Catapult Public Relations

COLLABNET SEES ENTERPRISE CLOUD DEVELOPMENT AS THE NEXT WAVE IN AGILE ALM, DEVOPS INITIATIVES IN 2012

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:48:42 +0000

As Agile and DevOps movements mature so too does cloud development

BRISBANE, Calif., Dec. 19, 2011, CollabNetÂ® (www.collab.net), the global leader for cloud development and Agile ALM products and services, expects the adoption of cloud development practices to increase in 2012 as a growing number of IT organizations build and deploy software directly in the cloud. During 2011, CollabNet saw a 40 percent increase in cloud development projects developed, deployed and hosted on its private and public cloud offerings, with more than 1,500 new customers adopting its Codesionâ�¢ cloud development platform over the past 12 months.

â��The software development industry continues to evolve at a rapid pace, and we see the convergence of Agile ALM, Continuous Delivery and hybrid cloud strategies making enterprise-wide cloud development practices increasingly attractive to IT organizations,â�� said Bill Portelli, CEO and co-founder of CollabNet. â��In this context, â��enterpriseâ�� applies to the compliance, traceability and security standards that software-driven organizations require from the cloud to increase productivity, global collaboration and the pace of releasing quality software .â��

From an industry perspective, CollabNet cites the following factors that are leading to enterprise cloud development as the next wave in software development: 1) maturing cloud development platforms that provide enterprise-grade security and regulatory compliance, 2) the ability to integrate commercial and open source ALM tools in the cloud, 3) the increase in Continuous Delivery in the cloud, and 4) the mainstream adoption of hybrid computing strategies that blend public and private cloud platforms based on application type and usage requirements.

CollabNet is well-suited to gauge the increased adoption of cloud development practices. The company maintains six world-class data centers that provide up to 99.99 percent average availability and stringent security controls for more than 1.5 petabytes of annual data traffic and 3.5 billion Subversion transactions per year. It maintains a highly trained operations team for managing large enterprise ALM sites, managing more than 10 terabytes of data annually and 1.6 million Subversion transactions per day for more than 25,000 users. It hosts approximately 800,000 documents and 350,000 artifacts for more than 5,000 projects using 7,000 trackers.

â��We see enterprise cloud development as a growing movement in the software development industry and the result of two megatrends in IT â�� cloud computing and Agile ALM,â�� said Guy Marion, vice president of cloud services for CollabNet. â��Just as Agile processes are scaling across IT organizations, cloud development is moving from smaller projects to more strategic implementations that larger IT organizations are using to adopt and scale software development and deployment directly in the cloud.â��

CollabNet enables hybrid cloud development strategies with a portfolio of products and services that provide the performance, security and traceability todayâ��s maturing Agile-based environments require. CollabNetâ��s cloud platforms meet enterprise needs and empowers thousands of developers to streamline the development and deployment process using a growing ecosystem of hosted open source and commercial tools, including Apache SubversionÂ®, Git, Trac, Bugzilla, CollabNetâ��s Agile ALM platform TeamForgeÂ®, and other leading Agile project management tools.

About CollabNet

CollabNet is the recognized leader in enterprise cloud development and Agile ALM, with more than 7,000 global customers that range from single workgroups to large enterprises. Its deep open source roots include the creation of Subversion (now formally known as Apache Subversion), the industry leading version control system with millions of users. CollabNet helps enterprise customers build and deploy better software through its focus on collaboration, enterprise Agile methods and cloud development and computing. Many CollabNet customers improve productivity by as much as 70 percent, while reducing costs by 80 percent. Its solutions include TeamForge, the industry-leading Agile ALM platform for distributed development, ScrumWorksÂ® Pro for Agile project management, Subversion Edge for managed source code management, Codesion for cloud-based development and deployment, and a range of Agile-based training, consulting and transformation services. For more information, please visit (www.collab.net).

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CollabNet, TeamForge, and ScrumWorks are registered trademarks of CollabNet, Inc. Codesion is a trademark of CollabNet, Inc. Subversion is a registered trademark of the Apache Software Foundation. Other names may be trademarks of their respective holders.

