I have been thinking about Clouds. There is lots of noise (but hardly thunder). One area particularly attracts….

Assume that you have several (or many) separate applications running in your cloud. You want some or all of these applications to communicate. How do you do this?

From what I can see (and I do not see Amazon’s lightweight queuing as sufficient) there is a need for a memory based, inter-system messaging solution. This has to be able to be fast yet also be made transaction-friendly (there should be a demonstrable trade-off/choice – within the one solution – between reliability and speed which the user can select rather than have imposed).

Too me MQSeries is simply too plodding to be broad-based in a cloud. JMS is also probably too heavyweight. Something like RV might be more applicable.

There is an opportunity, in my assessment for someone to act and satisfy an opportunity that seems likely to grow and grow – and be applicable within private clouds, public clouds and especially hybrid public/private clouds.

Suggestions and/or comments are welcome.

In this blog , I will explain with simple example how to design Master/Detail BPEL Flow .For aurdience who has working knowledge of workflow it is very easy to understand and visualize the process, but Oracle BPEL has made it so simple …
For complete details Refer BPEL

This week’s great announcement revolves around Allianz’s $1M saving going Open-Source. The theaustralian.com.au article not only mention huge cost reductions by moving to Linux, but Alllianz’s substential savings are also coming from their move from IBM’s Websphere Application Server to JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.

Encouraged by the economic conditions and the growing mindshare around middleware Opensource, we see this trend accelerating accross the world and especially in Asia/Pacific, Japan.

There is 2 ways to start a migration to JBoss middleware.

1. Outsource – Contact our experts and services team, they offer migration assessment and pilot services
2. DIY – JBoss is contributing back the tools and methodology to assist you when migrating.

Resources: Migration Guide(PDF), JBoss Migration assistance project

If you want to read about success stories in your region or your industry, please check Red Hat Success Stories here.

Since about July, rumours have been around that SAP would buy Software AG. Since then, Software AG’s stock has gone up consistently:

Source: http://aktien.onvista.de/snapshot.html?ID_OSI=8615307&PERIOD=3#chart

For SAP, this could present an option to merge its NetWeaver investments with Software AG’s portfolio (mainly with the IDS and WebMethods parts) and Software AG would get access to an “execution engine.”

From SAP’s perspective, middleware is an enabler for selling applications and a source of high complexity. It is not a major contributor to license or maintenance revenue. A vendor like Software AG has a very different view: middleware was always a main focus and the business model is well understood.

For current and future Software AG customers a full takeover would not be a totally positive message. For them, two points matter:

• technical expertise and product features, and
• independence.

Middleware is used to integrate applications from diverse sources. With SAP as the sole owner, this extremely important aspect is likely to be biased in favor to SAP’s application portfolio. This is not just speculation: the very limited independence IDS enjoyed proves it and the fact that SAP lost all its OEM-customers after the acquisition of TopTier shows it, too.

On the other hand, SAP has strong ties with Software AG: IDS process management technology is used in many areas, including the SAP SolutionManager and the Business Connector, still in broad use in SAP’s installed base, contains WebMethods technology now owned by Software AG.

Software AG is doing quite well and may become acquired one day by a vendor like Oracle, Microsoft or IBM.  That could pose a potential problem for the other software company down the “Autobahn” as it might increase SAP’s exposure.

Although denied by Software AG’s majority owner, the Software AG Foundation (SAGST), a potential solution might lie in SAP becoming a minority investor thus securing a certain influence without eliminating Software AG’s role as a largely independent middleware vendor.

Middleware – especially BPM-middleware – is becoming increasingly important: for SAP users, it is a way to bridge into a more flexible world that unites their SAP-backbone with the plethora of modern solutions that promise higher agility and lower dependency. To venture into this new territory, customers have to be sure that they buy neither from one of the titans nor from vendors with an uncertain financial future. In this light, any investment from SAP (or any other titan) into Software AG beyond a minority investment is not in their best interest.

I had an interesting conversation with a CIO the other day about cloud computing. He had a simple question: I have an relatively old application and I want to move it to the cloud. How do I do that? I suspect that we will see a flurry of activity over the coming year where this question will be asked a lot.  And why not — the cloud is the rage and who wouldn’t want to demonstrate that with the cloud all problems are solved.  So, what was my answer to this CIO? Basically, I told him that all workloads do not belong in the cloud. It is not because this technically can’t be done. It can. It is quite possible to encapsulate an existing application and place it into a cloud environment so that new resources can be self-provisioned, etc. But, in reality, you have to look at this issue from an efficiency and an economic perspective.

Cloud computing gains an economic edge over a traditional data center when it supports a relatively small simple workload for a huge number of customers. For example, a singular workload like email or a payment service can be fairly optimized at all levels — the operating system, middleware, and the hardware can all be customized and tuned to support the workload. The economics favor this type of workload that support large numbers of customers. The same cannot be said for the poor aging Cobol application that is used by 10 people within an organization. While there might be incremental management productivity benefits, the cost/benefit analysis simply doesn’t work.

So, the answer is pretty simple. You just can’t throw every workload into the cloud. It is not a panacea for all IT problems.  Organizations that are trying to figure out what to do with these pesky old workloads need to look at three options:

1. Decide if that workload is still supporting business objectives in a cost effective manner. If it does the job, leave it alone.

2. That old workload might be better supported by traditional outsourcing. Let someone else keep the application alive while you move into more mission critical tasks.

3. Think about rebuilding that old workload — either by encapsulating key elements and placing them within a modular flexible environment. You might even discover that there are components that are actually useful across the organization. When you discover that sharing components across divisions/department is a productive and pragmatic approach, you might be ready to move those workloads into the cloud.

This second part of my E3 coverage takes a deeper look at some of the technology working behind the scenes that make these games so remarkable. There is so much attention given to covering the games at E3 and giving detailed features of the new games on the horizon. But what about the tools and technology used to create these cutting edge games? Where are we at with the development?

Round up the Game Engines

With all fantastic new games at the show, I thought I would do a roundup of top engines used in some of these titles. I picked a handful of games that stood out or where nominated in “Best of” categories to see what game engines were being used.

Here is a list of some of the games highlighted at the show:

What is apparent is that internal game engines are still predominantly used in the most highly anticipated games. Of the 23 games covered here 15 used internal engines, while 8 used third party solutions = 35%. Of course this is a very small sampling, but these games do provide a good representation of the top games listed in many Best of Show rakings for E3 this year.

So what does that mean? That some of the most graphically complex games are still dominated by internal engines. But I think a look outside this top echelon would show the adoption rate of third-party middleware is increasing. For example, Epic believes there were over 20 games on the show floor using Unreal Engine 3, and does not include games that were shown behind closed-doors.

One of the hit games at the show was Shadow Complex, developed by Chair Entertainment, an Epic subsidiary. What makes this game interesting is it is a side-scrolling game that combines 2D and 3D. Exclusively available on Xbox Live Arcade, Shadow Complex as a downloadable game, it also has an embedded system for tracking statics. Microsoft hopes games like Shadow Complex will augment more high-quality games through its fully-downloadable model.

Unreal’s Shadow Complex is an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive in both 2D/3D.

Bioware’s MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic was rated one of the top PC games at the show. It uses the real-time MMO game engine from Simutronics – HeroEngine. HeroEngine is finally starting to make waves as the first games are now hitting the market. Simutronics is no newcomer, the company itself has been plugging along for 20 years.

Emergent also made an announcement at the show that THQ signed a master licensing agreement to use the Gamebryo technology. The agreement enables both THQ’s internal and external developers to leverage rapid prototyping and iteration into their game development pipeline.

Trinigy is a German company that was at the show, and is the company behind the Vision Engine. Already well-established in Europe, the company has over 100 licensees including Ubisoft, Take 2, Firefly, Neowiz, Atari, Dreacatcher and Spellbound. Trinigy recently opened US offices in Austin and has been ramping up its position in the US market.

