Back a the IBM zSummit, James also had the chance to talk with IBM’s John Shedletsky on a wide range of contemporary mainframe topics, primarily, about using the multi-hosting (to put it in “distributed” terms) abilities that mainframes to bring to drive consolidation benefits. The interesting angles here are that John and James get detailed into much of the “mainframes have been doing it for years” talk that’s been going around with the rise of virtualization.

John does a good job of explaining how mainframes have been built, for decades, to be fault-tolerate, scale-up environments. Along they way, he takes the chance to point out similarities to recent efforts like “shipping container computing” and other modern efforts to replicate mainframe functionality.

Disclosure: IBM sponsored this video and is a client.

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• Learning Flex 3 | O'Reilly Media

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• Kithaus, Outdoor Modern, Structure, - Design Within Reach
  Man, wouldn't one of these be nice in the backyard?
• Police state on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  We should get one of these for the backyard. Keep an eye on the cats.
• kimya_dawson_: go 35 seconds in. that is the french fir
  "Its current position as preblow job fluff for the hot and mighty makes me feel a little yucky."

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• Microsoft updates desktop management tools - Network World
  Configuration management for the desktop has always been a big differentiator for Microsoft's IT Management. How many other people do it?
• raven.me: iPhone intelligence.
  Ah, I didn't realize that Raven had left 451, at least from full-time status, to go off and do iPhone stuff. Good luck!
• Sudden outbreak of democracy baffles US pundits
  The problem is, no ever explained why.
• Microsoft will float cloud OS this month
• Running on AIR: Great business software you can get now | ITworld
• WSO2 product exposes data as RESTful Web resources - Software Development Times On The Web
• Microsoft Hyper-V Server
• The xVM Roadshow - Analyze This
  Check out the dates:# Wednesday, October 8 in Santa Clara, CA
  # Thursday, October 9 in Sacramento, CA
  # Wednesday, October 15 in Phoenix, AZ
  # Thursday, October 16 in Broomfield, CO
  # Tuesday, October 28 in San Diego, CA
  # Wednesday, October 29 in Irvine, CA
  # Thursday, October 30 in El Segundo, CA
  # Wednesday, December 10 in Dallas, TX
  # Thursday, December 11 in Austin, TX
• RIP…JDK 1.4
  Short and sweet post + comments that wrap-up the sentiment and challenges with Java End-of-Lifes and getting "management" to upgrade.
• This Ain't Your Dad's Java - powered by FeedBurner
  Looks good.
• Stomping home with your tinkertoys
  Kindasorta in defense of Apple being slow to release JDK versions to OS X.
• Nimbus Look and Feel in Java SE 6 Update 10 Beta
• Movin' on up - Software Development Times On The Web
• The Planetarium: News about Java and JavaFX for PCs, mobile phones, TV set top boxes, smart cards and more
  News on the Java world, bro.

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You guys have it real easy. I never had it like this where I grew up. But I send my kids here. Because, the fact is, whether you deserve it or not: you go to one of the best schools in the country.

Rushmore. You lucked out.

Now, for some of you it doesn’t matter. You were born rich, and you’re going to stay rich. But here’s my advice to the rest of you: take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs. And take them down.

Just remember: they can buy anything. But they can’t buy backbone. Don’t let them forget that. Thank you.

–Mr. Blume, Rushmore

In this episode, I welcome Charles back State-side by bombarding him with questions about what the hell is happening with this financial stuff. I think we get to 2 or 3 good theories, but as Charles says, it’s off course all ass Talk. We’re not SmartAndFinancial.com, afterall.

We then sort out when Charles and Silva are going to finally move to Austin (March, 09, it seems), and then I get off on a tear on how Texas needs to best California.

Overall, I’d say this is a damn fine episode.

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• NonStop home page
• C.P.A.B.H.
  Fantastic!
• Interop NY 2008: What is Cloud Computing?
• IBM blades and racks get all-you-can-eat VMs
• Driving Adobe: Co-founder Charles Geschke on Challenges, Change and Values - Knowledge@Wharton
• "Understanding Socio-Technical Phenomena in a Web2.0 Era"
• The Texas Big Mac index?
  Get your burger arbitrage on!
• PhoneGap | Bridging the iPhone GAP
  Get access to iPhone native APIs in JavaScript-y way. Sort of like AIR for the iPhone.
• OLPC/Fedora on XO - FedoraProject

