Telematique, water and fire.

The new challenges for your network management software

Peter Williams of Bloor Research does a nice job of describing the issues facing IT's management of networks as well as the vendor's challenges in delivering the right network management systems.  The piece then goes on to be a plug for Entuity's 'Eye of the Storm' network management suite, but it's done in this context. The advertizing not withstanding, I liked the staging and premise on which it was written.

Stormy times for your networks? Time to re-assess your network...

Those who provide network fault and performance management software have been experiencing new challenges as technologies advance and new software emerges. Enterprises using network management software unchanged for only two years will be behind the curve; in fact the vendors themselves are struggling to keep up.

Think of the challenges. There is virtualisation—of the servers, storage pools and the networks—which builds in extra (hidden) layers of complexity in continually mapping the virtual to the physical. Various trends include a shift towards more server-based shared applications and content management, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and software as a service (SaaS). Conversely, there is also peer-to-peer networking, as well as converged data and voice sharing the same wire, and wireless networking for both.

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BEA Delivers a Short Stack

When Java was a young meme, making its way through the collective consciousness of the technology community, there was often talk about the ultimate arrival of a "pure" Java OS ... one OS to run them all.  It never happened, for a number of good reasons.

With the stability and capabilities of this generation of virtual machine environments (VMEs), application platforms that rely on a full featured JVM only have the possibility of slimming down by eliminating the OS altogether, relying on the VME hypervisor and the built-in capabilities of Java.  There are a handful of application platforms for which this might work, but if BEA's successful with this one ...  watch out!!

BEA Says No OS Necessary With WebLogic Server Virtual Edition -- Virtualization -- InformationWeek

Losing the operating system has several benefits. Many OS services are already duplicated by Java or the hypervisor, and BEA estimates that cutting the OS can reduce consumption of system resources such as memory and CPU cycles by 25% to 50%. It also simplifies management, as WLS-VE knows it's being virtualized and so can more easily map software processes to the hardware it's running on. Performance can improve, as a complete OS doesn't have to be loaded whenever a virtual machine is started.

Still, though WLS-VE shipped in July, its Liquid Operations Control management system won't be available until December. Performance claims haven't yet been proved and will depend on using hardware with virtualization support baked in--without it, VMware simply takes the place of the OS.

Technorati Tags: Java, BEA

WADLing toward RESTful services

In the on-going dialogue between the RESTIANs and the Splat-ians (as in... WS-* which is often pronounced "double-yew ess splat"), there's apparently a proposal called Web Appliaction Description Language (WADL) that designed to provide descriptors for REST services.

WADL: The REST answer to WSDL

...

For SOAP Web services, descriptors based on Web Services Description Language (WSDL) form a fundamental piece of their actual design, mainly on account of the underlying complexity present in the actual service. In these scenarios, a descriptor not only serves the purpose of formally describing all the business logic it can fulfill, but it also aides in the creation of helper classes -- often called stubs -- used to build service clients.

Enter WADL, a similar description language to WSDL, but strictly targeting the requirements of RESTful services. REST started of simple enough, as live URL's on major portals which returned structured data to querying clients, but as interest has grown in this alternate approach to Web services, so has the scope and size of the business processes it attempts to fulfill, making descriptors a natural addition. ...

Technorati Tags: REST, WS-*, WADL, WSDL

An Interview with MySQL's Architect

An interesting interview in ComputerWorld with mySQL's architect.  Good discussion of REST and the use of Amazon's AWS services (EC2, S3, SQS) in conjunction with and as a storage engine for MySQL.

MySQL's architect discusses open source, database in a cloud, other IT issues

When I look at your Web site, I see some pretty unusual storage engines for MySQL. You can use a Web site as back-end storage or even memcached for memory-backed storage. Do those engines have any practical application? Or are they more in the nature of sample code?

Technorati Tags: AWS, MySQL, REST

More on the Stateful - RESTful Debate

TechTarget has a couple of good articles, and the transcript of a conversation between advocates of Stateful and RESTful web services (respectively).  The transcript is a little bit hokey, but worth reading.

The ServerSide Interoperability Blog » Stateful Web Services - They really work!

About a month ago, I wrote a blog entry here discussing stateful web services, and how EJB3 more or less removed the commonly used J2EE hack, in using the serialized EJB2.1 Stateful Session Bean Handle as a session token of sorts. I mentioned how JAX-WS added support for a WS-Addressing-based stateful SOAP endpoint - the first truly “automated” and SOAP-compliant manner of providing sessions in SOAP. Now… we have sample code! It really is dead-simple, a testament to the WSIT group (Project Tango), working between Sun and Microsoft to make JAX-WS and the Windows Communication Framework in .Net 3.0 play nicely. ...

Neward and Trenaman consider REST, or The Great and Complete SOAP vs POX Debate

How far can you go with GET, PUT, POST, DELETE? Much of the programming world asks the question. Here in one place are the complete collected episodes from Ted Neward’s and Adrian Trenaman’s recent conversation on the matter of SOAP and POX. ...

Technorati Tags: SOAP, POX, web services

WebSphere's CTO on REST

You know that the meme has definitely made it into the mainstream when the CTO of IBM's WebSphere holds forth.  IBM has, with real dedication, made WS-* a priority over the years.  To hear the WebSphere guy give props to REST and ask the right rhetorical questions as to whether to make the web server our app server -- that has the ring of a religious sea change. 

WebSphere CTO looks past Java to REST and Web-based SOA

... What if we made the Web server truly the application server? It's a popular term now, REST. REST has always been around. So what happens if we really built around REST with URLs and GET, POST, PUT, DELETE as the four operations on those URLs. How far can you go?