Media Contact:

Christie Denniston

Catapult PR-IR

O: (303) 581-7760

M: (303) 827-5164

cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com

COLLABNET BRINGS AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TO THE CLOUD WITH SCRUMWORKS PRO HOSTED ON CODESION

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:31:45 +0000

Cloud development platform enables Agile teams to quickly spin up development projects in the cloud; more than 1,500 customers chose Codesion in past 12 months

BRISBANE, Calif., Nov. 17, 2011 â�� CollabNetÂ® (www.collab.net), the global leader in enterprise cloud development and Agile ALM, today announced the availability of its ScrumWorksÂ® Pro Agile project management tool hosted on the Codesion cloud development platform. The new ScrumWorks Pro service can be provisioned instantly on the Codesion platform, enabling Agile developers to code, connect and deploy software on an enterprise-grade platform backed by 24/7 support, uptime SLAs and integrations with leading development solutions and production environments (public/private clouds). Now, for the first time, development teams have access to a fully integrated, cloud-based Agile development platform that spans Agile project management, source code management and deployment.

General availability starts today and a free 30-day trial is available at: (https://app.codesion.com/ajax#signup?mode=swpdemo&source=swp).

â��A growing number of development organizations are moving beyond traditional Agile project management SaaS offerings and looking to gain the speed, cost and productivity gains that cloud computing offers,â�� said Guy Marion, vice president, CollabNet cloud services. â��Having ScrumWorks Pro offered within a flexible, hosted cloud environment, tightly coupled with leading source code and deployment ALM tools, further extends the benefits of Agile methods for rapid development and delivery of software.â��

CollabNet continues to lead the industry adoption of enterprise cloud development with a portfolio of products and services that provide the performance, security and traceability todayâ��s maturing Agile-based environments require. The Codesion cloud platform, designed to meet these enterprise needs, has been adopted by more than 1,500 customers in the past 12 months, reflecting the increasing number of companies shifting development and IT operations to the cloud. The Codesion platform empowers thousands of developers to streamline the development and deployment process using a growing ecosystem of hosted open source and commercial tools, including Apache Subversion, Git, Trac, Bugzilla, CollabNetâ��s Agile ALM platform TeamForge, and other leading Agile project management tools.

The hosted version of ScrumWorks Pro, used by more than 100,000 developers globally through on-premise installations, now is available on-demand directly from the Codesion cloud platform. It enables Agile organizations to quickly provision source code management, tracking, project management and delivery tools to manage a variety of development processes and needs. Development managers now have a breadth of choice and flexibility from a tooling perspective, while maintaining visibility and ensuring process uniformity across teams.

The benefits of the new ScrumWorks Pro cloud development offering include:

â�¢ Agile in the Cloud: best of breed Agile project management offered through a hosted cloud, and coupled with leading source code management and deployment solutions.

â�¢ Speed: teams can provision and be up and running with ScrumWorks Pro in minutes, with no software installation or hardware upgrades.

â�¢ Flexibility: Codesionâ��s open and extensible platform allows users to provision ScrumWorks Pro alongside a growing list of other common development tools.

â�¢ Ease of Use: ScrumWorks Pro is very intuitive to use and requires no custom configurations or lengthy set up. It also is supported by an extensive library of training videos to help development teams succeed with Agile-based methods.

â�¢ Enterprise-grade Security and Reliability: the Codesion-enabled ScrumWorks Pro, hosted in world-class SAS-70 data centers, is â��Security Standards Compliantâ�� and protected with secure backup and disaster recovery systems.

â��CollabNet is helping our organization embrace cloud development as a means of improving productivity and reducing costs while, at the same time, providing structure and visibility we need from a business standpoint,â�� said Vinay Asthana, Team Lead, Veterans Enterprise Technology Solutions, Inc. â��Having Agile project management available through ScrumWorks Pro on Codesion is a major step in moving more of our development projects to the cloud where we can code, collaborate and deploy software more efficiently.â��

About CollabNet

CollabNet is the recognized leader in enterprise Cloud development, powering global software development for more than 7,000 companies, from workgroups to enterprises. As the company that spawned from deep open source roots with the sponsoring of industry-leading Subversion, we are dedicated to leveraging collaboration, Agile methods, and Cloud computing to transform the way software development organizations develop and deploy applications, in their cloud or ours. Through this transformation, CollabNet clients have recognized improved productivity by up to 70 percent and reduced their cost of software development by up to 80 percent due to the implementation of highly Agile and enterprise-wide collaborative and distributed techniques. Our solutions include TeamForgeÂ®, the industry-leading Agile ALM platform for distributed developers, the Codesion cloud hosting and integration platform, ScrumWorksÂ® Pro Agile project management, Subversion Edge for managed SCM, and Agile training and transformation services. For more information, please visit www.collab.net.

###

CollabNet, TeamForge, and ScrumWorks are registered trademarks of CollabNet, Inc. Codesion is a trademark of CollabNet, Inc. Other names may be trademarks of their respective holders.

