Was it a Happy Halloween for you? |
Did you have a great Halloween? This holiday is really growing. The decorations are incredible, and such fun. I heard a report that Halloween was second only to Christmas for decorating, and it certainly seems to be true. It's nice to take time out and just concentrate on something silly and fun.
IT is at times both silly and fun – right now it's just continuing to drop new concepts, products, and updates on us. New product announcements, or major product upgrades have appeared during the past two weeks from IBM, MicroStrategy, Oracle, Quest, Microsoft, Information Builders, Business Objects, etc. etc. etc. This is really the just the start of a very long list – which keeps us very busy updating TechRef®.
You keep up to date, too – keep using TechRef®!
Here's the schedule (or you can view the complete Schedule on our website.
CSTA Web sessions:
November 14, 15
December 12, 13
CSTA Classroom session:
Chicago area - November 28
UITJ (Understanding IT Jobs) Web sessions:
November 15
TR Web sessions:
November 8
Keep in touch and keep up with technology!
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The Growing Appliance Market
We're used to writing software systems that run on a general purpose computer, and using that computer for many functions. It became obvious early on that that wasn't always the correct solution – sometimes it worked better to dedicate a computer to a single computer. And that's what an appliance is; a computer dedicated to a single function. More specifically, an appliance is a computer that is designed to manage a specific function. It can consist of both hardware and software which are bundled together to provide the basic control of one function of IT. The hardware includes a computer and sometimes disks and/or tape devices. The software is pre-installed and usually consists of an operating system (at least the operating system kernel) and other management software that manages the function. The biggest growth in the appliance world now is software appliances, where the vendors create software appliances which can run on standard systems, thus giving their customers the ability to choose the hardware themselves.
A database appliance is often referred to as the database server; these terms are used interchangeably. The computer runs the database software, e.g. Oracle, DB2, or SQL Server. Individual applications contain SQL statements, which are sent to the database appliance to be interpreted. For example, the Oracle, program executes an SQL statement SELECT to find the appropriate data and return it to the requesting application.
The data warehouse application actually comes in several versions:
• Native data warehouse appliance where the hardware and software is tightly integrated into a single data warehouse solution. The software and hardware are not individually licensed and cannot be separated. Examples of vendors providing native data warehouse appliances include DATAllegro, Netezza, and Teradata.
• Software data warehouse appliance where commercial or open source relational DBMS software is designed and/or optimized for data warehouse processing. The software supports hardware solutions purchased from one or more third-party vendors. Examples of vendors providing software data warehouse appliances include Greenplum and Sybase (Sybase IQ).
• Packaged data warehouse appliance where commercial software and hardware is tuned for data warehousing, is packaged and supplied by a single vendor, and is installed and maintained as a single system. Examples of vendors providing packaged data warehouse appliances include HP (NeoView), IBM (Balanced Warehouse), and Sun/Greenplum (Data Warehouse Appliance).
Security appliances also come in many types including everything from firewalls and virtual private networks (VPNs) to all-in-one security appliances. Consolidation of traditional security products and services into various appliance forms is expected to evolve to allow companies to a choice in the appliance market.
Storage management is one of the hottest topics in IT, and storage appliances are offered by practically all of the storage vendors. There are SAN and NAS appliances, appliances for enterprise businesses, and SMB (small and medium businesses). There are encryption appliances to work with the storage appliances, and they often include specialized security.
Because these appliances have worked out, new types are appearing. BI (Business Intelligence) appliances, which include the operating system, the database technology, and the query/analytical software exist. Microsoft and Dell have joined forces to offer integrated hardware-software business intelligence and data warehousing configurations in September of this year. There's an Intellectual Property appliance which is used to search corporate data sources. And, search appliances let users also search the network and desktop sources.
The software appliance market is expecting large growth through the next five years. While this market has grown by small companies, IBM, HP, Google, Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle are joining in and partnering with each other to produce appliances. The appliance format is especially appealing because it requires less software integration, and it's ideal for smaller companies that have fewer resources. It's here to stay – and to grow.
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1. How many kinds of PCs are there?
2. There's a lot of publicity about the iPhone, and Apple has already sold 1,000,000 units. What's the competition?
3. What database technology is challenging the relational design?
4. Which of the following does not belong?
a. Virtual Earth
b. Virtual Iron
c. virtual sandbox
d. Virtual Vault
5. What costume did you use for Halloween?
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I'm sure you have noticed the increase in Web training and presentations. We certainly have. In fact, we have trouble scheduling our classroom training nowadays. I don't know how many of you have been affected by canceled classes, but we've had to cancel many (if not most) of them. The Web classes fill early, and we've added new ones to the schedule, but we end up with only a few people registered in a classroom location, so we have to cancel.
We don't want to stop providing the classroom training, because we understand that some people prefer the actual face-to-face even though there's complete interaction in the Web sessions, and plenty of time and opportunities to ask questions. People still like to get away from the office, meet other people, and meet the instructor in person. So, we're asking you – do you have any ideas on how we could continue to provide the classroom training without scheduling classes on a regular basis?
