Want to know what gets my blood pressure up? It's when there's both a huge shift in thinking around how we should do computing, namely cloud computing, and at the same time, there's a bunch of information out there that causes confusion. As cloud computing hype spikes to a frenzy, so does the number of less-than-intelligent things that I hear about it and its relationship to SOA. We've got a herd mentality in IT. We're always chasing the next paradigm shift, which seems to come along every five years, claiming that whatever the last paradigm shift was had "failed" and that's why we're looking at something new. However, these hype-driven trends are often complementary, and so the real power is in figuring out how known approaches fit with what's new, and not look to replace, but how to build on the foundation. The best case for that scenario has been how SOA benefit... (more)

The Top 150 Players in Cloud Computing

Cloud Expo Early Bird Savings A robust ecosystem of solutions providers is emerging around cloud computing. Here, SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Journal expands its list of most active players in the fast-emerging Cloud Ecosystem, from the 'mere' 100 we identified back in January of this year, to half as many again - testimony, if any further were needed, to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing. Editorial note: The words in quotation marks used to describe the various services and solutions in this round-up are in every case taken from the Web sites cited. As ever we encourage software engineers, developers, IT operations managers, and new/growing companies in every case to "suck it and see" by downloading or otherwise sampling the offering in question for themselves. (Omissions to this Top 150 list sh... (more)

Intacct and SCORE Joined to Bring Cloud Computing to Small Businesses

"Small and mid-sized businesses can use cloud computing to actively manage their financial performance by becoming continuously aware of their financial position and collaborate with trusted CPA advisors to make the best possible business decisions," said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA2Biz. "We are very excited to connect thousands of AICPA member firms with both Intacct and SCORE to help SCORE's clients become more profitable and productive." SCORE, source of free and confidential small business advice for entrepreneurs, and Intacct, a cloud financial management and accounting applications, on Monday announced an exclusive partnership that will benefit SCORE and the more than one million businesses SCORE helps to start and grow every year. Intacct and SCORE have joined forces to support SCORE's mission of facilitating entrepreneur education and the form... (more)

Internet Of @ThingsExpo Interview with Distrix: Transporting Data and IoT

Click Here to View Video on YouTube "Distrix fits into the overall cloud and IoT model around software-defined networking. There's a broad category around software-defined networking that's focused on data center, and we focus on the WAN," explained Jay Friedman, President of Distrix, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the Internet of @ThingsExpo, held June 10-12, 2014, at the Javits Center in New York City. Explore Internet of @ThingsExpo Sponsorship & Exhibit Opportunities ! A Rock Star Faculty, Top Keynotes, Sessions, and Top Delegates! Internet of @ThingsExpo 2014 Silicon Valley, November 4-6, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading IoT industry players in the world. The growth and success of Internet of Things will be on display at the upcoming Internet of @ThingsEx... (more)

Fixing the Agile Digital Transformation | @DevOpsSummit #Agile #DevOps

Enterprises are finally realizing that digital transformation must be end-to-end if they want to remain competitive in today’s software-driven, customer-focused world – but virtually every large organization has a massive boat anchor dragging them down – slow IT. Legacy technology woes are bad enough – but what really makes slow IT slow are the people and the processes they follow. Nobody likes to change, yet change is what digital transformation is all about. Some organizations look for shortcuts. Let fast go fast and let slow go slow, Gartner says – but that road leads to ruin, as competitiveness slips through the fingers of executives fool enough to take such advice. Instead, we must fix slow. Not an easy task, to be sure – but nevertheless quite achievable. And yet, every enterprise will face its unique challenges as it wends its way toward successful transformat... (more)

Waterfall Development | @DevOpsSummit @CollabNet #AI #DevOps #Serverless

Don't go chasing waterfall ... development, that is. According to a recent post by Madison Moore on Medium featuring insights from several software delivery industry leaders, waterfall is - while still popular - not the best way to win in the marketplace. With methodologies like Agile, DevOps and Continuous Delivery becoming ever more prominent over the past 15 years or so, waterfall is old news. Or, is it? Moore cites a recent study by Gartner: "According to Gartner's IT Key Metrics Data report, the waterfall method as employed on 56% of development efforts in 2015, with iterative methods used in 21% of projects and agile in 23%." While Agile has been the buzzword of the decade, it seems many organizations still haven't fully adopted the practice yet. While many cite the fallbacks of waterfall development - no feedback loops, rigid structure and requirements-based ... (more)

