- Test Center Tracker: Green storage, converged storage, and rich enterprise apps
- Test Center Tracker: California's vision for an accessible Web, Microsoft's blunted run at Flash
- JBoss touts AJAX in RichFaces developer platform
- Backbase offers AJAX for enterprises
- Tibco readies AJAX messaging service
- Adobe hails Flex-AJAX interoperability
- Google toolkit developer tool enhanced
- JBoss updates Web 2.0 framework
- Google open-sources Web toolkit
- Expert: AJAX isn't the security problem
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
September 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
JBoss touts AJAX in RichFaces developer platform
JBoss.org is releasing Thursday JBoss RichFaces 3.1, an upgrade to the company's JavaServer Faces (JSF) component library boasting AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) capabilities.
JSF provides capabilities for building user interfaces for JavaServer applications. Version 3.1 of RichFaces supports AJAX through JBoss Ajax4jsf, an AJAX framework. With this inclusion, developers do not need to write JavaScript to gain AJAX functionality, JBoss said.
RichFaces and Ajax4jsf were contributed to JBoss.org by Exadel; the projects have been merged. Also featured in RichFaces 3.1 is integration with the JBoss Seam application framework for Web 2.0. This enhances the RichFaces user experience by simplifying set up and "plumbing code," JBoss said. State and concurrency management are provided for AJAX.
"With RichFaces, we're providing a powerful and simple way for developers to build robust AJAX and Web 2.0 applications while leveraging the power of Java EE," said Gavin King, lead architect at JBoss owner Red Hat, in a statement released by the company. "Version 3.1 marks an important milestone for RichFaces. We will continue to build upon this foundation with more components and features to make developers more productive in their Web 2.0 development projects."
Also included in version 3.1 is a rich calendar component, for inclusion of an AJAX calendar component in Web applications.
RichFaces is licensed under the Lesser GNU Public License. RichFaces 3.1 will be available as a technology preview in the upcoming Red Hat Developer Studio Release. It also will be integrated into the JBoss Enterprise Platform.
RichFaces currently is available as a community release.
Posted by Paul Krill on September 12, 2007 03:24 PM
June 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Backbase offers AJAX for enterprises
Backbase introduced its Ajax 360 package this week, which provides AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) development capabilities for enterprises.
AJAX is a popular technique for building rich Internet applications. Ajax 360 is intended to address concerns about AJAX, such as lack of best practices, poor development lifecycle integration and intellectual property violations. Included is Backbase's Enterprise Ajax Framework, which features capabilities for developing AJAX applications. Full support for browsers is featured. The framework supports third-party widgets such as Dojo and Google components.
Also included in Ajax 360 are plugins enabling developers to utilize either the Adobe Dreamweaver or Eclipse IDEs. More than 250 widgets and functions are featured as well, along with server-side integration with Struts and JavaServer Faces.
Other components of Ajax 360 are best practices and blueprints, professional services and round-the-clock support. The package costs $2,000 per developer for a perpetual license. A free "Community" edition also is offered.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 12, 2007 01:49 PM
May 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Tibco readies AJAX messaging service
Tibco has announced plans to release its Tibco Ajax Message Service 1.0 software, which pushes live data and events from servers to Web pages, AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) applications and other software.
Recognizing the growth of AJAX rich Internet applications, Tibco sought to incorporate AJAX into messaging capabilities to support HTTP and enable users to offer rich, interactive services such as real-time notifications via Web infrastructure, Tibco said.
Tibco Ajax Message Service enables data and events to stream to a client over firewall-friendly HTTP networks. No plug-ins, applets or ActiveX controls are needed. The service supports multiple concurrent users, performance monitoring and multiplexing to combine message streams over a single HTTP connection, Tibco said.
"The ability to push data to the browser has been around for a while, however the real differentiation as it relates to enterprise use is with scalability and reliability of such solutions," said Kevin Hakman, Tibco director, in a statement released by the company. "Tibco Ajax Message Service is a specialized server for this purpose. With features such as message multiplexing, filtering, automatic bandwidth detection and data throttling, Tibco Ajax Message Service simplifies the inherent difficulties of scaling such capabilities and makes them turn-key for our customers. Accordingly, Tibco expects Tibco Ajax Message Service will deliver tremendous value across the enterprise by further extending event-driven SOA."
Tibco Ajax Message Service Version 1.0 will be generally available at the end of the month.
Posted by Paul Krill on May 16, 2007 05:29 PM
January 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Adobe hails Flex-AJAX interoperability
Looking to boost interoperability between AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Adobe's Flex technology for rich Internet applications, Adobe Labs on Tuesday posted a new JavaScript library and an update to its Flex Ajax Bridge.
The Ajax Data Services library is a JavaScript library enabling AJAX developers to access messaging and data management capabilities of Flex Data Services from JavaScript. Users can integrate application clients built using AJAX with the same back-end data services used by Flex application clients, meaning data from Flex and AJAX applications can be automatically synchronized. Users see the most current information.
