- Test Center Tracker: Trick or Treat?
- Review: Yoggie Pico Pro brings server-room protection to laptops in the field
- Test Center Tracker: Go Penguin, Here Comes a Little More Sun, and Next Year in Oslo?
- Test Center Tracker: Microsoft lands a winning SSL VPN in Whale
- Test Center Tracker: Slippery malware, storage clouds on the horizon, and a guide to getting green
- LANDesk Management Gateway Appliance has a storied past
- Preview: ForecastX Wizard 7.0 brings easy, capable demand forecasting to the desktop
- Test Center Tracker: Passionate about IT
- Preview: Crystal Reports 2008 jazzes up reports with Flash, while quieter new features improve the lot of designers and users
- Test Center Tracker: Skinny Windows, Cool Servers, and Life Building Tradeshows
October 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Trick or Treat?
Happy Halloween!
If you have never tried your hand at carving a pumpkin read How Stuff Works step by step instructions on how to make the best, I mean the scariest, Halloween pumpkin. I'm still trying to find instructions on how to make a presidential debate less scary but no luck so far.
Linux as a sidekick? Back to our track, er.. tracker, there is much to choose from and nothing scary in our Halloween-day produce.
Doug Dineley opens the candy bag with the review of an intriguing Linux gizmo with a funny name, Yoggie Pico Pro. However, there is nothing laughable about this USB key sized Linux machine that unloads the burden of virus scanning and firewalling from your laptop and also makes centralized management easier.
Why not use Linux directly on your laptop, you ask? We'll save that question for another day, troublemaker!
Too good to let go? Yes that's what Tom Yager is reporting while taking one of his infrequent breaks from a newly contracted addiction to Leopard.
Of course Tom is not at the zoo, instead he's savoring Apple's latest OS version in every detail. Better read his impressions now, because Tom is so captivated by his Leopard petting that we may not hear from him for a long time.
Watch your backup What a better day than Halloween to evoke the scary ghost of data loss? Sean Gallagher is quick to remind us that the antidote for that poison is plain simple backup. We know this already? Then, pray, why people still loose data, as Sean reports in Enterprise Windows?
That's all the treats I have for today but if you, like me, can't resist gulping "just one more candy" here is a a trick or two that could help keeping your post-Halloween sugar and chocolate intake low.
Posted by Mario Apicella on October 31, 2007 09:13 AM
October 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Review: Yoggie Pico Pro brings server-room protection to laptops in the field
Corporate firewalls shelter laptops connected to your network from outside access, while virus and spam security is often provided by yet more data center systems, such as your mail server. But employees working remotely must rely on less sophisticated anti-virus and firewall clients –- which also drain CPU cycles and memory. To get around these issues, what if you could pack a dedicated security appliance into a USB key form factor? It’s a fascinating concept that Yoggie Pico Pro makes a reality.
Inside the 0.6-ounce device you’ll find Linux 2.6 running on a 520MHz Intel XScale PXA270 CPU and 128MB RAM (plus 128MB of flash memory that holds a clean copy of Linux). Resident software is top-grade, including Kaspersky Lab’s anti-spyware and anti-virus scanner, secure VPN client, Mailshell anti-spam and anti-phishing, SurfControl Web filtering, plus a firewall along with HTTP, FTP, POP3, and SMTP proxies.
Before using Yoggie Pico Pro, you install a low-level driver and a management console on your laptop. You then set a few simple options, with the whole process taking just a few minutes.
The first improvement I noted on my Dell Latitude D610 was faster performance, because I was able to turn off Symantec AntiVirus and Firewall. The only time I noted some brief security-related activity was when Yoggie automatically checked for updates (which can be from your enterprise server or Yoggie’s servers).
During tests I felt well protected against threats. While visiting a vendor and using their wireless network, all Internet traffic was first filtered through the Yoggie Pico –- progressively going through firewall, intrusion protection, proxies, and finally anti-spyware and related layers. You can also block URLs based on content.
You won’t see any annoying pop-ups when Yoggie blocks a problem –- just some quick blinks of the device’s LEDs. Still, when I scanned security logs through the management interface, Yoggie did appear to catch all of the infected test files I tossed in its path. However, one improvement I’d like is more advanced settings, perhaps a way to visit a Web site that Yoggie deems problematic; right now there’s no override.
On top of creating a physical barrier to incoming threats, Yoggie Pico masks your system’s IP address (which can be hijacked), eliminating yet another possibly vulnerability. This is an especially important feature for anyone using a laptop at a public hotspot.
I didn’t have any trouble using Yoggie with the most recent firmware (1.3.0) and management console (5.1.5), but there’s always a possibility of some future attack affecting the device. Still, because the system maintains a copy of the OS and files for scanning temporarily in its RAM, infections won’t get to your laptop. A Yoggie reboot should clear up any issue.
The Yoggie Pico Pro’s impressive engineering should benefit organizations in many areas. It offers laptop users stronger protection when they’re off your network, as well as better system performance. Moreover, up to 500 Picos can be controlled from the separate Yoggie Management Server; this lets IT staff send policy updates and signatures while retrieving logs for security audits. Although cost is a factor, I think Yoggie provides very good value considering all that it provides.
Yoggie Pico Pro Personal Security Appliance
Pricing: $199; yearly subscription for security updates costs $40
Verdict: Yoggie Pico Pro puts corporate-level security on a Linux-powered, USB appliance that contains 13 top-quality applications. This approach reduces CPU load and memory use while helping ensure that employees’ laptops are strongly protected from threats when not connected to enterprise networks.
Posted by Mike Heck on October 30, 2007 04:37 PM
October 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Go Penguin, Here Comes a Little More Sun, and Next Year in Oslo?
It's a beautiful day in the Test Center, with penguins making their way onto desktops, Big Blue finding a way to go more green, and the possibility of a cold shoulder to open source in Oslo.
Go Penguin: Have you seriously thought about making the desktop switch to Linux? If you've been using Vista lately, the answer is probably "Yes". Even if you haven't been given the gift of Vista, surveys indicate that a healthy percentage of IT professionals have at least considered the option of an open-source desktop. In a special on-line report, InfoWorld has put together a series of articles with all you need to know about living with Linux on the desktop. Whether you're just curious or getting ready to make a serious commitment, you owe it to yourself to read these six articles written by Linux experts on the issues to consider and steps to take when it comes to living the Linux life on your workstations.
Here Comes a Little More Sun: Ted Samson's got the latest on a new IBM process that makes the process of recycling silicon wafers from the chip-fab process a bit more efficient -- and much more friendly to the solar-panel business. It's good to see a winning technology in a critical green area.
Where's the Oslo Love? Microsoft is making noise about Oslo, its planned framework for SOA beyond the Windows boundaries. Savio Rodrigues is looking at Oslo from an open source POV, and he's not at all sure he likes what he sees. It's not that the features and structures are bad, they're just not being set up to play in a standards-based world, and that's a huge limiting factor when it comes to playing nicely with others. Savio lists a few caveats to Microsoft's words (and at least one to his own), for an open source blog post that well worth your time.
Posted by Curt Franklin on October 30, 2007 12:45 PM
October 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Microsoft lands a winning SSL VPN in Whale
Thar she blows! With SSL VPN's increasingly garnering attention from security admins, Microsoft's investment in Whale Communications last year may very well pay off. InfoWorld Contributor Keith Schultz recently got his hands on Microsoft's Internet Application Gateway 2007 SSL VPN, built around Whale's technology, and lo, IAG demonstrated near-perfect end-point inspection (as long as you're running Windows and IE), as well as a robust policy engine and plenty of predefined applications.
Time Machine, Vista-style: Given the hype around Mac OS X 10.5's Time Machine backup feature, Enterprise Desktop Blogger Randall Kennedy decided see how well Vista's tools fare with real-time backups. Unfortunately, it didn't go very well: "Vista Backup had excluded large swaths of my critical data files ... while picking up all sorts of unrelated junk." He didn't give up there on MS tools, but I shan't give it all away. Check out the saga for yourself!
Flipping the script: Down in the Database Underground, Sean McCown has made an exciting discovery: He can use his beloved PrimalScript not only to package scripts as .EXEs for end-users; he can do the same for the database scripts that he sends to the production manager. The approach ensures that scripts are run in the proper order without a hitch. Neat and tidy! DBAs, rejoice.
Posted by Ted Samson on October 29, 2007 03:00 PM
October 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Slippery malware, storage clouds on the horizon, and a guide to getting green
Mutating malware: Roger Grimes gives us a peek inside the network security arms race, where virus and worm authors evade signature-based detection techniques through "server-side polymorphism," and malware fighters seek a better defense. Say what? Server-side polymorphism? See today's Security Advisor.
Hash and stash: In today's Storage Insider, Mario profiles two startups that are rethinking how data is stored: Instead of storing complete data sets in a single bucket, they break the data into fragments and store them in multiple places. Cleversafe uses "dispersed storage" to boost data security, while RevStor applies the technique to disk to disk backup pools.
Green in twelve steps Going green can save you money, spare the air, engender feelings of goodwill in customers, and allow you to shame reprobate competitors. So good, but how do you get started? Forrester Research has a plan, which Ted Samson examines in yesterday's Sustainable IT.
