cranky pants on when it comes to Microsoft's heavy pushing of SharePoint. Despite Microsoft's claims that "team leaders don't need either to phone IT or be exceptionally Microsoft savvy" to handle SharePoint setup, Oliver thinks SharePoint is more complex and requires a good dose of geek to correctly navigate document libraries. Do you agree? Read this week's Enterprise Windows column and post a comment.
Where's the phone in iPhone?: Tom Yager is having a ball at this year's WWDC (despite a fried MacBook Pro battery), but there's one news item from the Apple conference that has him deep in thought: the lack of development options for the iPhone. If, as Steve Jobs says, the iPhone is a portable browser, will the focus on Web apps do it in?
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 13, 2007 09:30 AM
June 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Backbase offers AJAX for enterprises
Backbase introduced its Ajax 360 package this week, which provides AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) development capabilities for enterprises.
AJAX is a popular technique for building rich Internet applications. Ajax 360 is intended to address concerns about AJAX, such as lack of best practices, poor development lifecycle integration and intellectual property violations. Included is Backbase's Enterprise Ajax Framework, which features capabilities for developing AJAX applications. Full support for browsers is featured. The framework supports third-party widgets such as Dojo and Google components.
Also included in Ajax 360 are plugins enabling developers to utilize either the Adobe Dreamweaver or Eclipse IDEs. More than 250 widgets and functions are featured as well, along with server-side integration with Struts and JavaServer Faces.
Other components of Ajax 360 are best practices and blueprints, professional services and round-the-clock support. The package costs $2,000 per developer for a perpetual license. A free "Community" edition also is offered.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 12, 2007 01:49 PM
June 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: A developer's eye view of Leopard
Feature-spotting on Leopard: InfoWorld Chief Technologist and Mac enthusiast Tom Yager has his hands full of Apple-y deliciousness tthis week as he attends WWDC 2007. Not only did he deliver a "real-time" account of Steve Jobs's keynote; he's also shared his take on some of the innovative goodies in Mac OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) that will make developers very, very happy. "Leopard's new features will be taken up extremely rapidly by developers, extending the transformation of the Mac platform from the OS all the way up end-user applications," he predicts.
VMware releases Fusion Beta 4: IDG News Service reports taht VMware has made available the beta 4 version of Fusion, the company's rival to Parallels . Both are geared toward Mac users who want to run Windows as well. One of Fusion's key features is Unity, "whch allows for seamless transition from Mac to Windows applications. Icons for Windows applications will be displayed along with those of Mac applications in the dock at the bottom of the computer screen," Robert Mullins reports. Watch for a Test Center review of Fusion in the near future.
TCO showdown: Mac vs. PC: Rounding out this Apple-filled Test Center Tracker, Scott Finnie at Computerworld has written a very thoughtful piece analyzing the costs of PCs vs. the costs of Macs. His results are surprising, though not conclusive, given all the factors one can take into account: "What I have found in my research is that neither side has a lock on good value. If you start with Apple's relatively short list of SKUs ... and then look for comparable Windows machines, you'll find that Apple bests the competition in some ways and not in others, but the pricing, overall, is surprisingly on par."
Posted by Ted Samson on June 12, 2007 09:02 AM
June 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Review of Parallels for Desktop 3.0
Fresh from the Test Center: Parallels for Desktop 3.0 was released last week, and the InfoWorld Test Center snagged it right away. After all, this software "does for Mac OS X what VMware Workstation did for the Windows and Linux world -- full-blown hardware virtualization in a workstation package running natively on the Mac OS," says Senior Contributing Editor Paul Venezia; read more about what's new and improved in version 3.0 in his review.
Live Apple conference coverage: Tom Yager is at Apple's WWDC, and he's covering the keynote live on the Enterprise Mac blog. Check out his first WWDC post here, then follow along as the keynote unfolds (as of this posting, Steve Jobs is onstage - stay tuned).