“The Vision Engine has been used in worldwide across every genre. We recently opened our sales and support operations in North America, and so far the response has been overwhelming,” said Felix Roeken, general manager of Trinigy. “The entire Vision Engine has been deliberately designed to mitigate risk, break down technical barriers and empower game developers to effortlessly push the limits of their imaginations.”

While not a game engine company, xaitment was at E3. Another German technology company, xaitment is also breaking into the US market. xaitment provides AI solutions to the games industry. Founded in 2004, a small German town on the border of France, whose university has the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). Earlier this year at GDC xaitment announced Chris Taylor’ Gas Power Games was going to be using its tools for several upcoming games. xaitment is also partnered with Emergent and Trinigy to integrate into their engines.

“While artificial intelligence has been around in the game space for some time, it has mainly focused on pathfinding and navigation,” said Markus Schneider, executive vice president of sales for xaitment. “We have expanded on that functionality by offering higher level AI in affordable, modular packages – an approach that has been met with wide interest across the games market.

All of these modules can be implemented separately depending on a studios’ needs, and all of them come with graphic user interfaces to help developers quickly create, test and re-use complex artificial intelligence scenarios.”

On the animation, paint and 3D modeling front Maxon’s Cinema4D garnered some well deserved attention. The cinematic trailer for Square Enix’s new game Front Mission Evolved received high praise. The trailer was created by Big Machine Design, who relied heavily on Cinema 4D. “Game cinematics and game promotion in general is one of the fastest growing areas for visual content creation,” notes Paul Babb, president of Maxon USA.

More on the Cloud Computing Folks

Even though OnLive made the official announcement months ago they were not attending E3, they were actually there with a very subtle presence. Trying to fend off cynics, the company set up a residential location close to the convention center where they were providing demos. The company specified that the server being used was located over 300 miles away and the streaming connection was supposedly 4 to 6 Mbps. Of course the reasoning for this was that fact that after GDC many people were skeptical of the company’s capabilities.

Also in attendance was David Perry, who was giving closed-door demos of Gaikai.com to potential investors and publishers. As the company’s co-founder, Perry commented to me, “Our demos went well at E3 and three major publishers said they would be interested in investing in our company during our live demos. We have many patents filed and our tech is in a very advanced state.”

Calling their technology “Streaming Worlds”, Gaikai supports 3D streaming.

In an interview with the BBC, Perry explained that Gaikai will host and manage the games that get streamed to the consumer using Flash. “If a hardcore gamer is playing WoW at home and wants to keep playing when they leave the house, they can. Then there is the social audience who wouldn’t want a PS3, but plays Flash games. For those people, they could play on games EVE Online and share them with their friends on things like Twitter and Facebook. Perry continues, “We are codec agnostic as different compression codecs are better at different things. One might be great for fast gameplay, one might be needed for pixel perfect streaming applications like PhotoShop.”

Stereoscopic Gaming – First Games Coming Soon

The idea of 3D games in stereo is still on the outer fringes of the market. With films just starting to make an impact with consumers it will be some time for the mindset of the consumer to move that experience into their living room. But the boom of 3D in films has exploded in just the last two years, more than doubling each year.  In 2010 it is estimated that there will be more than 35 3D films hitting the market.

In an announcement just made, Peter Jackson said he will only be doing 3D movies in the future and already has several movies in post production His comments reflect the growing movement by top-tier directors and producers to support the 3D option including Jeff Katzenberg and James Cameron.

So how is that translating in games? Well, this year there were at least four 3D games at the show:

Of course, the one getting the most attention was James Cameron’s Avatar. Development on Cameron’s Avatar started over 2 ½ years ago. And while the game was developed in parallel with the movie, it does not follow the same storyline. The game supports technology from a Montreal-based company called Sensio.  Sensio has over 10 years invested in its 3D technology, and was picked as the standard for next-generation DVD players.

Luxology, the maker of modo, the modeling and animation package just released version 401 of the product which supports stereoscopy. Brad Peebler, Luxology’s CEO, “We have just introduced stereoscopic rendering in modo. There is actually quite a bit to implementing stereo – for example our implementation provides a stereoscopic convergence distance channel (objects at this distance from the camera will appear in the same position in both left and right images).  We could have just used the focus distance for this, but this separate channel allows for stereoscopic rack focus shots.”

Pia Maffei, Executive Producer at Alioscopy, a manufacturer of 3D monitors, notes, “Hollywood is definitely fueling the market for 3D content. It is great there is more support for the content. It is a long-term cycle though, and the development pipeline needs to be reworked to better support the technical and creative aspects of developing in 3D.”

“Nobody talks about the development price of creating a 3D game from the ground up, because honestly, nobody knows”. Maffei continues, “But we are coming to a point where new skill sets are needed for 3D designers. CG toolsets are different than 3D toolsets, so a CG artist working on a 2D screen may not be as good when working on a 3D screen. There is a whole issue with perspective with 3D. If something pops out how will it make the rest of the screen look, and more importantly, will the consumer be able to make the distinction visually.”

Final Thought – The Importance of Critical Mass

As I’ve been saying, I believe the Gaming Renaissance Movement is in full force. There is a critical mass emerging on multiple levels. We are finally at the culmination, where the key elements are aligned for mass adoption. We now have:

• A wide range of developers and platforms.
• Accessible development tools that support the creative process rather than the programming process.
• Distribution channels that are opening up with broadband and mobile.
• Most importantly – Mass adoption by a wide range of consumers and consumer preferences.

It has taken much to get to this point. Most of the early companies that helped pioneer aspects of the technology no longer exist. For example, ten years ago Jon and I did a survey of games engines and found there were over 100 different engines. There were some great technology companies like 3dfx, ArtX, Criterion, and MathEngine – just a few that helped lay the foundation for where we are today.

What E3 2009 has shown us is there is still so much more on the horizon. These growth opportunities will extend the framework of creativity, technology and consumer interaction.

-WM

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Weblogic – Aqualogic Service Bus – EAI – Part 1

This blog is to gather my learnings and understandings about Weblogic(WL)’s Aqualogic Service Bus (ALSB). Initially, i could not appreciate this awesome product from BEA. ALSB is meant mostly for Webservices and SOAP requests. I was trying to use these functionalities for normal GET and POST requests in RESTful services. Before we proceed further, lets look at some basic SOA jargons.

Service Bus:

Service Bus is considered as Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) tool, that would facilitate easy integration of various services (that are building blocks of any software system). This integration tool is created with various technologies that are opted for software middleware infrastructure. So, please note that ESB is not a programing language itself.

Also, ESB is NOT an app or web server. This is an application (could be web application) that runs in an web container. So, if you want to play with ALSB, you would need both WL server and ALSB. You could download trial version which you can use for 60days.

Basic Features of an ESB:

1. Loose coupling of services in a software system. This would provide great flexibility of modifying / enhancing any part of the system without affecting much on the other dependents.
2. ESB should be standard based and flexible, and should support many transport mediums like Messaging Service, SOAP, XML and text etc.
3. It should allow integration with very less coding. In other words, should be configurable.
4. ESB should be more scalable and highly revolvable.

All other features are added as vendors think it is necessary for an ESB. So, an Architect can select appropriate product based on their needs.

Ok! Lets get our hands dirty.

Installation:

ALSB setup can be (of course, trail version) downloaded from BEA site. I downloaded ALSB 3.0 which comes bundled with WL server 10.0.

There is nothing special about this installation. I just followed the installation setup wizard and it went perfect on my XP machine.

Basic Setup:

As basic setup, I created a user domain for my test project. You don’t need to create a new domain, if you prefer to work on example domain, which is created with installation.

So, I created a domain using Start –> All Programs –> Bea Products –> Tools –> Config Wizard. Please follow this link if you have any questions on specific setting.