It's a Wireless, Wireless World

Wireless, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Mention wireless, and you can step back and watch the conversation spin for hours around differing definitions and approaches. In some minds, wireless is all about cell phones, and consequently is a completely consumer-oriented market. To others, wireless includes a much larger host of technologies, including things like wireless networks, PDAs, cell phones, and other embedded or proprietary devices, things like the pad UPS hands you to sign for your delivery. And to some it's a question of consumer versus industrial applications. Given this diversity within the wireless market itself, it's not surprising that the concept of Web services on wireless is one that can be interpreted in a number of ways. This is especially true in light of the fact that we can't really get one firm definition of what Web services is. ... (more)

DataPower Technology Delivers World's Fastest XML Web Services Security Gateway

(January 14, 2003) - The DataPower XS40 XML Security Gateway, a first-of-its-kind network device built to secure XML-based applications at wirespeed across the entire enterprise, has just been released. The XS40 is the only device to combine wirespeed performance, comprehensive security, and future-proof agility to allow enterprises to overcome what is widely perceived as the largest barrier to adopting XML Web services both internally and externally. While there is tremendous business value in XML Web services, Gartner reports that security continues to be the largest obstacle to getting them into production. Enterprises require a new pragmatic approach to XML Web services security. The XS40 is an easy-to-install and maintain network appliance that satisfies both application and network groups and supports current and pending security standards out-of-the-box. All... (more)

Altova and DataPower Team to Deliver First XML Development Environment for Configuration of Web Services Security Policies

(March 17, 2003) - Altova, Inc.'s XMLSPY 5 XML development tool set is now integrated with the Datapower XS40 XML Security Gateway. Using XMLSPY 5 and the XS40 enterprises can for the first time centralize XML Web Services security functions in a drop-in, reliable network device while all security policies and access control are handled from an interface familiar to application developers. With the integration of XMLSPY 5 and the XS40, enterprises can substantially reduce the time it takes to secure and launch applications into deployment. While many application developers provide security functions deep within an application, many enterprises are centralizing XML Web services security in security gateways that allow a network operations group to secure and monitor multiple applications simultaneously. Security policies within the DataPower XS40 are completely XML-b... (more)

Bringing Order to Enterprise Service Proliferation

UDDI has been around for almost three years now. It has gone from an initial proposal by three companies (Ariba, IBM, and Microsoft), to a consortium effort (www.uddi.org) with a community of hundreds, and finally into the hands of the OASIS standards body. Along the way, the original specification has gone through two additional revisions. Perhaps more important, with each new revision the business value of UDDI has shifted from being a registry of public services to a central fixture in private EAI and partner-integration efforts. The most recent version of UDDI, V3, continues this trend by making UDDI more usable as a common service registry inside an extended enterprise and between partners. Thus this technology, originally designed for publishing and discovering Web services, can today be leveraged by enterprises to provide a complete solution for managing acc... (more)

Comdex Bites The Dust...Again

Comdex Bites the Vegas Dust MediaLive International Inc's diligent efforts "to determine how Comdex can best meet the future needs of the industry" have apparently led the company to the conclusion that it can best serve the industry by not taking place at all. Again. For the second year running. San Francisco-based MediaLive said last year they were "postponing" the 2004 show, but not to worry - the show would be back in 2005. In response to which SYS-CON's West Coast bureau chief wrote at the time: "I doubt it. Rather, this sounds like the death knell for the one event that described the arc of the personal computer business, from its informal, hippiefied beginnings in Atlantic City in the 70s, through an exuberant decade running from the late 80s through the late 90s, to some alarming wretched excess in 2000, to its swift and apparently fatal downfall in the 21st c... (more)