Around the horn: Strategic Developer Martin Heller is wrestling with Windows Vista Ultimate for x64 and bloatware issues; Rackspace is going green with plans for an alternative-energy powered datacenter in Scotland; and check out our videos of new super-portable laptops and other devices.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 11, 2007 10:20 AM
June 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Kapow Technologies unveiled two editions of its Kapow Mashup Server on Monday, providing what the company describes as a mashup solution offering universal access to data and services across the enterprise.
New products include Web 2.0 Edition, which increases the ability to develop data-centric mashups based on RSS feeds and REST (Representational State Transfer) services. Developers can build mash-able components from Web resources and reuse Web data or business logic from the Web or within a company. Once generated, feeds can be published as lightweight feeds or services.
The second product, Content Migration Edition, eliminates a cut-and-paste approach to migration of content between or into enterprise content management systems. Using Kapow Mashup Server, source content can be collected and converted to an appropriate format that maps to a relevant target schema or template in an automated fashion. Web-based content can be incorporated into a content management data store.
The new editions of Kapow Mashup Server are available in July. Kapow also offers an online mashup building community, at openkapow, which features pre-built mashup "robots" and provides the ability to build and test new mashups on a hosted server.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 11, 2007 08:50 AM
June 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Open source middleware company WSO2 will announce general availability Monday of its WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) for Web services.
Based on the new Apache Synapse 1.0 Web service management and integration broker, the ESB features both Web services and XML capabilities. The ESB provides a platform for routing messages with sub-millisecond overhead. It can scale to manage thousands of simultaneous connections.
The ESB extends the Apache Synapse XML router and mediation engine with an integrated registry and a graphical interface enabling administrators to manage Web service interactions. Services can be virtualized, enabling users to route and manage services without changing application code, WSO2 said.
A Web-based interface is featured. WSO2 offers service and support options for the ESB.
Synapse, according to Apache, is a Web services intermediary and SOA framework.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 8, 2007 01:06 PM
June 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: TechEd wraps up, Parallels 3.0 release, and Lewis Black on Google Street View
TechEd 2007 wrap-up: This year's Microsoft TechEd show certainly had its share of interesting projects and products. Randall Kennedy explored User Access Control (UAC)(a topic that created much buzz at the conference), including a trip to the Microsoft lab to get some tips on fixing his own UAC issues. Silverlight's multimedia display tech was worth a look, tools to help out with Vista deployment saw the light of day, and the next versions of Visual Studio (see InfoWorld's preview of Orcas here) and SQL Server got names.
Parallels 3.0 beta released: On the eve of Apple's developer conferences, Parallels took the wraps off their virtualization software for Macs. InfoWorld IT maven Kevin Railsback has more details on the Inside IT blog, but new features include better 3D support for gaming and SmartSelect, which "allows for virtual OS apps to be set as the default type for a specific filetype," says Railsback.
Friday funny: Google finds itself in Lewis Black's ranting crosshairs this week on Comedy Central's Daily Show. The reason? Google Street View's "invasive" photos of people caught doing things when they think no one's watching (Our own man-on-the-street Cringely has the full scoop, Wired's blog has a collection going, many of which feature the weirdness caused by the image overlap). You've got to sit through a short ad to see the video clip of Black's vent-fest, but it's chuckle-worthy.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 8, 2007 09:16 AM
June 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Sun breeds a 48-drive storage behemoth
Fresh from the Test Center: A new 4U, 48-drive storage beast has lumbered onto the scene: The Sun Fire X4500 server, aka "Thumper." After tangling with "Thumper," InfoWorld analyst Paul Venezia found it to be an excellent performer -- though you really need to employ Solaris to reap the true benefits. "The speed of file system creation and raw I/O possible with [Sun's ZFS (Zettabyte File System)] surpasses that of any other file system available today, and truly makes the X4500 usable in enterprise settings." Plus, we have a screencast, so you can see ZFS on Thumper in action.
Sun lets Leopard secret out of the bag: Speaking of Sun's ZFS technology, the company's CEO Jonathan Schwartz told a group in Washington D.C. On stage Wednesday in Washington D.C. that the "open-source file system will replace Apple's long-used HFS+ in Mac OS X 10.5," Computerworld's Greg Keizer reports. This isn't the first time we've heard Sun mention Apple's plans to adopt ZFS, but Apple, as is its tradition, remains mum on the subject.
