From the thin reports out of Brussels about the closed-door hearing at the European Commission Thursday, it appears that Oracle – which is supposed to be trying to convince the regulator to let it swallow Sun whole MySQL and all – has gone on the offensive and accused the EC of twisting the results of its investigation to suit its MySQL bias by misrepresenting, cherry-picking or ignoring what users said about the market and the competitive scene.
The rumor mill says that Apple could be out with that tablet it’s supposed to have up its sleeve in March or April. According to Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner, it’s supposed to have a 10.1-inch iPhone-style multi-touch screen and a $1,000 price tag. It would compete with Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. Reiner says Apple’s been pitching book publishers on a non-executive deal giving them 70% of the money, more lucrative for them than Amazon, which is thought to demand 50% of the take. Reiner thinks Apple means to make a million of the widgets a month to start.
Amazon Web Services announced GoodData as the winner of the third annual AWS Start-Up Challenge. At an awards ceremony at the Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale, California, GoodData was awarded $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS service credits and an investment offer from Amazon. During the final round of judging, seven finalists presented their businesses to judges from Amazon and venture capital firms. The winner was chosen based on the originality of their idea, marketplace need, ability to execute, and their implementation of AWS. Amazon Web Services provides reliable, scalable and secure infrastructure services on demand
Apple® iPhone users can now tap into real time global market data and prices for oil, gas, metals, agriculture and other commodities with the launch today of an iPhone compatible version of AspectDSC - the Web-based information and decision support system for traders from Aspect Enterprise Solutions.
AspectDSC (Decision Support Center) is the world's first wholly Web-based markets information resource and gives commodity traders, buyers, sellers, analysts and end users a trusted single source for news and prices - together with advanced analytics - to support minute-by-minute financial decisions.
The iPhone move marks a significant expansion for the Aspect solution according to the company's CEO Steve Hughes. "AspectDSC has consistently remained a first choice for energy and commodity professionals wanting to do business on the move through their PDAs and smartphones. iPhone compatibility takes us into a new and fast-growing sector of the market where mobility, speed of access and accuracy of information are key."
As well as iPhone, AspectDSC is also available on desktop, Blackberry® and a wide range of other mobile devices. It provides both real-time and historical spot and futures prices and news for energy, metals, agricultural and other commodities. Built-in decision support tools are included alongside advanced charting to more quickly uncover revenue opportunities, and enhance profitability in buy/sell decisions.
Delivered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application, AspectDSC requires no software to be installed, is easy to support and simple to learn and use. Users can customize the solution to their own specific needs, displaying as little or as much information as they require.
Already widely deployed with global traders, brokerage companies and financial institutions as well as commodity producers, processors and dealers, AspectDSC combines some of the world's most respected sources of market information including NYMEX, ICE, Forex, LME, COMEX and CBOT together with publishers like Platts, Dow Jones and the BBC.
About Aspect Enterprise Solutions
Aspect Enterprise Solutions provides enterprise class market information, trade and decision support tools for energy, metals and commodities professionals. The company delivers near real time position keeping, risk management, market prices and intelligence to users virtually anywhere, anytime. Trusted by over 500 corporations in more than 80 countries, the company's solutions routinely support more than $10Bn of transactions every day. They go live quicker, fit more exactly and deliver greater ROI yet cost far less to implement than first generation offerings. See http://www.aspectenterprise.com for more information.
Apple and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
Aspect Enterprise Solutions:
Jane Pryce-Jones
jpryce-jones@aspectenteprise.com
+44 (0)20 7632 0170
PR Agency:
Sage Partnership
kevin@sagepartnership.com
+44 (0)1189 344007
Should the enterprise standardize on JSON or XML as their lingua franca for Web 2.0 integration? Or should they use both as best fits the application?The decision impacts more than just integration – it resounds across the entire infrastructure and impacts everything from security to performance to availability of those applications.
One of the things a developer may or may not have control over when building enterprise applications is the format of the data used to communicate (integrate) with other applications. 
Increasingly services external to the enterprise are very Web 2.0 in that they provide HTTP-based APIs for integration that exchange data in one of a couple of standard formats: XML and JSON. While RSS and ATOM are also seen in APIs as options, these are generally used only when the data being presented is frequently updated and of a “listing” style nature. XML and JSON are used to deliver more complex structures that do not fit well in to the paradigm described by RSS and ATOM formatted information. Increasingly libraries or toolkits are used to build interactive Web 2.0 style applications – XAJAX, SAJAX, Dojo, Prototype, script.aculo.us – and these, too, generally default to XML or JSON, though other formats are often supported as well.
