Outlook Series | DEVELOPER ARCHIVE

End to End Encryption

Today’s bankcard networks are generally considered to be highly reliable and secure. However, cardholder data is typically unencrypted – visible in clear text – as it leaves a merchant’s terminal and makes its way through the payments network. At certain points in its journey, the data is potentially exposed – making it valuable prey for professional hackers who have developed increasingly sophisticated methods of hijacking it. The numerous systems that have been compromised over the last several years are stark testimony to the success of these criminals. Protecting sensitive cardholder and payment account information throughout the lifecycle of a transaction from card swipe through transmission to the card brands is the ultimate goal of end-to-end encryption. We interview Steve Elefant to gain Heartland Payment Systems' perspective on end to end encryption. Steve is the CIO for Heartland Payment Systems. 23 Minutes

Optimizing IP Networks

New IP-based technologies are creating increased demands on network infrastructures. Those demands require higher levels of performance, availability, and mobility. For instance, the migration of voice and video to IP Networks presents new challenges that are revolutionizing the way networks are built and managed. Similarly, new network based business applications and processes that improve collaboration and productivity – along with the dramatic growth of wireless networks and mobile devices such as smart phones, IP phones, and point of sale devices – all require higher levels of network performance. Moreover, consolidation and virtualization initiatives are further driving the need for higher network scalability. We interview Gene Gertson to gain Brocade's perspective on IP Network Infrastructure Services. Gene is the Lead IP Infrastructure Services Consultant for Brocade Global Services. 20 Minutes

Business Process Mobilization

We have only just scratched the surface of the productivity gains that are likely to grow from the development of mobile technology. Furthermore, the paradigm is shifting from portable voice transmission and email delivery to a complete pocket office and control center that can replicate every function available at company headquarters. Companies that embrace the new technology will enhance their existing IT investments, increase their workforce productivity and put themselves at the forefront of the new business mobility that can help companies manage their business more effectively and more profitably. Moreover, you can now leverage a new level of access to information and management control of processes and operations than has previously been thought possible. We interview Bryan Whitmarsh to gain Sybase's perspective on business process mobilization. Bryan is a senior product manager with Sybase. 26 Minutes

Outsourced Network Monitoring

Enterprise data centers not only need to keep their networks and business applications up and running, but also performing optimally. However, monitoring and managing these heterogeneous, and increasingly virtualized environments can be challenging -- requiring significant time and multidomain expertise. Given the complexity of these networks, IT organizations usually find it difficult to quickly troubleshoot network issues or determine the cause of application performance degradation. To meet this challenge, more and more organizations are turning to a SaaS model to improve application availability and proactive management. By doing so, they are reducing capital and operational costs, mitigate risk and improving service levels. We interview Nupur Thakur to gain Brocade's perspective on Network Monitoring. Nupur is a product manager for Brocade’s Network Monitoring Service. 21 Minutes

SOA Testing, Validation & Virtualization

Companies are adopting Virtualization in the data center to reduce the server costs of supporting SOA. Furthermore, if you are tackling the hardest quality and integration challenges, you need to eliminate dependencies among teams throughout the application development lifecycle. That can be achieved by virtualizing the behaviors of complex services-based applications. Moreover, expanding on the value of server consolidation and test lab virtualization beyond the enterprise data center, is key to providing faster time-to-market and quality across the full lifecycle of developing, testing and maintaining highly interconnected services-based applications. We interview John Michelsen to gain with iTKO's perspective on SOA Testing, Validation & Virtualization.
John is the Chief Scientist & co-founder of iTKO. 45 Minutes

EA Road Mapping

Road maps are essential for aligning business planning with your technology strategy. Furthermore, to drive agility, road mapping manages the time dimension so you can react to predictable and unpredictable events. Moreover, and particularly for complex organizations, road-mapping enhances governance and collaboration. While the manual construction of road maps can help, they are a costly maintenance headache at the end of the day. Fortunately, this exercise can and should be automated.
We interview Dr. Ulrich Kalex to gain alfabet's perspective on EA road mapping.

Ulrich is the VP of Product Line Management at alfabet. 40 Minutes

Holistic Virtualization Strategies

Organizations are leveraging virtualization technologies to help them consolidate resources, reduce costs, and improve management for their server and storage infrastructures. But in doing so, many fail to consider the overall impact of virtualization on the data center – thereby opening the door to degraded application performance and increased management complexity. As a result, they may be unable to satisfy SLAs or meet data growth requirements. However, the right data center virtualization strategy will optimize application and fabric performance and improve data protection. By leveraging a holistic strategy, you can take advantage of virtualization without experiencing unnecessary costs and headaches while reducing business risk and achieving a faster ROI. We interview Todd Broadhurst to gain Brocade's perspective on virtualization strategies. Todd is a Professional Services Manager with Brocade. 36 Minutes

End to End Virtualization

The business case for virtualization is based in part on server consolidation. But, in spite of an impressive growth rate, server virtualization has yet to become main stream. However, virtualization can drive capacity utilization, cost reductions, increased security, improved reliability and accelerate your response to business imperatives. The real challenge is to navigate the virtualization stack to enable the selection of the right strategic vendor with the best solution set for you business. This challenge can be meet by leveraging a complete, end-to-end virtualization solution. We interview Simon Crosby to gain Citrix's perspective on end-to-end virtualization. Simon is the is the CTO of Citrix's Virtualization and Management Division. 40 Minutes