Isilon a resilient file server: Test Center Storage Guru Mario Apicella recently got his hands on the compact Isilon IQ 200, a clustered file system with an appealing sticker price. The system "can provide great scalability, good performance, and multiple levels of resilience that make losing data an unlikely occurrence," Apicella finds, plus optional software adds some useful capabilities, like snapshots and remote sync. One key drawback: It lacks a second power supply. Nevertheless, it's worth checking out.
Posted by Ted Samson on June 7, 2007 08:25 AM
June 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Sneak peek: PrimalScript 2007's new features
This is for you, PrimalScript fans: My contacts at Sapien allowed me to leak a few teasers about the next version of PrimalScript that will hit the streets around August 1.
The new 2007 release of this scripting environment shows that Sapien put a lot of thought into what their customers want. I got my hands on an early beta, and as an avid user of PrimalScript, I can say that some of the features will benefit only the power users, while others will benefit everyone.
The UI has a brand-new look that I actually kind of like. It has new dockable panels and tabbed document groups for when you’re working with a lot of files.
Maybe it's just because I'm a DBA, but I consider one of the more significant features in PrimalScript 2007 to be the cached metadata for the query builder. That allows you to cache the definitions of the database objects in your project so you can browse and work with them offline. Not only can you work away from the office, but the cached metadata speeds up your work while in the office by eliminating the need to query the database for simple table information.
Another nice upgrade: the "find in files" results have been organized into a tree view. I've always found the other results a bit hard to read when it returned a lot of entries, but the new tree view is much cleaner and can handle more results without overwhelming you. I hadn't thought much about the way the results were organized, but after seeing this, I'm glad Sapien did.
Sapien also added script packager support for HTA and PowerShell, improved the smart spell checker, and integrated online VBScript help reference.
I can't talk yet about the coolest features of all, but they'll be revealed soon enough. Until then, if you want to track the progress of this new version, you can do so on Sapien's Web site.
Posted by Sean McCown on June 6, 2007 04:07 PM
June 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Mainsoft boosts .Net development for Linux
Mainsoft announced the release Wednesday of Mainsoft for Java EE, version 2.0, which features a suite of products enabling developers to produce .Net Web and server applications that run on Linux and other Java-enabled platforms.
Formerly called Visual MainWin for J2EE, the upgrade includes support for the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 IDE, .Net Framework 2.0, ASP.Net 2.0 controls, role-based security and C# generics. The product name was changed to avoid confusion between the product and company name, said Yaacov Cohen, Mainsoft president and CEO.
Mainsoft uses cross-compilation to enable C# 2.0 and Visual Basic to be supported by the Java Virtual Machine. MainSoft for Java EE resulted from the company's four-year collaboration with the Mono project, an open source development initiative providing a multi-platform version of .Net technologies.
"We're expanding the Java EE platform to support multiple languages," Cohen said.
Mainsoft for Java EE is available in three editions. A free Developer Edition, also known as Grasshopper 2.0, is offered for individual developers and small group deployments on the Apache Tomcat Java servlet container.
The Enterprise Edition is for enterprise developers and multi-CPU deployments. It supports IBM WebSphere Application Server and Tomcat as well as JBoss and BEA WebLogic Java servers.
A Portal Edition enables enterprises to populate Java EE portals.
The company announced the product release at the Microsoft TechEd 2007 conference in Orlando, Fla.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 6, 2007 09:31 AM
June 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Web conferencing with Microsoft and exploring Google Gears
Nights at the RoundTable: Web video conferencing just got a little smarter with Microsoft's A/V heavy RoundTable conferencing device - so says Oliver Rist in this week's Enterprise Windows column. The Office Live Meeting 2007 requirement is a bit of a bump in the road, but "a little beta polishing" should make it easier to connect to the Office Live Meeting service, says Oliver. And overall, it's a pretty tempting goodie - find out why when you read the full column.
Are you a gearhead?: Martin Heller has been exploring the possibilities of Google Gears, "an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline," according to their Web site. In other words, it lets you turn a Web app into a browser-based app that doesn't have to be connected to a server to run. Is it worthwhile? Get Heller's take on Google Gears on the Strategic Developer blog.
