MySQL it is.

Sun Microsystems today announced the acquisition of MySQL database. Therefore this project will move to that database platform. The reasons are fairly straight forward and include;

• MySQL has the Open Source community fully engaged in its development.
• MySQL has a feature rich offering proven in both the critical web and enterprise marketplaces.
• Sun is committed to Open Source. Java with MySQL offers opportunities for further integration.

I also am in receipt of a recommendation from one of the readers regarding the GlassFish Server. Apparently there is a version of GlassFish that is designed for light weight deployments. Named the HK2 (Hundred KiloByte Kernel) it was suggested that this could provide some significant opportunities for the developers to use HK2 on the client side with embedded MySQL.

I have revised the Draft Security & Access Control Module Specification to reflect these changes. The revised specification includes these changes reflected in blue text, and the V2 of the specification is downloadable on the wiki.

Technorati Tags: People's, Sun, Security, Development

Sun Identity Podcasts

I've recently taken the time to subscribe and listen to a Sun Microsystems Podcast stream on the topics of Security, Access and Federated Identity. Click on the title of this entry to be taken to the Sun page. This podcast discusses many of the important topics that are being addressed in the development of the "Security & Access Module" of the People, Ideas & Objects application.

If we are to provide the security needs of the producers, vendors, customers, employees, and contractors that choose to use this system, we need to offer the highest level, state of the art, Service Oriented Architecture security environment. This level of security is necessary for the purpose of our users and their needs to access accurate and timely information, where ever and when ever they need. Additional demands include the ability to search their domain for the information they want and need, based on access control. And finally, represent the resources of the user in a global network of oil and gas users. Where People will be able to market their skills to that global network. This latter point is easily attained by having Google's recently announced OpenSocial API incorporated in the user's identity.

This "Security & Access Module" is a distinct competitive advantage of this application development over the current software offerings of SAP, Oracle or Qbyte. Starting off with the security framework puts the cart behind the horse. Application modules developed with the security framework defined and built first, limits the development surprises when leaks of information are found in legacy systems retrofitted with new security environments.

Entertaining, candid and humorous, this podcast is a worthwhile summary of the risks and opportunities in this subject. In terms of the quality of the discussion it provides information about various initiatives such as LDAP, Identity Governance Framework, OpenID, OpenSSO, OpenDS, Web Access Control, Web Access Management, Federation and a number of various other cryptic acronyms. The point that I take away from these discussions is that security and access are the next big area of Java development. Companies such as Sun and Oracle are very focused here. And they are obviously moving to provide the services and infrastructure to handle, and manage the security for applications such as People, Ideas & Objects. Ultimately accessing these services as a part of a service offering that they can provide for an annual fee of $x.xx / user.

Finally two talks that highlight how the perspective of security has changed in these products. The SSO (Single Sign On) is able to guarantee that three password attempts and you out means, three strikes and the user is out on a global basis. And an excellent discussion about the scope of the role of the CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) or CIO is the CISO Leslie Lambert of Sun.

Technorati Tags: Genesys, Sun, Security, Software, Developments

They're here...

Sun Microsystems Sunspots and Intel Motes.

To help in understanding the impact of the technologies that are to be introduced through this software development project, I have created a vision of why certain technologies will have a dramatic effect on the people operating in the energy industry. This vision encapsulates four key technologies, Objects, IPv6, Asynchronous Process Management and Wireless. I have written in detail about these technologies here, here, here and here. These four technologies enable a proliferation of devices to be connected to the Internet for data capture and remote control. What could be developed in these devices is limited to the imagination of the people that are involved in the oil and gas industry. A world with these types of devices needs to be approached differently in order to capture the volume of data, information and control that will be available.

It is this vision that is captured in Sun Microsystems "SunSpots" programmable, experimental gadgets to test and implement in new and innovative ways. From my point of view this is the beginning of the ability to develop new and interesting devices that will help increase people's and producers productivity.

We've created a platform that greatly simplifies development and experimentation with small wireless devices, and we've opened it up to the development community, said Roger Meike, research director for Project Sun SPOT. There will be tremendous opportunities to apply and expand this technology in all sorts of new and exciting ways.