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• Microsoft and Nokia back jQuery - InsideRIA
  RMH gives his take on jQuery + (Nokia/Microsoft).
• Rushmore Script at IMSDb.
  "You guys have it real easy. I never had it like this where I grew up. But I send my kids here because the fact is you go to one of the best schools in the country: Rushmore. Now, for some of you it doesn't matter. You were born rich and you’re going to stay rich. But here's my advice to the rest of you: Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it. Thank you."
• SpringSource launches Java app server
• Free version of Hyper-V now available
• Microsoft enhances .Net, Windows Server
• Ballmer: Microsoft will soon release 'Windows Cloud' OS
• Twitter / Kathy Sierra: Never underestimate the po …
• Expanding the Cloud: Microsoft Windows Server on Amazon EC2 - All Things Distributed
• Adobe Confirms it is Working on Flash for iPhone
  Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch talks about the rise of Flash and then innovations in video, Flash, etc. Looks like Adobe is launching a "we've got endless innovation in the video/RIA world" here: good timing before the '08 Silverlight battle. Bring a picnic basket.
• Gnip 2.0 Launches, With A Business Model
  "Basically, any time a service is tracking more than 10,000 people and/or rules for a certain data provider, they’ll start paying at a rate of $0.01 per user or rule per month, with a maximum payment of $1,000 per month for each data provider tracked." Can you make money off that? Is there a magic spread-sheet that tracks a hocky-stick of $0.01/user revenue to acquisition?
• Q&A Wednesday :: OtherInBox
  This is how I use email based off catch-alls for domains that I have. I haven't checked out OtherInbox too much, but I'll have to see what their additional features are beyond, you know, just letting you put a dot in your email and (I'd hope) setting up auto-filters. Help filtering email is always welcome. I bet they'll get into GTD nuttery, auto-calendar detection, and other "email is the heart of any successful workflow" theory-driven apps.
• Why Oracle won’t lose the SaaS/Cloud competition
  "Imagine Larry et al. trying to explain missing quarterly targets because “we are investing in the right products for 5 yrs from now, that won’t drive substantial revenue anytime soon”. What would happen to their stock? A more realistic option is for Oracle to follow a BAU approach with their R&D and products. Then, as SaaS/Cloud really begins to negatively impact revenue, Oracle will acquire SaaS/Cloud vendors."
• Management on the Cloud - Archi-TECH
  "Another aspect of the data center that will change dramatically as clouds become more pervasive is the whole idea of capacity management, according to RedMonk IT analyst Michael Coté. In the cloud, capacity restraints aren’t caused by limitations in physical resources, but the speed at which new services can be deployed. It takes time to initiate new systems, transfer data and applications, test them, and finally connect them to existing services. He recommends that enterprises heading into the cloud concentrate on ensuring that new services can be enacted quickly and then establish proper workflows to manage those new assets."
• Yahoo! Message Boards - On2 Technologies, Inc. (ONT) - Sun offers JavaFX road map ???
  Some Yahoo! Finance guys getting interested in JavaFX.

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Download the episode directly right here, or subscribe to the feed in iTunes or other podcatcher to have episodes downloaded automatically.

This week, John “The Cloud to Everyone’s Silver-lining” Willis and I start out talking about the recent spate of cloud-bashing, from Messieurs Larry and Stallman. Partly in response, I point out a nice piece from Savio Rodrigues in reply to all this trough of disillusionment talk. Bouncing off some Gnip gnews, I ask John about the revenue for things like Amazon EC2: can you really survive off $0.40/month/customer? We also discuss the implications of Windows running in the cloud, on Amazon EC2.

Mid-way through, we’re joined by Zenoss’s Brandon Whichard. We start out discussing the idea of “market-places” that I’ve been seeing getting attention of late (see yesterday’s debriefing that mentioned Zoho marketplace). Brandon points out the common theme here: the return of making money off software.

Having worked with Brandon over the years, I ask him for his take on IT Management (he having departed into Identity Management for 4 years and recently come back). After John asks about the next part of the enterprise stack to be commoditized, we get into a lengthy discussion of reporting in IT Management: it never seems to do perfectly what users want, why is it that?

And, check out the sponsor for this episode:

At ITKnowledgeExchange.com, engage in a community of IT peers like yourself, asking and answering their toughest IT questions. Visit ITKnowledgeExchange.com today.

Disclosure: Zenoss is a client, as are Microsoft and IBM. See the RedMonk client list for other clients mentioned.

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You’re not likely to see college kids more excited about mainframes than the above two. T-shirt Driven Development at it’s best.

We filmed this while at the 2008 zSummit, where James talked with the Ben Ferenchak and Scott Wetter who’d both been involved in the System z academic initiative.

James starts by asking them how they got interested and involved in working on mainframes, asks how about their general take on System z, and then talks with them about their career thinking and how System z plays into that.

Disclosure: IBM is a client and sponsored this video.

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Today’s debriefing (download here or subscribe to the feed) deals with two Z’s primarily: a brief commentary on ZoHo Marketplace and a short update I recorded with Matt Ray, community manager for Zenoss, an IT Management platform. See the Zenoss 2.2.4 release notes for more details on the release Matt Ray talks about.

I also briefly mention the latest Flash maybe could be on the iPhone news that Ryan and I tragically missed in our RIA Weekly recording today. And, here’s the cloud computing/capacity management article I mention.

Next time, I’ll include the second part of the short discussion I had with Matt Ray: we talk about the python community in Austin.

As an admin note, I’ve included these debriefings in the main RedMonk Radio feed in addition to the PeopleOverProcess.com feed.

Disclosure: Adobe is a client, as is Zenoss.

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• Craig's Rantings…: Zoho Marketplace
  Craig likes the Zoho marketplace.
• Sun goes commercial with OpenSSO - Network World
  "OpenSSO Enterprise can be licensed in its entirety or users can just buy into the federation features. Entry level pricing for the entire product is $40,000 for less than 25,000 users. Entry level pricing for federation only is $20,000 for less than 25,000 users and includes unlimited partner connections."
• Flash for the iPhone confirmed at FOTB
• For Microsoft shops, Silverlight 2.0 trumps Flash
  Interesting that the comparison is to Flash instead of Flex.
• Zoho launches online market for business apps | InfoWorld | News | 2008-09-30 | By Heather Havenstein, Computerworld
  There's almost no end to "marketplaces" for running applications in the cloud now-a-days, eh?
• CapMetro close to getting federal OK on commuter rail cars - Austin Business Journal:
  "The launch is unlikely to happen before early next year because of some construction setbacks with two of the stops."
• Release Notes for Zenoss 2.2.4 - Commercial Open Source Application, Systems and Network Monitoring - Zenoss
• How cloud computing will change capacity management
  "Capacity management is a critical part of ensuring that your company is getting the performance and functionality it needs from computation resources. It ensures that the required IT resources are available to conduct day-to-day business and also ensures that just enough money is being spent to do so, not more, or less. As the resources available to IT evolve — cloud computing, virtualization, and other innovations — the requirements and benefits of capacity management will also change."

