Web services is an emerging Internet programming paradigm that enables the remote invocation of software objects among heterogeneous systems over the Internet. There are two sides to Web services programming. On one side is the creation and deployment of Web service objects onto Internet servers; on the other side is the consumption of Web service objects in client programs or server applications. Due to the language-neutrality of the Web services paradigm, Web services can be created or consumed with different kinds of programming languages, including scripting languages such as Perl, Python, Tcl, and PHP. In this article, I'll explain and demonstrate the use of scripting to rapidly create and readily consume Web services over the Internet. Web Services Background Generally, the concept of "Web services" represents an enabling architecture for wide-area distribute... (more)

Learning from SOA Mistakes

Today, global businesses are increasingly turning to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for their information technology infrastructure and applications. SOA is becoming an increasingly practiced approach to building software solutions as it can support integration and consolidation of activities in complex enterprise systems. This year the percentage of functioning SOAs has almost doubled, according to Evans Data Corporation's latest Web Services development survey: "Twenty-four percent of respondents (the sample data set being 400) are saying they currently implement SOA, an 85% increase from last year." The survey also shows that Web Services are now experiencing more comprehensive implementation, with 30% of respondents predicting they will be using more than 20 services in the next year - a 58% increase from current levels. Twenty-five percent of respondents ... (more)

Who Are The All-Time Heroes of i-Technology?

I wonder how many people, as I did, found themselves thrown into confusion by the death last week of Jean Ichbiah (pictured), inventor of Ada.  Learning that the inventor of a computer programming language is already old enough to have lived 66 years (Ichbiah was 66 when he succumbed to brain cancer) is a little like learning that your 11-year-old daughter has grown up and left home or that the first car you ever bought no longer is legal because it runs on gasoline in an age where all automobiles must run on water. How can something as novel, as new, as a computing language possibly already be so old-fangled that an early practitioner like Ichbiah can already no longer be with us? The thought was so disquieting that it took me immediately back to the last time I wrote about Ichbiah, and indeed about Ada Lovelace for whom his language was named. It was in the context ... (more)

Application Performance Management Done Right

What is Application Performance Management (APM)? Like a lot of good questions, it depends on your business needs.  What is the goal of an ideal APM?  Does it mean 99.999% availability?  Perhaps it is a favorable overall end user experience when using the application but, as compared to what? My point is that Application Performance Management / Monitoring means different things to different businesses and it can even depend on the application involved. What is the Goal of APM “Begin with the goal in mind.” I wish I could take credit for that quote.  What is the goal of the APM? Have you listed out the objectives you hope to obtain from your APM strategy?  This approach will help your team ensure satisfaction with the final solution chosen.  Here are some examples. Minimum of 99.999% availability with lower Mean Time To Know (MTTK) and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) Less ... (more)

I’m Not Scared of #DevOps | @DevOpsSummit #APM #CD #Docker #Monitoring

DevOps is speeding towards the IT world like a freight train and the hype around it is deafening. There is no reason to be afraid of this change as it is the natural reaction to the agile movement that revolutionized development just a few years ago. By definition, DevOps is the natural alignment of IT performance to business profitability. The relevance of this has yet to be quantified but it has been suggested that the route to the CEO's chair will come from the IT leaders that successfully make the transition to a DevOps model. If this still seems foreign to you, I recommend reading up on DevOps Blog from IT Revolution, the OpsCode Blog, and check out The Phoenix Project. Despite all the talk around simple monitoring tools, breaking through the walls between Dev and Ops still poses a real challenge. This is because of a misunderstanding around Operations real purp... (more)

i-Technology Viewpoint: Thinking Outside the VC Box

Prior to the year 2000, business was a world in love with office spaces and corporate travel. We traveled to work (the office) every day. We traveled away from the office for customer meetings, for internal meetings, for conferences, for awards ceremonies. We traveled because we could and we believed that it was necessary for the competitive advantage. That all changed rather quickly with the economic downturn of the early 2000s and, of course, 9/11. In short order, we relearned how to do business by staying put. Another consequence of the most recent recession was corporate payroll compression. As good corporate citizens who are mindful of keeping our jobs, most of us were tasked with far more work than a single individual could perform adequately. To help make us more efficient, we introduced cell phones so that we could make calls while traveling, and WiFi-enabled... (more)