Posted by Doug Dineley on October 26, 2007 10:49 AM
October 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)
LANDesk Management Gateway Appliance has a storied past
LANDesk Software (you know, the Avocent company) unveiled an appliance yesterday that we all might should've seen coming. Remember back during the early part of this century, when a company called Neoteris (the Jim Clark company) came up with this thing called the SSL VPN appliance? Turns out the SSL VPN appliance was a pretty good idea.
The SSL VPN made secure remote access super easy for users, who needed only a Web browser to create an encrypted connection, and it could apply granular access control policies to each user, showing them only the applications and network resources they were entitled to use. The newfangled appliance went over big with customers, Neoteris soon owned the lion's share of a growing market, and before long Jim Clark and his venture backers sold the company to Juniper, where the Neoteris policy engine helped give birth to a general purpose NAC solution.
OK, long story. So what does Neoteris have to do with LANDesk? Well, the new LANDesk Management Gateway Appliance, announced today and shipping November 15, is essentially a special-purpose SSL VPN appliance for managing remote devices. Instead of creating a secure link with a user's browser, it creates a secure link with the LANDesk management agent running on the remote desktop or laptop. Instead of connecting the user with e-mail, CRM, ERP, and network shares, it connects the LANDesk agent with the various components of the LANDesk Management Suite and LANDesk Security Suite.
The upshot: Whenever a remote user connects to the Internet, the management agent connects with LANDesk's management and security software for updates, patches, vulnerability scans, and so on, also extending LANDesk's asset management, software license monitoring, and configuration management to the remote device. Just as if the desktop or laptop were on the company LAN.
Who knows, maybe LANDesk will drop a policy engine in there someday. Nathan McLain, product manager in LANDesk's systems management solutions group, did say the company is looking into building a gateway appliance to competitors' management solutions. Meanwhile, the LANDesk Management Gateway Appliance is aimed at existing LANDesk customers only. Priced at $3,000 (MSRP), the 1U appliance supports only Windows clients out of the gate (GA is November 15). Support for Mac and Linux clients (Red Hat, Suse, and Ubuntu) will be available in Q1 2008.
Posted by Doug Dineley on October 25, 2007 12:30 PM
October 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: ForecastX Wizard 7.0 brings easy, capable demand forecasting to the desktop
In the current business climate, with labor costs asymptotically approaching zero (how much cheaper can sweatshop or prison labor get?), the ability to find and capture some residue of margin is increasingly depends on either innovation or process-tightening. Since most organizations are incapable of significant innovation, tightening processes is generally the way to go.
For businesses that depend on effective sales forecasting and an efficient supply chain, refining demand forecasting can be a fruitful method of increasing margin without trashing wages or pimping quality. The software giant in the demand forecasting and supply chain management arena is John Galt Solutions, and the company's entry level package is a desktop client, ForecastX Wizard, that’s available as a discrete item or as part of a bundled Forecast Xpert Toolkit that sports a textbook and hands-on training.
I didn’t examine the textbook, but I took them up on the training, which turned out to be effective and well-executed. The software is a vast add-in to Microsoft’s Excel product, as significant and crisply designed an add-in as I’ve ever worked with. As a rule, add-ins throw a handful of features into the spreadsheet, but ForecastX seems more like a complete, stand-alone product than an extension of Excel.
An analyst working with the wizard-based product goes through a series of steps, starting by importing data that defines the past, a baseline “history” against which to project a forecast. The analyst then uses the Wizard’s intrinsic routines to model forecasts against the history. The system supports varying levels of sophistication and complexity in the baseline, depending on the demand management challenge, but the holy grail of the defined output is always the lowest possible Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), the average of the deviation between each point in the time series against the actual.
For different challenges (mature product versus new offering, intermittent or seasonal products, and so on), the Wizard will apply different model-building tools and different statistical methods. The Wizard’s interface doesn’t choose these for an analyst -- that part of the intelligence either comes through previously-acquired knowledge or through the available training or textbook.
ForecastX’s interface is laid out as well as an Excel add-in can manage. The simplest methods for forecasting, such as applying an average and moving on to projecting a simple trend-line as a baseline, are very accessible. As you refine your forecast to achieve a better (lower) MAPE through experimenting with seasonality, planned events (such as promotions), and unplanned events (such as natural disasters, you will get faster at producing functional forecasting results by iteratively issuing audit reports, examining them, refining methods, and re-running forceasts. You can also make use of the intrinsic Procast feature, a method that runs everything in the toolkit at the history in a variety of ways and synthesizes a best-fit solution.
As you might expect from a significant analytical product that’s arrived at a version 7.0, there’s a lot of depth to the features, and depth can be the enemy of a smooth interface. The John Galt team have done a good job of adding features without ratcheting up the complexity, but the result isn't perfect. At times a button was used when a tab was required, but a regular user of the package won’t melt down. In fact, the Microsoft Excel design team could learn a half-dozen lessons in sensible menu and option structure from the ForecastX team. Calculation speed was not an issue in any problem I ran (not the most complex, by any means, but non-trivial).
For organizations with more sophisticated requirements, and those looking to harvest more margin by improving demand management and smoothing out their supply chain, John Galt Solutions offers an enterprise forecasting suite, the Atlas Planning Suite.
ForecastX Wizard 7.0
Price: $895 per workstation
Platforms: Requires Microsoft Excel
Verdict: Organizations just getting started with automated forecasting solutions should take a close look at ForecastX Wizard, as should those looking to upgrade their forecasting chops a notch or two. However, if your organization is making a significant effort to build new capabilities through demand management, it will require a larger set of supply chain planning tools than this inexpensive, well-designed desktop analytics solution claims to deliver.
Posted by Jeff Angus on October 24, 2007 01:25 PM
October 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Passionate about IT
Passionate about IT
You would imagine that continued exposure to new IT products would make a person somewhat detached, but only have to read today's stories to realize how passionate our writers are about IT topics.
Is ZFS close to perfection? Like a successful Broadway show the new file system from SUN has collected praise from all quarters. Whether you agree with that accolade or are one of the detractors (do they really exist?) don't miss this week's Ahead of the Curve.
Does Ubuntu suck? Too soon to say, as Ubuntu just opened to the large public version 7.10 last week, but I wouldn't be surprised if this would become the most popular Linux distribution on desktops and laptops.
Which doesn't mean that Ubuntu can't be perfected. Read Randall Kennedy Entreprise Desktop for more.
Jazz up those reports Let's face it, usually there is little to be excited about creating a report, right? May be so, until now, but read Sean McCown preview of Crystal Reports 2008 and you are likely to change your mind.
Normalize SOA! Last but not least (and not less passionate) is Dave Linthicum who explains in his Strategic Developer how SOA vendors may not always facilitate registry integration. Time to put the "service-oriented" back into SOA?
In the interest of full disclosure this column was started using Ubuntu 7.10 and was completed on a Windows XP machine.
Posted by Mario Apicella on October 24, 2007 10:15 AM
October 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Last week Business Objects unveiled Crystal Reports 2008. Due to be generally available in November, the release sports some interesting new features, led by the integration with Crystal Xcelsius, a companion product for creating rich, interactive charts and dashboards.
Crystal needed a pick-me-up like that, and I always love it when companies integrate with their own products. The Xcelsius integration will allow Crystal writers to create reports with rich Flash content. It doesn’t stop there, either. You can also incorporate Flash content directly, by embedding SWF (Shockwave Flash) files into reports or linking to them on the Web. The Flash doesn’t have to come from Xcelsius.
It’s always the features that seem to be the smallest that turn out to be a really big deal. This is the case with the new sort controls. These new controls allow you to sort your report data without making a roundtrip to the database. This is a big deal because users will quite often sort their reports many different ways during a single viewing session, and the numerous roundtrips can tax the network, the database, and the user's patience in busy environments. The new sort controls could reduce the load significantly under the right circumstances.
Another excellent new feature is flexible pagination. Not only can you precisely control the size of the page by specifying the number of records to display, but you can also have any mix of portrait and landscape pages that you like. This will make wide charts easier to view and to print. It’s a novel concept: pick the page layout based on the content.
Those are just a few of the important new goodies added to Crystal Reports 2008. Some of the others include built-in barcode support, a hyperlinking wizard, crosstab enhancements, and improved XML exporting. For customers of BusinessObjects Enterprise XI, there's also report bursting, a way to streamline the mass distribution of personalized reports. For a more thorough look at these and other new features, keep an eye out for my full review in November.
Crystal Reports 2008
Availability: GA November 2007
Price: $495 for single edition
Verdict: Crystal Reports 2008 has promising features for Crystal designers, Crystal users, and Business Objects shops. Although Flash and Xcelsius integration may not get used by the bulk of Crystal constituents, most everyone will use the slew of quieter improvements such as the new sort controls, which promise to reduce bandwidth and improve the user experience, and flexible pagination, which will be a big deal for those who like to print their reports. In all, this release has a lot of promise.
Posted by Sean McCown on October 23, 2007 05:33 PM
October 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Skinny Windows, Cool Servers, and Life Building Tradeshows
Coming to you live from the network operations center at Interop New York, it's the Test Center Daily. Today, we have news of Windows getting slim, servers in India getting cool, and a large network being built in a very few days. It's the kind of report that leaves you wanting to run out and make exciting things happen in your very own data center.
Slim Windows: Zack Urlocker reports on a Microsoft presentation that points to a much slimmer Windows coming down the pike. It's OK to be excited, but don't hold your breath -- it will be 2010, at the earliest, when the MinWin core makes its way to market.