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Ryan and I got back on track to recording RIA Weekly: check out the latest episode here.

I’ve setup a new blog and URL for RIA weekly: RIAWeekly.com. The feed is exactly the same, but I’ll be shifting the show notes over to there from now on with pointers from here (for awhile at least) to the new posts.

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cote posted a photo:

From a conference call this morning.

I recently talked with Pat “The Knees” Patterson and Daniel “The Smoking Monkey” Raskin of Sun Microsystems. They’d applied the use of the open source single sign-on project, OpenSSO to tie together the login process between Google Apps, SalesForce.com, other SaaS services, and the local corporate network. You just sign in once to your Windows login, and you don’t need to sign in again.

Life-cycle Management

Also key here to companies is more control over the full life-cycle of what users have access to: not only can you setup new users to have one sign in (or, “provision” them), but as needed you can remove access (”de-provision”), making sure that employees and former employees can’t muck around with things they shouldn’t.

The video comes in three parts: an interview about the service and a general discussion of Identity 2.0, followed by a demonstration, and then a bonus demo of the Java Web Start enabled packaging available for OpenSSO:

Interview - Federated SaaS/Behind-the-firewall Identity & Identity 2.0

Demo of SaaS Single sign-on

(Be sure to click the fullscreen button for a larger version if you need it.)

Installing OpenSSO quickly with Java Web Start

(Be sure to click the fullscreen button for a larger version if you need it.)

Disclosure: Sun sponsored these videos and is a client.

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The piece on cloud computing I mentioned in yesterday’s debriefing is now published over at SearchDataCenter:

Capacity management is a critical part of ensuring that your company is getting the performance and functionality it needs from computation resources. It ensures that the required IT resources are available to conduct day-to-day business and also ensures that just enough money is being spent to do so, not more, or less. As the resources available to IT evolve — cloud computing, virtualization, and other innovations — the requirements and benefits of capacity management will also change.

…

While the underlying constraints for capacity management change when using cloud computing, the traditional cycles of modeling, provisioning, monitoring, maintaining and modifying remain. Evaluated performance, cost and the ability of the business to profit will remain. However, more emphasis is placed on the last two steps of the cycle: maintaining the use of the cloud-based resources and modifying their use over time.

Go check out the rest if you’re curious.

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Today’s debriefing podcast (download here or subscribe to the feed) mentioned: my quick take on Microsoft and Nokia using jQuery, a brief note on seeing LogLogic’s new community portal and some basic tips on boot-strapping such sites, Hyperic’s HQ 4.0 Beta (with lengthy commentary on IT management agents behind the firewall and JMX browsing and monitoring), cubicles vs. offices, and then a brief mention of a piece on capacity management for cloud computing that I sent off to SearchDataCenter.com today.

(There’s a weird skip in the audio right at the beginning: don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.)

Disclosure: Hyperic and Loglogic are clients.

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• IBM Service Management Jams eMedia Center
  A whole lotta upcoming webcasts on Tivoli.
• Is your IT system compliant?
• LogLogic updates search and analysis tools for conquering IT systems management complexity | Dana Gardner’s BriefingsDirect | ZDNet.com
• Loglogic reveals growth ambitions - 25 Sep 2008 - CRN
• Getting Social in the Enterprise with ESME
• jQuery and Microsoft: The Q&A
  "Users will be provided a version of jQuery that they can incorporate in their existing or new ASP.NET projects. Users will get the full power of jQuery, combined with rich IntelliSense when creating ASP.NET applications in VisualStudio as well as official Microsoft product support for jQuery when used from an ASP.NET application. jQuery support will also be included in the ASP.NET MVC Beta. Microsoft is currently working on shipping jQuery as a part of the Visual Studio product." Also of note here: Microsoft using open source in its dev-land, not a first, no doubt, but still…
• The devilish details of desktop virtualization
• jQuery and Microsoft
  More on Microsoft's jQuery support.
• jQuery, Microsoft, and Nokia
  In which Microsoft and Nokia are to use jQuery as part of their dev world.
• A roundup of the desktop / application vendors at VMworld 2008 (Part 2: N-R)
• The Weekly RIA RoundUp for September 29 - InsideRIA
  Love that RIA RoundUp, man. I see there's a podcast now too: perfecto!
• Taking Stock: Analysis of the Top 5 Technology Blogs
  "To begin, I’m defining 'top tech blogs' as TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, VenturBeat, Mashable, and GigaOm. You could arguably put Ars Technica and CNET into that mix, but neither remain independent — CNET having been acquired by CBS, and Ars by Conde Nast."
• Microsoft to push life-cycle collaboration in newest Visual Studio
  "Previous versions of the Visual Studio Team System has featured role-based products for testers, architects, developers, and database developers. With the 2010 edition, Microsoft is recognizing a blurring of roles between developer and database developer and thus is eliminating the database-specific product."