Media Contact:

Christie Denniston

Catapult PR-IR

O: (303) 581-7760

M: (303) 827-5164

cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com

JNBRIDGE ENABLES GLOBAL REINSURANCE FIRM SWISS RE TO ELIMINATE REDEVELOPMENT OF CORE ANALYTICS API

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:32:54 +0000

SwissRe able to shorten development times, improve localization and gain consistent business results

BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 26, 2011- JNBridge, (www.jnbridge.com), the award-winning provider of interoperability tools that connect the Java and .NET Frameworks, and Swiss Re, (www.swissre.com) one of the world's largest and most diversified reinsurers, together are now enabling actuaries all over the world to incorporate a common numerical analysis Java API in their local market Excel-based applications in order to eliminate the need for local code reinvention and duplication.

"Giving actuaries working in local markets access to key functions from their VBA/.NET environments has changed the way they develop applications," said Johannes M. Hug, Ph.D. director of information technology at Swiss Re. "Without the need to reinvent critical code, they now can focus on integrating local market conditions for even more accurate analysis."

Insurance underwriting relies on complex analysis to make critical business decisions - including reviewing financials, valuing potential losses and mitigating risk. At Swiss Re, these analyses are performed by actuaries who chart and analyze probabilistic data using a proprietary library containing hundreds of classes of numerical and business functions that capture reinsurance knowledge and perform key computations.

Prior to seeking out JNBridgePro, Swiss Re had spent considerable resources in developing the Swiss Re Actuarial Library (SAL), its proprietary Java-based API that contains rich numerical analysis functionality. SAL is readily available to actuaries working on corporate enterprise applications at the home office but it was not accessible to actuaries in local markets thus resulting in actuaries continuing to reinvent the wheel by writing their own logic, investing time and effort to create and test more limited function sets.

"A great deal of business knowledge is embedded in the API - cost models, internal overhead and profit margin calculations and critical numerical and business functionality - content local users might not think to create," said Thomas Kruppa, director of products at Swiss Re. "Yet the API cannot address every market or rapidly changing local conditions. Local markets have unique characteristics that our Java-based enterprise library does not address. That is why many of Swiss Re's actuaries develop standalone Microsoft Excel applications that are tailored to local markets."

JNBridgePro is an interoperability bridge between Java and .NET that simplifies the issue of cross-platform integration. Using JNBridgePro, SwissRe was able to:

Integrate the solution quickly with a simple deployment: JNBridgePro quickly made SAL available to users. Dr. Hug estimates it took only a few weeks to validate the proxied Java API and distribute it directly to each user's desktop.
Gain consistent, repeatable results without reinventing code. By exposing the Java API, VBA/.NET developers can take advantage of an extensively tested, common code base to ensure greater numerical accuracy and eliminate errors. Users no longer need to code functions in Visual Basic or C+ and test them to ensure they return the same answer with the same precision as those provided by SAL. The result is centralized numerical and business intelligence that can be accessed by all actuaries to deliver consistent and repeatable results.
Develop local applications faster. Access to powerful routines lets users take advantage of sophisticated functionality that is unavailable when creating code from scratch. As a result, actuaries can spend their valuable time developing market-specific logic and build localized solutions faster.

For more information on JNBridgePro or JNBridge's JMS Adapters for Java and .NET. please visit: (www.jnbridge.com).

About JNBridge

JNBridge connects Java and .NET Framework-based components and applications together with tools and adapters that are fast, simple to use and remove the complexities of cross-platform interoperability, both in the cloud and on the ground. JNBridge is a privately-held company based in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 2001, JNBridge has over 450 unique customers in 40 countries that use JNBridge's award-winning solutions in a wide variety of applications in financial services, insurance, media, manufacturing and other industries. Please visit www.jnbridge.com for more information.

# # #

Contact information:

Christie Denniston

Catapult PR-IR

Office: 303-581-7760, ext. 13

Cell: 303-827-5164

cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com

JNBRIDGE DELIVERS JAVA AND MICROSOFT .NET INTEGRATION FOR THE CLOUD WITH LAUNCH OF JNBRIDGEPRO 6.0

Thu, 26 May 2011 00:55:45 +0000

JNBridgePro 6.0 addresses interoperability between major cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure

BOULDER, Colo., May 25, 2011 (Glue Conference Booth # 11) - JNBridge, (www.jnbridge.com), the award-winning provider of interoperability tools that connect the Java and .NET Frameworks, announced today the release of JNBridgePro 6.0, which enables developers to access both .NET-based and Java-based cloud services and APIs from ground or cloud-based clients written in the other platform, and to develop cloud-based services and APIs that incorporate both Java and .NET-based components.