Once domain is created, start weblogic server from Start –> All Programs –> Bea Products –> User_projects –> –> “Start Server for AquaLogic Service Bus Domain”

Look for server state as running. When server is up and running, it would open Weblogic Admin console automatically. Since we are interested in ALSB and its console, I am not going to discuss about Weblogic Admin Console here.

Weblogic products are considered as one of the best and user friendly because of their Admin Console. All settings and cluster, server maintenance and deployments everything could be done through Admin console.As we expected, ALSB has a Web Admin console, where most of the configuration can be done by just few clicks of mouse.

Ok. I like to wind up this blog at here. So, we have completed the installation of ALSB and before I start next topic, you could play around with various options in admin console to get used to it.

Weblogic – Aqualogic Service Bus – EAI – Part 2
I hope you are familiar with ALSB Admin console. If you don’t have Weblogic ALSB please visit my previous blog for seeting up ALSB on your window machine.

I assume that you have WL server running and you can open Admin console of ALSB (http://localhost:7001/sbconsole/) in a web browser. Please note, if you are installing WL10.0 bundle, the port number for ALSB may be 7021.

How ALSB works:

In a nutshell, ALSB acts as a proxy between client and service (any service lives in server). The proxying is done by creating a Proxy Service and Business Service in ALSB. I hope the below diagram could help you understand the “request” and “respose” flow.

As diagram illustrates, ALSB stands between client and service / server to route the requests and responses. Here, I have shown 2 proxy service and 2 business service. However, a project could have ‘n’ number of proxy services and business services. If you happen to have more proxy and business services, you may want to touch base with customer support folks regaring performs impact. I would suggest to have more than one ALSB instances to avoid any performance bottle necks. Few jargons definitions are below.

Project in ALSB.

A project is nothing but a group of proxy and business services. You may like to group proxy and business services of billing services in one project and a separate group for order management services.

Proxy Service:

You have guessed it! Proxy service is contacted by the client to eventually get response from target service. ALSB allows developer or ALSB administrator to modify any request data and metadata through Admin console configuration. For example, consider a case, where you have web service, is contacted by two different vendors (clients) with two different XML requests. You don’t need to write code to understand both request formats. Instead, ALSB Proxy service could be configured using XQuery to convert the request XML to desirable / server understandable format. This means easy addition of new clients with any changes to Target service, which evetually facilitate easy integration of systems.

Using XQuery programming, literally, all request data or parameters could be modified. If also allows to write logics to decide which business services to contact in runtime. This is one of the key feature of an ESB.

Business Service:

Business service represents target service’s URL. Business services are contacted by proxy service to route the requests to target service. If there are more than one target service (multiple instances of same service for scalability), all the URL can be added to single business service. ALSB also provides features for load-balancing of services. Business service also helps to fail-over services. Meaning, if one target service is down, Business service routes the requests to another service when there is an outage encountered by ALSB. It means high availability of your services.

Setting up ALSB:

As mentioned earlier, business services (BS) and proxy services(PS) are grouped under ALSB projects. So, before we create PS, BS, lets create a new project.

1. Open Admin console of ALSB. http://localhost:7001 or http://localhost:7021

2. Go to “Project Explorer” on left panel.

3. Once the Enter project name in text box in “Enter New Project Name:” and click on “Add Project”. If the text box is not enabled, please click on “Edit” on top left panel.

4. Project entry is added to the projects table just below that. Click on your project.

5. Select a “Resource” type from drop down options. First we create PS, So, select Proxy service from the option. On selecting PS option, next page should be automatically loaded.

6. Provide, proxy name and make sure you select “Any XML service option. Click on Next>>. As you can see, here, ALSB can support other services like Messaging, WSDL and SOAP services.

7. Select protocol as “http” and leave rest of the options with default values. Click on Next>> to save the settings for proxy service.

Now, you can new proxy serive is added to “Resources” table.

8. Next, create a business service by selecting “Business Service” in the drop down options.

9. Follow the setting wizard. Provide BS name and type. Please make sure you select same type as PS. Click on Next>>.

10. on next page, we have to some important configuration for BS. Select protocol as http and Load balancing Algorithm as round-robin. Provide End point URL of Target service. In our case any website url. Since other options are not much important at this level, please go with default values and click on Next>>.

11. Since, we are dealing with website, select HTTP request as “GET” and leave rest of the options with default values. Go to next page to save the settings.

Now that we have created both proxy service and business service, you might be wondering! “Wait a second, are we not supposed to hook up proxy service with business service???” Yes!! We should!. That’s next.

I would recommend to save the configurations so far that we have done by hitting “Activate” button on left top panel. Please note, in ASLB console each time as you modify setting, they are created as sessions. Later, if you find that one of the setting needs to be reverted back to original setting. You can go to “View All Sessions” and clicking on appropriate icon under Options.

if you clicked on Activate button, Click on “Create” again to create a new session.

Configure Proxy Service:

1. Click on your project under project explorer section. In Resources section, click on “Edit Message Flow” icon ( the one is activated) under “Actions” column.

2. On the next page right click on proxy service cover and select “Add Route”. Here, as you can see, you can “Add pipeline pair” to add request and response pipelines. Under request and response pipelines, you could “Add Stage” to perform logic operations.

3. So, we have added new Route, Right click on RouteNode1 to select “Edit Route” to modify setting. You can also modify the name of this node to a meaning ful name by selecting “Edit name and Comments”.

4. On Edit Route page, click on “Add an Action” –> Communication –> Routing
5. Now, you get new node added to this page. Click on “*” to select which business service should be contacted by this PS. You can also add other Request and Response Actions like modifying header or to perform some logic operations or Log the event to server log file for reporting purposes.

6. “Save All” this settings and Activate the session to be effective.

Here, PS is hooked up with BS. You can contact PS through your browser by typing http://localhost:7001/proxyServiceName
The response should be eventually from the target website URL. Hope you are getting a proper response. You can further explorer to add stage (as mentioned in step 2) and modify request data and headers.

You can also refer reference documents from BEA site for more information.

Recently I attended an event the Oracle Middleware 11g Forum around the launch & release of their Fusion Middleware 11g suite of products.

Oracle should be commended on the swift work they have done of incorporating the technologies and services they have acquired into their own product set.  Within the 11g release there is the unified and integration of mainstream Oracle products with the product set acquired from BEA Systems (WebLogic and AquaLogic etc.)  There is a clear standardisation around the Weblogic server as the strategic application server within the Fusion Middleware stack.

The pending acquisition and integration of Sun Microsystems into Oracle will pose a few interesting questions around existing complementary product set. But also to give the obvious capability of singlehanded delivery of hardware, OS, middleware, and application stack.

Both of these acquisition brings much more of a level set between Oracle and IBM in the J2EE space around enterprise portal, application server, content management, SOA and middleware.  This should bring another boost of invigoration to this marketplace, which is already looking lively because of innovative adoption around consumer social computing services and mash up or widget integration technologies.

An example of the IBM Middleware stack: (taken from an article about “Develop and Deploy Multi-Tenant Web-delivered Solutions using IBM middleware”)

An example of the Oracle Middleware stack: (taken from an article on the blog of Eric Marcoux “What do you want to know about Fusion Middleware ?”)

However this doesn’t rule out other players in this space, such as Microsoft, Autonomy, Opentext  etc. While they may not be so closely aligned around the technology or industry space, or perhaps bring such a broad offering, as IBM or Oracle they should not be ignored. In fact their strengths or niche plays should be significant influencers on the strategic enterprise architecture of an organisation.

What then are the questions that should be asked to ascertain that the Strategic Enterprise Architecture choices are optimal for your organisation?   Caveat :– I am not claiming to be an enterprise architect! However I hope these should be reasonably logical and common sense, and the answers should go some way to revealing the degree of alignment between the enterprise architecture and business requirements.