Cool Servers: HP is deploying 7,500 sensors in the Smart Cooling System it's putting into a data center in Bangalore, India. According to Green IT blogger Ted Samson, the completed, optimized data center should save 40% on cooling costs compared to a traditional data center (or set of data centers). When every little bit counts, 40% is a non-trivial step in the right direction.
Interop Rises: It's fascinating watching a large network being installed in a convention center. It's even more interesting watching the network professionals who make it happen. We've been learning some valuable lessons, here. Among the most important:
Wire maps can't be trusted until verified by hand.
When the strength of the signal is below the strength of the noise, wireless networks become very slow.
It's rarely a good sign when the big box of patch cables comes out from under the table.
Packets known to crash systems should be filtered out of the data stream before they reach the system.
There's much more to come, including information not quite so obvious. Keep your eye on Test Center Daily...
Posted by Curt Franklin on October 23, 2007 03:39 PM
October 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Black Duck offers GPLv3 assistance
Black Duck Software this week introduced its Open Source License Resource Center, an online guide about open source licenses and featuring information on the new GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3.
The Lesser GPL (LGPL) also is covered. Black Duck is coupling this announcement with news of the availability of its protexIP 4.4 product release, for managing composite software development. Black Duck provides a process to speed development and avoid licensing complications when using open source code.
Black Duck's guide provides information on a number open source licenses. Meanwhile, protexIP 4.4 can compare code to more than one version of the GPL license at the same time. If, for example, a code comparison shows a closer match to GPLv3 than other versions of the license, there is a strong likelihood the code is governed by the new version, Black Duck said.
Also featured in version 4.4 are administrative enhancements and the ability for users to add their own comments for specific licensing requirements. They also can access the Black Duck KnowledgeBase, which provides information about GPLv2 and v2, LGPLv2 and v3 and other licenses.
Pricing for protexIP 4.4 is based on the size of the code base being managed. The Open Source License Resource Center is available at this link.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 23, 2007 10:35 AM
October 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
DataDirect touts mainframe SOA technology
DataDirect Technologies announced availability this week of DataDirect Shadow version 7, for mainframe SOA environments.
Version 7 incorporates technology to exploit IBM mainframe specialty engines that reduce mainframe costs of ownership and improve SOA, DataDirect said. These specialty engines include the System z9 Integration Information Processor (zIIP) and the System z Application Assist Processor (zAAP). Software currently run on the mainframe General Purpose Processor is redeployed to these specialty engines.
Specifically, version 7 will open zIIP to additional workloads beyond DB2, including mainframe data queries to IMS, VSAM, Adabas and IDMS. Also supported is SOAP/XML parsing for transformation of business logic and screen logic into Web services.
With Shadow, SOA integration processing and data queries will be diverted from the mainframe GPP and offloaded to zIIP and/or zAAP specialty engines.
Also featured in version 7 are capabilities for expanded mainframe SOA initiatives that allow organizations to orchestrate Web services using BPEL 2.0 on the mainframe inside the zAAP engine, Integrated Facility for Linux or any standard Java Virtual Machine platform.
Mainframe data connectivity in version 7 is boosted through high-performance client drivers.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 19, 2007 10:50 AM
October 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Microsoft mashes up, gets hung up, and gets caught in the shadow of a cat
Paul Krill reports that Microsoft showed off a beta of its Popify Web mash-up software at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Popify runs on Microsoft's Silverlight, a would-be contender for the minds and money currently invested in Adobe Flash (and progeny) for leadership in rich Web apps. Microsoft's smart to roll out purpose-specific Web 2.0 apps built on Silverlight rather than just hyping the platform by itself.
Silverlight has more to overcome than Adobe. Six states, plus the District of Columbia, have filed for a five-year extension to Microsoft's anti-trust judgment. The states are worried that Silverlight could be Internet Explorer all over again, made a de facto standard by virtue of being shipped with practically every PC sold worldwide. Maybe they've got a point. Adobe will never have a distribution channel with that kind of penetration.
But who cares what Microsoft is doing given that Apple's OS X Leopard is almost here? Here's an OS that's not just anticipated because it isn't Vista, but because it's the first certified UNIX that's fast, looks great and is productive and fun right out of the box. And when it's time to indulge one's untamed self, pop up a Terminal window and find out what all 1,462 commands do. Don't let the looks fool you: Leopard's real UNIX.
Posted by Tom Yager on October 18, 2007 04:01 PM
October 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Sun Microsystems is announcing Thursday enhancements to its Sun Startup Essentials program for startup companies, including the addition of a "camp" in New York City.
"The goal of the program is to make it easy for a startup to get off the ground quickly," said Juan Carlos Soto, Sun vice president of market development. There have been 1,000 participants in the program since it was begun in November 2006.
Participants get access to Sun's Solaris OS but also can run Linux or Windows.
Startup Camp, which is being held in New York City October 22-23, brings entrepreneurs and vendors together to network and learn from the experiences of other startups, venture capitalists and technology companies, Sun said. Participants also can win prizes in a contest called "Speed Geeking," for startups to hone their business pitch. Prizes include a Sun Fire X4200 computer, hosting services and an Apple iTouch.
Another part of the event is "Startup University," featuring speakers from companies such as Microsoft.
Sun is announcing an incubator initiative providing office space and hardware infrastructure support for startups. Plug and Play Tech Center has joined the Sun initiative, providing support and discounts on Web hosting, office space and managed services.
Also, Sun is expanding its hosting program to include Web hosting partner Layered Technologies, which will offer low-cost infrastructure and services for startups for on-demand hosting and utility computing.
Web 2.0 has been a focus of many of the participating companies, presenting many opportunities for entrepreneurs. But monetizing these efforts can be a challenge.
"Right now, a lot of the Web 2.0 business models are unproven, frankly," Soto said. Some seek advertising revenues but they all want to be the next YouTube, he said.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 18, 2007 01:00 PM
October 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Enterprise search gets social with Vivísimo Velocity 6
Like it or not, there's far more to knowledge management than putting up portals and document repositories and then letting users search content – even if you have a pinpoint-accurate search engine. According to research firm Gartner, within five years more than 75 percent of new search engines will include a social search element for better relevancy. After previewing Vivísimo Velocity 6.0, it's clear to me that the product's social features not only harness human knowledge to boost result accuracy, but introduce a whole new level of collaboration with content mashups and other Web 2.0 functions.
[ See also: InfoWorld Technology of the Year Awards Data Management winners ]
Velocity's consistently been on the forward edge of enterprise search with clustered results. Version 6.0 maintains this innate philosophy, though the user interface has a more polished feel. Yet it didn't take much time for me to spot the most important changes in the results pane. First, users can vote whether they find a search result useful or not – and also rate search results. (You can ensure that the process doesn't get out of hand; for example, administrators can specify that only votes from experts count.) Velocity then uses this combined information to adjust relevancy of results in real time.
In much the same way, users tag documents that appear in their results with keywords, and Velocity immediately adds this metadata to the index. Other employees then have the option to refine results by these tags.
What's interesting, though, is how you can enrich search results by adding your own comments. Just like a blog, workers strike up conversations about content right in the search interface. I see this feature cutting the number of documents that are e-mailed for review and also reducing the need for separate wiki and blog applications.
Many search engines let you save results for personal use. Still, I found Velocity 6.0's new shared folders a valuable extension to this process. Simple examples might be a librarian doing preemptive research for news reporters on a breaking story or to assist those in a marketing department preparing a bid, and then saving the results for your staff to access.
Perhaps the most intriguing addition to Velocity 6.0 is the way searches can uncover experts within organizations. Again, you can find applications on the market that scrape e-mail and IM conversations, say, to discover expertise. Velocity does much the same by developing profiles of experts based on tags and data in different repositories. But it presents automatic mash-ups of pictures, contact information, documents the person authored, and tags – something most expert software lacks.
Finally, Vivísimo Velocity 6.0 now includes an executive dashboard of hot topics, which can be segmented by groups. More than a toy, I believe, this could provide valuable insight into the type of intelligence residing within an organization.
Vivísimo Velocity, with clustering and easy administration, has always been about productivity. While that's unchanged, I think the social aspects of this version make it the first enterprise search product to both make use of human knowledge and to deepen it.
Vivísimo Velocity 6.0
Availability: November 2007
Pricing: Starts at $25,000
Verdict: Vivísimo Velocity 6.0 extends its acknowledged easy search interface and ability to crawl enterprise repositories with social tagging, bookmarking, and networking. Voting and ratings improve search accuracy, while tagging provides another way to filter results. Searches can be annotated with comments for increased collaboration. And Velocity delivers employee data from disparate sources as enterprise mash-ups.
Posted by Mike Heck on October 18, 2007 11:00 AM
October 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Cast Iron Systems forges integration appliance
Cast Iron Systems this week introduced its iA2000 integration appliance for small businesses, enabling companies to integrate with applications such as salesforce.com or Oracle.
Use of the hardware appliance saves businesses from having to custom-code or use third-party software for integration. This saves time and money, Cast Iron said.
The iA2000 has enterprise-level features such as round-the-clock production support, graphical data transformation, content-based data routing, guaranteed transaction delivery and Web-based integration monitoring.