"As enterprise development teams start including cloud technologies in their applications, incompatible cloud platforms and APIs will be a huge road block," said Michael Cote, analyst at RedMonk. "We're already seeing a clamoring for tools and services that integrate this spaghetti bowl of end-points, and they're only going to become more important to realizing the benefits of cloud development."

JNBridgePro connects Java and .NET Framework-based components and applications together with simple-to-use Visual Studio and Eclipse plug-ins that remove the complexities of cross-platform interoperability. JNBridgePro 6.0 extends this interoperability to the cloud, allowing developers to build and distribute integrated applications anywhere, including:

Intra-cloud, where both platforms reside in the same cloud, either in the same or in different instances
Inter-cloud, where the instances belong to different clouds
Ground-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground, where the interoperability is between a cloud instance and an application running on the ground.

"JNBridge's vision of cloud interoperability is any object or API, on any platform, in any language, anywhere," said Wayne Citrin, CTO of JNBridge. "JNBridgePro 6.0 will allow enterprises to build applications that access any API, or build rich APIs that are accessible to the other side, no matter where they reside, and whether or not they are services enabled."

Along with extending all the high-performance interoperability capabilities of JNBridgePro to the cloud, JNBridge has both simplified and extended the licensing options. Now a single edition, JNBridgePro 6.0 includes all the functions of the previous standard (JNBridgePro SE) and enterprise (JNBridgePro EE) editions. JNBridgePro 6.0 now offers an annual licensing option, in addition to perpetual, and supports licensing of virtual machines and cloud instances.

Availability

JNBridgePro 6.0 will be generally available on June 6, 2011. To download and purchase directly please visit (www.jnbridge.com/downloads.htm).For more information on JNBridge, please visit (www.jnbridge.com).

About JNBridge

# # #

Contact information:

Christie Denniston

Catapult PR-IR

Office: 303-581-7760, ext. 13

Cell: 303-827-5164

cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com

JNBRIDGE CTO WAYNE CITRIN TO DISCUSS CLOUD COMPUTING INTEROPERABILITY AT GLUECON 2011

Mon, 23 May 2011 18:04:43 +0000

Citrin to present and demo how JNBridgePro 6.0 will enable developers to integrate Java with .NET code in the Cloud

Who: Wayne Citrin

CTO

JNBridge

(www.jnbridge.com)

Citrin is Chief Technology Officer at JNBridge. He is the architect of JNBridgePro and has been devoted to Java and .NET interoperability issues since .NET's beta days, more than nine years ago. Prior to co-founding JNBridge, Citrin was a leading researcher in programming languages and compilers and was on the Computer Engineering faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He was a researcher at IBM's research lab in Zürich, Switzerland and has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in Computer Science. He has given presentations at JavaOne, Microsoft's TechEd and TechReady, and numerous academic and technical conferences.

What: Java/.NET Interoperability in the Cloud

Cloud computing is without question here to stay. However, how do IT organizations moving applications to the cloud integrate Java and Microsoft .NET applications? At the GLUE Conference, Citrin will outline the level of support and various approaches developers can take to call Java from .NET in the cloud. Citrin will explain why he believes that what is typically discussed under the rubric of cloud interoperability is so insufficient it will destroy the promise of the cloud. For cloud computing to be successful 'Cloud Interoperability' must encompass full Cloud-to-Cloud access, whereby any cloud service can be consumed from any client or on-premise platform, and full interoperability within a cloud service. Citrin will conclude with an explanation of the approaches developers can take to make interoperability in the cloud successful. He will share use cases and tools that provide the ability to write cloud services using any platform, easily, simply and quickly, and regardless of the cloud vendor.

When: Wed., May 25, 2011

2-3 p.m. MTN

Where: GLUE Conference 2011

Omni Interlocken Spa and Resort

500 Interlocken Boulevard

Broomfield, CO 80021

Contact: For more information or to set up an interview with Wayne Citrin, please contact:

Christie Denniston

Catapult PR-IR

303-581-7760, ext. 13

(cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com)

TASKTOP EXECUTIVES TO KEYNOTE AND PRESENT AT JAX 2011

Tue, 03 May 2011 01:14:06 +0000

TASKTOP EXECUTIVES TO KEYNOTE AND PRESENT AT JAX 2011

In keynote, Kersten to explore Continuous Integration and how cloud computing is creating a shift in software development and lifecycle management

WHO:  Mik Kersten
CEO of Tasktop Technologies
  Creator of the open source Eclipse Mylyn project
  Tasktop Technologies
  www.tasktop.com

  Steffen Pingel
  Senior Software Developer
Tasktop Technologies
  www.tasktop.com

  Benjamin Muskalla
  Software Developer
  Tasktop Technologies
  www.tasktop.com

WHAT: The following presentations will be given at JAX 2011

Keynote - Mik Kersten
Task-focused Continuous Integration: Bringing Code to Cloud and Back Again
(May 3, 2011 - 8:15 p.m. - 9 p.m.)