So as you’re building out that Web 2.0 style application and thinking about the API you’re going to offer to make it easier for partners/customers/other departments to handle integration with their Web 2.0 style applications – or even thinking about the way in which data will be exchanged with the client (browser) - you need to think carefully about the choice you’re making. There are pros and cons to both JSON and XML, and the choice has implications outside the confines of application development in your organization.
The debate on which is “best” or “optimal” is far from over, and it’s likely to eclipse – for developers anyway – the religious-style wars over the choice of browser. Even mainstream technology coverage is taking an interest in the subject. A recent piece from C|NET on “NoSQL and the future of cloud databases” says “Mapping object data to JSON, a JavaScript data interchange format, is far less complex. The "schemaless" nature of many of these products is an excellent fit with agile development methodologies.” Indeed, schemaless data formats are certainly more flexible, but that flexibility has a price that may need to be paid by the rest of the infrastructure.
If intermediaries can’t parse the data format natively – or at a minimum have the capability to implement a parsing scheme – application delivery becomes problematic. This is especially true for security-related infrastructure because you’re effectively losing the ability to apply valuable security policies and functionality that is tied to application-specific data. Effectively you’re reducing what is (or could be) an application-aware network back to a circa 1999 network: little more than a set of dumb pipes.
This can also result in certain network services no longer being usable on the data: caching, for example, relies heavily on understanding the data and objects being returned. While most understand and can act on XML, not many are up to speed on JSON or <insert custom format here>. Using a format that is unknown to the caching solution can result in a loss of caching functionality in the network. That puts the burden for caching back on the web and application servers, which requires resources. Resources used to support caching takes away from the resources available for core application processing, which reduces overall capacity and can impact the ability to service customers. Security, too, may be impacted – from application firewall functionality and capabilities down to integration with identity stores for authentication and authorization.
In general, there are a wide variety of solutions that support XML across a broad category of functions. There are far fewer that natively support JSON.
Before making a decision go talk to the network, application network, and security teams. Determine whether there is a concern over the use of one format over another and then be sure to factor that into the decision making process. You still might need for business or technical reasons to choose a format that might negate the ability to use some infrastructure solutions most effectively, but at least you’ll have made an informed decision and understand the ramifications of that choice.
The key is that you’re aware of the data formats in the first place, as they directly impact the usability of infrastructure solutions to perform their given functions in your environment on your data.
Before making a purchasing decision on a product designed to manipulate or apply policies based on layer 7 data, talk to the development teams. Determine what formats are being used in a broad sense: XML, JSON, SOAP, HTML, RSS, ATOM, etc… and take that list with you when you evaluate solutions. Make support of those formats – or at a minimum the ability to be extended to support those formats – part of the decision making process. As with developers you might have an overriding business or technical requirement that forces the decision away from a product that can support those formats natively, but at least you’ll be able to explain to management why if or when the subject comes up.
It’s no longer enough just to categorize applications by name (PeopleSoft, Exchange, SharePoint) or even style (“Web 2.0”, Client-Server). It’s more important than ever that applications also be understood based on the data formats they use to exchange information both with consumers and with each other via APIs, and that not only developers take an interest in what data formats are being utilized.
Related blogs & articles:
I had an opportunity to audit a computer science class this week at Washington University, a class that was teaching students how to write iPhone apps. It was their final presentation, and I got to see a dozen apps that were very impressive. As I was watching the kids present, I was thinking back to [...]
Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound as this classic disruptive technology begins to proliferate, so it is no surprise that SYS-CON's industry-leading International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is going from strength to strength.
The Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) has released SPECjEnterprise2010, a new benchmark that measures full-system performance for Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) application servers, databases and supporting infrastructure. SPECjEnterprise2010 was developed by SPEC’s Java subcommittee, which includes AMD, HP, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP, and Sun Microsystems.
Sun has released VirtualBox 3.1.0, it's cross-platform virtualisation software to include support for 2D video acceleration for Windows guests. Virtual Box is available in two versions.The open source edition is available under the GPL, but is only available from Sun as source code. The full version is also available free of charge, but under a personal use and evaluation license that requires you to " use the Product on the same Host Computer where you installed it yourself and that no more than one client connect to that Host Computer at a time for the purpose of displaying Guest Computers remotely."