• How does my End-User (desktop and productivity suite choices/need) integrate or align with choices around Portal and Enterprise Content Management and Enterprise Applications?
  • Do they complement or conflict?
  • Do they offer the integration that enables users to engage in business processes, or does inflict conflicts and hindrances?
• Is there a sensible balance between departmental application choice and autonomy in comparison to corporate mandates and direction?
  • Are there governance policies in place that sustains a level of commonality across business units?
  • Is there a that framework allows departmental processes and requirements to be surfaced and delivered in a uniform way?
  • Is Identity and Access management provided centrally?
  • Are compliance, security and risk management services provided in a consistent manner?
• Are the Strategic Enterprise Architecture choices enabling or preventing the evolution of a competitive business model?
  • Is the architecture promoting an agile and adaptive business model & culture?
  • Is it helping to make the best of the human interactions and capital within the business?
  • Is it serving to optimise TCO and reduce overheads, via enabling virtualisation, centralisation or cloud services technologies?
  • Is it serving the business through enabling a greater percentage of core business orientated employees, by reducing the focus on operating non-differentiating IT services & functions?
  • Is it enabling the business to serve the influential outliers – business partners, suppliers and customers?

These are by no means a definitive list, but I hope you think them relevant and helpful. I’m sure there will be areas I’ve over looked or ignored so please chip-in with more, comments and feedback.

There some good material here :

Enterprise Architecture Scorecard

The Open Group Architecture Framework

In the last two days there have been several announcement of new funding rounds for a couple of game technology companies. Yesterday Unity Technologies, the browser-based game engine company, announced a $5.5 million Series A round with Sequoia Capital. Then today Organic Motion, specializing in trackerless motion capture technology, announced a Series B round of $7.4 million led by Foundry Group.

This is good news for tool companies. The tool and middleware companies always seem to be last on the funding list. A big reason is VCs tend to view them as having small growth potential with limited opportunities because they do not target the consumer market. Yet without the technology and the tools, the gaming market itself would not be able to grow.

There are a lot of good companies out there with some really great technology. And we’re going to start highlighting more of them in our newsletters and reports.

Many of these companies have been around for several years and diligently continue to pound the pavement that is the VC circut. Many have a growing customer base and stable solutions, they are just trying to expand their sales force and establish stronger strategic parnterships.

I hope this trend starts leading to more investment support for gaming tools and technology.

I briefly tweeted a few Fridays ago about one of the new products IBM announced at the start of this month.

Regular / long-term readers will know that WebSphere Message Broker is one of my technology specialisms – it’s a product that I’ve been working with for 8 or so years now, through various versions. A few days ago I also mentioned in passing about the new version of WebSphere Service Registry and Repository. Both of these products are part of my day job, working in product strategy and development in IBM Hursley.

So let’s just review the announcements in the WebSphere Connectivity portfolio, and pick out some my favourite new features and enhancements.

• WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition v7.0.2 – extension of platform support, enhanced security, richer scripting, and bridges to FTP and SFTP. As Ben says, it’s “cram-packed… with lots of good stuff!”.
• WebSphere Message Broker v7 – w00t! further simplification of components and prerequisites, a much enhanced administration interface, a multitude of new nodes, better integration with WMQ v7 (pubsub and HA), slicker integration with the BPM suite through SCA support… this product just keeps getting more streamlined, refined, and functional.
• WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus v7 (and Process Server and Integration Developer) – currency with the WebSphere Application Server and MQ platforms, support for the new Service Federation Management features, Open SCA support, and Business Space widgets.
• WebSphere MQ Low Latency Messaging v2.3 – enhanced high-reliability and self-management.
• WebSphere DataPower firmware v3.8.0 – lots of enhancements here, but some of the nicer things I spotted in the release notes are the improved load balancing, WMQ v7 support, JSON and REST handling, and more B2B capabilities on the XB60 appliance.
• WebSphere Service Registry and Repository v7
• WebSphere Service Registry and Repository Advanced Lifecycle Edition v7 – taking these last two together, WSRR v7 offers some great improvements in integration with products such as Rational Asset Manager and Tivoli Composite Application Manager (ITCAM) for SOA and the Change Configuration Management Database, REST and ATOM interfaces, the new Service Federation Management Console for cross-domain management and sharing of services, and widgets that work within the Business Space framework to offer an easy-to-recompose business interface to services and policies. As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been working closely with my colleagues in the WSRR team recently and this is shaping up to be a great update.

Take a look at the announcement letters for individual products for full details of what to expect.

Dubai, U.A.E. – – Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that the Emirates Group IT, operating under the brand name Mercator, a global provider of business technology solutions, delivering business transformation, process improvement and return on investment to more than 100 customers in over five continents, has standardized its IT operations on a combination of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss Enterprise Middleware after a three month pilot program..

In an effort to simplify its datacenter and reduce the total cost of operations for web server technologies, the Emirates Group migrated approximately 80% of its comparable servers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat’s middleware solution portfolio offers a certified and supported platform for other open source technologies, a critical factor for the Emirates Group when deciding to standardise on open source technologies.

“Migrating to a new standard can be highly complex in an organisation the size of the Emirates Group/Mercator,” said Patrick Naef, Divisional Senior Vice President, Emirates Group IT and head of Mercator said. “Change management and confidence in vendor support are critical factors to successfully adopt a new standard- this is why we chose Red Hat.”

The Emirates Group IT/Mercator supports a global enterprise of approximately 40,000 employees as well as more than 100 customers outside of the Emirates Group under the brand name Mercator. Consequently it has a complex IT infrastructure made up of a variety of software and hardware technologies.

The Emirates Group IT / Mercator strategy to migrate to JBoss was to first divert new applications for deployment on this platform. This allowed Emirates Group IT to quickly build capability, before applications were promoted to the production environment. The migration occurred seamlessly with Red Hat providing training and support to the Emirates Group IT department to ensure a more gradual adoption process.

For more information about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.

About Emirates Group IT / Mercator
Emirates Group IT supports a global enterprise of approximately 40,000 employees as well as more than 100 customers outside of the Emirates Group under the brand name Mercator. Consequently it has a complex IT infrastructure made up of a variety of software and hardware technologies. The IT infrastructure supports a diverse and complex business from the Airline, to Cargo Handling, Hotels, Travel Agents, Tours and Catering.

© 2009 Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat, the Shadowman logo and JBoss are registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

IBM Smart Business

IBM Smart Business è una soluzione integrata che offre alle piccole e medie imprese l’hardware, il software e i servizi IT necessari alla gestione e alla crescita del loro business, ideale per chi non vuole impiegare tempo e risorse per gestire i sistemi ICT. IBM Smart Business, infatti, è disegnato per aumentare l’efficienza e diminuire la complessità, consentendo di adottare e gestire le applicazioni in modo semplice.

IBM Smart Business permette di acquistare e gestire in modo semplificato soluzioni di business sviluppate dall’IBM e da partner: ERP, soluzioni CRM, di contabilità e finanza, ma anche la posta elettronica, l’instant messaging, applicazioni per il commercio elettronico o la telefonia. Tutte queste soluzioni applicative sono costruite con interfacce standard e aperte, tramite lo Smart Business Application Integrator, che rendono la loro installazione e gestione coerente ed efficace. Qualunque applicazione o servizio venga scelto, si può essere sicuri che l’integrazione è stata testata in modo che possa funzionare immediatamente nel momento stesso in cui il sistema è installato.

I componenti principali dello Smart Business sono: Smart Market, Smart Cube, Smart Desk e Smart Support.

IBM Smart Market

Lo Smart Market è il portale d’accesso per chiunque sia interessato all’IBM Smart Business. Per i potenziali clienti Smart Market è il luogo dove scegliere e confrontare soluzioni applicative; il catalogo di soluzioni è organizzato per settore di industria, per dimensioni aziendali, per esigenze di business.