IT Financial Management

Capturing IT costs merely as general overhead keeps the enterprise from truly understanding the business contribution made by IT. IT Finance Managers need the means to assess IT spending as it relates to specific business initiatives. By mapping costs to architectural elements and then aggregating them in various combinations that are relevant to the business, IT can achieve a clear understanding of those costs. That can help identify potential savings that could free up financial resources. Not to mention create a defendable position against the preconception that IT organizations don’t understand financial planning issues. We interview Dr. Ulrich Kalex to gain alfabet's perspective on IT Financial Management. Ulrich is the VP of Product Line Management at alfabet. 35 Minutes

Mass Market SOA And Web 2.0 Apps

Rich Enterprise Applications arise from the convergence of two major trends in the development of Web applications. Those applications have become more complex, and any project that is targeting the goal of “retiring” an old outdated system often ends up, not only replacing the old functionality, but actually adding many new functions to the system. Furthermore, enterprise developers must serve two demanding groups of masters at the same time: consumers desiring all of the user interface aspects of Web 2.0 and businesses wanting more and more functionality.

We interview Fima Katz to gain insight into meeting the Web 2.0 challenge with a components-based approach.
Fima is the CEO of Exadel. 43 Minutes

EA Governance

IT planners face a tough challenge when it comes to project tracking and investment management. Fail to meet this challenge, and you will have an ineffectual enterprise architecture, and a poor alignment between IT and your business strategy. Application backlogs, outsourcing and off shoring tasks, and new government regulations can exacerbate your planning challenge. However, the successful management of all aspects of your activity cycle will balance the proportions of your IT budget that support operations and innovation. We interview Dr. Ulrich Kalex to gain alfabet's perspective on enterprise architecture governance. Ulrich is the VP Product Line Management at alfabet. 45 Minutes

Collaborative Software Development

Distributed development organizations are often limited by conventional build and test processes that are not designed to provide the flexibility, optimization and processes to meet the operational challenges associated with building and testing software in highly distributed environments. To overcome this limitation, centralized LAN-based approaches are being displaced by a distributed Collaborative Development Environment (CDE) approach. The goal of a CDE is to unify project managers, developers, and business users within a single development environment accessible from anywhere in the world. We interview Nick Bonfiglio to gain COLLABNET's perspective on build and test governance capabilities. Nick is the VP of Worldwide Operations for CollabNet. 40 Minutes

Ajax Optimization

Ajax is emerging as the preferred development approach for web 2.0 applications. While the asynchronous nature of Ajax applications makes them fundamentally different from standard Web applications, Ajax applications are still built upon standard Web infrastructure. Moreover, Ajax behavior does not obviate the benefits of application acceleration. Indeed, this asynchronous behavior can make request switching and high-availability functionality more important to an Ajax application than to a standard Web application. We interview Prabakar Sundarrajan to gain Citrix Systems' perspective on optimizing Ajax applications. Prabakar Sundarrajan is the CTO of Citrix Systems’ Application Networking Group.
36 Minutes

The Journey to Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is a collection of concepts, and inventions that have yet to be adopted by the masses. Furthermore, the missing links of vocabulary and event processing are preventing current solutions around SOA and Business Intelligence from completely delivering on their promise of agility, customer retention and growth. SOA is the enablement platform for Web 3.0 and Semantics will play a key role in its functionality. We interview Sam Ceccola to gain BEA Systems' perspective on how Semantics is the glue binding Social Computing, Business Intelligence and SOA to create Web 3.0. Sam Ceccola is the Deputy CTO of BEA Systems.
60 Minutes

Better Decisions With BI Reporting

A sales meeting is in full swing, but it immediately stalls because none of the sales figures in the PowerPoint presentation match the data compiled by the sales managers. Then reports generated within HR show an alarming increase in the rate of turnover. But further investigation uncovers information indicating that retention is at an all-time high. Which set of data is right? These scenarios are real and occur every day in businesses around the world. So what can be done to get consistent, trusted data to the people who need it?
We interview Tim Lang to gain insight into how to make better decisions with embedded reporting.
Tim is is a vice president of developer programs for Business Objects. 49 Minutes

Improving User Interaction With RIA s

While the web deployment model has reduce the cost of software deployment, it has also created a community of underserved business users that long for a return to the usability and responsiveness of desktop and client/server applications. Fortunately, forward-looking IT professionals are now turning their attention to design patterns and technologies that can improve the client side of the equation. As a result, we are now seeing widespread deployment of rich Internet applications (RIAs), which combines the responsiveness and interactivity of desktop applications with the broad reach and ease of distribution of the web.
We interview Duane Nickull to gain insight into web development with actionable blueprints. Duane is a Technical Evangelist with Adobe Systems 58 Minutes

Ramping Up Packet Processing

Advances in semiconductor technology are making way for low-power multi-core processors. This transition enables embedded and communications applications to more broadly deploy systems with multiple execution cores due to the more favorable economic and thermal characteristics of this generation of processor technology. This transition to multi-core processors promises more than an increase in the number of execution cores to increase computation capability.

We interview Aaron Kunze to gain insight into how multi-core processors can significantly increase performance for packet processing applications.
Aaron is a Senior Engineer with Intel. 31 Minutes