Cloud Computing Keynote at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo November 19-21 in Silicon Valley

In his Cloud Computing Keynote in San Jose, CA, on November 20th - entitled "A Head in the Cloud - The Power of Infrastructure as a Service" - the CTO of Amazon.com, Werner Vogels, will discuss the many challenges when building a reliable, flexible architecture that can manage unpredictable behaviors of today's Internet business. Building the right infrastructure that can scale up or down at a moment's notice, notes Amazon.com's VP & CTO Dr Werner Vogels, can be a complicated and expensive task. "But it's essential in today's business landscape," adds Vogels, who is the distinguished Keynote Speaker at SYS-CON's upcoming Cloud Computing Expo (November 19-21, 2008), a groundbreaking adjunct to the 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo in San Jose, CA (19-21 November, 2008). "This applies to an enterprise trying to cut-costs, a young business unexpectedl... (more)

IT Must Invest in Architecture and Engineering: Adaptivity CEO

Blueprint4IT on Ulitzer In this exclusive Q&A for SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Journal with Cloud Expo Conference Chair, Jeremy Geelan, Tony Bishop - Founder & CEO of Adaptivity - discusses Adaptivity's "IT Transformation Factory" and their Cloud Computing strategy. Bishop gave a General Session at the 5th Cloud Expo in New York in April entitled "Understanding the Relationship Between Workloads and the Cloud." About Tony Bishop: As Chairman and CEO, he leads the team and provides hands-on coaching, thought leadership and executive strategy support for Adaptivity's key clients and partners. He is an innovative IT executive, with an excellent track record in strategy, design, and the implementation of business-aligned enterprise technology platforms across large organizations. He most recently served as SVP and Chief Architect of Wachovia’s Corporate Investment Banking ... (more)

Cloud Architecture Diagramming Standards

Diagrammatic View of the System Using diagrams to represent the architecture of a system has been a standard in enterprise applications, so that the information about the system is conveyed to multiple stakeholders in a standardized form. Typically enterprises used 4+1 Views to depict the Architecture of the systems. The 4+1 View Model describes software architecture using five concurrent views, each of which addresses a specific set of concerns. The 4+1 model describes the architecture of software systems based on the use of multiple concurrent views. The views represent multiple stakeholders: End users Developers Project managers The four views are represented as: Logical View Implementation View Process View Deployment View Coupled with Selected Use Cases View, this successful model in representing the architectures diagrammatically is called the 4+1 View Model. The ... (more)

Driving Autopilot: The Key to Cloud Success at Cloud Expo 2011 New York

Cloud Expo 2011 New York $500 Savings here! There are several important factors for successful cloud deployment. While infrastructure - whether public, private or hybrid models - tends to dominate the discussion, applications are critical to establishing value in the cloud. Too often, organizations underestimate the effort required to deploy and manage cloud applications, thus experiencing costly delays that negate the cloud's benefits. In his session at the 8th International Cloud Expo, Marc Wilkinson, Director, Cloud Global Practice at HP Enterprise Business, will discuss both the engine and autopilot at the heart of cloud environments. He will also provide best practices from IT experts to equip attendees with the knowledge to build automated, repeatable processes that provide control, manageability and assurance for cloud success. Explore Cloud Expo Sponsorship... (more)

Moving to the Cloud – Benefits and Concerns

A recent survey from the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) found two-thirds of outsourcing customers currently do utilize or have plans to implement cloud computing solutions. Eighty percent of those surveyed indicated their organization intended to deploy more outsourcing services in the next year. In a recent Forrester report titled "Sizing the Cloud," it estimates a move from $40.7 billion spent on the global market for cloud computing in 2011 to more than $241 billion in 2020. The public cloud, which is under considerable scrutiny for security risks, will account for more than 66 percent of the total in 2020. For many enterprises, moving data and applications is really a question of "when" instead of "if." The cloud is a sea change in business, and is moving well beyond a fad stage. Security breaches and large-scale outages might pr... (more)