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• Trapped in cubicles
• Main Street turns against Wall Street - Sep. 28, 2008
• How to nap
  Tips on napping - 45 minutes around noon looks key.
• IBM vs IBM in SMB - the competition continues
  "In my experience, SMB customer's perceive IBM as IBM, not the individual brands, be it hardware, software or services that make up the organisation. If there is confusion, or mixed messages, they will go to other vendors with clear and consistent messages and experiences."
• Deathbed

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• [PDF] Implementing a Model for Service Level Management - Steve Lewis
  An old JDE talk on ESM.
• Capacity Management using simple or advanced scheduling tools
  "The 'Theory of Constraints' (TOC) penned by Goldratt & Fox in their book 'The Goal' argued that the capacity of the supply chain system was governed by the capacity of its weakest link (the bottleneck) and that overproduction in other areas would simply produce unwanted inventory. Therefore high level control needs to be exercised to avoid local optimisation."
• Twitter / Bill de hOra: @cote: from my pov one of …
  On capacity management mixed with cloud computing: "from my pov one of the upsides of cloud/virtualisation is not having hardware procurement on the critical path of big projects."
• Microsoft Solutions for Management: Capacity Management
  Microsoft's MOF-based write-up on capacity management. Some nice, clear "what the hell is it?" passages.
• Defining “Cloud Services” and “Cloud Computing”
  "In other words, most people using these services are not “computing”, they are living! These customers are not explicitly buying 'cloud computing,' but the “cloud services” that are enabled by cloud computing environments; cloud computing is hidden underneath the business or consumer service."
• A Place in the Cloud
  "A CFO may well ask how far this concept can go: Could cloud computing drive IT capital expenditures down to zero? Why buy a truckload of servers, after all, when the company can tap into Amazon or Google's vast data centers and just buy processing power on an operating-expense basis?…If the company needs to add five servers to handle a surge in additional Web traffic, it can bring new capacity online without a capital outlay or cannibalizing an existing server."
• Ivanka Menken - A Woman on a Mission in the Business of IT Service Management
  Blog focused on IT Management in the large, but interlaced with new stuff like cloud computing.
• Service Level Management for cloud computing « Ivanka Menken
• Scooter sales shoot up as Austin copes with gas prices
• collision detection: Poll: Young people who use landlines are more conservative than those who use mobile phones
• We Are Startup District | Startup District
  We love to call everything a "district" in Austin, even virtual districts like this one.

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• Oracle's Ellison nails cloud computing
  "Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"
• Terracotta Licenses Hyperic IT Management Technology | Hyperic
  Old press release, but, yeah, Terracotta licenses SIGAR.
• SmartFoxServer: Socket server for Flash multiplayer games and applications
  Anyone know about these guys? I like the description: "
  SmartFoxServer is a multi-platform socket server designed to integrate with Adobe Flash, enabling developers to rapidly develop multiuser applications and games."
• British actor Sacha Baron Cohen (L) appears on the catwalk during … - Yahoo! News Photos
• Bookmarking your Google Shared Items on Delicious and Ma.gnolia — Rails Life
  Oh man, script to import Google Reader shared items into del.icio.us. Anyone want to get this up and running as a service?
• Rich Unger's Blog: Domain Specific Language for Cloud Computing
• Thoughts on Platform-as-a-Service
  So meaty!
• SpringSource VC investor takes COO role
  "The position of president and chief operations officer has apparently been created and awarded to Rob Bearden, an entrepreneur in residence with Benchmark Capital. Bearden is former chief operations officer for JBoss, now owned by Red Hat."
• Zenoss in France on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  They got France wired! ;)

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Today’s debriefing podcast (download here or subscribe to the feed) goes over a couple briefings I had - with PERFMAN and Etelos - some interesting news items from Adobe and Microsoft-land I came across, the recent Apple iPhone App Store hubbub (and get off on a long tear about open source and making money off software), and closes out with a short note on the cloud computing book I’m looking to start-up with the cloud to everyone’s silver-lining.

As I noted yesterday, I’m curious to hear if you like this format or if it’s terrible for you. Thanks to Mark for chiming in and the NetQoS folks for the notice’ing on yesterday’s.

Disclosure: Adobe and Microsoft are clients.

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Download the episode directly right here, or subscribe to the feed in iTunes or other podcatcher to have episodes downloaded automatically.

This week John and I return to our laxidasical agenda, covering a disparate range of topics:

• I start out asking John about The IT Skeptic’s recent book and new website, since John mentioned it to me the other day.
• The myCMDB screencast I recorded this week leads us to start talking about CMDBs in general. Keep your eyes peels for that screencast here soon.
• Having met with a local Planview-ite, I talk about project and portfolio management in IT Management; namely, that it ain’t too sexy in IT Management but sure seems valuable as far as tracking cash. Also, this reminds me of BMC’s recent ITM buy.
• John asks me my opinion of when you should and shouldn’t virtualize, which launches me off into a long soliloquy on the topic. The primary suggestion is for IT departments to focus on operation efficiencies over anything else: vendors are going to figure out how to make the same amount, if not more, money, so cost savings will be temporary from that front - don’t fall into Moore’s Law fantasy on that front. The real benefits have to come from people saving time and being more effective.
• Having attended the IBM zSummit analyst event, I give a short update on how IBM is talking about it’s cloud engagements. John and I still agree that IBM needs a cloud product, but from my perspective they’ve improved greatly since the “don’t call it a come-back, I’ve been here for years” messaging at Pulse.
• Finally, I give my brief take on PacketTrap’s newly released Perspective product: what I call a “general IT Management Platform,” something that monitors and manages anything with an IP address, including applications and middleware.

And, there’s of course more, including an opening discussion of U.B. Funkeys and kidrobot figurines at the Austin branch of the hipster bookstore Domy.

And, check out the sponsor for this episode:

At ITKnowledgeExchange.com, engage in a community of IT peers like yourself, asking and answering their toughest IT questions. Visit ITKnowledgeExchange.com today.

Disclosure: Managed Objects, BMC, and IBM are clients. See the RedMonk client list for other clients mentioned.

