Latest News from Mark O'Neill

Randy Heffner from Forrester on Policy-based SOA

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:37:00 EST

Randy Heffner from Forrester has posted on ZDNet about how "Policy-based SOA will enable increased business value and agility". He does a great job of explaining how a Policy-based SOA affects

Maureen O'Gara in Cloud Computing Journal - Microsoft Cloud Patent Application Not What It Seems

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:18:00 EST

Maureen O'Gara provides further coverage of Microsoft's Cloud Migration patent application over in Cloud Computing Journal

University of Virginia Cryptography Final Exam - How to rig the World Cup Draw

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:53:00 EST

Very topical today when so much of the world is focused on the World Cup draw:

David Evans from the University of Virginia discusses his Cryptography course exam question asking how the World Cup

Microsoft's Cloud Migration Patent Application

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:15:00 EST

Today, Alexander Wolfe has been speculating about Microsoft's patent application regarding data migration between cloud services. Although on the face of it, a patent for Cloud migration would appear to be aimed at removing the lock-in associated with a single vendor, the patent application is in fact aimed within a single vendor system. So, it doesn't address the Cloud lock-in problem which has been identified by ENISA as the #1 risk of cloud computing

More on Microsoft's "Migrating Data To New Cloud"

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST

More commentary on Microsoft's "Migrating Data to New Cloud" patent application.

Cloud Computing in Practice

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST

James Urquhart has assembled a very impressive list of examples of Cloud Computing in practice. Examples include: * Number of applications running on Force.com: 135,000 * Number of applications hosted by Ruby on Rails platform service vendor Heroku: 40,000+ Objects stored in Amazon Web Services S3: 64 billion (as of August 2009)

How Real Clouds Are Made

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:45:00 EST

How are Clouds made? By leasing an anonymous-looking building, buying commodity servers by the mile, then engaging an infrastructure guy like Randy Bias to put it together? No - I meant real clouds. So on the day after Thanksgiving, I brought my son to the Liberty Science Center in Liberty City, New Jersey, just across the Hudson from Manhattan. It's a great place - we agreed afterwards that it's right up there with San Francisco's Exploratorium. Boston Museum of Science membership got us in for free.

Using Token Translation and SAML to Link Domains Together

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST

Token translation using SAML is now quite an established way to allow applications in one security domain to communicate with applications in another security domain, on behalf of a user whole identity does not have to also flow with the data. For more

ENISA Cloud Computing Risk Assessment

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:15:00 EST

The ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) today released the Cloud Computing Risk Assessment document. The document does well by including a focus on SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) because, as the report says, "Given the reduced cost and flexibility it brings, a migration to cloud computing is compelling for many SMEs".

Command-Line Tool for Testing Web Services

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:18:00 EST

The free SOAPbox tool includes a command-line interface, called SR ("Send Request") which allows you to script the load-testing of a Web Service. You can use SR to send multiple requests to a Web Service, to simulate multiple clients, to connect through a HTTP Proxy, to send SOAP attachments to Web Services, and to vary XML message traffic. To learn about SOAPbox, press F1 on SOAPbox's install page and then check out the SR examples, or run SR -h from the command line.

XML Performance Offload

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:35:00 EST

The area of XML Performance Offload bridges not only applications in a SOA architecture, but also the use of Cloud-based PaaS services which often are invoked using XML (e.g. SalesForce.com's WSDL interface) or are invoked using REST-style interfaces

Cloud Computing Is ...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:45:00 EST

Techcrunch reports that Google has some implicit suggestions about newspapers, based on the drop-down suggestions it gives when you begin a search with "Newspapers are." It's a nice example of the hive mind at work. But check out the first suggestion Google gives you if you type "Cloud Computing is" into a Google search bar. I won't spoil the surprise here. Interestingly, Google used to give similar suggestions for "SOA is", but the results are now a lot less frank and confrontational than they were a month ago. Does this show a change in general attitude about SOA, or is it just that Google cleaned up the results? hmm.

XML Bus Feeds and Visualizations

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:14:00 EST

You've heard of XML feeds being consumed into a Service Bus - now here's a consumable Bus Service XML feed. The Boston-area MBTA provides a real-time Web Service feed. For example, this request returns an XML document

Maureen O'Gara at Cloud Computing Journal on the Vordel Cloud Service Broker

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:39:00 EST

Maureen O'Gara presents a sneak peak of the Vordel Cloud Service Broker private beta over at Cloud Computing Journal

Contact Vordel at info@vordel

MWD: Application and platform security top the list of Cloud development management concerns

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:49:00 EST

The analysts MWD have recently issued the results of their Cloud take-up survey

Headlines are:

Government Computing News: Vordel brokers cloud services

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:26:00 EST

This Government Computing News article, written by Trudy Walsh, covers Vordel's Cloud Service Broker launch:

http://gcn.com/articles/2009/11/10/vordel-debuts

Vordel Cloud Service Broker White Paper now available

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:33:00 EST

If you want to read more detail beyond the Vordel Cloud Service Broker announcement, then this White Paper is the place to start. It is available at the URL below

Jeff Burt from eWeek Covers the Vordel Cloud Service Broker Announcement

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:53:00 EST

Jeff Burt has posted an article on eWeek covering the Vordel Cloud Service Broker announcement last week at the vordelworld conference:

The
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News @ VordelWorld

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:51:00 EST

A full schedule today at VordelWorld with talks by Amazon, CA, Oracle, and others - not to mention Vordel product training.