Qui è possibile avere informazioni ufficiali sulle applicazioni, a cura dei fornitori (ISV), ma presto sarà anche possibile recuperare valutazioni e analisi inseriti dalla comunità dei loro utilizzatori, aspetto che consente di  confrontare e valutare meglio le diverse soluzioni.

Per chi già ha scelto Smart Business, il portale è il luogo per acquistare applicazioni aggiuntive, lo Smart Market funge da consulente IT: permette di gestire l’inventario hardware e software, di segnalare problemi e malfunzionamenti, di scaricare le fix e gli aggiornamenti, oltre a fornire informazioni sulle condizioni dell’ambiente Smart Business, per evitare il più possibile i problemi.

IBM Smart Cube

Cuore dell’IBM Smart Market è lo Smart Cube, un sistema disegnato secondo uno standard completamente nuovo. Si tratta di un server integrato che può essere acquistato in diverse configurazioni, a seconda delle esigenze applicative. Tutto l’hardware (CPU, memoria, dischi, dispositivi di rete e per le installazioni e i salvataggi quali DVD e nastri) è contenuto in un’unica piattaforma server. Inoltre tutto il software di base e il middleware necessari (IBM Smart Business Software Pack) sono precaricati, preconfigurati e pronti all’uso. Non solo le funzionalità di file e print serving e della gestione di salvataggi e ripristini, ma anche del server web, della posta elettronica, dell’instant messaging, della sicurezza fisica del server (firewall) e logica di dati e applicazioni.

IBM Italia ha basato il suo Smart Cube sul POWER, il più potente processore disponibile sul mercato, per fornire il più vasto portafoglio di soluzioni applicative per la piccola e media impresa nel modo più efficiente e produttivo.

L’IBM Smart Business Software Pack comprende:

• Sistema Operativo:     IBM i V6R1
• File Server:                 funzioni di file server di IBM i
• Print Server:               funzioni di print server di IBM i
• Backup/Recovery:      funzioni di backup and recovery di IBM i
• Database:                   IBM DB2 for i
• Web Server:               Apache e PHP (Zend Core)
• Application Server:    IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS) Express
• Firewall:                     funzioni di security di IBM i
• E-mail:                        IBM Lotus Domino server
• Instant messaging:     IBM Lotus Sametime Server

La semplicità di gestione e l’integrazione con qualunque altra soluzione applicativa un cliente desideri acquistare è garantita dall’IBM Smart Desk.

IBM Smart Desk

Lo Smart Desk – incluso in ogni Smart Cube – fornisce un’interfaccia nuova, semplice e coerente per installare, configurare, gestire, autorizzare, amministrare e aggiornare/manutenere sia lo Smart Cube, sia le applicazioni e i servizi Smart Business. Smart Desk comprende diversi wizard, tool e interfacce; alcune di queste interfacce sono Rich Client, e devono essere quindi installate sulla stazione di lavoro dell’amministratore o degli utenti, come ad esempio il Setup Wizard, il Network Wizard, l’Application Installer; altre sono interfaccie Web, servite dal web server integrato in ogni Smart Cube, come ad esempio il panello dell’Amministratore del Sistema, il Message Center e il Catalogo delle Applicazioni Utente. In estrema sintesi, l’obiettivo dello Smart Desk è rendere la vita di utenti e amministratori di sistema notevolmente più facile.

Non appena lo Smart Desk è installato su una stazione di lavoro che si trova sullo stesso segmento LAN dello Smart Cube, il Setup Wizard parte automaticamente e chiede all’amministratore le informazioni necessarie per il setup dello Smart Cube. Al termine del Setup Wizard, l’amministratore può eseguire l’Application Installer per configurare le applicazioni precaricate incluse nello Smart Business Software Pack, ad esempio la posta elettronica e l’instant messaging. Una volta completati setup e configurazioni iniziali dello Smart Cube, lo stesso Application Installer è utilizzato per installare e configurare le applicazioni gestionali acquistate e scaricate dall’IBM Smart Market.

IBM Smart Support

Lo Smart Cube, il middleware e il software applicativo lavorano in stretta integrazione e utilizzano un sistema di supporto rivoluzionario che assiste efficacemente i clienti nella soluzione dei problemi. L’amministratore viene automaticamente allertato quando si verifica qualche problema, grazie ai tool dello Smart Desk, che lo aiutano anche ad eseguire gli interventi necessari per la soluzione. Viene anche notificata automaticamente all’amministratore la disponibilità di fix e di aggiornamenti sia di software IBM che di applicazioni fornite da ISV; tali fix possono essere anche scaricate e installate automaticamente dallo Smart Market.

I clienti possono trovare risposte ai problemi più comuni, la documentazione di prodotti e informazioni su applicazioni e servizi sullo Smart Market, ove si possono anche costituire delle comunità online per condividere informazioni tramite blog, forum e wiki.

 L’intero processo di supporto è integrato; parte dalla diagnostica e da wizard per la soluzione dei problemi, quindi, se necessario, i log di sistema o applicativi vengono automaticamente raccolti e spediti allo Smart Market. Lo Smart Market fornisce anche un unico punto di ingresso nella struttura di supporto IBM come pure in quella dei fornitori di software applicativo. I problemi che non possono essere risolti, nonostante la ricchezza di tool di diagnostica, vengono trasferiti all’IBM che gestirà direttamente o coinvolgerà i team di supporto dei fornitori delle soluzioni.

Our client in Redwood City, CA is in need of a seasoned system administrator and operations engineer to manage, maintain and support multiple environments supporting several different architectures and environments. The successful candidate will have strong exposure to large web site deployments with multiple tiers include web front-ends, middleware components, backend services, data storage systems and 2nd/3rd tier components like caching and search layers.

Requirements:

• 7 years Linux admin experience
• 5 years RHEL admin experience
• 5 years RPM management and admin experience
• 3 years working with MySQL
• Sound understanding of web services and related technologies (HTTP, REST, XML, JSON, etc)
• Experience with Linux web servers (Apache2, nginx, lighttpd, etc)
• Experience with monitoring systems and components (nagios, cacti, etc)
• Exposure to scripting languages such as Perl, Python, etc.

Really nice-to-haves but not required:

• Experience with Erlang
• Experience with Ruby on Rails
• Exposure to Jabber/XMPP
• Exposure to distributed / grid computing
• ejabberd administration and configuration
• Experience with second and third tier services and components like memcached (or like systems), search applications (lucene, xapian, sphinx, etc), etc.

Realistically, these are also nice to haves but not required:

• Exposure to functional programming languages.
• Exposure to the Facebook Platform, Open Social and or other web services and systems
• Comfortable working in an Agile work environment.
• Plays games and occasionally keeps tabs on the gaming world/industry.

If interested, please send us your resume along with the rate per hour, contact number, and availability for a phone interview to raj@mindsource.com.

Regardless whether you’re working on a BPM project or a fully fledged EAI project, it’s quite likely that you’ll need to get one system talking to another at some point. Middleware is an overused generic label for the grey area that is connecting systems (platforms and software).  It can mean a plethora of different things and tends to be a misunderstood area of technology (‘Frank: our middleware takes care of that… Nancy: What middleware do you have?… Frank: don’t know’).

I’ve just finished reading a book named ‘Inter-Enterprise Application Integration’ that I must of picked up at some point when working in europe (can’t remember when). It’s a pretty good book and goes into some depth regarding middleware and what that actually means across different technologies. What I’m attempting to do here is to condense that down into my own words and summarize the major technologies used in implementing middleware.

So starting off with the main question… What is middleware? – The way I like to see Middleware is not as one particular technology, its more of ‘mechanism’ that allows one application (lets say software entity)  to communicate and trade data with one or more software entities (normally across disparate platforms that don’t easily speak the same language).  Middleware isn’t a server that you just install and applications can start chatting… it’s an approach. Ok so that’s quite a broad explanation… but hopefully by the end of this article the picture will be clearer.