How big can they get? What's the largest so far detected? Where does an 18 billion solar mass black hole hide? A SpaceRipTV original in collaboration with Space.com
My colleague, Peter Palmieri, just penned a blog post about Microsoft’s recent announcement that the Azure platform will offer extensive and familiar relational database features via SQL Data Services (SDS). In his post, Leveraging Skills, Peter discusses the fact that .NET developers will be able to leverage their existing SQL Server database skills when developing against the Azure platform.
After watching my PB refactoring eTutorial, you’re getting a glimmer of the potential confidence, joy and power of refactoring in a test driven manner. No doubt you’re already familiar with the uncomfortable feeling of slogging though ponderous legacy code. Now you are beginning to know the benefits of refactoring; you know the smells, and you know the catalog of techniques. You can’t wait get your hands on some legacy code. You know exactly what to do to whip it into shape. Legacy code, watch out, here I come.
Goldman Sachs claims the corporate PC and PC server refresh will be one of the most important trends in technology over the next two years, positively impacting software and semiconductors as well as hardware. It’s projecting PC growth of 12% next year and 13% in 2011, when the cycle should peak. Revenue growth, however, will be limited to the low to mid-single digits because of aggressive pricing and the shift to lower-end desktops and notebooks. It figures Dell will be the biggest beneficiary because of its outsized exposure to the enterprise.
In this white paper you will see how to boost performance with Terracotta’s Ehcache caching products, identify how to select which Ehcache product is right for your application, and see in performance comparison based on Spring’s PetClinic application how Terracotta stacks up against the database, a leading in-memory data grid (IMDG), and memcached.In short, see why over 100,000 deployments already rely on Terracotta’s Ehcache line of products for a simple cost-effective approach to boosting performance, scale, and reliability for Java applications. Terracotta Ehcache caching products allow your application to utilize the full power of the Terracotta platform by providing a simple plugin object cache using the industry standard Ehcache interface or Ehcacheʼs plug-in support for the the JSR-107 interface. Terracotta Ehcache products also may be used as a Hibernate second level cache. For your convenience, information from your member profile has been used to fill out this form as far as possible. Please provide any remaining information requested, then click 'Submit'.
There are many good reasons to go down the virtual infrastructure road. The illusion that it’s cheaper than dedicated hardware solutions is not one of them.
I was reading an interesting predictive article on WAN optimization that contends that virtualized WAN optimization controllers (WOC) are, well, just better than sliced bread. One of the reasons why the author opined this way was presented as the great benefits of horizontal scalability (linear) in cloud computing environments.
Savings and scalability. This approach ensures that there is no need for dedicated hardware to support WAN optimization, saving on CAPEX and OPEX. Cost savings will also be realized through virtual scalability. As enterprises add more services or applications to be accessed by additional remote workers via the cloud, the virtualized WAN optimization model will be able to scale linearly.
The implication here is clear: WAN optimization via virtual solutions saves CAPEX and OPEX over dedicated hardware and additional savings are achieved through virtual scalability. But that’s ignoring that the initial investment cost is simply shifted from CAPEX to longer-term OPEX when scalability enters the picture. Not just scalability of the solution, but the impact of application and virtual infrastructure scalability on the solution as well.
One of the reasons you see cost savings in cloud computing is that the costs of the hardware – the physical servers – are shared. You only pay a “nominal” fee per hour for using that hardware. The cost of that hardware is shared across hundreds of other customers, all seeking the same reduction in operating and capital expenditures. So far, so good. Sharing the physical hardware certainly does spread the cost around and results in a cheaper operating environment – at least for the customer.
But when you start virtualizing the infrastructure (as in virtual software equivalents) you generally don’t get to share the costs of the solution and you never share the costs of management. Most of the time you just share the same costs you do for any other generic virtual image: the underlying physical hardware. You’re also forced to scale horizontally based on the capacity constraints inherent in the virtual image. The provider and/or solution vendor sets the RAM/compute resources available for the virtual instance and if you need more resources when you’ve reached the largest configuration you’ll have to start scaling horizontally. Whether you want to or not. The second image incurs the same management costs as well as the hourly fees. Likely, too, you’re paying for the licensing because virtual versions of solutions aren’t free, after all, unless you’re leveraging open source solutions that are.
