Red Hat's JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.1 offers open source data virtualization

FRIDAY, 11 MARCH 2011 08:15

Red Hat

Red Hat Inc., a provider of open source solutions, announced this week the availability of JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.1, which includes new extensions for data services integration.

JBoss Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.1, a superset of JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.1, is an open source data virtualization and integration platform that includes tools to create data services out of multiple data stores with different formats, presenting information to applications and business processes in an easy-to-use service. These data services become reusable assets across the enterprise and value chain, increasing return on data assets, enabling faster time-to-solution, and driving better business execution.

"Being able to integrate and synchronize useful information out of a wide range of disparate data sources remains a serious stumbling block to the enterprise," said Craig Muzilla, vice president and general manager, Middleware Business Unit at Red Hat. "JBoss Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.1 is a flexible, standards-based integration and data virtualization solution built on JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform that delivers more efficient and cost-effective application and data integration techniques, allowing enterprises to more fully realize the value of their data."

All businesses draw upon many different data sources and formats to run their applications. In many cases, these data sources are hardwired into applications through data access frameworks that reduce agility and make control and compliance difficult. This data architecture counters the agility and cost-savings benefits delivered by service-oriented architectures (SOA) by forcing redundant data silos for each application.

JBoss Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.1 addresses these problems by virtualizing multiple data stores simultaneously, delivering data services consumable by multiple applications and business processes. By leveraging the integrated JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.1, the information delivered using data virtualization can more easily be integrated into the business leveraging the ESB included with the platform.

"The JBoss Enterprise SOA platform is enabling us to better integrate applications, leverage existing assets and deliver uniform services that expedite time-to-value for our customers," said Joe Dickman, senior vice president at Vizuri. "Because of an attractive subscription model and component design, the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform allows our team to focus on more highly valued business integration tasks and less on any issues that might arise from integrating disparate IT platforms."

JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.1 includes Apache CXF web services stack, JBoss Developer Studio 4.0, which features updated SOA tooling for ESB and data virtualization, technology preview of WS-BPEL, which delivers service orchestration, technology preview of Apache Camel Gateway, which is an enterprise integration pattern framework that brings an expanded set of adapters to JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform, and updated certifications including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Windows 2008, IBM, and JDK.

"The flow of data from new and emerging channels has evolved from a trickle into a deluge, making information management and integration a priority for the enterprise in 2011," said Judith Hurwitz, president and CEO of Hurwitz & Associates. "JBoss Enterprise Data Services Platform is focused on advancing the ability to abstract information and metadata to help the business gain control of their business."

With its data services extension support, JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform follows the JBoss Open Choice strategy, as Red Hat offers a choice of integration architectures, messaging platforms and deployment options without locking enterprises into a single vendor or monolithic system. Additionally, both JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.1 and JBoss Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.1 are designed to leverage past technologies and present solutions such as SOA integration through the ESB, event-driven architecture (EDA) and data virtualization while building a foundation to support future integration paradigms, such as integrating cloud, hybrid and on-premise data, services and applications.

Along with JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.1, Red Hat is offering a new two-day training course, JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform - ESB Implementation, which is focused on developing and deploying ESB providers and services using JBoss Developer Studio and JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform.

Amazon's Cloud-Computing Guru Honed Skills Fixing Lamborghinis

Amazon.com (AMZN) Vice-President James Hamilton's schooling in computer data centers started under the hood of a Lamborghini Countach.

Fixing luxury Italian autos in British Columbia while in his 20s taught Hamilton, 51, valuable lessons in problem solving, forcing him to come up with creative ways to repair cars because replacement parts were hard to find. "It's amazing how many things you can pick up in one industry and apply to another," Hamilton, who has also been a distinguished engineer at Amazon since 2009, says in an interview.

Hamilton is putting these skills to use at Amazon, where he's central to an effort by Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos to make Amazon Web Services, which leases server space and computing power to other companies, as big as the core e-commerce business. He's charged with finding ways to make data centers work faster and more efficiently while fending off competition from Microsoft (MSFT) and IBM (IBM), his two prior employers, and AT&T (T).