Why would these SunSpots and Motes be used in oil and gas? Time, physics, pressure, location, and temperature just to name a few classifications of the many possible reasons. Soon these devices will be certified for RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliance. How many of these types of devices will be embedded in the operational day to day of an oil and gas producer? How many of these remote devices will be involved in the process of commerce, or more specifically the beginning, middle or end of a transaction? How will the limited human resources involved in the industry manage with this level of data and information? And who will be the first to employ these devices in a commercial setting, the producer, investor or user of the software development capability that I write about in this blog?

Technorati Tags: Genesys, Sun, Vision, Capabilities

JavaFX is a go!

Sun Microsystems has announced a new scripting language, JavaFX. Designed to work with Swing, Java's GUI toolkit, JavaFX gives the developer many of the attributes of the current trend to asynchronous page loading and graphics. This trend started off on the wrong foot and has become a nightmare of coding hell. AJAX was the first, Asynchronous Java Script with XML is a dynamic hodge podge of technologies that unleashes the power of coding into any wrong direction it can find. Next was Adobe Flex, then Microsoft SilverLight and they all offer the ability to write anything on the web and the desktop of the user. Very dangerous as the access to the desktop and web provides the developer with the ability to do just about anything malicious that they can dream up. I have cautioned about the use of these products before and they certainly should never be used in a corporate setting. JavaFX is different in that it maintains the security model of Java and is unable to access the local machine. This is the primary reason that there are no associated virus' or related garbage brought to the user through their use of Java.

JavaFX takes another step above the competition in that it is statically typed, not dynamic. Dynamic languages are the easy to implement and are the Swiss army knife of programming. Perl, Python and PHP are all good languages that aid the developer in many of the tasks and routines necessary for their productivity. Few would recommend the use of these languages in an enterprise setting, and that relates to the languages inability to scale to size. JavaFX being statically typed enforces a rigid framework or constraint on the developer that aids in the codes ability to scale.

Other benefits of JavaFX is it applies across the development implementations of J2ME, J2SE and J2EE, Sun's mobile, standard and enterprise editions of Java. Enabling the use of JavaFX in mobile phones and other devices that are proliferating and making the oil and gas worker more productive. This will also aid in the deployment of the many sensors and control devices. I suspect technologies will proliferate under the new Internet protocol IPv6. The prolific use of GPS in vehicles and Google maps could be used to determine who is where. Lastly this years JavaOne conference highlighted the use of the language in the area of robotics. JavaFX also provides access to this developing area of technology.

Therefore, Groovy, the previously proposed scripting language is out. I thought that Groovy would be worthwhile tool to have as a scripting language in the developers toolbox for work being done on this project. Groovy is a dynamically typed language that enabled the Groovy developer to use the same Java classes. The only issue that I had was that it was a dynamically typed language and therefore I stated that in the design specification for this project, it would be inappropriate to have any Groovy code in the final commercial versions.

Technorati Tags: Genesys, Java, Development, Sun, Software

Greg Papadopolous of Sun Microsystems.

In what is dubbed as "Sun Analysts Summit 2007," Sun Microsystem co-founder and Executive Vice President of Research, Dr. Greg Papadopolous makes his presentation entitled "Redshift: The Explosion of Massive-Scale Systems. This presentation should be viewed by most users of computers today. An important video that details where the demand for computer processing is coming from, and where the solution to satisfying those demand resides. At 46 minutes it is a worthwhile review. So much of what I expect in this oil and gas software development project needs to be addressed from the hardware side. The demand for processing of an entire segment of the oil and gas industry is not something that can be taken likely. Recall that we have selected Sun as our key vendor for their support of the Java platform. This extends to Sun's Niagara Chip set, Solaris their Operating System, their Grid Computing offering, Crossbow their virtualization offering and finally the Java Programming Language.

Starting off with "Project BlackBox" which is a standard shipping container that provides substantial computing performance in one "BlackBox". Two rows of 19' standard racks, with each rack capable of housing 42 units of servers, blades and / or storage devices. The cooling of 200 kw of processing is the defining capacity of a project Blackbox. One should ask what / who would need to use such a large unit? That is the purpose of this talk. Many of these systems will be used by the market, and most importantly this software development project will use BlackBoxes in order to host the application for the oil and gas industry. The system we will be using will be owned and operated by Sun Microsystems and hence provides not only the solid reliability, performance, and availability of computing power but also the security that each producer knows their data is as secure and as confidential as possible.