CTOs get their names in lights: Have you checked out this year's top 25 CTOs? We're just a bit more than halfway through the list, with 10 more winners to come in the next two days. For a quick glimpse, page through our slideshow, or read the full profiles if you prefer.
P.S. Don't miss Tom Yager's take on Apple's upcoming WorldWide Developer Conference, filed from Microsoft's Tech Ed conference. And watch the Enterprise Mac blog for more on the WWDC in the coming weeks.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 6, 2007 08:58 AM
June 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Spring framework for .Net advances
Interface21 announced at the TechEd 2007 conference in Orlando, Fla. Tuesday a milestone release of the Spring.Net 1.1 application framework for building enterprise .Net applications.
The software is rooted in the popular Spring Framework for Java. A key feature in Spring.Net 1.1 is an ASP.Net framework for Web development, which supports bi-directional data binding and dependency injection for pages and user controls.
"Interface21 has long recognized that the fundamental concepts of the Spring Framework can provide real and immediate value to .Net development," said Rod Johnson, CEO of Interface21 and founder of the Spring Framework, in a statement released by Interface21.
ASP.Net AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) integration is featured in version 1.1. Also, declarative transaction management is offered via XML configuration and attributes. An ADO.Net data access framework in version 1.1 simplifies use of ADO.Net. Portable service abstractions, meanwhile, export plain .Net objects via .Net Remoting and other methods. Client-side proxies can be created based on endpoint URL and service interfaces.
Software downloads for Spring.Net can be found here.
Also at TechEd, Microsoft and Analog Devices announced that Analog is porting the .Net Micro Framework to function with Analog's Blackfin processors. .Net Micro Framework is a bootable runtime supporting .Net development for embedded devices.
Crossbow Technology, which supplies wireless sensor technology, announced Imote2Bulder for .Net Micro Framework. Imote2Builder features tools for developing wireless sensor applications on Marvell PXA hardware. Microsoft development tools will be usable on this platform.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 5, 2007 01:56 PM
June 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: The elusive SOA standard stack
The "A" is for architecture: Real World SOA blogger Dave Linthicum comments on the emerging debate over whether or it's desireable, or even possible, to standardize the SOA stack. He's clearly on the "it ain't gonna happen" side of the fence: "The notion that we can create one approach and one set of enabling technologies is just silly, and those that promote the single stack approach should rethink the core concept of SOA, and how it's something you do, not something you buy, nor will it ever be a standard stack."
MS polishes Live Meeting: It's been a while since the InfoWorld Test Center took a close look at Microsoft Office Live Meeting, but Redmond has been busily building on the Web conferencing product, according to the IDG News Service, with the new version 2007 due out in the third quarter. "The updated software will have a new user interface and allow users to share media files. In addition, users will be able to participate in conferences over either VOIP or regular telephones," writes Nancy Gohring.
Sporty PDA: If a Ferrari sportscar is out of your price range, you might consider hitting the road with a new Ferrari-branded PDA from Acer. "The black PDA has candy-apple red trim and runs Windows Mobile software. It's officially called the Ferrari Racing Personal Navigator, a reference to its built-in GPS, and bears a strong family resemblance to Acer's c500 PDA," writes IDG News Service's Sumner Lemon. Hopefully it's more energy-efficient than its namesake.
Posted by Ted Samson on June 5, 2007 09:52 AM
June 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Micronet ships portable eSATA box
Micronet ships portable eSATA box
eSATA may not be the first protocol that comes to mind for direct attached drives, but this clever extension of the SATA (serial ATA) technology offers affordable and fast connectivity that leaves in the dust competing solutions based on USB and FireWire.
Probably the best Web spot for a refresher on eSATA is the influential SATA-IO where you can also find diagrams and benchmarks that help positioning this technology and its products.
The latest addition to this interesting line of products for SMB comes from Micronet, with the eSATA version of the Platinum RAID Pro array that offers the most common RAID levels for its 5 SATA 2 drives, a 128MB cache and capacity ranging between 2.5 TB and 5 TB.