One thing we've discussed is putting the classroom locations on the schedule, and then picking a date when eight or more people have signed up. Of course signing up for a location would not be an obligation to attend, official registration would only be processed after the date had been settled. But, this way, we could be sure the class would be held. Or if your company has two people to attend, call your friends at another company and ask them if they're interested in attending a specific location. As long as we have at least eight attendees, we will run a public class in your area!
What do you think? Any input you would like to offer would be greatly appreciated. As said, we do want to continue to provide the classroom training – without cancellations!
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Web Development
The Web has become an important part of corporate IT, and Web development has its own tools and techniques. First, it includes different kinds of applications including Web 2 applications, RIA (Rich Internet Application), and Web services.
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) Technology and tools that define an approach to delivering Web content that eliminates the wait while refreshing an entire page by only updating the part of the Web page that has been changed. The update is done locally (if possible) and asynchronously. The user can continue to interact with the Web page during the refresh. Technology has been available for years, but became popular in 2005.
mashup Development technique. Allows developers to connect, collect, and put together (mashup) anything on the Web. Used to create new applications, services, and data services by mixing together the pages, services and collective intelligence of the Web. For example a mashup could be created that would pull in Google maps, blogs by travel experts, reviews of tourist attractions, etc. to provide real-time information on planning a vacation.
RIA (Rich Internet Application) A Rich Internet Application is one that runs over the Web and was developed to provide fast response and handle complex user interactions. Or, to provide a desktop-like experience on a Web site. One of the most common uses is for call centers, where the application must handle the interaction with the user and also interact with internal support documentation in a timely manner. RIA development follows Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) which uses DHTML (Dynamic HTML) and updates Web pages by refreshing only the part of the Web page that has been changed, or Macromedia's Flash and Flex which can be developed with ASP.NET, Java, JavaScript and other tools. Term was introduced in 2003, and frequently used by 2005.
RSS (Rich Site Summary) Communications. Protocol and standards for exchanging data between Web sites through syndication, or subscription-based exchanges. XML-based standard originally created as a simple way of syndicating news headlines. Designed to be lightweight, simple to use and inexpensive to implement. Commonly used with portal sites to automatically populate the portal with articles and information from other sites. Developed by Netscape in 1997. Version 2.0 offered by Harvard in 2003.
Web 2 Computer terminology that covers services available on the Web that allow people to collaborate and share information. These services include blogs, wikis, RSS (Rich Site Summary) or (Really Simple Syndication), mass publishing, and other interactive functions. The distinction of sites in Web 2 is that the content of these sites is provided by users, not by the owners of the site. Web 2 includes social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and business networking sites such as LinkedIn, and reference sites such as Wikipedia. In addition, companies are adding tools such as blogs and wikis to their own Web sites, usually starting with blogs. Also called Internet 2.
Web services Application software. A form of SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) in which modular applications conform to standard technologies and perform a specific business task. For example, a bank could build an application that would amortize a loan. As long as the application conformed to the standards and could be invoked over the Internet, it can be defined as a Web service. Web services can be this simple or could be as complex as car rental companies being able to invoke auto insurance by a simple click. In either case, the standards that have been accepted are SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), XML (eXtensible Markup Language), UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), and WSDL. (Web Services Definition Language).
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1. The original PC now comes in five types: small form factor, minitower, midtower, full tower, desktop. And laptop (or notebook) computers are also called PCs. But don't stop there. Then, we go to laptops, also called notebook PCs. Then, we have tablet PCs, ultramobile, portable, and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant). And it's the second list of machines that are increasing in use. The actual PC, no matter which of the five types listed, is actually on the endangered list. Laptops will replace the larger PCs shortly.
2. Blackberry, of course, is in the smartphone world. The Blackberry Curve is the latest competitor. Nokia has smartphones and is just releasing phones with touch screens (a bit iPhone plus). Another, not much in the news (yet, perhaps) is Helio's Ocean – which runs on Sprint's 3G networks for faster speeds for Internet access and email than the iPhone. This is an area that's just starting; there'll be lots of competition.
3. Column-based databases are a new challenge. These databases similar to relational databases, but the structure is based on the columns, not the rows. This means data is retrieved by columns, putting all the like data together. Column-based databases are up to twenty times faster and require up to 90% less table storage space than traditional RDBMSs, and are designed for read-intensive workloads such as data warehouses.
4. Choice c) Virtual Sandbox does not belong (and the lower case is indeed a giveaway). A virtual sandbox is a technology. It's a Web site that is an experimental playground where Web designers can push the limits of available technology, and/or test Web applications to filter out malware before the site reaches the user's browser. The other three are specific products or (with Virtual Iron) vendors. They're all in TechRef®.
5. We don't have the answer to this one. But, if you had a really great costume, let us know and we'll share it with everyone!
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