Revenue from the kinds of cloud services offered by Amazon is likely to surge to $56 billion in 2014, from more than $16 billion in 2009, according to research firm IDC. Amazon's Web services brought in about $500 million in revenue in the past year, according to estimates from Barclays Capital and Lazard Capital Markets, or about 1.5 percent of Amazon's $34.2 billion in sales. The company doesn't disclose revenue from Web services, also called cloud computing.

MARGIN CONCERN

As they pursue growth, Hamilton and his team will have to ensure that Amazon's investment in Web services is well-spent. Investors pummeled shares of Seattle-based Amazon on Jan. 28, the day after the company said it would boost spending on data centers and warehouses, fueling concern that margins will narrow.

Although still relatively small, Amazon Web Services is growing at a faster rate than the company's core business, and it's more profitable, says Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at Caris & Co. Web services may generate as much as $900 million in sales this year, and operating margins could be as wide as 23 percent, compared with 5 percent margins in the main business, Aggarwal says. "There aren't many companies with an incremental business that's more profitable than their core business," he says.

Hamilton, who has filed almost 50 patents in various technologies, is tasked with developing new ideas in cloud computing, which lets companies run their software and infrastructure in remote data centers on an as-needed basis, rather than in a computer room down the hall.

He spends much of his time shuttling between departments, encouraging teams focused on storage, databases, networking, and other functions to work together. One aim: devising ways to squeeze costs out of multimillion-dollar data centers and pass those savings on to customers such as Eli Lilly (LLY) and Netflix (NFLX).

NASCENT INDUSTRY

Hamilton and the teams must figure out how to build the business on the fly. Cloud computing is so nascent that engineers can't rely on case studies or past industry experience to guide their decisions, says Lew Tucker, chief technology officer of cloud computing at Cisco Systems (CSCO). "This is not in college textbooks yet," says Tucker, who has followed Hamilton's work as an industry peer. "These architectures are new and evolving every day."

Google launches Person Finder for Japanese quake victims

Computerworld - Google was quick to launch a version of its People Finder service to help people find each other in the wake of the devastating 8.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan Friday.

The service, set up to work in both English and Japanese, is designed to let people inquire about others, as well as post information - where they are, their condition -- about themselves or someone else.

While Google notes on the site that it cannot verify the accuracy of any of the information put into the Person Finder app, all of the data is available to the public.

At 10:30 a.m. ET Google announced the new version of its People Finder service on Twitter early Friday morning.

Google also posted a tsunami warning on what is its generally sparse search home page. Just below the search bar, Google has written, "Tsunami Alert for New Zealand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, and others. Waves expected over the next few hours, caused by 8.9 earthquake in Japan."

As for its Person Finder, this isn't the first time that Google has quickly launched a new version of it in the wake of a tragedy.

In February of last year, Google created a Chili-centric version after a massive earthquake hit that country. And in January of 2010, Google created a Person Finder in the wake of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti.on Friday, the new app already had 7,200 records available.

An Easy Way to Speed Up Your Computer

A feature called ReadyBoost has been available since Windows Vista and it can help increase the performance of most computers. It basically uses any type of portable media such as a thumb drive, SD card, external hard drive, and CompactFlash as a cache for the operating system. ReadyBoost devices can typically be accessed 80-100 times quicker than your standard hard drive, this means that programs run faster and even your boot time can be decreased.

Ready to get started?

STEP 1:
The first thing you want to do is find a thumb drive or other media device that you are no longer using. Insert the device into your computer and then go to Start > Computer and“right-click” on the device and select “Format”. Even if the device is empty we want to make sure it is using the NTFS file system. Select “NTFS” from the file system and then hit “Start”. Your device is now using NTFS.

STEP 2:
“Right-click” on your device again and select “Properties”.

Step 3:
From the Properties menu select the “ReadyBoost” tab at the top of the menu. Then select“Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost” and hit “Apply”.

Your device is now using ReadyBoost and should look like the image below.