VordelWorld kicks off this evening

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:24:00 EST

Vordel's annual user conference, VordelWorld, kicks off this evening with registration followed by a Drinks Reception in the Radisson Blu on Golden Lane in Dublin's city center. Main sessions, including talks by Amazon, Burton Group, Oracle, CA, Cross

French Language Vordel product training at VordelWorld

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:06:00 EST

As well as our English Language Vordel product training this week at VordelWorld, we are also providing the same training in French. Check out our French language Vordel product training here:

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How an STS addresses a "Costanza wallet" of security tokens

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

Maybe you've seen the episode of Seinfeld where George's wallet grows to such a size, with cards and receipts, that he has to offset its weight by stuffing his other pocket with napkins. Then, when he opens the wallet, it explodes.

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Steve Riley from Amazon speaking at VordelWorld next week

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:28:00 EDT

Moving to the cloud raises lots of questions, mostly about security. Providers worthy of your business should answer them clearly and honestly. Amazon Web Services has built an infrastructure and established processes to mitigate common vulnerabilities and offer a safe compute and storage environment. Steve Riley will discuss common cloud security concerns, show how AWS protects its infrastructure from internal and external attack, and explain how you can take advantage of the security features of AWS in your own applications as you extend your enterprise into the cloud.

Craig Balding: The Belgian Beer Lovers Guide to Cloud Security

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:18:00 EDT

This slide presentation by Craig Balding is informative not only about Cloud security but about Belgian beer also. And I have to tip my hat to anyone who can do a full beer-themed presentation about Cloud security and not make a corny joke about "cloudy"

Video - Policy-based Governance for SOA

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:16:00 EDT

Here's a video of Vordel's Policy Director product which provides policy management, versioning, rollback, and lifecycle governance for SOA:

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Personal surfing at VordelWorld

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:15:00 EDT

If the agenda of Cloud and SOA talks at VordelWorld isn't enough, how about personal surfing? Check out the venue information at http://www

Data Points for Agility as the Driver for Cloud Computing

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:30:00 EDT

Randy Bias of CloudScaling.com has posted a 5-minute scene-setting presentation about Cloud Computing. He mentions an example where one company subdivision had such a long lead-time to get delivery of a server from another subdivision of the same company, they went to an outside provider instead. This points to agility as the primary driver to the Cloud. You can Randy's presentation (like his definition of Cloud Computing itself) in an "on-demand, self service fashion" via SlideShare here.

Cross Country Auto case study at VordelWorld

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:37:00 EDT

William MacDonald, Senior Systems Engineer at Cross Country Automotive Services (CCAS) is presenting a case study at read more

When Elasticity Is a Bad Thing

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:46:00 EDT

Elasticity is a highly-touted value of Cloud Computing. As demand goes up, you can provision new infrastructure to match it. You could even do this automatically. This is great, right? Daryl Plummer of Gartner was one of the first people to point out the problems with this - when he blogged that "Cloud Elasticity could make you go broke" back in March. More recently, the situation has become more worrying with the BitBucket DDoS incident against BitBucket's site hosted by Amazon Web Services. Hoff covers an interview with Peter DeSantis of Amazon, and (paraphrasing), says:

Mazda Case Study - Car Dealer and Partner Integration enabled by Vordel

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:17:00 EDT

Mazda uses Vordel infrastructure for implementing B2B communications with car dealers and partners. The goal is to improve business efficiency at dealerships and head office by reducing the double keying of information, and to provide streamlined access

Vordel Product Training at VordelWorld in November

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:16:00 EDT

At the VordelWorld conference next month, we are running a parallel VCSE (Vordel Certified Systems Engineer) training course. This is useful not

Bringing the consumer into SOA

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:01:00 EDT

Today, Vikas Jain from Oracle has a great blog post coining Consumer Oriented Service Architecture (COSA) .

Oracle presentation at VordelWorld in November

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:49:00 EDT

Oracle's Vikas Jain (author of the ws-security blog) is speaking at VordelWorld on how the Vordel XML Gateway operates in the Oracle Fusion Middleware services infrastructure. He is speaking at 11.45 on

Google Voice and Parlay-X

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:10:00 EDT

Google Voice has a useful feature whereby it will call your phone and another number, then link the calls. This is free within the US, and very cheap for international calls (certainly cheaper than dialing out directly from my mobile phone).

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Jill Tummler Singer of the CIA Speaks on "Cloud Safety" : +1

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EDT

I think language is a big issue here. I've always found it interesting that in German, the words for "security" and "certainty" (sicherheit, literally "sureness") are the same. In French, the words for "safety" and "security" are also the same (sûreté, again literally "sureness"). So, in those languages, "security" has a broad definition, incorporating senses of dependability, management, and safety. I can see how the French and German words fit with the broad information security concepts of business continuity, "management" (access management, identity management), and "safety" that users (and their data) will be protected. But the English language word "security" lets us down.