Integration capabilities include support for XML, Internet standards, popular middleware and major ERP, CRM, database, project management and legacy applications. Cast Iron iA2000 is available now for a monthly subscription price of $2,000, with introductory pricing of $1,500 per month.
The appliance is powered by dual-core Intel Pentium 4 processor technology.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 17, 2007 10:23 AM
October 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Preview the future
Preview the future
Today's TC Tracker is all about the future: a new OS, a new service pack and a new Linux machine with an intriguing storage twist. Enjoy.
Waiting for Baby You may remember "Bringing up Baby" a delightful comedy with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant plus a mischievous leopard, named Baby.
Well, "baby", I mean Leopard, the new version of OS X, should be officially announced in ten days or so, but Tom Yager proposes an interesting matinee in his column.
Service Pack yourself! In my naiveté I associate the expression "service pack" with a bag of gotcha fixes to improve the behavior of a shipping application or OS.
Was I wrong! According to our Hawaiian duo, Chee-Rist, the upcoming SP1 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 not only fixes a few leaks here and there, but brings new controls and even new features to the application. Please read here for more.
Disposable Linux PC Well, not quite but how much would you pay to fix a $99 machine if it ever breaks? Anyway, that's what startup Zombu has come up with, Zack Urlocker reports in Open Sources.
For that price you don't get a disk drive but a subscription to Internet storage that will cost about $13 per month. Not such a good deal after all. Perhaps the future axis of bargain-priced PC, Acer-Gateway-Packard Bell will top that?
Posted by Mario Apicella on October 17, 2007 10:10 AM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
OASIS approves e-business standard
OASIS has approved a messaging standard for electronic business as an official OASIS standard.
Members have approved ebXML Messaging Services 3.0: Part 1, Core Features. EbMS defines a Web services-based method for reliable and secure exchange of business information, OASIS said.
"This specification is the first major revision of ebMS since version 2.0 was approved as an OASIS Standard in April 2002 and subsequently as an ISO Standard in March 2004," said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS, in a statement released by the organization. "It ensures ebXML's continuing relevancy and achieves compatibility with Web services specifications developed after ebMS 2.0, including SOAP 1.2 as well as the WS-Security, WS-Reliability, and WS-ReliableMessaging OASIS Standards."
Version 3.0 is designed to handle differences in message flow capacity, intermittent connectivity, lack of static IP addresses and firewall restrictions. Legacy electronic business systems such as EDI and HL7 can leverage ebMS infrastructure as can systems based on emerging technologies.
EbMS can be used with or without other ebXML standards, including ebXML Business Process Specification Schema 2.0.4 and the forthcoming version of ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement.
The OASIS ebMS Technical Committee is continuing to work on Part 2 of ebMS 3.0, which will provide functional extensions to ebMS 3.0 Core.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 16, 2007 04:18 PM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Oracle BI Suite sweetens BI for analysts and business-line users
Oracle has a logical argument why you should buy your business intelligence (BI) solution from the company. Having acquired ERP, CRM, and other data-intensive application vendors to pour data into the Oracle back end data store, why not analyze and distribute that data with a set of native BI tools? The counter argument often asserted by IT management, that enterprise analysis should be independent of the polyglot pieces that create the grist for analysis, was only sharpened by Oracle's purchase of Hyperion Solutions in March. How might Hyperion's offerings complement what Oracle is already proffering?
The Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (BISEE) 10.1.3.2, released around the same time as the Hyperion acquisition, doesn't reflect any of the many tools from the BI giant. Because a broad swath (not all) of the Hyperion offerings have functions parallel to existing Oracle BISEE tools, it's impossible at this point to know what the suite will look like once the integration is completed. After an extended demo, I'll tell you what the existing suite, BISEE 10.1.3.2, does now.
BISEE 10.1.3.2 sports storage and management tools in the Oracle BI Server, which pulls data from Oracle and non-Oracle data sources for analysis. The analysis goes on in Oracle Answers. Separately-priced delivery modules include Publisher (for static reporting), Interactive Dashboards, Briefing Books (collections of dashboard results), and Delivers (a real-time alert mechanism).
While Oracle developed some of this technology internally, much is here as a result of purchasing other tools vendors. I expected to see a Babelicious mishmash of interfaces, and given previous work with Oracle’s products, gnarly user-unfriendly and programmer-unfriendly approaches. Although Oracle hasn't spackled all the interfaces into a smooth, consistent, and unified approach, I was very pleased with the design of both the tools that analysts use and the ones that end users work with. Though not particularly consistent, the interfaces don't clash with one another either -- no mean task given the multiple origins of the pieces.
Oracle Answers, the browser-based centerpiece of the suite, is the analysis client. IT sets up the data so that users don't have to know the underlying sources or locations. Analysts can form ad-hoc queries or assemble multipane dashboards. As has become less exceptional over the last year, but no less useful, dashboards support drill-down exploration both for the analyst and a downstream consumer of pre-designed (and subsequently personalized) dashboards, promoting both the wisdom of the wise and the wisdom of the crowds. Organizations can diffuse that wisdom in additional ways, my favorite being what Oracle calls Briefing Books, a set of static snapshots of dashboard panes bundled for consumers or to archive a baseline for later comparison.
Key features new to version 10.1.3.2 include the ability to deliver a PDF version of a Briefing Book, drag and drop screen design for authoring dashboards, and simpler interactive filter imposition. Support for RSS subscription adds another alert mechanism.
Oracle has backed up its logical argument with a sweet suite that gives existing customers a strong reason to consider native BI. Whether that will overcome the counter argument noted above, I believe, will strongly hinge on how quickly and thoroughly the creative brain-candy acquired in the Hyperion takeover gets integrated with the rest of the suite.
Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 10.1.3.2
Price: Oracle Business Intelligence Suite EE is priced at $1,500 per named user or $225,000 per CPU
Platforms: OS: Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 Server, Red Hat Linux 4.x, Novell SUSE 9.x, Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 Update 4, Sun Solaris 9 SPARC 32-and 64 bit, Sun Solaris 10 SPARC 32-and 64 bit, AIX 5.2 & 5.3 PowerPC 32- and 64 bit, HP-UX 11.11 or 11.23 PA-RISC 64 bit2, HP-UX 11.23 Itanium 64 bit3. Web server: Apache Tomcat 5.5.x, Microsoft IIS 5.0 on Windows 2000 and IIS 6.0 on Windows 2003, Oracle Application Server version 10.1.3.1, IBM WebSphere Application Server versions 5.1, 6.0, 6.1, Sun Java System Web Server 6.1, 7.0. Data Sources: Oracle 9i and higher, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and higher, Sybase SQL Anywhere, MySQL 4.1 and higher.
Verdict: Oracle’s BI suite is rich on the back end and in delivery options for analysts and business-line users. In the middle of the workflow, the analysis and presentation preparation sequences, it’s got some game, though it won’t dislodge installed competitors because of those functions. The key to extending the suite to non-Oracle shops looks to be how well the company integrates, preserves, and continues to build on the Hyperion technology that complements its strengths.
Posted by Jeff Angus on October 16, 2007 12:00 PM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: A Marriage of Convenience
Unified communications get a boost from a big backer, your web site is probably at risk, and there's a new iPhone lawsuit that has nothing to do with software updates. All in all, it's an exciting Tuesday here in the Test Center.
New Microsoft OCS: Brian Chee and Oliver Risk took a long, hard look at Microsoft OCS and found that Office Communication Server -- linked to Exchange Server -- make for a formidable communications platform. Unfortunately, the deployment hurdle (in both money and effort) is high, too, but may well be worthwhile if you need to have a single, common in-box for all your corporate communications.
Your Web Site is Open: Matt Hines has been reading again, and this time the story is as scary as anything by Steven King. According to the latest White Hat study, 90% of web sites are open to hacker attacks. You'll want to read Matt's blog, but don't take too long -- your web site probably needs some attention. Now.
Toxic iPhone?: According to Greenpeace, your iPhone may be making you sterile -- not because of how it works, but because of how it's made. It's all in the phthalates, you see. At least, that's the claim of a new lawsuit against Apple. Ted Samson isn't covering all the lawsuits against Apple in Sustainable IT, but the phthinking of phthe phthalate opponents is squarely on his green radar screen.
Posted by Curt Franklin on October 16, 2007 11:33 AM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
StrikeIron forges community for Web services use
StrikeIron, which offers an online marketplace for commercially available Web services, has launched a beta version of StrikeIron Developer Community, enabling developers to collaborate on business applications.
The community, StrikeIron said, lets developers share and collaborate as they build business applications, mashups, widgets and Web sites with Web services available from the company.
Featured in the community are project pages with links to sample code from partners such as Sun Microsystems and IBM; sample code for developing in various languages, including C# and Ruby, and sample applications with source code. Also offered is a framework for submitting code, mashups and applications that can be shared. Technical documentation, videos and tutorials are available as well.
Developers can access StrikeIron data through downloadable widgets, tools and code. Additionally, the community offers a developer forum for researching issues with StrikeIron Marketplace Web Services.
Developers who wish to try out StrikeIron can access free Web services at this Web page.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 16, 2007 11:02 AM
October 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Security, free, for you and me
Open source meets security: We've all been taught to be wary of free lunches. And IT admins, certainly, know to be cautious when choosing tools to protect their assets. But InfoWorld Contributing Editor Tom Bowers finds that there's an array of free, open source security tools and techniques out there that are well worth the time investment.
