"People are a lot more knowledgeable about APIs now. There are two types of people who work with APIs - IT people who want to use APIs for something internal and the product managers who want to do something outside APIs for people to connect to them," explained Roberto Medrano, Executive Vice President at SOA Software, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 15th Cloud Expo, held Nov 4-6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Internet of Things, Data and APIs When something as simple as an API can integrate massive amounts of data into, and through, a wide variety of applications, any company can be a digital enterprise. There is a perception that some industries are using technology to innovate, while others languish in antiquated ways of running their business. But in our massively connected age, it's rare to find examples where technology isn't... (more)

i-Technology Viewpoint: When to Leave Your First IT Job

It was early May of 2004, and I was almost at the finish line for my degree. Between me and graduation: Just two summer classes. I was in the process of finishing what could only be described as the most intense spring semester of my college career. As the semester's end finally hit, I realized something. I was going to need a job, and I hadn't even started looking. Then, almost on cue, the phone rang. The president of a small and local software company was looking for computer engineers with .NET experience. They searched my university's resume database for candidates, and I came up. Would I like an interview? Hell yes. I was to be part of a team of highly skilled, versatile, .NET Ninjas. We were going to produce top-notch software for the nuclear power industry. Combining management's knowledge of the nuclear field and our kung fu grip on .NET , we hoped to domina... (more)

SG Software and AmberPoint Integrate SOA Solutions

GT Software, a provider of rapid service-oriented architecture (SOA) development for the mainframe environment, and AmberPoint, a provider of SOA runtime governance software, announced an integration of their software solutions. The combination of AmberPoint and GT Software will help organizations building and deploying services-oriented systems to implement reliable, mainframe-based business services. AmberPoint and GT Software also announced a sales and marketing partnership that will help them bring their integrated solutions to market. AmberPoint provides the management layer that is critical for realizing the return on investment from distributed, heterogeneous service-oriented systems. AmberPoint’s solutions provide comprehensive management and security capabilities without requiring any changes to the services themselves. GT Software’s Ivory solut... (more)

Intel Named “Gold Sponsor” of SOA World Conference & Expo 2009 East

SYS-CON Events announced today that Intel was named "Gold Sponsor" of the upcoming SOA World Conference & Expo 2009 East. The 15th International SOA World Conference will take place June 22-23, 2009, in New York City. Intel's SOA Products Group offers SOA Expressway - a soft appliance deployed to address common XML and SOA problems such as acceleration, security, service mediation and service governance. It enables gateway security for Cloud, SaaS, and enterprise SOA scenarios and is available for standard operating systems such as Windows and Linux and requires no special custom hardware other than standard OEM servers. 15th International SOA World Conference & Expo Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is actively enabling component reuse today and helping companies leverage their existing IT investments. Click here to register today and save! Click here to submit pape... (more)

A Painless Introduction to Java’s ThreadLocal Storage

In my last blog, we explored WeakHashMap which is based by WeakReference in Java. Now let's look at some best practices for using another powerful class: ThreadLocal from java.lang, which is also implemented using WeakReference. What is ThreadLocal? A simple example As its name suggests, a single instance of ThreadLocal can store different values for each thread independently. Therefore, the value stored in a ThreadLocal instance is specific (local) to the current running Thread, any other code logic running on the same thread will see the same value, but not the values set on the same instance by other threads. (There are exceptions, like InhertiableThreadLocal, which inherits parent thread's values by default.) Let's consider this example: We have a TransactionManager class that provide static methods to: Start a transaction with a generated ID Store that ID as a st... (more)

Connective Technologies, Inc. Announces Team-Up Agency Download Expansion Contract With Hallmark Insurance Company

HOUSTON, TX -- (Marketwire) -- 03/31/10 -- Connective Technologies announces the contract signing of TEAM-UP™ Download with Hallmark Insurance Company, a large personal lines carrier in Texas, for download servicing of their insurance distribution channel. With their wide array of flexible auto and property insurance products and multi-state expansion initiatives, Hallmark Insurance will be offering TEAM-UP download for homeowners and dwelling fire lines of businesses, in addition to auto, for their independent agents. TEAM-UP provides once-and-done download processing in an industry compliant, data-secure environment. Brookland Davis, President of Hallmark Insurance Company, states, "We're excited to expand our TEAM-UP download offering to include our homeowners and dwelling fire lines of businesses. With our recent state expansion initiatives and new product intr... (more)

The i-Technology Right Stuff

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)