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• Props from Redmonk - NetQoS - Network Performance Blog, Network Performance Management News, Tutorials, Resources - Network Performance Blog
• Etelos Online Marketplace for On-Demand Web Applications, Services, and More
  Another SaaS platform for ya, with marketplaces and plenty of SaaS-ified apps.
• Adobe Talks Open Source, Innovation and the Future of Flash
• PERFMAN 7.2 Enables Virtualization Lifecycle Management
  Does VMWare and LPAR virtualization management, along with a legacy of normal monitoring stuffs.
• US Army unit deployed to home front
  Yeah, let's hope there's more to the story or expect to get sprayed with a Crowd Control Glueweb in the near future when you start asking why we spend a trillion or so on Wall Street and nothing to fix health care. Anyone got de-gluing solvents handy?
• Go Big Blue, go! Show them who’s the true friend of the little guy.
  The problem with BigCo standards process.
• What if VMware bought Citrix? Would Microsoft care?, from Brian Madden on BrianMadden.com
• Oracle enters hardware market; Launches storage server to ride shotgun with database
• Q&A from SageCircle’s “Dealing with Problem Analysts” webinar « SageCircle Blog
• Oracle and Cloud Computing. Funny.
  "Oracle seemed to have missed one of the main points of cloud computing — that it's an on-demand approach and that includes software licensing costs. In case you didn't notice, Oracle is not offering pay-per-use pricing for the cloud. All they are saying is that you can use the regular perpetual, upfront, fully-paid software license on EC2. Big Whoop."
• Can A Better Database Boost MySpace Revenues? « Data Center Knowledge
  "Can better data analysis help boost ad revenue for social media sites like MySpace and Photobucket? Fox Interactive Media thinks so, and is using industrial-strength database technology from Sun Microsystems (JAVA) and Greenplum to better target ads on user-generated content on its sites…. Fox believes improved data analysis can help it find the right combination of content, ads and advertisers." Data-warehousing & business intelligence applied, bub.
• IBM launches four new cloud computing centers | InfoWorld | News | 2008-09-24 | By John Ribeiro, IDG News Service
  "Bangalore, India; Hanoi, Vietnam; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Seoul, South Korea. The company now has 13 cloud computing centers worldwide." IBM loves opening these cloud data-centers.
• Open at Adobe: There's something happening here.
  "Today, Adobe is publishing the next of the specs, the Mobile Content Delivery Protocol (Formerly Flash® Cast™ protocol). This communication protocol describes a mechanism for data to be synchronized between mobile phones and a network-based server in an efficient, mobile network–friendly manner."
• Birth of a Platform: 25 Million AIR Application Installs and 850k SDK Downloads
• Mozilla Ubiquity: Is Mozilla building out a different kind of RIA platform?
• Some intriguing data behind Red Hat's 29 percent quarterly growth | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET News
  Details on RedMonk's earnings call. Looks like they did well.
• Apple bans App Store heartbreak chatter • The Register
  When people "whine" about closed systems, this is the kind of stuff they're looking to avoid. Make sense now?
• T-mobile G1: Android and T-Mobile G1's Five Most Obnoxious Flaws
• Android & iPhone, Same Thing Only Different | Venture Chronicles
• Curl “Nitro” gets a beta 2 release | The Universal Desktop | ZDNet.com
• Adventures in Open Source » Blog Archive » Radio Free Europe
  When you say 'open source' outside of the US, it means 100% free software. If you look at the column labeled “European View” it pretty much echos what I’ve been saying for years. The 'commercial' open source business model as seen in the United States View is not open source."
• Is Sun Solaris on its deathbed?
• Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond vs Riley Cote Sep 22, 2008
  Man, them Canadians are rough, but so polite about it. Check how the ref gets the glove out of the way. Wouldn't want him slipping while getting a beatin'.
• Saturday Night Live: First CityWide Change Bank 2

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Since I haven’t had the chance to blog in text form much of late, I thought I’d try a different medium: a short audio update. Download it directly here; you should also be able to subscribe to this blog’s feed to download it as a podcast. In this “Debriefing” I primarily go over the conversations I had today with NetQoS, PacketTrap, and SpringSource. I also mention the rise in Surgient spottings I’ve been having of late.

Tell me if you like this format or think it’s a waste of time.

Disclosure: SpringSource is a client.

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• Cisco Tries to Break Out of the Data Center Role - NYTimes.com
• Macworld | Mac Gems | Spotlight Control
• Microsoft Makes San Antonio “A Force”
• Real ITSM | Making IT real
• What do all the sites without a CMDB do? | The IT Skeptic
  The continuing semiotic quest to figure out what exactly "CMDB" means now-a-days.
• Why is Project Management almost invisible in ITIL V3? | The IT Skeptic
• Microsoft ups the ante on ITIL by releasing MOF into the public domain | The IT Skeptic
  "Consultants, trainers and service providers are now free to create products based on MOF without paying licence tithes and without accreditation."
• PacketTrap gives enterprise “Perspective”
  Dennis gives the PacketTrap Perspective overview.
• Oracle collaborates with Beehive | IT Project Failures | ZDNet.com
• Dell Heaven
  Brief round-up of Dell's launch into social media over the past year.
• Is Surgient's success causing them to exit the hosting business? |Virtualization Report | David Marshall | InfoWorld
  Surgient is an interesting story of a company lasting long enough to jump into a new market and having the right tech at the right time. Go Austin!
• Sun expanding its virtualization portfolio with xVM Server |Virtualization Report | David Marshall | InfoWorld
  Nice coverage of Sun's current virtualization offerrings.
• Dell delivering quite a punch with its virtualization expansion |Virtualization Report | David Marshall | InfoWorld
  Dell specializing boxes for virtualization: more cores, better access to storage. The question becomes: does virtualization make commodity boxes less attractive and drive the desire for "luxury" servers and blades, like Sun equipment?
• FiveRuns and Morph Labs Partner to Elevate Rails Performance in the Cloud
  More on FiveRuns and Morph partnership: using private and public groups for FiveRuns TuneUp and then, in the future, using FiveRuns Manage with Morph.
• Start-up takes on application management in virtual environments
  "According to the start-up, FactFinder helps companies struggling to optimize application performance in a less static environment, such as those featuring both physical and virtual servers." Now's a great time to have any type of virtualization management technology that works - the Big 4 & Co. will be acquiring that kind of stuff right and left.
• Hyperic in Europe
• Most Mainframe MIPS Installs are Linux « Adventures in systems land
• Orion Network Configuration Manager (NCM) - Sneak Peak - Geek Speak
  Solarwinds gets into network configuration management.
• Distributed network monitoring introduction
  Monitoring from multiple sources to get a better picture of performance from different parts (geographic, usually) of your network. As Jack notes, this is trickling down into the SMB space for IT Management.
• Brand New Fancy Social Web 2.0 OpenNMS.com Website Portal Thingie
  The OpenNMS's brand is "Zero Bull." Nicely done.

