Spotlight on XML, Web Services, SOA, Grids and Semantics
Amazon Web Services S3 Storage Doubles in a Year
Amazon Web Services continues to exhibit significant growth even in
advance of a move en masse by Federal agencies to cloud service providers. At
the end of 2009, Amazon S3
was storing 262 billion objects, up from 102 billion objects at the end of
2009.
Access Group Announces Web Services API to Integrate with Apps
in the Cloud
Access Group has announced a web services API to support applications
running in the cloud and integration of disparate systems.
Access Group will soon
release two cloud-based applications, a document management system in Q1 2001,
followed by a Human Resources system.
Crosscheck Networks Receives Patent on Evolutionary Techniques
to Detect Security Vulnerabilities
Crosscheck Networks has patented a genetic programming technique for detecting
threats to web services and SOA environments. The technique has been implemented
in the company's
SOAPSonar product. It automatically builds attack vectors for SOAP, XML and
RESTful services by monitoring the mutation of messages.
Citrix to Simplify Migration from Enterprise to Amazon Web Services Citrix announced it is providing product engineering support to Amazon Web
Services for XenServer® integration. The
partnership will enable Windows applications
to connect to Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2), Elastic Block Storage (EBS), Virtual
Private Cloud (VPC), Simple Storage Service(S3), and other AWS services.
Simplify Excel and Word Reporting in .NET with OfficeWriter
v4.5.1
SoftArtisans has released OfficeWriter 4.5.1, a
reporting tool that enables developers to dynamically create Excel and Word
reports. OfficeWriter creates reports in Open XML XSLX and DOCX formats in
addition to XLS and DOC. Developers can generate reports using C#, VB.NET or any
other .NET language.
Data Services for SOA, WOA and Cloud Computing Take Silicon Valley Spotlight
The focus of developers has moved to distributed, client-server applications with architectures such as WOA, SOA, and cloud computing
having become a
hot topic. During a Cloud Computing Expo in Silicon Valley, a distinguished faculty headed by Dr. Michael Carey
spoke at DataServices World, a co-located conference. The
DataServices World program includes presentations by gurus from
IBM, Adobe Systems, Yahoo!, DataDirect Technologies and other software companies.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Distinguished Faculty Discuss Linked Data in New York City
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, was part of the lineup of distinguished speakers from industry and academia who are spoke at the
LinkedData Planet conference in
New York City. The conference theme was the confluence
of enterprise computing, semantic technologies and data integration for Semantic Web and Web 3.0 applications. Podcasts and presentation slides are available at
LinkedDataSummit.com.
AVICode Releases Intercept Studio 5.0 for Monitoring .NET Applications AVICode Intercept Studio 5.0 introduces several new features, including Activity Monitoring
for Business Transactions, Service Level Agreement Monitoring, Incremental Application Dependency Discovery and an Application Monitoring Dashboard. Incremental
Application Dependency Discovery, automatically maps the application architecture to identify dependencies on databases and Web services. The dashboard provides metrics
on application load, failures and problems with service providers.
XAware 5.1 Released
Version 5.1 of XAware, the open source data integration solution, is now available. XAware 5.1 provides a Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) application that supports data services for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Software as a Service (SaaS) and Rich Internet
Applications (RIA). XAware supports prepared SQL statement and multiple protocols, including HTTP, SOAP and JMS.
Ken North Computing White Paper Examines Best-of-Breed Middleware
A new report from Ken North Computing discusses the role and importance of data access middleware.
"Middleware in Action" describes how
middleware plugs into architectures for distributed applications and services, including SOA and ESB. It explains defining characteristics of best-of-breed data access
middleware, including features for performance and scalability. The report and a separate executive summary provide a features checklist for comparing database drivers and data
providers.
Pixware Releases XMLmind XML Editor Version 4.8
Pixware's XMLmind division announced the release of version 4.8 of the
XMLmind
XML Editor. The new release adds support
for DITA 1.0, DITA 1.1 and DITA 1.2 documents. It has no restriction on schemas and supports DTD, W3C XML
Schema, Relax NG and Schematron. It can also convert DITA documents to a varity
of formats, including XHTML, HT<L 4.1 and PDF.
XQuery in Five Minutes Dana Florescu's presentation at
CIDR 2005 (XQuery in Five Minutes) provides a quick overview of XQuery.
Reshaping and Restructuring XML Michael M. David, writing for SQLSummit.com, explores two approaches to transforming XML hierarchical data structures. He explains the difference between
restructuring and reshaping XML data, with the latter driven by the semantics of the data structure.
Security Flaws Undermine SOA, Web Services and Networking Infrastructure
Security vulnerabilities with the OpenSSL toolkit can lead to buffer overruns, denial-of-security attacks, forging of digital certificates and compromising of confidential information. The OpenSSL problems follow
confirmation that cryptography researchers have broken the SHA, SHA-1 and MD5 hashes. Those flaws and recent cryptography breakthroughs heighten concerns about
digital certificates used for authentication and secure communications.
XML in Focus IBM DB2 9 adds an XML type, new indexing methods and other capabilities for operating with XML in databases. Ken North takes a look at
DB2 pureXML technology and implications for SOA, web services and content processing.
Eclipse, Wiki and Agile Development In this Ward Cunningham podcast interview, we hear about social software, Eclipse and organizing for collaborative software
development. The podcast / audio interview runs 20 minutes.
Moving Past Java
Bruce Tate explains why discontent with Java is resonating within the
developer community. He observes developers are moving past Java and favoring
lightweight solutions for creating web applications. Bruce discusses the
Spring framework, Ruby on Rails and issues related to application
development frameworks.
Madhu's Workshop: Reflecting on Binary Files Madhu Siddalingaiah explores the Java Reflection API and exploiting
the structure of Java class files as a grammar. He explains why parsing the
binary class files is preferable to using XML and he provides an example
program for parsing class files.