Flex Ajax Bridge (FABridge) enables JavaScript-enabled components to interoperate with Flex components on the same Web page. The update improves interoperability on the client.
Combining Ajax Data Services with FABridge lets developers leverage the Flex 2 SDK programming model and Flex Data Services for interoperability with existing or new AJAX applications.
The Ajax Data Services library is accessible here. The FABridge update can be found here.
Posted by Paul Krill on January 30, 2007 07:18 PM
January 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Google toolkit developer tool enhanced
Instantiations next Tuesday will announce the release of GWT Designer 1.5, a development tool for the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) that builds AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) applications using Java.
Featured is new support for development on Linux. Windows already had been supported.
Based on Instantiations's WindowBuilderPro Eclipse-based tool, GWT Designer allows developers to build rich Internet applications using Eclipse, Java and GWT without negotiating through the complexities of AJAX coding, the company said. A WYSIWYG construction environment enables dragging and dropping of composites, layouts and controls as well as cutting and pasting of code inside a text editor.
Other new features include
* Backing for GWT releases 1.2 and 1.3.
* Visual inheritance, for reusing code and visual designs and extracting super-classes for reuse. Code quality is improved.
* The ability to ensure valid GWT Java code, in which code is checked for allowed GWT classes and methods. An on-the-fly code audit is performed.
GWT Designer 1.5 is available now for an annual subscription of $39 per year. Current subscribers can upgrade at no cost. A two-week trial copy is available here.
Posted by Paul Krill on January 26, 2007 07:22 AM
December 13, 2006 | Comments: (0)
JBoss updates Web 2.0 framework
JBoss has updated its Web 2.0 application framework, JBoss Seam, the company announced on Wednesday.
The framework integrates SOA technologies such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), JavaServer Faces, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.0 and business process management. A standard programming model requiring less coding is featured for Web 2.0 development.
New in Seam 1.1 are enhancements for Web development and AJAX as well as more supported application servers. A new POJO (Plain Old Java Objects) model serves as an alternative to EJB3, letting developers use containers like Hibernate or Apache Tomcat.
Tooling for data-driven applications is offered, combining a data access framework built around Java Persistence and Hibernate. Integration with IceFaces and AJAX4jsf is featured for building rich client applications.
Atomic conversations support boosts object persistence. A new concurrency model, meanwhile, was built with AJAX in mind. AJAX clients require that a server cope with many asynchronous, concurrent requests, which taxes the database, JBoss said.
Seam 1.1 is in beta release now with general availability targeted for Friday. It also is part of the JBoss Application Server 5.0 beta release.
Seam 1.1 is accessible here.
Posted by Paul Krill on December 13, 2006 07:04 AM
December 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Google open-sources Web toolkit
Google has made its Google Web Toolkit available via open source under an Apache 2.0 license, the company said on Tuesday.
The toolkit features a free development framework for writing AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) Web applications in Java. A release candidate for version 1.3 of the toolkit features debugging and a Java-to-JavaScript compiler.
Discussions on further development of the toolkit will take place in an open Google group, the company said. Notes from internal meetings on the toolkit will be posted as well.
Google Web Toolkit was launched in May. The company has used the toolkit to build products such as Google Checkout, for online shopping.
Posted by Paul Krill on December 12, 2006 01:57 PM
December 01, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Expert: AJAX isn't the security problem
We at InfoWorld are pretty excited about AJAX, which is why we've been looking at both the technology and specific tools for quite some time. (Our most recent roundup of tools came out just this week, in fact.)
But as with any relatively new technology, it's important to keep security in mind. (Actually, that case can be made for just about any technology, can't it?)
AJAX has gotten a bad rap by some experts and techno-pundits as being potentially insecure. For example, Billy Hoffman, lead risk researcher at SPI Dynamics said at AJAXWorld Conference and Expo last month that AJAX and Java presented a litany of potential security issues with JavaScript and AJAX, including the use of user-supplied content, cross-site scripting and rapid application development.
Presenting a counter to that argument is Jeremiah Grossman, founder and CTO of WhiteHat Security. Earlier this month, Grossman published an article titled "Myth-Busting AJAX (In)security." In it, he argues that AJAX isn't in and of itself a security risk:
"AJAX technology makes website interactivity smoother and more responsive. That’s it. Nothing changes on the Web server, where security is supposed to reside. If that’s the case, then what is everyone talking about? Word on the cyber-street is that AJAX is the harbinger of larger attack surfaces, increased complexity, fake requests, denial of service, deadly cross-site scripting (XSS), reliance on client-side security, and more. In reality, these issues existed well before AJAX. And, the recommended security best practices remain unchanged."
He makes some interesting points in his article. Developers and IT security folks: I suggest you check out his article.
What do you think? Is AJAX in and of itself a security risk?
Posted by Ted Samson on December 1, 2006 01:02 PM