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• Executive moves: Ashlee Vance ditches The Register for the New York Times
  I just noticed yesterday that Ashlee moved over to the NYTimes, good for him! Hopefully he'll find a way to keep doing podcasts like he did at the Register 'cause I looked forward to them for sure.
• LiveMink: The Thirsty Bear Tapes, 1 of 2 [on Simon Phipps, SunMink]
  Part one of a podcast Simon Phipps, James Governor, David Berlind, and I did at The Thirsty Bear (during an open source party) during JavaOne.
• Report: Austin among top 20 greenest cities
  "Austin ranks 14th."
• Oracle puts its 11g database in Amazon's cloud

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• Worlds first zero-watt monitors now shipping without price hike - Eye of Dubai News
• Adam Curtis
  Looks like he makes some interesting shows.
• Edward Bernays
  "…considered one of the fathers of the field of public relations along with Ivy Lee. Combining the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the psychology of the subconscious."
• century of the self

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• IT Management Podcast - ITKE Community Blog

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• Cisco Is Jabbering Its Way Into Office Cubicles - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
  Check that out! Cisco buys XMPP overlords, Jabber. More software to Cisco.

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• How to Find that Rock Star Junior Developer? - Stack Overflow

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As promised last week, we get back to topical news and commentary this week. John starts out talking about super computers briefly, then we discuss
super computers. We then discuss Citrix (whose Santa Clara building is pictured above), 3Tera, and VMWare’s recent cloud talk. I ask John how 3rd party cloud suppliers are tackling licensing for elastic deployments, we bump up against cloud standards, and we close out with me mentioning VDI stuff and asking how it “feels” to folks, like you, dear listeners.

We also squeek in talk of multi-core coding (see the Grady Booch video I mention) and how identity and IT management will, no doubt, find a lot of work all the buying up going on in the financial sector at the moment.

And, check out the sponsor for this episode:

At ITKnowledgeExchange.com, engage in a community of IT peers like yourself, asking and answering their toughest IT questions. Visit ITKnowledgeExchange.com today.

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• Linux and Open Source: Open Grid Forum: Grids and Clouds
• Snow Peak Titanium French Press - 3 Cup at REI.com
  This looks pricey, but great as a way to make my own coffee on the road.

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ZendCon has been enjoyable and, interestingly, relaxing. It’s a developer heavy conference and I have a pretty flexible schedule, but I’ve managed to meet with several folks and friends of RedMonk, e.g., some RIA Weekly recording with Andi Gutmans and Mike Potter, with a curling bonus!

Also, I’ve had as few gastronomic delights, to wit:

Jeff and Matt of Appcelerator took me out to dinner last night up to Sutro’s. While I didn’t get the mega fish above (I got the scallops with shredded pork on top and chicken liver pâté - damn good!), it was clearly the delight of the table. Interestingly enough, I’d visited the Sutro bathhouse ruins a last year.

Next up, on recommendation of Sean Carlson, I visited Tres Potrillos this morning for breakfast:

That’s a massive breakfast, even by Texas standards - I didn’t eat it all by far. That said, if you’re around the Santa Clara convention center, I’d recommend checking Tres Potrillos out: it’ll be better than what you can get at the Hyatt.

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• Mark Templeton shares his vision at Citrix event | Virtually Speaking | ZDNet.com
  Citrix's vision for Bring Your Own Computer, BYOC. Spot on, it seems to me.
• Microsoft: Hyper-V can compete with VMware on price, features | InfoWorld | News | 2008-09-09 | By Nancy Gohring and Eric Lai, IDG News Service
• Tres Potrillos Taqueria - Sunnyvale, CA
  I hear this place is good.
• Possible Cloud Monitoring Tools
• Twitter / NewRelic: Hi All: New Relic pricing …
  "Hi All: New Relic pricing has changed. We are now based on a per host pricing model. $40 per host, no limit to number of apps for Bronze."
• Zend adds Flex to PHP for developing rich Web apps
• SF Bay ACM: Blue Ruby - The Ruby way to talk to SAP Business Applications
  "With Blue Ruby, SAP Research wants to establish an environment, which will allow to develop and execute Ruby programs in business applications as effective and robust as today's SAP's proprietary ABAP programs, but combined with the agile and light-weight methodologies, which you would expect with a dynamic language."
• Why is usability and user experience terrible in open source apps?
• Is Linux growing at Windows' or Unix's expense?

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In addition to talking with Zend’s Andi Gutmans about the PHP/Flex announcement this morning at ZendCon, I had the chance to talk with Mike Potter of Adobe to hear their side of the story. In addition to going over the basics of the announcements - see the episode with Andi for a quick wrap-up - as you can guess, we spend more time talking about what AMF is and how it fits into the overall Flex and AIR world. Mike also gives us more detail on the tooling integration.

