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Related Links: Wanted: 19 More of the Top Software People in the World Sung and Unsung i-Technology Heroes Who's Missing from SYS-CON's i-Technology Top Twenty?" Our search for the Twenty Top Software People in the World is nearing completion. In the SYS-CON tradition of empowering readers, we are leaving the final "cut" to you, so here are the top 40 nominations in alphabetical order. Our aim this time round is to whittle this 40 down to our final twenty, not (yet) to arrange those twenty in any order of preference. All you need to do to vote is to go to the Further Details page of any nominee you'd like to see end up in the top half of the poll when we close voting on Christmas Eve, December 24, and cast your vote or votes. To access the Further Details of each nominee just click on their name. Happy voting!   In alphabetical order the nominees are:   Tim Berner... (more)

The Top 150 Players in Cloud Computing

Cloud Expo Early Bird Savings A robust ecosystem of solutions providers is emerging around cloud computing. Here, SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Journal expands its list of most active players in the fast-emerging Cloud Ecosystem, from the 'mere' 100 we identified back in January of this year, to half as many again - testimony, if any further were needed, to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing. Editorial note: The words in quotation marks used to describe the various services and solutions in this round-up are in every case taken from the Web sites cited. As ever we encourage software engineers, developers, IT operations managers, and new/growing companies in every case to "suck it and see" by downloading or otherwise sampling the offering in question for themselves. (Omissions to this Top 150 list sh... (more)

The Top 250 Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem

In the run-up to the next Cloud Expo, 7th Cloud Expo (November 1–4, 2010) being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley, it's time to give my earlier list a complete overhaul. Here, accordingly, is an expanded list of the most active players in the Cloud Ecosystem. I have increased it from the 'mere' 150 I identified back in January of this year, to 250, testimony – as if any were needed! – to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing. Editorial note: The words in quotation marks used to describe the various services and solutions in this round-up are in every case taken from the Web sites of the companies themselves. Omissions to this Top 250 list should be sent to me via Twitter (twitter.com/jg21) and I will endeavor to include them in any future revision of this newly expanded rou... (more)

Who Are The All-Time Heroes of i-Technology?

I wonder how many people, as I did, found themselves thrown into confusion by the death last week of Jean Ichbiah (pictured), inventor of Ada.  Learning that the inventor of a computer programming language is already old enough to have lived 66 years (Ichbiah was 66 when he succumbed to brain cancer) is a little like learning that your 11-year-old daughter has grown up and left home or that the first car you ever bought no longer is legal because it runs on gasoline in an age where all automobiles must run on water. How can something as novel, as new, as a computing language possibly already be so old-fangled that an early practitioner like Ichbiah can already no longer be with us? The thought was so disquieting that it took me immediately back to the last time I wrote about Ichbiah, and indeed about Ada Lovelace for whom his language was named. It was in the context ... (more)

Where Are RIA Technologies Headed in 2008?

I am always being told off by i-technologists for quoting Picasso as having said that computers are useless. But I still love his reasoning? "Because they can only give you answers." Picasso, like AJAXWorld Magazine, liked questions. So we thought we would share with you what some of the world's leading rich Internet application pioneers are thinking may be the next questions that we need to see answered. From that readers can themselves infer where AJAX is headed. What are the top questions to ask next about AJAX? Eric Miraglia of Yahoo! 1.  (From March'08) How do I calculate the ROI of building my RIA on the iPhone SDK vs using AJAX? 2.  How do I assess the performance of my app and decide what to do next to make it faster?  3.  When it comes to accessibility, how do I know what's required of me for my rich web apps?  Beyond what's required, what makes good business se... (more)

Cloud Expo New York Call for Papers Now Open

Early Bird Savings Cloud Expo Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound as this classic disruptive technology begins to proliferate, so it is no surprise that SYS-CON's industry-leading International Cloud Expo is going from strength to strength. The 5th International Cloud Expo, to be held April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York, NY, announces that its Call for Papers is fast approaching. Topics on which submission are welcome include all aspects of providing or using massively scalable IT-related capabilities as a service using Internet technologies (see suggested examples below). Help plant your flag in the fast-expanding business opportunity that is The Cloud: submit your speaking propos... (more)