Know thy products: Too many SOA vendors fail when it comes to educating would-be customers about their wares, laments Real World SOA blogger David Linthicum. "They do know how to list buzzwords they think will wow their prospects and existing customers; however in many cases the customers become further confused, or worse, don't even get the core concept behind the product, not to mention SOA." Explaining SOA at a high level, as well as what issues your product can, and can't, address, are all critical to the sales pitch, he advises.
Cooking with virtualization: Virtualization is a recipe for potential savings through consolidation -- but it's certainly not an easy-bake effort. To help keep your virtualization efforts from collapsing like an unfortunate souffle, InfoWorld Virtualization Report blogger David Marshall shares an array of virtualization cookbooks from Microsoft. Bon appetit!
Posted by Ted Samson on October 15, 2007 11:45 AM
October 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
JetBrains is offering an upgrade to its Java IDE, IntelliJ Idea 7.0, featuring Web development tools and backing for the Ruby language.
Included are tools for developing complex Web applications, with Web services and dynamic language support. Advanced JavaScript capabilities with basic Flex support will be accompanied with plugins for Ruby/JRuby and Groovy development within a few weeks.
Version 7.0 has new factorings and about 50 new code inspections and bug fixes. A new debugger UI, visual Structure Dependency Matrix and enhanced usability and performance are featured as well.
With so many new features being added, a JetBrains official said the company pondered which ones should be considered the major highlights.
"When we were preparing our press release, this was actually a challenge for us, to determine the main highlights," said Ann Oreshnikova, marketing director at JetBrains.
Also featured is support for Hibernate object persistence technology and the Spring Framework, including aspect-oriented programming.
Improved support for a host of technologies is featured also, including:
* Java Persistence API (JPA).
* EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans).
* JSP (JavaServer Pages).
* HTML.
* CSS Cascading Style Sheets.
* XML.
Version 7.0 integrates with the Maven software project management tool. Unified version control systems support has been extended to Rational ClearCase.
IntelliJ Idea 7.0 costs $499 for a commercial license.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 15, 2007 08:12 AM
October 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Borland Software is adding domain-specific language (DSL) capabilities to its Together package for application modeling.
Available Monday, Borland Together 2007 is intended to help developers as well as application analysts and architects to deliver enterprise applications through rich visual models that capture business requirements within a specific business domain.
Project teams can build models that provide a blueprint for a business process, application and enterprise architectures and data structures, Borland said.
"We really see [the new release] as a significant leap forward in its ability to provide better business agility and lower application costs through use of domain-specific languages," said Marc Brown, Borland vice president of product engineering.
A DSL is a notation that allows individuals within a business to capture a model visually within the context of a business domain, such as for insurance or health care, Brown said. DSL encompasses architectures and business processes.
The DSL Toolkit in Together 2007 is intended to overcome the complexity of Unified Modeling Language (UML) models by enabling project teams to build model notations aligned with a business domain.
Borland is enabling creation of models that leverage UML but are simpler and domain-focused, said Richard Gronback, chief scientist at Borland and co-leader of the Eclipse Modeling Project.
Together 2007 is based on the open source Eclipse framework and conforms to Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) standards, including UML, XML, Metadata Interchange and Object Constraint Language.
Also in Together 2007 is .Net support with C# code generation. Users can generate C# source code from UML 2 models in support of .Net development projects.
Support for the Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) project bolsters generation of documentation in a standardized way, Borland said.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 14, 2007 09:01 PM
October 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Green tops Gartner's list, security best practices gone wrong
Green is number one! At least according to Gartner, whose list of ten strategic technologies for 2008 caught the eye of greenalyst Ted Samson. See yesterday's Sustainable IT for Ted's take, and his swift run down the rest of Gartner's list. Hand it to Gartner: It's a fascinating list, a buzz-stirring blend of the real, the improbable, the silly, and the absurd, served with the signature deadpan delivery. Terrific reading. Go Web 2.0!
Guidelines and gridlines: Roger Grimes has spotted a disturbing trend in these times of compliance and governance, wherein best practices guidelines evolve into mandates, and the mandates begin reaching down into systems settings, trapping sensible security managers in a corner. See yesterday's Security Advisor for Roger's tales of good security guidelines gone wrong.
Posted by Doug Dineley on October 12, 2007 10:38 AM
October 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Free software worth paying for
Trialware is a pain. Once you install it, its self-destruct sequence begins. If you don't have time to give trial software a thorough workout before it goes poof, it's unlikely that you'll come away from the experience impressed with that application.
Vendors are getting the message. Several of the InfoWorld Test Center's recent reviews focus on software that vendors offer to customers for free, forever, but with deployment limited to non-commercial use or a small number of users.
What brought this to mind is my recent discussions with CommuniGate Systems, which offers a community edition of its Communigate Pro unified messaging server. Its Flash-based Pronto! client is remarkable, and it's free as well.
InfoWorld contributing editor Randall C. Kennedy wrote up three streaming application virtualization solutions, two of which are free to those who meet the criteria. Symantec's SVS Pro 2.1 is free for non-commercial use, while Microsoft's Softgrid 4.2 is free if you're enrolled in the vendor's Software Assurance Program. Softgrid is also available to Microsoft Developer Network subscribers. This strains the definition of "free" a little, but IT likely meets one criteria or the other.
Mike Heck's roundup of content management systems has a dandy punchline: They're all free, they're all open source and all of them rate 8.3 or better on InfoWorld Test Center's 10 point scale.
Lastly, I've been swimming in the deep end of OpenSolaris 10, a real UNIX with commercial development tools (Sun Studio 12). These are free with no strings attached. Installation and use aren't exactly a walk in the park, but it's stable and supported, definitely not the Solaris you remember.
Posted by Tom Yager on October 11, 2007 03:28 PM
October 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Review: DataAssist 2.0 simplifies development of database-driven Web sites
Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and their intricate development environments, such as Adobe Flex 2 and Microsoft Silverlight, are getting a lot of attention right now. Yet most dynamic Web sites still work with tried-and-true coding that connects to databases and delivers content as traditional Web pages. But even this development taxes the time and skills of many Web professionals. If you use Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 or 8 (PC or Mac) for creating these complex sites, then you’ll have an ally in WebAssist's just-released DataAssist 2.0.
I've been using the final 2.0 release for about a week to create an online e-commerce site back-ended by Microsoft SQL Server. After this real-world testing, I found DataAssist to be a very powerful, yet easy to use extension that works with classic ASP, PHP, and ColdFusion technology.
The key to DataAssist's usability is a new 10-step wizard that automatically builds pages to search, display, insert, update, and delete data. As part of this visual process, the wizard guides you through binding fields from the database to each of the page types, so there's no coding involved and the process moves quickly. Moreover, DataAssist automatically creates all the form elements (for, say, search and administrative tasks) and server-side code.
As with other WebAssist products (and DataAssist 1.0), pages are based on CSS and follow Web standards. Further, I feel the built-in styles are professional-looking and thus appropriate for public-facing sites -- though it's easy to edit the pages in Dreamweaver to match the design of an existing site.
As I got into the more advanced wizard options, DataAssist 2.0 showed a lot of muscle. For example, there's now multiple record management (for inserting, updating, or deleting multiple database records at once). Additionally, I was impressed by how well the wizard handled even more complex tasks, such as managing multiple relational tables.
Lastly, DataAssist 2.0 now integrates advanced search capability. For instance, in my test online store I built a form that let visitors search the catalog by price range, several categories, keywords, or a stock number (SKU).
DataAssist 2.0
Availability: Now
Pricing: $199.99; $99.99 introductory price until October 23, 2007.
Verdict: DataAssist 2.0 is a valuable product for Dreamweaver developers of all levels because it greatly simplifies creating database-driven Web sites. DataAssist builds pages for displaying and altering data based on answers you supply to a wizard. Yet this software is sophisticated enough to handle multiple record management, advanced searches, and relational table management.
Posted by Mike Heck on October 11, 2007 06:01 AM
October 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Serena offers software configuration management tool
Serena Software announced this week the release of Serena Dimensions Express, a developer-focused software configuration management tool that is intended to be easy to use.
With the product, advanced software configuration management is offered as a standalone capability, giving companies a way to address immediate requirements and position for a more holistic approach if needed in the future, Serena said.
Leveraging the Serena Dimensions 10 Dimensions distributed development platform, Express is intended to address issues of rapid implementation and usability with the need for control and management. Developers gain native platform support for their preferred workspace/repository and native integration with leading IDEs, Serena said.
When changes are made to source code, Dimensions Express handles version control so if the need arises, developers can revert to the previous configuration.
Support for parallel development is supported, enabling Dimensions Express to be used by development teams.
Dimensions Express is available now for $995 per user.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 10, 2007 02:30 PM
October 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Apple, SUN and virtualization
Apple, SUN and virtualization
As improbable as it may seem those apparently unrelated topics have so much in common. Please read on to find out.
More SPARCs from that SUN
Whatever your preference, rack-mounted or blade architecture, SUN has some news for you, if you are shopping for new servers.
The roaring of these three new Niagara powered machines from SUN has not escaped Tom Yager who does a preliminary exploration of their features in his column.