Additionally, we talk about new uses of Flex Mike has seen of late and talk about how appeal to the PHP community relates to the Java community relations Adobe has been doing for sometime.

Finally, having discovered that Mike is a big curling fan, I ask him to explain the game and some of the culture around it: you’ll be pretty up to speed on the basics of curling once you’re through with this episode ;>

Disclosure: Adobe is a client, as is Zend.

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Andi Gutmans tells us about the RIA related announcements at ZendCon this morning. First, he goes through the announcements:

• making the Zend Studio and Flex Builder work together in the present and targeting better integration, like debugging in the future
• Adobe’s work and contribution to link up AMF to Zend-land
• And then ongoing education and evangelizing around PHP and Flex

Check out Andi’s write-up on his blog as well.

We then discuss how PHP is primarily used in the RIA world, namely, as a gateway to the back-end for the UI layer. Along those lines, we discuss the existing use of PHP by Flex developers - Andi says Adobe told him 25% of Flex users are using PHP.

I ask Andi to talk about the types of applications that might benefit from this Adobe/Zend partnership: he cites intranet business applications, those that include multi-media interfaces, and also the Automotive Computer Services customer example cited in the press release around the announcement.

Finally, Andi being a self-proclaimed open source person, I ask him how he resolves the closed nature of Flex, namely, the Flash player. As we discus, while Adobe has opened up so much more of Flex, there’s still that closed core. Bouncing of the idea of “if it works for you use it” we talk about other UI technologies, like Silverlight, that Zend may be interested in partnering more closely with if interests arises in the PHP community.

And, the previous episode we reference at the begining was indeed, from Microsoft MIX, episode #009b to be exact.

Disclosure: Zend and Adobe are clients, as are Microsoft and IBM.

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Two RedMonk clients, MindTouch and SnapLogic, released a mashup, or composite application if you like, narrowed down to CRM systems, SalesForce and SugarCRM to be exact. Check out a screencast here. The idea of such a compositing platform reached an apex of hype last year and earlier this year if you’ll recall.

Taking the non-technological explanation and settling it in a work context, the idea is that all the applications you use for your job can’t hope to put together your Ultimate User Interface Dashboard Hoopty. More important - and pulling from, of all places, Citrix vision - the traditional round of “portals” out there that were to solve this problem seemed to have fallen with a wet thump.

Dark Data

Key to mashups for business, though, is getting access to the “dark data” that’s obscured in boring and difficult to get to data sources behind the firewall. While we’ve gone leaps and bounds to make data and process access easier in the business software world, I’d theorize that the majority of business data and enterprise process out there is locked behind difficult and tedious interfaces.

Yes, I know we all have already learned ABAP, but I couldn’t have written all that AJAX and drag and drop stuff in ABAP in the 2 days it took me to build the [Ruby on Rails] application. –Dan McWeeney

As a more consumery example, think of how boring geo-data was before Google and others finally put a dead-simple, fun even, UI on-top of it. Better, their programatic interfaces were there and easier to use than obtuse protocols. No one even uses the word “protocol” anymore.

Lighting Dark Data

The operative theory behind things like Deki CRM, then, is to light up that dark data. SnapLogic adaptors hope to make accessing that data easier and possible, and the Deki wiki hopes to provide and UI that finally lets users assemble that now lit data into something usable. And, even more contemporary, the idea is to this mashing up across the firewall, pulling and pushing data from cloud-bound services like SalesForce.

What I find interesting here is the focus of the packaging. It’s always tempting for a vendor to go out there and target everything - as both MindTouch and SnapLogic have done in the past - but narrowing down to something as specific as just SalesForce and SugarCRM can give a vendor the focus needed to explain just what a mashup is and then, if that works, pull customers and users through the thought exercise of generalizing that compositing across other data and process silos.

As a sort of undiscovered example from the IT Management world, check out generationE’s wiki-driven runbook. They don’t have a lot of information online, but they’re an interesting example having a go at applying mashups to systems administration and automation.

Disclosure: MindTouch and SnapLogic are clients.

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I’m at ZendCon this first part of this week to check in on that part of the PHP community. I last caught with Zend folks in person when I shared some drinks with Andi Gutmans and Harold Goldberg at Adobe Engage back in February, so it’ll be nice to catch-up.

As you may recall from a past RIA Weekly episode with Andi, has an interesting role to play in the layers of the RIA stack. And, of course, there are numerous other folks and companies around to chat with.

More recently, the picture above is from the Hyatt elevator. Really, I have no idea who put it there, but it does make for a snickering ride up to your room to think that a PHP die-hard slapped it up there ;>

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• Splunk Tames the Chaos Brought on by Virtualization
• Dell unwraps products designed for virtualization
• The 21st century mobile application - Software Development Times On The Web
• Citrix Systems closes in on VMware with XenServer 5 release
  "According to Simon Crosby, Citrix's CTO, XenServer 5's sweet spot is in the area of storage interoperability."
• 3Tera, Citrix Partner to Make Cloud Computing Mainstream

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In this episode, while I’m State-side, Charles is still in Finland. Thus, we start out talking about the wood-burning sauna he’s been using. We then jump into a discussion of Chrome, and then I float the theory that there’s major cracks in the dominance of web-only UIs - what with RIAs and the iPhone.

We wrap up with a special production from Charles.

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In this fantastically rich episode, we talk with Jane Curry, of Skills 1st, about her recent evaluation of Nagios, OpenNMS, and Zenoss. This evaluation resulted in a 148 page draft paper, “Open Source Management Options,” which we glide through in this episode, hitting on the pluses and minuses of each platform from the stand-point of looking for a network management platform.