Cloud Expo 2011 East To Attract 10,000 Delegates and 200 Exhibitors

SYS-CON Events announced today that the 8th International Cloud Expo will take place June 6-9, 2011, in New York City. The International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is the world's leading Cloud-focused event and is held three times a year, in New York, Silicon Valley and in Europe. Over 600 corporate sponsors and 10,000 industry professionals have participated in Cloud Computing Expo since its inception, more than all other Cloud-related events put together. Cloud Computing Expo 2011 East Call for Papers Deadline November 30, 2010 - SUBMIT YOUR SPEAKING PROPOSAL TODAY! The four-day event will offer a rich array of sessions led by exceptional speakers about the business and technical value of cloud computing with more than 150 sponsors and exhibitors and over 5,000 estimated delegates from well over 48 different countries. Explore Cloud Expo Sponsorship &... (more)

The Top 100 Bloggers on Cloud Computing

Ever since I first published here my tentative list of Top 50 Bloggers on Cloud Computing it became clear that an expansion would be needed before too long. Thanks to community feedback via my Twitter account (http://twitter.com/jg21) here goes - just three months before Cloud Expo Silicon Valley (November 7-10) - with an expanded roster, listed as before in alphabetical order since I am making no attempt at this stage to rank the various blogs, merely to map - and celebrate - their existence. Dustin Amrhein | "A View from the Clouds" Dave Asprey | "Cloudy Words" Ian Bergin | "Clouded Issues" Randy Bias | "Cloudscaling" Rick Blaisdell | "Rickscloud" Steve Bobrowski | "The Cloud View" Rene Buest | www.CloudUser.de Larry Carvalho | "Robust Cloud" Andrew M. Chapman | "MemorableURL.com" Sam Charrington | "Cloud Pulse" Colin Clark | "Cloud Event Processing" Peter Coffee | cloudb... (more)

Why Are APIs So Popular? | @ExpoDX @AndyThurai #API #IoT #IIoT #SmartCities #DigitalTransformation

Kin Lane recently wrote a couple of blogs about why copyrighting an API is not common. I couldn’t agree more that copyrighting APIs is uncommon. First of all, the API definition is just an interface (It is the implementation detail that is important, and needs to be guarded), so it doesn’t make any sense to copyright an interface. (It is almost like copyrighting a pretty face ). Secondly, the whole idea of exposing an API is you are looking for others to finish the work you started by just providing the plumbing work. Why would anyone want to get involved with a copyrighted API and finish your work for you? Kin Lane says, “API copyright would prevent the reuse and remix of common or successful API patterns within a space. We are at a point where aggregating common, popular APIs into single, standardized interfaces is emerging as the next evolution in web and mobil... (more)

i-Technology Viewpoint: Is Web 2.0 the Global SOA?

The subject of Web 2.0 has become profoundly important over the last year. Web 2.0 describes the next generation of the Web as an application platform where most of a user's software experience resides. The subject is somewhat controversial, but it's becoming ever more apparent as the successor to monolithic system architecture, prepackaged software, and traditional Web applications. Software as a Service (SAAS) and Web as Platform are only two of the larger mantras of Web 2.0 that most of the major software vendors have begun to embrace recently. Yet not only is Web 2.0 still very misunderstood, it's actually part of an even larger way of thinking about software in a fully service-oriented manner. This includes building composite applications, remixing data, building ad hoc supply chains, harnessing user involvement, aggregating knowledge, and more. Web 2.0 is bec... (more)