You don’t share those costs with anyone. They are yours, and yours alone. The buck passes from CAPEX to OPEX. CAPEX is reduced, yes, but OPEX? Not so much. Perhaps that’s better from an accounting point of view, but from a total cost perspective it doesn’t really change much.
perspective, but it is just as disruptive a process and may lead to jumping onto the horizontal scalability path earlier rather than later because it is so easy to simply “add another instance” when compared to “upgrade to a new image.” Consider, too, that deploying virtual infrastructure means it is not integrated with the rest of the environment. That may not sound bad, until you realize that automatic scalability means new instances of applications – and perhaps other infrastructure solutions - may be popping up that you need to manage via the infrastructure. How is the infrastructure going to know about it? Either you are manually managing this process or you are going to be doing some integration work. That’s yet another soft-cost of “scalability” that isn’t factored into the equation when comparing hardware to virtual infrastructure.
Contrast that to a model in which services are provided via shared hardware infrastructure solutions. The cost of the hardware is not nominal. But like the rest of the physical infrastructure its costs are shared across all customers. Providing traditional network and application network solutions as services is inherently better suited to a cloud computing environment in that it allows the management costs to be shared (the provider manages the solution, not the customer) and is completely on-demand. Scalability is not the concern of the customer and generally speaking the limitations on RAM/compute resources do not exist in the same way they exist in virtual solutions. Bandwidth in both scenarios can be limited or unlimited, depending on requirements and implementation. Integration should also be taken care of by virtue of the fact that it’s a part of the cloud computing environment and the provider likely wants to ensure that they are billed properly for services rendered.
The current method of deploying a virtual infrastructure actually breaks the “shared resources, shared costs” model of cloud computing and negates the cost savings associated with the elimination of CAPEX for the hardware with the OPEX costs of management, integration, licensing, and a more constrained operating environment that ultimately leads to the need to scale out sooner than would otherwise be required. Certainly a shared model could be implemented via virtualized software solutions, but this model has the same implementation roadblocks as hardware solutions that lead to non-implementation today. Virtual infrastructure shifts many of the management and maintenance-related burdens offloaded by a public cloud computing model back onto the organization and requires more vigilance and dedication to ensuring the overall architecture is operating as expected.
I’m not arguing against virtual infrastructure in theory or against the control and choice they offer customers. There are challenges with such implementations, mind you, but that’s not really the point today. I’m simply arguing against the “it’s cheaper” mantra that is patently false and fails to take into consideration all the variables in the equation and instead focuses only on the most tangible ones.
There are certainly benefits realized from both deployment models and it is up to the organization to decide which model is right for them. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking virtual infrastructure is a “cheaper” solution, because when you step back and take a look at the entire cost of a solution, that’s just not the case and in fact a services-enabled infrastructure may be a much more financially advantageous solution – except for the provider.
Which may be the real reason the only option you ever have is a virtual one.
Related blogs & articles:
Oracle provides the Smart Update utility to upgrade WebLogic Server installations between versions, or to apply specific patches applied by Oracle Support. This post considers upgrading a 10.3.1 server to 10.3.2, not applying patches. As usual your mileage may vary so be diligent in checking these instructions beforehand.
The Oracle Smart Update utility is documented here.
The general steps to run the Oracle Smart Update utility and upgrade the server are as follows:
1) Ensure your WLS and any managed servers are not running. In turn it would be a good idea to backup your server before running this procedure, in particular if it's a production server.
2) (For whatever reason I couldn't invoke the following utility from Windows Explorer, so I had to invoke it via the command line)
2.1) Under Windows open the command prompt at <wls_home>utilsbsu
2.2) Execute the bsu.cmd. This displays the Oracle Smart Update dialog to enter your Oracle Support user ID and password:
3) Assuming your login details are correct you'll be presented with the Oracle Smart Update dialog. This can take some time to open as the utility scans your existing WLS patches
4) You may be prompted to "Register for security updates", take your choice, be annoyingly nagged by Oracle, or miss applying security patches in the future:
5) The end result:
6) The Target Installation tree on the left hand side shows you the WLS servers the patch engine will work with. We're not interested in the content on the right. Presumably it includes one off patches to apply as supplied by Oracle Support, or hot security fixes applying to all WLS installations. I've yet to see one of these so can't comment on what you'll actually see.
7) To upgrade your WLS between versions you apply a "Maintenance Pack". Click on the same named menu option followed by the sub-option Update. This launches the BEA Smart Update dialog. On selecting your existing WLS server in the left tree, you'll see the option to apply the Upgrade Option in the right, in this case specifically WebLogic Platform (10.3.2.0):
The Oracle documentation for Maintenance Pack installations is here.