"Red Shift" is a leading observation of Sun's marketplace of computing. The costs of computing is halving each year, yet the demands continue to grow. Where is this demand coming from? Core Enterprise demand has been satisfied by Moore's Law for a number of years. Dr. Papadopolous says that Band Width is the key driver to the current and future increases in computer processing demand. Band width has grown exponentially from 56 kilo-bites of analog capacity in 1995, to now 10 Gigabit Ethernet being available today. This band width is fueling an increase in the number of devices that are networked. It is clear that the proliferation of these devices assumes that processing is centralized in one location. This Band Width related demand is consistent with the technical vision I noted here, and the proliferation of IPv6 related devices. I agree with Dr. Papadopolous that the computer demand in the future will be difficult to satisfy.

Bandwidth is driving the increased demand for computing in far greater volumes then what Moore's Law provides. In addition to the conventional business market, the High Performance Computing market makes the demand for computing processing insatiable. Papadopolous notes demand from small and midsized firms that are using hosted services like Gmail, Salesforce.com and other web applications is a trend that he suspects will be showing up soon in large firms as well. Running an email server is an arduous task for any and all users. Aggregating the demand for email in the hands of large service providers provides economies of scale and better application functionality over the long term. A variety of customers are beginning to realize Service Oriented Architectures are the most effective and efficient means of managing these services.

Dr. Papadopolous notes that what he calls "Redshift" is a move to massive scale. Where scale and efficiency are available and afford-ably provided to users, when the users need them, wherever they may be. Sun believes RedShift will be redefining to the computing industry. Coporate strategies regarding Red Shift are of two possible scenarios. First Sun could be disintermediated such as what Google is doing in building their own servers. Or alternatively, follow the Sun school of thought that high levels of engineering are needed to build systems for today and the long term future. This latter strategy is also where strong integration of both software and hardware engineering is needed. "Efficiency and Predictability at massive scale are as Mission Critical to Redshift as Remote Access Servers (RAS) has been to the core enterprise."

Papadopolous is keen to differentiate what he means by the "Commoditization of computing" is not the "Commoditization of computers." The engineering of complex systems is necessary in this "RedShift" era. The cobbling together of many single core systems will only provide so much value. The approach of providing the City of New York with electrical power generated by a series of portable generators is inefficient, impractical and costly. This is the analogy he draws between what Sun is providing with their services and what many of the smaller service providers are doing.

Speaking on the Sun offering Papadopolous notes that computing infrastructure consists of three things. And to Sun's credit they have been able to integrate these components and provide commoditization of computing in an efficient manner.

• Core Services and Platforms
• O/S Instances
• Base HW Plant (Server, Storage and Switches)

Base Hardware Plant.

What had happened in the past 20 years to distill the microprocessor down to a single chip is today what Symmetrical Multi-Processing (SMP) systems are being codified into one chip. That which was a full rack of servers in 1997 is contained on one Sun Niagara chip. Providing lower costs in almost any metric of computing power.

Taking these concepts further, Neptune, Sun's next processor will contain a 10 G Ethernet card embedded in the chip.

Operating System Instances

Solaris, Sun's open source operating system, Crossbow their operating system virtualization tool, and Java which is integrated into Solaris. "The Java RTS (Real Time Systems) + Solaris = Real time Application Server". With real time results, providing a solid application system performance that mirrors and exploits the value of their hardware. It is my opinion that both Apple and Sun's futures are brighter based on their ability to integrate their own operating systems on their own and x86 hardware. Companies such as Dell, IBM and HP are unable to compete in this arena due to their inability to provide the integration at this high level.

NetBeans which is the open source version of Sun's development tool is one of the best Integrated Development Environments (IDE's) available today. BlackBox as mentioned above defines the shape of Sun's very bright future.

Core Services and Platforms

• Identity and Security
• Procedural languages and scripting.
• Service Oriented Architecture and Web 2.0
• New Clients.

Finally Dr. Papadopolous notes a key component of Sun's open source business model is that "Open Source" does not apply to the binary or run time application. The Binary requires the use and service contract with the in this instance. Genesys will be paying for the use of Solaris and Java services, support and use agreements. This is in addition to the processing power purchased by the hour off the grid. All in all an excellent video, one that provides a vision of the future of computing.

Technorati Tags: Genesys, Sun, security, software, strategy, video, engineering, development

The attention economy.

John Hagel III has written a fascinating series of articles on what is being called the "Attention Economy". His comments are located here, here and here. I highly recommend my readers to view these articles thoroughly. Hagel picks up from the quotation of Professor Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureates quote,

"...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of the information sources that might consume it."