Law and the Cloud at VordelWorld

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:55:00 EDT

Jeanne Kelly, a partner at the law firm Mason Hayes + Curran is speaking about Law and the Cloud at VordelWorld.

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Linking Hospitals to In-Cloud Services

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EDT

Medical processing is a very good use case for Cloud Computing, since it requires significant processing power. It also has clear and obvious governance requirements, concerning secure access to information. David Brossard from BT is speaking at

Connecting to the Cloud in Chinese: 连接到云

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EDT

Following the translations in Japanese and Spanish, the Connecting to the Cloud series of articles, which I wrote for IBM DeveloperWorks, is now available in Chinese. The series introduces cloud platforms such as Force.com and Amazon SQS, including code samples in Java, and governance and policy, again including code samples (an Amazon policy expressed in JSON). The Gateway "onramp" model is described.

Charting the Amazon

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:54:00 EDT

In the late 1600s, Samuel Fritz charted the Amazon

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When REST Attacks

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:37:00 EDT

"Traditional" Web Services traffic involves XML messages sent using HTTP POSTs. However, REST Web Services make use of the other HTTP verbs besides POST, namely: PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS, and GET.

One of the most common questions at Vordel is "Do

Cloud Security on Ulitzer: Cloud Computing and Self-Service Security

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:30:00 EDT

So here’s the rub, if MSSP’s/ISP’s/ASP’s-cum-Cloud operators want to woo mature enterprise customers to use their services, they are leaving money on the table and not fulfilling customer needs by failing to roll out complimentary security capabilities which lessen the compliance and security burdens of their prospective customers. While many provide commoditized solutions such as anti-spam and anti-virus capabilities, more complex (but profoundly important) security services such as DLP (data loss/leakage prevention,) WAF, Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP,) XML Security, Application Delivery Controllers, VPN’s, etc. should also be considered for roadmaps by these suppliers.

Chris Taylor from 3 on Centralising Federated Services Security at Vordel World in November

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:54:00 EDT

We're excited to have Chris Taylor, Lead Architect for Enterprise Portals and Integration at 3, speaking at Vordel World. Check out his presentation at 10.25am

Connecting to the Cloud in Japanese - クラウドに接続する

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:45:00 EDT

The Connecting to the Cloud series of articles, which I wrote for IBM DeveloperWorks, is now available in Japanese. The series introduces cloud platforms such as Force.com and Amazon SQS, including code samples in Java, and governance and policy, again including code samples (an Amazon policy expressed in JSON). The Gateway "onramp" model is described

The Cloud Goes Postal

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:30:00 EDT

The USPS services seem to be deployed as a SaaS model, accessed through a browser. As yet there do not seem to be managed PaaS APIs available (or are there?) which can be pulled into other applications, for example iPhone apps. Of course, right now it's easy to co-opt the Web interface to USPS.com in order to programmatically query Post Office shipping times over HTTP. Although, I can just imagine REST zealots arguing that it should really be termed the "GET Office" in that case [really lame joke, I know :-) ].

Vote in the 2009 SOA World Magazine "Readers' Choice Awards"

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:35:00 EDT

Check out the 2009 SOA World Magazine "Readers' Choice Awards"

Vordel is nominated in the "Best Integration Tool" and "Best Security Solution" categories for our read more

On the agenda at VordelWorld - "When is application architecture cloudy?"

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:50:00 EDT

The abstract for the VordelWorld talk by Richard Watson of the Burton Group is now up on the VordelWorld Agenda. VordelWorld takes place in Dublin, Ireland, from 4th to 6th November and focuses

The Multi-Domain Registry/Repository

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:30:00 EDT

Now think about how organizations are starting to rely on Cloud-based services, such as Amazon S3 (storage) and Force.com (sales force automation). These services are not on-premises SOA service, so they are not in the SOA registry/repository. But the organization relies on these services! This means that the registry/repository does not contain a full compliment of the services which are used by an organization.

"...cloud computing is not only the future of computing, it is the present and the entire past".

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:29:00 EDT

Check out this great account by Jon Fortt of Fortune Magazine's Big Tech blog on Larry Ellison's appearance at the Churchill Club yesterday

Beyond the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:15:00 EDT

Amazon's virtual private cloud allows for Amazon EC2 instances to exist within a VPN environment, managed by an organization's existing network security infrastructure. As Steve Riley defines Amazon Virtual Private Cloud: Amazon VPC enables enterprises to connect their existing infrastructure to a set of isolated AWS compute resources via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, and to extend their existing management capabilities such as security services, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems to include their AWS resources

Connecting to the Cloud en Español - Conexión a la nube

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:42:00 EDT

Explore la computación en nube y la Edición Nube de la Puerta XML Vordel, que incluye conectores prefabricados para los servicios de nube:
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