Most Powerful Voices in Security

The security community has a growing number of influential and important people, especially as the industry rises to meet the need to address more advanced security threats, such as targeted attacks. But how does a company in the security industry truly identify the influential people? And then once identified, how does one use influential voices to help promote their brand? In this study, we answer the first question - how to identify the most powerful voices in your industry, focusing on the security space, and as part of this we provide you a list of people to follow for the best, most up to date information, and who have the loudest voices to help help carry some of your key messages. In a future study, we will discuss how to further exploit that knowledge to market your brand. As executives in a fast-changing and social world, many of us struggle with the abil... (more)

Microservices Articles
The explosion of new web/cloud/IoT-based applications and the data they generate are transforming our world right before our eyes. In this rush to adopt these new technologies, organizations are often ignoring fundamental questions concerning who owns the data and failing to ask for permission to conduct invasive surveillance of their customers. Organizations that are not transparent about how their systems gather data telemetry without offering shared data ownership risk product rejection, regu...
Containers and Kubernetes allow for code portability across on-premise VMs, bare metal, or multiple cloud provider environments. Yet, despite this portability promise, developers may include configuration and application definitions that constrain or even eliminate application portability. In this session we'll describe best practices for "configuration as code" in a Kubernetes environment. We will demonstrate how a properly constructed containerized app can be deployed to both Amazon and Azure ...
DevOps is often described as a combination of technology and culture. Without both, DevOps isn't complete. However, applying the culture to outdated technology is a recipe for disaster; as response times grow and connections between teams are delayed by technology, the culture will die. A Nutanix Enterprise Cloud has many benefits that provide the needed base for a true DevOps paradigm. In their Day 3 Keynote at 20th Cloud Expo, Chris Brown, a Solutions Marketing Manager at Nutanix, and Mark Lav...
The now mainstream platform changes stemming from the first Internet boom brought many changes but didn’t really change the basic relationship between servers and the applications running on them. In fact, that was sort of the point. In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Gordon Haff, senior cloud strategy marketing and evangelism manager at Red Hat, will discuss how today’s workloads require a new model and a new platform for development and execution. The platform must handle a wide range of rec...
The Internet of Things is clearly many things: data collection and analytics, wearables, Smart Grids and Smart Cities, the Industrial Internet, and more. Cool platforms like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Intel's Galileo and Edison, and a diverse world of sensors are making the IoT a great toy box for developers in all these areas. In this Power Panel at @ThingsExpo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists discussed what things are the most important, which will have the most profound e...
If your cloud deployment is on AWS with predictable workloads, Reserved Instances (RIs) can provide your business substantial savings compared to pay-as-you-go, on-demand services alone. Continuous monitoring of cloud usage and active management of Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Relational Database Service (RDS) and ElastiCache through RIs will optimize performance. Learn how you can purchase and apply the right Reserved Instances for optimum utilization and increased ROI.
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a common and reliable transmission protocol on the Internet. TCP was introduced in the 70s by Stanford University for US Defense to establish connectivity between distributed systems to maintain a backup of defense information. At the time, TCP was introduced to communicate amongst a selected set of devices for a smaller dataset over shorter distances. As the Internet evolved, however, the number of applications and users, and the types of data accessed and...
Consumer-driven contracts are an essential part of a mature microservice testing portfolio enabling independent service deployments. In this presentation we'll provide an overview of the tools, patterns and pain points we've seen when implementing contract testing in large development organizations.
In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Claude Remillard, Principal Program Manager in Developer Division at Microsoft, contrasted how his team used config as code and immutable patterns for continuous delivery of microservices and apps to the cloud. He showed how the immutable patterns helps developers do away with most of the complexity of config as code-enabling scenarios such as rollback, zero downtime upgrades with far greater simplicity. He also demoed building immutable pipelines in the cloud ...
You have great SaaS business app ideas. You want to turn your idea quickly into a functional and engaging proof of concept. You need to be able to modify it to meet customers' needs, and you need to deliver a complete and secure SaaS application. How could you achieve all the above and yet avoid unforeseen IT requirements that add unnecessary cost and complexity? You also want your app to be responsive in any device at any time. In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Mark Allen, General Manager of...