Middleware comes in several flavours, most of which I’m going to cover here in limited detail. First the approaches followed by the communication types and finally middleware technologies.

Middleware Models (approaches)

Point to Point Middleware – Point to point as the name suggests emulates a sort of pipeline between 2 applications directly. Both applications communicate data down the pipe in most cases at the same time. Application A can shout down the pipe to application B and vice versa. Now this model of middleware is quite old now as it doesn’t quite fit in with the service based ‘loosely coupled’ approach that modern software developers take. Not only that, but there is no middle tier processing going on here, its direct only. An example of Point to Point middleware is some code in Application A that calls some code in Application B exclusively.  RPC is a type of point to point middleware.

Many to Many Middleware – This model allows many systems to talk to many other systems. This model covers more of the newer middleware technologies including TP Monitors and Message Brokers.  It is a more flexible approach to implementing middleware and for the most part is a more cost effective choice.

Middleware Communication Methods

Queued Communication – Queued communication generally requires some form of queue manager to place a message into a queue. The remote application is then able to connect to the queue and retrieve the message. If the sending system requires a response, the remote system will place that response in that (or another) queue for pickup. Most message orientated middleware use queued communications as it provides a way for applications to obtain messages even when the remote system is off-line.

Publish / Subscribe Communication – Pub/Sub as its known free’s an application from the need to understand anything about the system it is communicating with. All the sending system has to do is release a message to the pub/sub agent (not unlike marvel comics delivering their latest to the chap down at your local newsagent). The agent / broker then redistributes the message to all interested (subscribed) parties.

Request / Response – As it says on the tin, this communication method involves one application sending a request to a secondary system which would respond. Message brokers and application servers tend to utilize this approach.

Fire and Forget – This model deals with the sending system just firing off a message with no regard for a response.

Types of Middleware

Middleware like many other technology styles is evolving and these days its hard to differentiate between features that different middleware packages tend to employ.  Big middleware products like Biztalk connect systems in many ways and so blur the distinctions between middleware types.  What follows is a list of types of middleware that you will be able to identify with in your favourite middleware applications.

RPC Middleware – This type of middleware has been around for a good while and is probably the easiest to understand middleware. They provide developers with the ability to invoke a method with one application and have it execute on a remote program somewhere else. To the calling program user, the fact that the method is being executed on another machine is hidden. The problem with RPC’s however is that they can carry a lot of processing overhead so perform isn’t the best. DCE (Distributed Computing Environment) is a well known type of RPC as it provides a good collection of RPC services to deal with application integrity and security.

Message Orientated Middleware – MOM was created to address some of the short coming that came with using RPC’s. At its core MOM is just queuing software that uses messages (byte sized units of information)  to move data between applications (like mail between mail clients). This approach is loosely coupled, meaning that the communicating software doesn’t need to know much about the other. The big plus for using MOM is that it follows an async model unlike RPC which is synchronous.  The queue manager manages message delivery and neither the sending or receiving applications are blocked in any way from continuing processes (as occurs with RPC).  The messages being sent via the message queue are essentially a structure (schema) and content (data). With this model there is less of chance of data being lost when connections to applications go down.  MSMQ from Microsoft and MQ from IBM are both message orientated middleware.

Distributed Object Middleware – Middleware? you say?.  Indeed, distributed objects are classified as middleware because they facilitate inter-application communication. They are also mechanisms for application development for providing company wide method sharing. Distributed objects are just small chunks of code that expose interfaces that other chunks of code can call.  Two of the well known distributed object models are COM and CORBA.

Application Servers – Probably the fastest growing type of middleware the application server is nothing new. Most application servers are deployed as web enabled middleware that process transactions from web enabled clients. Application servers are also adopting the very latest languages like Java and .NET to allow further integration with back end systems to occur.  App servers provide not only a way to share and process application logic but also connect applications to back end resources such as ERP systems, databases and even old legacy applications (like traditional mainframes).

Message Brokers – Message brokers facilitate information movement between two or more applications and can account for differences in application semantics and platforms. For this reason message brokers have become the choice technology for Business To Business integration. Message brokers are a more advanced MOM as they implement business rule validation and advanced message routing. They are able to transform the structure and content of messages as they are routed via some kind of transformation service. Biztalk is a message broker based server application.

As new technologies emerge, the middleware arena becomes even more blurred. Application development is becoming easier by the day and connecting systems is becoming far easier than it used to be with the aid of technologies named above.

One of the products I’ve been becoming increasingly involved with as part of my work at Hursley has been WebSphere Service Registry and Repository. Rather than redefine what the product is here, I’ll take a snippet from the WSRR FAQ:

WebSphere Service Registry and Repository is a system for storing, accessing and managing information, commonly referred as service metadata, used in the selection, invocation, management, governance and reuse of services in a successful SOA. In other words, it is where you store information about services in your systems, or in other organizations’ systems, that you already use, plan to use, or want to be aware of.

The Registry and Repository is becoming increasingly central to many SOA deployments and is strongly integrated with several of IBM’s runtimes (including hooks with my long-term product specialisms, WebSphere MQ and Message Broker).

Version 7 of WSRR was announced at the start of October (more on this later in the week), but in the meantime it’s worth noting that a great set of Redbooks and Redpapers for the current 6.3 release have recently hit the publications website:

• Redbook: Service Lifecycle Governance with IBM WebSphere Service Registry and Repository Advanced Lifecycle Edition
• Redbook: Service Lifecycle Governance with IBM WebSphere Service Registry and Repository
• Redpaper: Integrating WebSphere Service Registry and Repository with WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere ESB
• Redpaper: Integrating WebSphere Service Registry and Repository with WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Message Broker
• Redpaper: Integrating WebSphere Service Registry and Repository with WebSphere DataPower
• Redpaper: Integrating WebSphere Service Registry and Repository with Tivoli Security Policy Manager

Over the past few months I’ve gotten to know many of the IBMers who worked on these books and papers personally, and I have to say that they are the absolute experts on the topics. I know I’ll be reaching for these publications when I need to know my way around specific topic areas.

Turner, AccuWeather and Sky Angel in Attendance

Last week’s STB 2009 in San Jose was a well received, quality event in the heart of Silicon Valley.  Greg Fawson and his X Media Research staff put on this 3^rd annual conference which attracts a select, albeit, small crowd for 2 days of presentations.  The 300 or so attendees were exposed to a wide cross section of the Digital TV and entertainment eco-system with trends and predictions explained by key insiders.

Notable Attendees: Aside from the speakers, key players from the entertainment and technology sectors were there to hear from their competitors and collaborators about the state of the industry and the predictions for near term changes.  Magnum Semi and NXP Semi were rubbing shoulders with their SoC customers and prospects while AccuWeather and Turner Network were looking for clues to which areas of distribution represent the best bet for content licensing.

Hybrid TV Is Hear To Stay:  Several speakers including Cisco’s Ken Morse, CTO for Video, and TDG’s Colin Dixon, Practice Manager for Broadband Media, extolled the virtues and increased adoption rates of hybrid TV.  Set Top Boxes which connect to the net for OTT (Over The Top) video content along with Free to Air ( in EU) and ATSC in the US, give consumers an opportunity to cut their cable or satellite bill and subscribe to only the premium OTT channels they really want.  Though no one is predicting a complete cutting of the cable or satellite cord just yet, these MSOs may see a significant number of their subs going to a lower tier of service.  Why purchase a premium package with HBO and Showtime in a large bundle with 200 channels you never watch when you can purchase basic service and buy a Roku box for Netflix movies at less than $10/month extra?