I think that Hagel is picking up where Simon's comment left off and introduces some current research that Michael Goldhaber is doing in this area. Goldhaber's best articles are here, here and here. Attention is not a commodity, in that it is fixed and Hagel discusses both the scope of your own attention and the attention that ideas can garner and sustain. I wanted to comment on the important impact of this thinking and relate the significance of what I think is being said.

For myself I find the demand to keep enhancing my information systems requires daily diligence of what, where and who I spend my attention on. If I am not vigilant I become satisfied with the status quo and that is a dangerous attitude to have these days. There is enough justification and supporting information to ignore and belittle the overall and global changes that are occurring today. Many prefer to refer to their BlackBerry's and consume their lives in the day to day grind of mindless activity. We need to focus our attention on what and where we are going with these technologies. If we loose sight of the road that we are travelling on we could be lost for a sizable amount of time.

An important point of view to maintain is the technology works for me to meet my needs, I do not respond in any way to the demands of the technology. Needless to say I have no BlackBerry and I ensure that at least 80% of my synchronous time is spent in person, with limited amount of time being spent on phone calls. I communicate asynchronously, or at my time, on my schedule and my agenda. Many things fall off the table as a result, and I am best able to prioritize what is necessary.

The other aspect that is important is the speed at which things are viewed. I like to spend as much time as I can per day on reviewing and writing what I am researching about. With three blogs and two major topics it is something that requires a focus that is difficult to sustain. So there are two modes, quick and summary where little is available for immediate recall, yet some of the more important aspects are recalled many days later, or as required. Here is where Google is an invaluable tool in that I am then able to re-find that reference almost immediately. And then there is the reading and reviewing at the pace that is necessary to take notes and assimilate the complex topics that demand my time and efforts. These can take a goodly amount of time, but that time is afforded to me as I know nothing otherwise will be lost.

I frequently look at it from the point of view that Google has provided me with at least 7,000 of the smartest people in the world, working to make my information better. Google also provides me with the supercomputing power necessary to index and make available that information that is the most important to me. Such power in the hands of every user will make the majority of the major issues in the world more solvable. The most surprising element of this tool is that Google is making a billion dollars a quarter doing this. The attention economy operates on a different premise.

So what is it that I am trying to do here. In a nutshell I am trying to create and sustain the necessary attention of my readers to ensure that their time is most effectively spent on reading, sharing and conversing through this blog. There ability to be fully informed through a high quality filter is what I am preparing and providing to them in this blog format. The recent changes that I have made to this blog are designed to increase the value and usability. And include;

• Use of Labels, as well as Technorati tags, providing my readers with a variety of ways to aggregate items that I and others write about.
• I installed three custom search engines;
• Oil and gas custom search reviews the highest quality journals and sites that cover the global oil and gas business. As I find more high quality documents and sites I will add them to that search engine.
• Innovation search engine reviews the quality documents and sites that I discover and use in my research regarding innovation.
• Academic search engine that provides the best academic sites available. Oxford, Harvard, MIT, London School of Economics, University of Chicago, Berkely, Princeton, Yale and Stanford to name just a few. Other sites like DSpace and most of the universities that provide their course offerings and videos online.
• I have installed not only the del.ico.us articles that I read and find of value, but now have included the tag cloud that these articles and tagging provides. Readers are encouraged to fully explore the referenced articles and tags, they are there for your reading enjoyment and to act as a filter to get to the quality stuff first. Please don't hesitate to join my del.ico.us network while visiting.
  
• I have also provided 50 of the most recent blog posts and readings that I discover through my RSS reader, Google Reader. These url's can be seen by going to the website where these ideas are hosted. These provide my readers with the best of the best.
• And finally a financial summary that caters to the oil and gas market activity. And a summary of the Sun Microsystem Aquarium which is where the J2EE server that we will be using is summarized.
  

If I am able to provide quality reading material and idea generation for my viewing public, focused on innovation in the oil and gas industry globally. With a strong focus of my writing regarding the revolutionary use of the joint operating committee, I think that I am spending my time as effectively as I can. I believe that this enables my readers to focus their attention a little clearer on the issues and opportunities we all face in the oil and gas industry.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. As I have mentioned here before, there is no better job in the world from my point of view. I will be writing more on the topic of the attention economy and work hard to focus my readers attention as finely as I can.

Technorati Tags: Attention-Economy, Hagel, Research, Strategy