Freedom Pac Could be one of the entrées in the Capitol Hill cafeteria menu, (do you want Freedom Fries with that?). MojoPac Freedom is instead one of the latest news from RingCube. In fact, the company has just announced this free appetizer for its desktop virtualization suite, explains David Marshall in his podcast
USB is an added bonus to that podcast. What has USB to do with all this? Sorry, you'll have to listen to what David has to say, but here is a clue: Think USB 3.0.
How can I virtualize thee? Hunted by a Leopard to be released at the end of the month, Tom Yager find himself running out of physical machines. To complicate things, in Appleland a virtual machine is not a legitimate cage for that beast. Will Tom cave in and add one more power sucking, fan blowing, noise producing box to his collection? The answer is here.
Posted by Mario Apicella on October 10, 2007 10:24 AM
October 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Mandriva is offering Mandriva Linux 2008, which is intended to offer simplicity for first-time Linux users, the company said on Wednesday.
Featured are enhancements such as the new versions of the Gnome and KDE desktop environments. Also featured is the 3D-accelerated desktop comprised of Compiz Fusion 0.5.2 and drak 3D, Mandriva said.
A Windows documents and settings migration tool is highlighted for moving from Windows to Linux. Also cited were an optimized control center and enhancements to the rpmdrake software installer.
Support is included for the WPA (WiFi Protection Access) Enterprise authentication and security framework, implemented in a new network configuration tool and the net-applet network control panel.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 10, 2007 10:22 AM
October 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: A Great Day for Blogs
The weather can't quite seem to decide whether it's Summer or Fall, but no such indecision wracks the ranks of InfoWorld bloggers and columnists. It's solid information and strong opinion all around as we look at the issues and technologies that you need for winning I.T.
Virtually Sustainable: If you weren't able to make it to InfoWorld's Virtualization Forum in New York, Ted Samson gives you a chance to place catch-up in Sustainable IT. Ted has posted a set of interviews with professionals who were on the Green Datacenter panel. You can listen as Lewis Curtis interviews Ted on green information processing. Be sure to follow the other links in the post for an additional audio interview and an exciting video interview on the technologies and practices that will keep your data center green.
Cyber Crimes and Political Maneuvers: If you haven't started thinking about the upcoming presidential primaries in terms of their impact on your network's security, well it's time you started. In the Zero Day blog, Matt Hines has details on cyber security and real-world politics. Let's see Chris Matthews try to get ahead of the Zero Day crew on this issue...
Open Source, Profitable Business: If your open-source software supplier can't stay in business, it's going to be hard for them to offer the kind of support your organization needs. As we pass through the earnings report season, Brad Shimmin looks at business models that can serve the open source community well. Companies spend a lot of time doing due diligence on their suppliers: this primer could help a lot of firms who want to remain in the open source market, or make sure that their open source partners are in business for the long run.
Posted by Curt Franklin on October 9, 2007 04:36 PM
October 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: OpenProj brings free, robust project management to the desktop
Microsoft Project 1.0 for Windows (my very first InfoWorld review assignment, by the way) didn't score high. In fact, during the late 1980's Scitor's Project Scheduler – with its speed, usability, and accurate scheduling – consistently won our project management shootouts. Fast forward 20 years. Like other Microsoft Office applications that underwent extensive rework, Project is now a desktop fixture. Plus, it connects to the formidable Microsoft Project Server 2007. As a result, many early desktop project managers have disappeared.
Well, not entirely. Key Scitor staff moved on to form Projity, keeping alive their scheduling engine in the form of Project-ON-Demand (a $19.99 per month SaaS application that also integrates with Salesforce.com) and the open source OpenProj application. It's particularly timely, with more enterprises considering open source, to see how OpenProj compares to commercial offerings.
I tested OpenProj Beta 4 (a Java application) under Windows XP and found generally stable software with extensive project scheduling and resource management capabilities. Compared to Microsoft Project, OpenProj is miniscule (less than 10MB to download, not counting the Java runtime software) and it runs fast. Without errors, I opened a 500-task Microsoft Project file in OpenProj, which then recalculated the schedule in less than one second on my aging single-core-processor laptop.
OpenProj's user interface provides easy access to a full complement of scheduling, charting, and resource functions. As expected, the default Gantt (timeline) let me enter tasks – and then link them, adjust duration, and indicate percent complete by merely dragging around in the charting pane. Clicking icons immediately switched the display to any of a dozen other views, which include a network diagram, Work Breakdown Structure, and task usage reports.
Like high-end project management applications, OpenProj doesn't hold back on the type of data you can enter. Besides handling standard budget information, I customized OpenProj to compare up to ten variations of my plan and compute many important metrics, such as remaining cost and project duration.
One aspect of project management that's sometimes hard to fathom is resources, which OpenProj does a great job demystifying. After easily creating a list of staff members and assigning them to different tasks, I displayed a resource chart to see where people were working over their limits. Then, by interactively adjusting the timeline, I reallocated people so assignments fit within their available hours. OpenProj also does an excellent job of automatically leveling resources, finding the best fit so resources are neither over-worked nor standing idle.
I didn't find any significant feature gaps. Displays and reports can be filtered and sorted in many ways. For instance, I limited the Gantt chart to only over-budget items. Moreover, context-sensitive menus appear as you right-click in expected places – which let me quickly change formatting and other display options. Yet, as you expect with beta software, there's still cleanup coding to do: Sometimes when I zoomed or resized panes, text didn't display properly.
Overall, OpenProj performs all the essential tasks you'd do with a desktop project management application. That, and cross-platform availability, would justify Projity charging even a portion of Microsoft Project's $999 price tag. But with OpenProj's free access, it's just one more compelling case for going open source on the desktop.
OpenProj Beta 4
Availability: Open beta download; final release date to be announced
Platforms: Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, and Windows
Verdict: OpenProj, an excellent open source desktop alternative to Microsoft Project, reads native Project files while providing an especially precise scheduling engine. The OpenProj solution has essential project management tools, including Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned Value costing – all surrounded by a customized user interface.
Posted by Mike Heck on October 9, 2007 06:01 AM
October 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Infragistics offers toolsets for Windows apps
Infragistics announced Monday Infragistics NetAdvantage for .Net 2007 Volume 3, featuring toolsets for ASP.Net and Windows Forms.
NetAdvantage for .Net is a suite of controls, components and tools for .Net. Developers can build user experiences in line-of-business applications, Infragistics said. Featured in the new release is a reduction in development time.
The ASP.Net toolset includes PDF/XPS (XML Paper Specification) reporting capabilities, export to Excel enhancements and charting features for building commercial-class interfaces and rich Internet applications.
With the Windows Forms side of the product, new tools, including a navigation bar and tool bar manager, make it easy to build user interfaces with the same look and feel as Windows Vista, Infragistics said.
Infragistics in 30 days plans to release TestAdvantage 2007 Volume 3, which will have parity with NetAdvantage for Windows Forms 2007.3. TestAdvantage enables automated testing of the presentation layer, including regression testing for Windows Forms applications.
A single NetAdvantage product, such as NetAdvantage for ASP.Net, starts in price at $795.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 8, 2007 03:19 PM
October 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Content management, the open-source way
CMS at an enticing price: free: Discontent with the state of your companies content? If, indeed, your data and documents are in disarray, a CMS (content management system) might warrant consideration -- and there's no reason open-source options should be on your list. That's a key take-away from Contributing Editor Mike Heck's round-up of five (yes, five!) open-source CMSes from Alfresco, DotNetNuke, Drupal, Joomla, and Plone. All fared well, but only one earned a score of Excellent. Click on to find out which.
DreamScene still a nightmare: Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall Kennedy revisits DreamScene, Microsoft Vista's "motion desktop" technology. When he first looked at it months ago, he declared it a huge resource hog, but critics countered that it was in beta. Well, it's now hit RTM status, and lo, Kennedy reports, it's still a huge resource piggy. Oink.
10 reasons sites get hacked: If you've ever had your Web site hacked and lamented, "Why me?", you might find your answer here. Part of the the problem, according to the experts, is that security is too often viewed as an after-thought when developers are building Web apps. Don't let your site become a statistic. Check out the list.
Posted by Ted Samson on October 8, 2007 11:51 AM
October 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Compuware adds to business requirements app
Compuware plans Tuesday to announce Compuware Optimal Trace 5.0, a new version of the company's business requirements management software intended to make it easier to adopt a business requirements management solution.
Version 5.0 enhances propagation of requirements to all aspects of the application lifecycle, according to Compuware. Organizations can grow into a sophisticated use of structured requirements, Compuware said. With the 5.0 release, customers can propagate "business intent," the company said.
"What we've done is we've just put out Optimal Trace 5.0 and it's kind of important from our perspective because it really offers the ability for customers to completely adopt the tooling for any particular approach," that they may be using in their environments, said Fergal McGovern, Compuware Optimal Trace product manager.
Users who have been using Word documents or Excel spreadsheets to map requirements can import text from these documents or files into the Optimal Trace repository. Managing changes in these types of applications rather than in Optimal Trace is difficult, according to Compuware.
Also featured is structural flexibility for tailoring project and package/group structure to the needs of any project, Compuware said. Custom field definitions can be created on the project, package and requirement levels.
A simplified list style requirement concept enables for customizable requirements capture and management.