You think about lightweight environments. One of the things I think about having done in WebSphere is can we build a radically simple environment on the Web for building Web-oriented applications? I think the answer is yes. You can do WOA (Web-oriented architecture), the agile cousin of SOA. It's doing SOA on the Web, Web SOA if you will. So one of the things I'm driving very hard at with my incubation team is experimenting with a REST server.  ...

Technorati Tags: REST, WebSphere, IBM

SOA gets even more RESTful

The meme marches on...

Burton sees the future of SOA and it is REST

If you are an architect or developer working on service-oriented architecture (SOA) projects, you probably are not doing representational state transfer (REST) now, but within the next five years you probably will be. That is how Burton Group Inc. analysts answered their own rhetorical question – REST: Is it the next big thing? – with a resounding yes at a Web conference on Tuesday. Repeating the mantra "The Web is REST. REST is the Web," Anne Thomas Manes, vice president and research director at Burton, said the only thing new about REST is that it is starting to catch on with SOA tool vendors and the open source community as well as architects and developers.

Technorati Tags: REST, SOA

Jon Udell on RESTful Web Services

A thoughtful piece by Jon Udell, who elegantly introduces us to the concept of Resource Oriented Architecture (ROA) -- an interesting approach to using RESTful styles for transactions, which have been considered the exclusive realm of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA).  After going through this post, I find myself really wanting to read the Richardson & Ruby book.

RESTful Web Services « Jon Udell

In the realm of IT you could hardly pick a more controversial topic. Or, in a way, a more unlikely one, given that the REST (Representational State Transfer) architectural style has its roots in what would normally have been an obscure Ph.D. thesis. Roy Fielding, the author of that thesis, told me in an interview that he was surprised by its breakout popularity. But he probably shouldn’t have been. There are not many technologies as foundational as the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), whose principles that thesis defines. ...
On the question of ROA versus SOA (service-oriented architecture), the authors say that for certain kinds of enterprisey problems — including advanced security protocols and complex coordinated workflows — only SOA meets the need. They recomend it for these purposes, when the need arises. But in the many situations where the need does not arise, they recommend starting with ROA.

Technorati Tags: SOA, ROA, RESTful, RESTian

Tim Bray and REST

The (qualified) support of REST in favor of WS-* seems to be a meme that's making the rounds. (See my earlier reference to Tim Oren's recent post.) Tim Bray has never been shy about expressing his opinions, but he doesn't make these kinds of statements unless and until he's given them quite a bit of consideration.

InfoWorld Tech Watch | InfoWorld | Sun's Bray backs REST | May 18, 2007 04:13 PM | By Paul Krill

...
"What we need to be able to build is apps that run across all these [systems] and that remains a problem that is substantially unsolved," said Bray, who plans to make these same points in a keynote presentation on Saturday.

The WS-* (pronounced ws star) stack has failed to solve the problem of interoperability, said Bray. REST presents a better approach, Bray said. He is not alone in supporting REST. David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the Ruby on Rails framework, also believes in the technology. Incidentally, Hansson pans WS-*, too.

"I think there's not enough emphasis across the whole spectrum of IT in integrating with other systems," Bray said.

"We're starting to see an emerging consensus that the best bet for that kind of stuff is based on REST architecture and Web-style computing," Bray said. REST has provided the basis for the World Wide Web, he said. But tools are needed for REST, he said.

To further propagate the meme, there's Mark Hansen's new book, SOA Using Java Web Services, in which he starts the conversation of SOA with REST, rather than SOAP or WSDL-based services. (I suppose it's not too surprising, given that he's heavily involved with with Project GlassFish and a member of the expert group for JAX-RS (the Java API for RESTful Web Services).

Technorati Tags: REST, WS-*

Technorati Tags: REST, WS-*

Tim Oren on web services and its flavors

Over the past six months, I've had the distinct pleasure of discussing the variations on web services with Tim Oren.  My part in the process was asking the obvious questions, and his was to provide the analytic thinking.  He's done a great job distilling hours of (his) thought and conversation into one great post.

Tim Oren's Due Diligence: REST for the Rest of Us? The Great Web Services Divide

... When looking at a web services related venture, make sure that the technical approach and jargon line up with the claimed business goals. If the venture needs to reach a broad user or developer audience, REST and other lightweight approaches are appropriate. If the goal is reliability and integrity, the WS-* family may be more important to an enterprise oriented venture.

The gap between approaches may itself present some opportunities. It really would be nice, for instance, to have some of the privacy and integrity capabilities from XML Security and Signatures, or to be able to make some assertions about message reliability when needed, but without buying into the whole SOAP/WS-* stack. There are thoughts on such borrowings here and there on the net, and certainly a need.

From the investor's perspective it may be difficult to find exploitable opportunities in this mode that do not devolve into mere features, or open source projects. Attaching a viable business model enabled by the new capability could be a big challenge. Among the best positioned to make hay of the opportunity are those who already provide RESTian services. Interestingly, Amazon is probably in the best position. As it has moved into providing a scalable, raw service infrastructure (*cough* - timesharing - *cough*) through S3 and EC2, it has found the need for some of the capabilities that REST alone does not provide. Sure enough, one of their offerings is a queueing service within its infrastructure. Amazon is setting itself up to combine reliability within its infrastructure, with ubiquity via REST outside of it, a well-thought-out approach to blending the architectures. ...

Technorati Tags: REST, WS-*