SOA Programming and Registry/Repository Miko Matsumura explains that we can think of SOA programming in the
context of configuration, composition and customization. He discusses the role
of a registry/repository as an enabling technology for SOAs.
Webcasts
WebServicesSummit.com now offers
MP4 webcasts about XML and web services-related topics. You can watch these
video programs using MP4 players such as QuickTime Player, Dicas mpegable and
RealPlayer.
In "Federated Identities: Overlooked
Threats", security researcher Thor Larholm explains federated identities,
their benefits and security problems. He presents security solutions such as load
balancers and stateful firewalls (running time 9:41).
"Web Services Security Universe" is a presentation by Ken North to the SDSIC web services conference at the San Diego
Supercomputer Center. He discusses web services adoption, security issues, and
solutions for encryption, authentication, authorization and non-repudiation (podcast
/ MP3 audio: running time 13:03).
"Encryption
and XML Security" by Ted Leung explains XML Encryption and how to setup the
XML Security software from the Apache Software Foundation. It's an excerpt from
Chapter 10 of Professional XML Development with Apache Tools.
The Security
topic includes white papers, specifications, presentations and tools information.
There is also a Vulnerabilities
page with a list of known security holes related to XML processing, Web services
platforms and SOAP / XML messaging. For information about SQL and database
vulnerabilities, visit the SQLSummit.com Security
topic.
Security Alerts: XML, Message Processing, Database and
Platform Vulnerabilities Organizations with applications and services that use XML, XSLT, SOAP
and XML databases should be aware of security problems such as XML injection and
buffer overruns. Vulnerabilities related to handling XML documents and messages
have been detected in libraries, development and deployment platforms, database
software and virtual machines (more).
O'Reilly Publishes GIS for Web Developers O'Reilly's Pragmatic Bookshelf had added GIS for Web Developers, a book by author Scott Davis
of Digital Globe. The book explains how to geographically-enable applications using freely-available data and open source software.
IBM IMS Adds XQuery, XML and SOA Capabilities
IBM IMS 10 is the latest of IBM's database
platforms to add features for supporting XML document processing, XQuery and Web services support. Besides IMS 10 support for XML, Java, and JDBC, IBM has enhanced the IMS SOAP
gateway.
NIST Publishes Guide to Secure Web Services
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a 128-page web services
security guide. It explains
current and emerging security standards, such as SAML, XACML and WS-Trust.
Technology Trends Keynote Presentation "21st Century Technology
Trends" covers servers, web services, grid
computing, data models, price-performance, Linux, open source, .NET, J2EE, data mining, vector databases, ubiquitous
connectivity, and bio-electrical links. This is an expanded HTML version of the
keynote address at Enterprise Data Forum in Philadelphia.
XML Still Going Strong
Contributing Editor Madhu Siddalingaiah reports the recent XML 2005 conference in Atlanta featured a strong technical program. He writes about David Megginson's
keynote address, a lively panel discussion about "Efficient XML" and insights from visionary Miko Matsumura.
Making XQuery Scale Using the Relational Approach In this video, Dr. Peter Boncz explains how to use a relational DBMS as a storage engine for an XQuery processing system. He also explains
XQuery processing
techniques such as loop-lifted staircase joins and deriving order properties. Running time 68 minutes.
Declarative XML Processing with XQuery Dr. Daniela Florescu of the W3C XML Query Working Group describes declarative programming with XQuery. She suggests a direction the industry
should be taking with XML and XQuery processing. She stipulates XML is more than
a technology for documentation and data interchange and that we haven't
exploited it to its fullest potential. Dana emphasizes the use of declarative
programming instead of processing XML with imperative or procedural techniques.
XML and the New COBOL XML will be an important part of the next COBOL standard. Barry
Tauber of the INCITS J4 Programming Language COBOL committee explains the new XML-enabled COBOL standard.
XML Publishing at Science Next Wave A shift to XSLT and XML publishing at
Science's Next Wave has improved productivity and streamlined the workflow
at the weekly publication. The shift also contributed to a significant increase
in audience size during 2005. Managing Editor Alan Kotok's case study explains
the payoff of XML for publishing.
Expert Panel
Podcasts (MP3) of an expert panel
discussion about SQL/XML, XQuery, native
XML databases and XML-enabled databases. The panel included Ron Bourret (XML-DBMS), Dana Florescu (Oracle), Michael Kay
(Saxonica), Jonathan Robie (DataDirect Technologies) and Michael Rys
(Microsoft).
Book Excerpt Developing
Semantic Web Services
explains the convergence of semantics with web services by
complementing SOAP and WSDL with technologies such as the Web Ontology
Language for Services (OWL-S), Semantic Web Rules Language (SWRL) and Web
Services Modeling Ontology (WSMO).
Conference Workshop ebXML
Registry Interoperability explains the operation of the ebXML Registry
in a heterogeneous software environment. Presented by David RR Webber, Ashique
Tanveer and Anthony Ton (audiocast/podcast, running time 48:07).
"Software Trends: Marrying SQL, XML, Web Services and Grid Computing"
This guru panel discussion included Rick Cattell, Dana Florescu, Jim Gray, Jim Kleewein, and Jim Melton. This was
one of several video and audio programs we recorded during
the conference.
"XQuery and SQL: Vive la Différence" (DB2 magazine)
discusses XQuery, SQL and the XQuery API for Java (XQJ). Cyrillic
translationDB2
original
XML-based messaging provides the plumbing for the development and
deployment of web services. Specifications from the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C), OASIS, Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) provide
conformance guidelines for the creation of cooperative, interoperable
services.
Grid technologies allow us to partition problems and apply massive
computing power to their solution.
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