Book-ending the discussion of Jane’s paper, we first discuss some early history of Tivoli and network management in general. On the other end, we briefly talk about the recent spate of virtualization news (which we’ll get to next week) and talk about my recent trip to Finland, pictured above.

Also, as you’ll hear at the start, this episode is sponsored by ITKnowledgeExchange.com, so go check them out for getting answers to your toughest IT questions.

Disclosure: Zenoss is a client, as is IBM.

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• Citrix Developer Network
  Check it out, Citrix is doing collaborative IT management with their NetScale product line.

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While at SAP TechEd 2008 this week, I grabbed Craig Cmehil for a quick overview of what’s been going on the SAP Community over the past year. He tells us about:

• The evolution of the SDN Club House, a separate room set aside at TechEd for people to meet, hang out in, and get good coffee
• The rising interest in using RIA in SAP-land, diving into some quick examples of what people are using it for beyond charts and graphs
• The Process First book
• How the SDN point program is used to donate money to the UN

Disclosure: SAP is a client and paid for my travel and hotel to SAP TechEd this year.

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• conceit
  Wow, "conceit" has a crap-pile of meanings and uses. Who knew?
• Brass ring
  Man, who knew the phrase came from carnies!

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• 25 Million People Have Now Downloaded Adobe AIR - ReadWriteWeb
  Also, "more than 850,000 developers have already downloaded the AIR software development kit."
• Microsoft plays up Hyper-V versus VMware - Network World
• Adobe sets Genesis mashup pilot
• Existing customers gravitate to Microsoft Hyper-V

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• Grid software moving to Windows
• What are your top tips for helping RedMonk/GreenMonk become carbon neutral?
  RedMonk's green challenge is to figure out how to travel yes without effecting revenue and brand ("face time"). Anyone got ideas?
• Shadows Darken Sun
• Analysts as a lagging indicator of success | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET News
• NBC DROPS MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT | Enetlive.net- Rich Internet Applications Blog

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Microsoft is finalizing its virtualization strategy and portfolio up in Bellevue as I type. While James is up there in person, giving a talk on how virtualization related to green IT, it seems like a good idea to briefly comment here.

Microsoft’s Virtualization Announcements - The Portfolio So Far

Here’s what they have:

• Hyper-V, a hypervisor for running Linux and Windows. The price for this was set at the low cost of $28 (with theories and insinuations that this was the lowest it could go without tripping off anti-trust alarms), but now it’s a free download.
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, a management console and platform for working with Microsoft and VMWare virtualization.
• Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft’s answer to VDI, coming from the Softricity legacy.

Also of interest is that Microsoft demonstrated “live migration” in Windows Server 2008. This means moving a virtual machine from one physical host to the other, you know, live.

The Larger Context - King of the Hill

There’s a vendor hustle going on as we near VMWare World next week (Stephen will be on the ground there). Microsoft’s finalization is much welcome as the industry - buyers, sellers, and watchers like myself - have all been waiting to see what Microsoft shows up with on the virtualization front. As I told a couple reporters last week, there really has been an attention bottle-neck in virtualization waiting to see Microsoft’s goods beyond the previews we’ve seen so far.

After this announcement, one thing is incredibly clear: Microsoft wants to commoditize the hypervisor (read: make it difficult to charge for and differentiate on) and move the discussion up to the management level, beyond the nuts-and-bolts. Indeed, without having their own hyper-visors, this is what the likes of Big 4 IT Management vendors like BMC desperately want to do as well. Even VMWare has said it knows this shift in value, if you will, is out there. Microsoft and others would just like it come as quickly as possible.

Others to watch here, coming fast and furious around VMWare, no doubt, are Citrix, Sun (see here), and RedHat: the last of which has already made moves with the acquisition of KVM “owner” Qumranet.

Here, the game is one thing: take as much of VMWare’s dominance and the religious zeal IT dollars have for it. Numerous studies, reports, and number-heads show that there’s a huge amount of virtualization left to be done. There’s plenty of virtualization IT spend in the next several years, and large IT vendors shudder to think that the majority of that will go to EMC/VMWare.

In a game like this, were there’s one big players, strange alliances come up with the rule of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” like Microsoft and Sun, for example. That’s were things get fun for watchers like us.

I was looking over some survey numbers recently and noticed a wide spread of virtualization options, with a huge chunk of usage, of course, in VMWare’s slot. More than the obvious dominance of VMWare, the interesting point is the fragmentation of options out there: when it comes to virtualization from the hypervisor up to management, now and in the upcoming year, there’s an overflowing cornucopia of options. Operationally, this means there’s more to consider, more innovation, and just more interesting things going on.

In addition to the redefinition up to virtualization management. Tying together alliances to build up those fragmented market shares looks to be the thing to do now. We’ll keep our peepers open for who duct-tapes to who: it should be fun.

Disclosure: Microsoft, RedHat, and Sun are clients.

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• Ungeek To Live: The Perfect Sunday Morning Bloody Mary
  Finally, I make it onto Lifehacker ;)

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• hirvanen.net | Blink
• Microsoft adds management features, licensing options to desktop virtualization - Network World
• Vendors scramble to rein in virtual environments - Network World
• Oracle buys ClearApp for SOA management
• Microsoft, Red Hat, HP, Sun boost desktop virtualization
• Cheap Truth

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“Oh JavaScript! We totally talk about JavaScript every night!”

…

“I like…uh…I’ve quite enjoyed the drinking.”

In this second episode from our Excellent Finnish Adventure, we’re sporadically joined by Kim and Silva (pictured above ). We start out in the sauna.

We talk about wood burning vs. electric saunas, talk about the dance performance we’d seen, Blink, and then launch into what the wives think about the programming life.

We talk about a bunch of other stuff too, like how to escape a moose if needed.

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