Sky Angel Soars: The darling of the OTT business model in the US seems to be the “Family Friendly” content provided by Sky Angel.  Using the IPTV distribution services of NeuLion, Sky Angle was cited by speakers as  a prime example of the OTT threat to cable, satellite and telco subscription services.  And sitting in the audience at the conference to hear the accolades first hand was Sky Angle’s Sr. VP of Engineering, Sherrod Munday.  Sherrod enlightened me with some of the details of their very serious investment in infrastructure and content licensing that is not just a ‘flash in the pan.”  With their headquarters located in Florida,  the satellite downlink site, encoding and distribution center is in Cleveland, Tennessee.  Sherrod explained that their family subscribers are also looking for mainstream entertainment, though nothing approaching an R rating.  Sports, weather, and news channels are already included in their lineup.  And there may be plans to add other channels of general interest to the home improvement, travel and cooking audiences.  (See my previous postings on “Godcasts” to get more information on the religious OTT services.)

Widgets, Widgets and More Widgets: “This Will Be A Blu-ray Christmas” -  TDGs Colin Dixon delivered that quote to drive home the fact that net connected Blu-ray players will introduce even more consumers to the growing OTT market.  He also noted the significance of Intel’s newly announced Atom CE4100 processor enabling Flash 10 playback of widget launched, videos on non-PC devices.  Netflix, Amazon and CinemaNow are increasing their stable of widgets supplied to CE device manufactures to be used as part of their on-screen UI.  These simple buttons showing up on the screen of a net connected TV can instantly transport a viewer to more entertainment purchasing portals than they ever dreamed were available.

More Blu-ray Features to Come:  Glenn Algie, Video Solutions Architect for Nortel (no they are not dead), filled me in on some forward progress being made on the Blu-ray coding front.  According to Glenn, a significant number of out of work Java programmers have been busy at the major movie studios writing BD-J code for Blu-ray DVDs.  BD-J allows bonus content on Blu-ray Disc titles including network access, picture-in-picture and access to expanded local storage.  These “Bonus View” and “BD Live” programs allow DVDs to take over the runtime of the box and present a unique set of menus, widgets, and net links once the DVD is loaded.   Glenn also mentioned the work being done by RCDb to deploy networked applications on Internet connected Blu-ray players.  A player can now dynamically load and unload applications and connect to third party services and content offerings controlled by the player manufacturers and their retail partners.

“The Integrated TV May Be The Next Trojan Horse”:  Richard Bullwinkle, Chief Evangelist for Rovi presented their market findings on how consumers interact with their various devices for entertainment.  [He also explained that “Rovi”, the new name for Macrovision, was created by taking the 4 middle letters of the old company name.]  Again, the network connected TV with an array of widgets may be a powerful device to lead viewers into the ever expanding video marketplace.   It may lead to cable and satellite disconnects – that is if there is another outlet for time sensitive programs such as Idol, awards shows and sports.

Verimatrix “Multi-Rights” and Watermarking:  With this move toward non-traditional distribution of content, license holders have employed a variety of competing, and non-compatible, security solutions.   Steve Christian, VP of Marketing at Verimatrix, explained their recently introduced “Multi-Rights” system during his presentation.  By combining several DRM licenses into one bundled package, Verimatrix can detect, decode and transmit secure video files from a variety purchasing sources to either PC, TV or Mobile output devices for the consumer.  This technology is absolutely required to give consumers the choice of purchasing methods and playback devices.

For lower value paid content protection, the Verimatrix hidden video watermark provides a degree of deterrence.   Steve explained that the main value of the watermark is to make the casual illegal copier think twice about their actions if they know the content they downloaded and posted for others to copy can be traced back to them.  It also gives license holders a tool to track down serious pirates once they locate illegal copies of their product on the net.  Verimatrix will decode the watermark and provide customer information to the license holder for potential legal action.

Odds & Ends – Ads and Search: There were actually too many topics covered at this show to report in one post.  However it is worth noting that Targeted Advertising and Simple Content Search remain hot topics of conversation.  Monetizing the viewer experience may more and more depend on specific ads which, hopefully,  keep viewers tuned into the message.  And the need for a viewer friendly search and recommendation engine for the growing amount of content has never been more evident.

One Last Thought on Cisco’s Home Video Conferencing:  With their recent purchase of Tandberg, Cisco’s Ken Morse did say they were definitely expanding their video conferencing offerings to include the average consumer.  This blogger is still not convinced that there is a business there.  As stated in previous posts regarding the Verizon / Cisco collaboration on this product offering, everyone who has tried to crack this nut has failed.  From the “Picture Phone” to the most recent offering by Telmex, network video conferencing has not been made appealing to the everyday consumer.  For business, yes; the expense can be justified by a reduction in travel and carbon footprint associated with trips to clients and remote offices.   Instead of attaching a camera to the living room TV, why not use the video camera in almost every cell phone?  Or, maybe a “cell phone dock” for the TV would do the trick?  Perhaps it will be unveiled at STB 2010.  I can’t wait.

Keep pushing forward

Jeff Vinson

jeff_vinson@sbcglobal.net

[You may contact Jeff directly for consulting or full time employment opportunities.]

WCF is based on Web-service standards such as HTTP, SOAP, WS-* standards and XML, but also supports other de facto standards including REST/POX, MTOM, Tcp, .NET binary encoding, MSMQ message queuing, .NET distributed transactions, and many other standards. Java-based and .NET-based clients can easily connect to WCF services, and WCF clients can easily connect to both .NET and Java-based services, as illustrated in the .NET StockTrader application.

Core Components of a WCF Service

A WCF service consists of (at least) the following core components, typically isolated within different Visual Studio projects/assemblies for clean partitioning:

1. The Service Contract.

This is typically an interface that simply defines the methods (service operations) that the service will support/implement. The service contract is attributed with WCF attributes, much like ASMX-based Web Services were attributed with the [Web Method] attribute.

2. The Service Data Contract.

The data contract simply defines any custom classes/types that will be passed between clients and services, either as parameters or return values. These will automatically be serialized by WCF for over-the-network transport, typically (but not limited to) text-XML/SOAP encoding or .NET binary encoding.

3. The Service Implementation.

The service implementation is the class that actually implements the service functionality, and inherits from the service contract, providing the implementation logic for all the service operations (methods) defined in the service contract. Service operations might be self-contained (for example, communicating with a database); or may invoke other remote services or any .NET component/logic. So a service might also be a client to other services with service-to-service interactions across the intranet, an extranet, or the public Internet.

4. Service Bindings.

Bindings are the network transports and encoding standards used by a service. A WCF service can simultaneously support multiple bindings—listening on both HTTP and TCP endpoints, for example, potentially using different security and message-encoding standards on different endpoints. Clients can choose which binding to use to connect to a WCF service, based on the endpoint they are connecting to. With WCF, binding information can be stored in application configuration files or constructed programmatically. Typically, once tuned, binding information does not need to change. The Configuration Service uses WCF Binding Configurations, with the configuration name(s) stored in the repository, pointing to specific binding information defined and loaded from the application-specific configuration files (web.config or .exe.config). Many template bindings are provided with the Configuration Service 2.0.

5. Service Host.

A service host is a program (process) that hosts one or more services. It is a physical executable process. With WCF, the most common service host is Internet Information Server (IIS), which runs the service(s) under the IIS administration and security infrastructure within an ASP.NET worker process (w3p.exe). However, services can also easily be self-hosted in custom executables, such as .NET Windows applications, console applications, or .NET-based Windows NT Services.

The Configuration Service

The Configuration Service itself is a WCF service. It can be hosted in IIS, or in custom self-host programs. The Configuration Service also has a sister service, the Node Service, that handles communication between peer nodes in a cluster setup. When implementing the Configuration Service (either in IIS or a self-host program), the service host will actually be hosting custom service(s) you define, as well as the Configuration Service and the Node Service. Developers can customize the bindings (transport protocol, encoding standard, and security settings) for their host-specific Node and Configuration Service endpoints.