8) Selecting the Ok button will display a download dialog:
9) On the file downloading you'll be presented with the Oracle Installer for WebLogic 10.3.2.0:
10) Again you'll get a chance to "Register for security updates". Be brave and skip it:
11) The next page allows you to specify the download location of any additional files, whether the files should be removed after installation, and the HTTP Proxy options to get through your firewall including username and password:
12) You'll then get another download screen and a chance for a coffee or 2 (make that 4):
If the downloads fails half way through, don't give up as the download utility supports resumes, just wait for it to timeout and then ask it to continue downloading.
13) You'll then be given one last chance to back out:
14) After which there's no backing out:
15) Just click Done on the final page. If the QuickStart dialog shows, close it:
16) In turn the BEA Smart Upgrade dialog will also show detailing the new 10.3.2 upgrade. You'll note in the lower part of the right window, you can downgrade from 10.3.2 to 10.3.1 if necessary. You can close this dialog:
17) Returning to the Oracle Smart Update window it'll misreport the current version which you can ignore.
18) To verify the install the easiest thing is to start your managed servers and then access the console login. At the bottom of the page you'll see the server version:
19) It's probably worth investigating the server logs to see if any unexpected exceptions have been thrown.
A documentary film produced for Forced Migration Online, Oxford University (January 2007). Uyghurs formerly from East Turkistan / Xinjiang, China discuss their reasons for leaving and lives in Europe, Turkey and the USA. www.forcedmigration.org
DVD: http://www.nuoviso.com Millions of people believe that evidence proves that Western intelligence services organised the hideous attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. Even the mainstream media have stopped defending the official version and now prefer to ignore the issue altogether.
Made during the Clinton Administration to help people learn the names of the enemy (bigwigs in corporations); Michael Moore institutes an annual Awful Truth Man of The Year award. / Moore thinks one of the worst things about this whole Clinton/Lewinsky scandal is the obnoxious pundits seen on network television. He decides to have a Pundit Challenge. / Moore receives a restraining order.
A Look Back at Brown vs. Board of Education. A 2004 documentary produced by the Baltimore Sun.
You need not to opt for recovery service, if your hard drive is physically intact and working properly. If all the hard drive internals are working properly, you would be able to start your system and access data from it. However, the the internal components of your computer hard drive gets damaged, you can not retrieve data from it and you need to opt for data recovery services for easy and quick accessing of your valuable and mission critical data. Each file that you store on your computer hard drive is crucial from your business point of view. When you lose even a single file, you might feel lost. Particularly for the businesses, loss of valuable files might prove a real disaster. Although, the manufacturers might give you guarantee of the hardware, but when a problem occurs in your drive, you can not retrieve data from it. Manufacturers can only replace the damaged hard drive if it is in guarantee period, but could not help you to get your data back.
So far I’ve remained relatively aloof from the whole “eBook” craze. Ordinarily, given my geeky background and borderline insane craving for technology, one would think that I’d be all over these things. The problem is, my love for the written word also extends to a love for the experience of reading a book. Call me crazy, but I love the smudged thumbs I get from a 3-hour reading session where the real world ceased to exist and it was just me and my alternate reality, lovingly prepared for me by my favorite authors. I love the smell of books and the feel of curling up with a book in a comfortable chair with a ridiculously strong coffee.
A JetBlue Embraer ERJ-190, registration N279JB performing flight B6-904 from Chicago O'Hare, IL to New York JFK, NY (USA) with 64 passengers and 4 crew, was on final visual approach to JFK's runway 31R descending through 2000 feet, when the crew reported they needed to abort the approach due to a slat/flap indication. The airplane climbed back up to 3000 feet and was vectored to allow the crew troubleshoot the problem. The crew requested the longer runway 31L and advised, their approach speed would be "a little bit higher" and requested the emergency services on standby and subsequently declared emergency due to an abnormal flaps indication. The airplane landed safely on runway 31L 25 minutes after aborting the first approach and taxied to the apron.
Delegates will leave Virtualization Expo with a full understanding of the interaction between virtual servers and the rest of the data center infrastructure. Indeed our overall aim is to ensure that all attendees leave the Jacob Javits Convention Center with abundant resources, ideas and examples they can apply immediately to leveraging Virtualization in their own corporate datacenter, on the desktop, and elsewhere. If you wish to submit a speaking proposal for the 8th Virtualization Expo, April 19–21, 2010, then you can do so right here
These days the popularity of Ext JS (a JavaScript library) is gaining momentum. One of the most popular widgets within Ext JS is the DataGrid. The reason – displaying data from a database is one of the most common tasks of a web application. “Out of the box” the DataGrid has functionality (for instance ascending or descending sorting and reordering of columns by dragging it) that otherwise would require some effort from developers.