According to Micronet the Platinum RAID Pro plays nice with recent Apple, Linux and Microsoft OSes but older versions may not be able to see capacity past 2TB.
Micronet Platinum RAID Pro
Availability: Shipping
Pricing: $2349 for a 2.5TB - $4499 for 5TB
Verdict: At a price of less that $1 per GB many small companies with large repositories will probably find that the Platinum RAID Pro is a more flexible and affordable backup alternative than most tape solutions. I don't like that RAID 6 is not supported but with that in mind the array can play well also as primary or second tier storage.
Posted by Mario Apicella on June 5, 2007 03:47 AM
June 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Analyzing ASAP apps for Cisco switches
Switching things up: ASAP (aka Automated Switchport Access Provisioning) is "a PHP/Perl application that automates switchport VLAN assignments for Cisco switches," says Paul Venezia, who recently used ASAP while moving large switchsites from one building to another. Faced with 800+ switchports, he turned to ASAP for the VLAN assignments. How did it go? Check out Paul's analysis on his blog for more details and a link to download the ASAP code for yourself.
Speak and be heard: After discussing the pros and cons of his Windows Mobile installation on the Geeks in Paradise blog, Brian Chee adds an update on the features he has used so far and a few thoughts about Windows Mobile 6's voice command and what looks to be a long learning curve. Nicknames, calendar lookups, a big list of nouns and verbs... can you hear me now?
Video roundup: Gina Smith discusses Microsoft's TechEd and a new telepresence conference in this week's edition of The Week Ahead; Bill Gates himself demos the Surface interactive touchscreen project (code-named Milan); and IBM Senior Vice President Steve Mills talks about SOA governance and applying SOA tech to new fields - like gaming.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 4, 2007 09:25 AM
June 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Adobe enables rich Internet apps with LiveCycle
Adobe Systems on Monday is introducing Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES), its software for automating processes such as electronic forms.
With the ES version of LiveCycle, the product expands beyond being an interactive, PDF-based environment to enabling use of rich Internet applications. "I can create a UI with [Adobe] Flex that leverages all of the back-end services of LiveCycle," said Brian Wick, Adobe group product marketing manage for LiveCycle.
"The forms can be processed and created within a Flex environment, which is more wizard-like and engaging, or a PDF environment," Wick said.
A rich Internet application can be generated that steps a user through a process in a much better way, he said. More intuitive user experiences can be created than what was possible with just a PDF-based environment, said Wick.
LiveCycle ES enables delivery of applications that better communicate with people who may be confused by or frustrated with online procedures and are likely to abandon online transactions in favor of in-person visits or phone assistance. Processes such as account enrollment and claims processing can be transformed.
Components are featured in the suite for capabilities such as security, output, data capture and process management.
LiveCycle ES will be available in a Business Transformation Edition and a Data Capture Edition. The Business Transformation Edition features Data Capture Edition and components for process management, digital signatures, rights management and output. Data Capture Edition offers forms, data services, bar-coded forms and reader extension components.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 3, 2007 09:01 PM
June 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Visual Studio beta review
Orcas Beta 1 surfaces: Wondering what's going on with the next version of Microsoft's Visual Studio? InfoWorld Contributing Editor Martin Heller took a look at the Orcas Beta 1, and found a lot to like, include the new design surface for WPF apps. Check out his beta review and previous blog posts for more. (And don't miss Heller's quick peek at Microsoft's Popfly mashup tool, either.)
App dev shapes up, slims down?: According to a new McKinsey Quarterly study, application developers should adopt lean principles to save effort and time -- which means thinking about app dev and maintenance as if it's a factory. Dave Margulius takes a deeper look at the issue in this week's Enterprise Insight column.
Around the horn: Roger Grimes provides a quick malware history lesson and some tips on how to cope with ever-evolving nasties in this week's Security Adviser column. Mario Apicella sees the forthcoming NFSv4.1 standard as being a very good thing for high-performance storage environments. And Sean McCown is fed up with snobby software vendors who don't make it easy to learn about (and experiment with) their products.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on June 1, 2007 09:15 AM