Examples & Uses

• Implementing multiple service bindings to support different network transports and message encoding formats using WCF.

• Building loosely-coupled message-driven services utilizing WCF and MSMQ.

• Integrating with .NET 2.0 distributed transaction services by utilizing System.Transactions, the WCF transaction model and the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator, including with both SQL Server and Oracle 11G databases.

• Using WCF to implement systems with replicated messaging engines and transacted, durable messaging.

In Merv Adrian’s Blog (http://mervadrian.wordpress.com/) he styles the issue as: ‘Will AEP Replace RDBMS? A Dialogue With Charles Brett’.

In the original dialogue published in Pund-IT on November 4th, the title was different: ‘A Dialogue: Traditional RDBMSs Stagnate as Analytical Event Processing (AEP) Emerges from the Shadows’. The difference matters. I was not trying to suggest that RDBMSs will disappear. Far from it: they will continue. Instead I was trying to explore the issue that Event Processing and the capability to analyze are moving so fast forward that they will remove the ‘crown of importance’ that RDBMSs have enjoyed for so long – a change in relative importance.

In the next INSIGHT-SPECTRA (www.insight-spectra.com – scheduled for publication later this month) a fuller discussion of both RDBMS and AEP than was possible in the Dialogue will appear. [For a copy, please email requestcopy@insight-spectra.com]

Hi Folks,

for some time, Alex and I have been working on a simple Book Rating system for school, which, of course, was developed using Django. It sits on a PostgeSQL database and authenticates users against an LDAP which the school runs – pretty neat. However, for reasons of time and safety we do not fancy setting up a webserver to get mails every time an error occurs (still quite frequently according to the users). What to do? Apache Error logs are not very meaningful, since all they say is “Provide a 404 Template”:.. aint gonna do that! The shortest way around was simply writing up a Middleware, which, upon error, would write request and exception to the syslog – sorry Windows users, YOU can not use it. Aside I figured it’d be neat to also have a full fledged output file right in app, even though Alex didn’t like the idea too much, granted, the syslog thing IS cooler. So I ended up implementing that funky solution which nobody ever seemed to have thought of (????). Here’s the code:

from syslog import *
import time

class SyslogOutput:
    def process_exception(self, request, exception):
        # Compile the string for the exception in the format: "Variable: Value" so as to make it readable
        request_string = ""
        filename='/var/www/django/log/%s_error.csv'%(time.strftime('%y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%s'))
        txt = file(filename, 'w')

        for item in dir(request):
            value = getattr(request, item)
            request_string += "%s:  %s\n"%(item, value)
            request_string += "\n\Exception: %s"%(exception)
        syslog (LOG_DEBUG, request_string)
        txt.writelines("Exception: %s"%(request_string))
        txt.close()

        return None

If you find it helpful or have any contributions to improve the behavior, please feel free to comment! Hope this helps some folks getting the logs they want.

Hi All,

Quickly following the new offer for video communication, Ittiam announced yesterday a

software suite for the newly launched ARM Cortex-A5!

Main things to know about it are the following:
- Cortex-A5 is mainly intended for a wide range of multimedia and internet enabled applications, from ultra low cost handsets and mobile devices, to embedded consumer or industrial devices.
- Thanks to the 100% software compatibility of the Cortex-A5 architecture with the Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9, Ittiam has been able to port its codecs portfolio using Neon seamlessly
- ARM is currently benchmarking a set of audio and video codecs on the Cortex-A5, MP3 and MPEG-4 decoders among others
- Ittiam also offers multimedia capabilities as acoustic components and audio effects for mobile, multichannel audio for Home Theater, streaming stacks, middleware and frameworks available now on Android™, Linux, Windows CE™ or Windows Mobile™ .

Full annoucement available from our website here or at: http://www.pr-inside.com/print1566691.htm

Feel free to comment it you want to know more or chat on the future of mobile connected devices!

Epic just announced it is making its development kit available for free for noncommercial and educational use.  This comes just a few weeks after Unity landed $5.5 million in VC funding. I’m not inferring that Epic’s move is a reaction to Unity’s news, rather I think it highlights that tool and middleware vendors are still jockeying to meet a growing range of game development needs.

From the AAA titles down to the indie and iPhone games, the range of games and platforms middleware tool providers need to support seems to be growing exponentially. There is also a new breed of tool and service providers looking to support smaller game developers. Companies like Wild Pockets and Mixamo.

Wild Pockets has a complete 3D browser-based game engine and development toolkit they make available for free. Part of their toolset includes microtransaction components built directly into the API. They have had impressive success within the indie game community and have caught the attention of a number of supporters.

Mixamo raised $4 million in VC funding earlier this year. The company has a 3D character animation service where users can log onto their website and buy animation sequences very inexpensively. They have announced a list of tool partners that includes Trinigy’s Vision Engine, Autodesk’s 3ds Max Bipeds, xaitment’s AI tools, and Emergent’s Gamebryo LightSpeed.

The road to development nirvana is long and fraught with unforeseen issues, setbacks and costs. It is those companies that understand the parameters of their projects that ultimately succeed.  It doesn’t matter if the game is cross-platform, multiplayer, or mobile.

Peanut Labs and Survey Monkey Offer an Alternative to Ad Clicks

Digital Media Wire’s DMC West in SF last week was a small but informative event.  However, the items which interested this blogger were not the prognostications on the next mobile or IPTV delivery platform.  The growing wave of user profile data collection tools and using them to drive revenue may prove to be a significant business model for OTT Video and online game sites who are tired of pre-roll, post-roll, pop-up and banner ads cluttering their sites.

Dave Goldberg, CEO of Survey Monkey and Murtaza (“Murty”) Hussain, President of Peanut Labs were very forthcoming in their remarks on the first panel of the day.  This was especially welcome after a very boring morning “keynote conversation” about commuting between the East and West Coast, how to ship your reptiles when you move and why “DIGG” has two Gs instead of one – who cares?

150 of the Fortune 500 Companies Have Used Peanut Labs, according to Hussain.  Goldberg revealed that Survey Monkey’s revenue comes from large corporations who have multiple “premium” accounts.  The hook of free survey tools brings in department heads who want to capture their own data and not share it with other departments.

Gold from Survey Responses Instead of Ad Clicks:  So just how can content distribution and gaming sites make money from surveys?  Peanut Labs can place survey click banners on VOD or gaming sites which allow subscribers to rack up purchase points instead of paying cash.  When a survey is available which matches the subscriber profile, the user has an option to take the survey or not.  And when they do take it, “ca-ching”.  The site owner and the survey company split the revenue.

How Much is a Survey Response Worth? Murty Hussain stated that Microsoft was willing to pay $10-$15 per respondent for a survey about a new computer game.  Knowing if the subscriber is male or female will increase the CPM by as much as 60%.  With this type of payoff available, who would ever bother with pennies per ad click?

Protection from the “D” response to all questions:  Peanut Labs screens the responses and will flag a user who they believe is trying to scam their system by using “bad behavior”.  How? By getting the MAC address from the computer used to answer the survey questions.  If someone just takes survey after survey and answers all questions with the same response they are prevented from further participation.

What About Privacy? Both companies admitted that they collect consumer data from those who take their surveys.  And, the consumer has no clue if and when data is being collected, who can see it, where it is stored, and if it will be sold to the highest bidder.  Of course, there are the standard responses that “they” would never do this;  “their” data always purged; “they” never offer your data for sale.  But the veracity of these responses must be weighed against two known facts; 1)  They admitted to associating your data with the MAC address of your device; 2)  Selling data is their only source of revenue.

Keep pushing forward

Jeff Vinson

jeff_vinson@sbcglobal.net

[You may contact Jeff directly for consulting or full time employment opportunities.]