Optimal Trace 5.0 is priced at $6,400 per concurrent user or $3,800 per named user.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 5, 2007 04:10 PM
October 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Green storage, converged storage, and rich enterprise apps
Rotating green matter?: So while AMD and Intel have been shouting in our ear about how they are putting money in our pockets by making their processors more power efficient, storage vendors have been eerily silent. Now they're starting to get the green religion too. Green storage starts with management tools like thin provisioning (hey look, we were green already!) but is moving toward power management technologies like MAID (massive arrays of idle disk) and Hitachi Data Systems' PSSS (Power Savings Storage Service). Ted Samson outlines these developments in yesterday's Sustainable IT. And don't miss his video interview on the subject with HDS CTO Hu Yoshida.
Deja vu all over again: In his October 1 blog post, "All the Wood Behind One Arrow," Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz announced that Sun would be combining its Storage and Server product teams to "focus on the evolution and convergence of computing." Does that portend a datacenter without arrays? Mario Apicella says grab a camera and take some souvenir photos, because stand-alone storage has booked an appointment for a makeover.
Server-side mashups: For "rich enterprise application" frameworks JackBe Presto and Nexaweb Enterprise Web 2.0 Suite, rich AJAX clients (and in the case of Nexaweb, also Java clients) live to be windows into back-end data resources. These toolkits shine in exposing server-side resources as data services, and creating business dashboards and other clients for interacting with data. See Peter Wayner's review, "Refining the art of enterprise Web apps."
Posted by Doug Dineley on October 5, 2007 09:38 AM
October 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: California's vision for an accessible Web, Microsoft's blunted run at Flash
Opening the Web to everyone: The state of California has taken the long overdue step of enforcing Web site accessibility requirements. Developers, dev tool vendors, content creators and on-line advertisers should be making accessibility a priority if for no other reason than the substantial market they're turning away. Some software companies, like Apple and Adobe, get it. Apple added support for captions to QuickTime, and Adobe's Web authoring tools check for accessibility standards adherence. Perhaps this judicial nudge will make accessibility core of the next-generation Web.
Sorry, Microsoft, but Flash already has its AIR apparent: Martin Heller's review of Microsoft Silverlight details Microsoft's .net-based rich Web client framework. It's packaged as a rather fat native code plug-in for Windows and OS X browsers. Looked at in a vacuum, Silverlight is nice, and it demos smashingly well, but Microsoft is bringing a plug-in and unfamiliar tools to developers and content creators, while Adobe is expanding its Flash ecosystem with its own Internet run-time framework, AIR. The cross-platform ubiquity of Flash, a worldwide community of skilled developers, a well-established toolsuite and legitimate (read that: beyond lip service) engagement in open source will net Adobe the crown in rich Web apps when AIR debuts in Q1 '08. If Silverlight amounts to little more than a wedge that carries Windows Media Player and .net+HTML to Intel-based Macs, that's a win for Microsoft and for Mac users. But there's no need to hope for a Flash killer; Flash just needs to be opened and evolved. Adobe's on that.
Here's a bit of parting-shot trivia for non-developers: What's Adobe's little-acknowledged high card in the rich Web app game? JavaScript.
Posted by Tom Yager on October 4, 2007 12:52 PM
October 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: The future of digital media and math tricks
The future of digital media and math tricks
Looking back from year 2107 - In this week "Ahead of the Curve" Tom Yager pauses to imagine what our legacy of digital images will look like 100 years from now, and what he sees is not a pretty sight. Will we be remembered as the generation that loved quantity more than quality? Will our collections of digital media be assimilated to other plastic debris littering out planet? Will our grandchildren even be able to explore their content? Tom answers are here
Pick a number, any number.. Are you good with math? Perhaps more important, can you quickly make the right decision when facing uncertain data? Well to find out take a look at Savio Rodriguez post in Open Sources. Now, where is that pill for my headache?
Posted by Mario Apicella on October 3, 2007 08:12 AM
October 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Websense Content Protection Suite brings Web smarts to DLP
Websense acquired PortAuthority Technologies in late 2006 shortly after I reviewed PortAuthority 5.0. Renamed Websense Content Protection Suite, version 6 blends in some Websense technologies along with enhancements that PortAuthority already had in the pipeline. Content Protection Suite 6 improves detection accuracy by looking at the destination of a message -- a technique seen in Websense ThreatSeeker, a technology that protects against Web-based threats. And it enhances the existing PreciseID NLP feature, which uses natural language processing to tell whether similar data is confidential or risk-free; this further boosts detection rates without going through the step of uploading and scanning individual files (fingerprinting).
Additionally, this latest version monitors all network protocols when deployed in-line, classifies and extracts content from more formats than previous versions (over 370 file types), and offers additional remediation capabilities (such as custom notification options). Further, all modules are managed from a single graphical interface.
A typical Websense configuration includes a management appliance with the management and reporting Web UI, management server, policy enforcement server, plus PreciseID NLP and fingerprinting server, and any number of Protector appliances. The management hardware easily connects to any network hub or switch. Protectors are set up the same way in passive mode, or they can be installed in-line to block HTTP and SMTP communications.
Like other top-quality data leaks solutions, Websense has evolved to discover, monitor, and protect data throughout your network. It can spot social security numbers, proprietary source code, financial data, sensitive strategy plans, and other sensitive data in SMTP or Web mail, instant messaging, and FTP file transfers, on scanned file shares, and even as it is copied to USB drives on laptops.
One big change in v6 is the single management and reporting console, which simplifies administering policies, reviewing incidents, and viewing reports. While I think the interface could stand a little more tweaking -- for example, PreciseID fingerprinting is accessed from the System Status area while it would seem better placed under Policy Administration -- overall I like the new design.
Thankfully, you no longer have to switch among separate applications to scan files at rest or register information in databases. As with past versions, 150 built-in policies and reports cover major regulatory statutes (Websense provides automatic updates to these templates). Then, with a few clicks using a Policy Wizard, you can refine policies so they apply to certain user groups or physical locations, such as a particular remote office. Also, one policy applies across data in motion (e-mail, IM, FTP), at rest (file shares), and in use (laptops and other endpoints).
Content Protection Suite 6 reduces a lot of the drudgery when you need to make policies even more granular. For instance, enhancements to the Protect appliance's Intelligent Protocol Discovery means you don't have to specify the communications channel to monitor; the system automatically checks for leaked information over known protocols (such as HTTP, FTP, and IM transmissions) on every port. Moreover, the improved PreciseID function automatically applies various detection algorithms to each potential exit point. These detection methods include rules, lexicons, dictionaries, exact and partial content matching, and statistical analysis.
The new Black Listing option lets you add another layer of protection by blocking domains and Web site categories in any combination. But here's another important synergy with the ThreatSeeker technology: Websense's security labs monitor when good Web sites are infected with spyware or otherwise compromised. As a result, even if you allow access to a legitimate site, Websense can automatically place it on your Black List -- often within hours of the discovery of the threat.
Content and context awareness helps set Content Protection Suite apart from other competitors. At the highest level, the system is aware of who is doing what, where, and how. For example, you can create a policy that allows a chief financial officer to communicate with board members using Yahoo! mail, yet still prevents the CFO from posting on Yahoo! message boards.
The redesigned management console makes it easier to review critical events by policy categories and then act on individual incidents. For example, clicking the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act category on the main dashboard opens a filtered view of the incident management screen where you can review details of each GLBA infraction. From this same page you can quickly select the desired action, including releasing the message or assigning it to another person for more investigation. Conveniently, the next reviewer can quickly see a history of previous actions and also access forensic features (such as searching for similar infractions by the same user).
Another new feature lets you filter reports according to the same context and content classifications that you use to create custom policies. Discovery Reports list data-at-rest files containing sensitive data, providing details about the questionable files and the violation that triggered the incident. I’d like to see, however, data-at-rest statistics rolled up to the main executive dashboard.
Websense Content Protection Suite 6 can discover and protect sensitive data in most any form, sent over various channels and to many destinations. The new natural language processing capabilities, which classify content based on the context in which it was being used, should improve accuracy. Various deployment options -- and the ability to have one server operate in multiple modes (passive monitoring, inline monitoring and enforcement, or proxy mode) -- can lower your overall cost. Lastly, it offers easy management from a central Web interface -- though there's still a bit more work to do in the system's overall usability.
Websense Content Protection Suite 6
Cost: Starts at $33,000 for software components
Platform: Available on a variety of supported hardware platforms or on hardened appliances sold at cost. Uses a proprietary operating system derived from Linux. Endpoint agents supported on Windows 2000 and later.
Verdict: Websense Content Protection Suite discovers sensitive data most anywhere in your enterprise -- whether at rest, in use, or in motion. This solution’s pre-built policies and reports, plus automated data classification and protection, should result in fast de-ployments. Version 6 improves accuracy with content and context awareness, and natural language processing capabilities. Moreover, it now monitors all protocols when deployed in-line.
Posted by Mike Heck on October 3, 2007 06:00 AM
October 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Interface21, builders of the Spring Framework, are partnering with Tasktop Technologies, builders of Eclipse Mylyn, to develop Spring Tool Suite, with the goal of reducing complexity in Java development and maintenance.
Mylyn is an open source, task-focused UI for Eclipse while Spring is a popular open source framework for Java. Building on Eclipse and Mylyn, Spring Tool Suite will simplify the large aggregation of tools used to develop complex enterprise Java applications. This will reduce information overload and streamline developer workflow, Interface21 said.
The suite will support: Spring 2.0 framework features, including namespace-based configurations; Spring Web Flow; tools for Spring AOP (aspect-oriented programming) and Spring Java configuration.
An open source project, Spring Tool Suite is expected to be available in March 2008.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 2, 2007 03:55 PM
October 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Mindreef and iTKO are making separate moves Tuesday in the SOA testing space.
Mindreef has integrated its SOAPscope Server SOA and Web services testing software with HP Quality Center, a centralized platform for managing processes and automating software testing.
SOAPscope Server tests for functional regression and performance. This adds to what Quality Center does, according to Mindreef. Teams can centralize and manage testing and automation efforts using HP Quality Center while leveraging Mindreef capabilities for Web services testing and SOA quality management.
"Quality Center is more of a central dashboard for running and reporting on tests. It's not a tester itself," said Frank Grossman, Mindreef co-founder and CTO.
Also offered now in SOAPscope Server is a command line interface. This allows Mindreef users to run load checks and test suites such as unit, functional and regression tests from a command line by running a test script. SOAPscope server can be integrated with a developer's build infrastructure such as a Windows scheduler,
ITKO is announcing availability of Lisa 4 SOA Testing, a product suite for testing SOA. Featured is Lisa Virtual Service Environment, enabling distributed teams to deliver SOA applications in an agile and test-driven way, iTKO said. Service behaviors are captured and virtualized. Development and testing is freed from having to deploy and support test environments.
Rich Internet application testing in Lisa includes no-code test capture, management and dynamic staging and playback of functional and performance tests. Browser simulation is offered as well as testing for AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Swing applets.
Dynamic load testing also is highlighted as is the ability to test business processes. These processes can be tested in a reusable, modular way.
Also, Lisa tests against access points of ESB systems, including JMS (Java Message Service) messages, Web services and connection databases.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 2, 2007 11:43 AM
October 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Silverlight Shines
It's a great day in the Test Center, with a review on a top web app development system, and looks at sustainable reading and hacker tools.
Coding by Silverlight: The race is on for web-application development framework, with Ajax, Flash, Curl, Ruby, and others all muscling and edging one another for attention. Microsoft has thrown Silverlight into the mix, and Martin Heller finds a lot to like in the upstart development language. Between a well thought-out development environment and a clear division between tasks for designers and programmers, Martin thinks that Silverlight can offer a lot to new web app developers, especially if they've already committed to Microsoft Visual Studio.
Sustainable Reading: Some folks cast a skeptical glance at any capitalist involvement with "Green" issues, but Ted Samson looks at a business publication and finds encouragement in corporations that take a serious look at sustainable operations. When top management sees sustainability in terms of dollars and cents, that's when change can truly start in the enterprise.
Learning the Hacker Way: There's no reason that hackers should have all the cool tools, and Roger Grimes points out two of the best in his latest column. The Security Adviser thinks you should know how hackers think and how they work -- and these tools will give you a leg up on each of those goals.
Posted by Curt Franklin on October 2, 2007 10:30 AM
October 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Reconnex 7 takes a smarter view of insider data leaks
Picking a data leak prevention (DLP) solution used to be fairly easy -- it all depended on what you needed to protect. One solution might best handle data in motion (such as e-mail), while another used agents to sniff out sensitive data in use on desktop systems and laptops. And yet others guarded intellectual property resting in data repositories. Now the major solutions -- Vontu, Websense (formerly PortAuthority), Tablus, and Reconnex (click for reviews) -- cover all three situations, and their protection is darn good.
I've been investigating the key differences among these solutions today and have narrowed it to three areas: usability for security staff performing investigations; quick ways to fine tune rules so that more types of malicious activity are caught, yet false positives are reduced; and the ability to review past communications that may have originally appeared benign. The forthcoming Reconnex 7 appears to have a solid grip on each area.
First, version 7.0 introduces a new user interface, the inSight Web console (see above). The redesigned dashboard now shows security violations based on an investigator's role. Role-based access means that human resources personnel can no longer see incidents covering financial disclosure, for instance. Moreover, Reconnex helps you quickly make sense of what could be a lot of activity. For example, you can group results by rules (such as offensive language or communications to a particular country), and then filter each grouping by sender, time, department, or other parameters.
Next, workflow is better integrated with these reports, so less time should be needed to remediate problems. Clicking on an incident in the dashboard immediately takes you to a details screen containing destination, suspect content, and protocol (see screen image above). Yet Reconnex 7 is different from other products because you may collect what might initially seem like unrelated incidents and bundle them as a new case. Other solutions typically turn each possible security breach into a unique case, making it more difficult to connect the dots.
The other main difference with Reconnex is that the iGuard Appliance continues to capture all communications. Here's where that comes into play in version 7. Say you spot a new incident where an employee tries to send confidential information to a competitor. You could do a historical search to find what else the employee might have done, perhaps sending files to a Yahoo! e-mail address owned by another competitor -- transmissions that weren't initially flagged because there were no rules at the time. In Reconnex 7, these new findings are then added to the existing case, making it much stronger if you must take disciplinary or legal action. This version, the company tells me, will also have new methods of indexing to make searches much faster.
Admittedly, a solution's detection methods should be robust enough to catch data leaks without writing specific rules. The previous example notwithstanding, I've found that Reconnex's algorithms generally don't require adjustments to spot at-risk information. Still, there will always be special cases, such as registering a unique file type your organization uses. This process usually entails hit-or-miss experiments using real-time communications. Reconnex 7 will let you test changes against your historical data; this should help ensure that rules work properly the first time they're applied to live traffic.
The bar is set high for these products as insider data leaks (intentional or not) and breaches of private data and intellectual property continue to make headlines. Reconnex 7 appears to clear the bar in usability and data protection. Further, its forensic capabilities and excellent value set the mark even higher in these two areas for competitors.
Reconnex 7.0
Availability: October 2007
Pricing: Starts at $34,995
Verdict: Reconnex 7.0 doesn't make any startling changes to the iGuard hardware. However, the core inSight centralized management application gets a re-architected user interface that reduces time to act on any possible data leak violations. Workflow is smarter in this version, and role-based access limits what investigators can see, protecting employee privacy. And because the solution captures all communications, enterprises can perform more effective investigations -- and more quickly create and adjust rules.
Posted by Mike Heck on October 2, 2007 10:00 AM
October 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Exclusive preview: Xyratex goes modular
Xyratex goes modular
If many new storage arrays look surprisingly similar to you, don’t jump to the hasty conclusion that vendors are copying from each other.
Quite possibly the reason is that many new units are based on SBB (Storage Bridge Bay), a new standard that sees many vendors cooperating to create a compatible form factor and a modular architecture for components such as backplanes, power supplies and controllers.
For more info on this new standard, now reaching version 2.0, and to read the full list of participating vendors please explore the Storage Bridge Bay Working Group site.
Xyratex, a supplier of tier 1 storage vendors and one of the voting members of the group will announce next week, and will show at the upcoming Storage Networking World in Dallas, OneStor ESP (Extensible Storage Platform, a new family of product based on SBB 2.0.
The first model of this new platform, which is also Xyratex first SBB -based device, is the ESP SP1424s, a massive box that takes 4 rack units and can host up to 24 3.5" SAS or SATA drives in an impressive lineup of six rows.
One of the benefits of using the SBB standard is the ability to create different configurations on the same chassis by simply swapping modules. In fact, the SP1424s can be packaged into a final product with up to 4 energy efficient power supplies, and can mount, for example, two FC (fibre channel) controllers, or two iSCSI adapters or one of each.
It's no surprise that vendors such as Xyratex are quick to acknowledge the benefits of SBB solution: Exploiting its modularity they are able to offer their customers what is essentially the same basic box but can be quickly adjusted to satisfy different requirements that go beyond flexible connectivity to different SAN (storage area network) protocols.
For example adding a processor module makes the SP1424s capable of double duties as a storage and as an application server, hence suitable for NAS (network attached storage) deployments. By installing an application such as Windows Storage Server and taking advantage of 1GB SATA drives customers can easily push their file serving capacity to a respectable 24 TB in a single 4U box.
By contrast, if resilience is the main objective, installing two similar controllers customers can easily build high availability solutions capable of surviving a controller failure or a path failure.
No vendor was ready yet for a show and tell session with a OneStor based product before the announcement, so I haven’t actually tried to lift a fully configured box, but after checking the specs, I wouldn’t attempt this without help.
If the trend of building more dense storage arrays continues (incidentally, this was one of the new features driven in SBB 2.0) we’ll have to use motorized pallet trucks, or wear a power suit, to lift these babies.
Xyratex is not revealing at this time which vendors have shown interest or are developing new products based on the 4U24 but given its unique form factor, those new products should be easy to spot when they come to market.
One characteristic I am curious to explore in final products is the ability, built in the design of the unit according to Xyratex, to selectively power off individual drives when not accessed, which should make products based on the SP1424s sensibly more energy friendly.
Regardless, simply combining an application server and a storage array in the same box could bring some noticeable power saving, Xyratex explains, suggesting that the SP1424s is a more efficient alternative to a typical combination of an application server plus the equivalent storage capacity.
Like a double Mac to a glutton, the SP1424s is an attempt to satisfy our insatiable appetite with a larger serving of storage. If the promises of being a more environmentally friendly solution proves to be true and if final products are priced right, customers should be willing to byte.
Posted by Mario Apicella on October 1, 2007 03:00 AM