The deployment destination for enterprise applications is going through its biggest transition since the creation of Java. Cloud infrastructure is changing the game for both application deployment and lifecycle management. Over the past decade, open source technologies such as Spring and Tomcat have defined how we build and run enterprise Java applications. Recent developments in open source collaboration Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools are now transforming how we evolve and manage those applications.

Kersten will explore connecting enterprise Java stack with cloud deployment via a task-focused continuous integration loop. The SCM, code review, and Agile ALM technologies, based on the Eclipse Mylyn ALM interoperability platform, will be used to demonstrate how to achieve this new level of connectivity and automation between the team and the application. The talk will conclude with a roadmap of how we can apply these new lessons to define the next decade of enterprise Java productivity.

Q & A: State of Continuous Integration - Mik Kersten
(May 4, 2011 - 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.)

The latest changes in the Hudson/Jenkins case cause quite a stir. But how important are these changes for Continuous Integration? What is the technical roadmap? Kohsuke Kawaguchi, Steffen Schluff, Mik Kersten and Björn Feustel will give some advice and answer your questions.

Git, Gerrit, Hudson and one Mylyn to Rule Them All - Steffen Pingel and Benjamin Muskalla
(May 5, 2011 - 11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.)

Git, Gerrit and Hudson are being increasingly adopted. While these tools enable exciting improvements for developers, learning how to push, pull and fetch can be daunting. For tasks, Mylyn already streamlines workflow by providing first-class integration with the IDE. The recent project restructuring now enables the same integrated workflows for code reviews, builds and version control systems.

Mylyn 3.6: Agile, ALM and Task-Focused Continuous Integration - Mik Kersten
(May 5, 2011 - 2 p.m. - 3 p.m.)

A decade ago, heavyweight ALM tools did more to impede developers than to support collaboration. With the move to Agile methodologies, the time has come to embrace lightweight collaboration and social coding tools to increase our velocity. For many Java developers, Mylyn has become the tool of choice for connecting team communication with coding. In 2010, Mylyn became a top-level Eclipse project and grew to support the entire Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) stack. This talk will outline how Mylyn can double Java coding output by bringing the entire workday into the place where developers are most productive - the IDE. Demos will showcase how Mylyn's task-focused interface integrates all leading task and Agile tools, SCM tools such as SVN and Git, and build/CI tools including Hudson. We will then review productivity best practices learned from deploying Mylyn at scale both in open source projects and large organizations. The talk will conclude with a vision of how realigning collaboration around a unified notion of tasks can yield a measurable productivity and knowledge capture benefit across the entire organization.

WHERE: JAX 2011 - The Conference for Java, Enterprise Architecture & SOA
Rheingold Halle Mainz
Rhein Strasse 66
55116 Mainz
Germany

CONTACT: For more information or to set up an interview with Mik Kersten please contact Christie Denniston at Catapult PR-IR 303-581-7760, ext. 13 or (cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com)

INTEROPERABILITY EXPERT SAYS WINDOWS AZURE STARTER KIT FOR JAVA DOESN’T ADDRESS THE ‘REAL WORLD PROBLEMS’ OF CLOUD DEVELOPERS

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:51:08 +0000

INTEROPERABILITY EXPERT SAYS WINDOWS AZURE STARTER KIT FOR JAVA DOESN'T ADDRESS THE 'REAL WORLD PROBLEMS' OF CLOUD DEVELOPERS

JNBridge's Wayne Citrin outlines a more practical approach for integrating Java with .NET code in the Cloud

Who:  Wayne Citrin
          CTO
          JNBridge
          (www.jnbridge.com)

Citrin is Chief Technology Officer at JNBridge. He is the architect of JNBridge Pro and has been devoted to Java and .NET interoperability issues since .NET's beta days, more than nine years ago. Prior to co-founding JNBridge, Citrin was a leading researcher in programming languages and compilers and was on the Computer Engineering faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He was a researcher at IBM's research lab in Zürich, Switzerland and has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in Computer Science. He has given presentations at JavaOne, Microsoft's TechEd and TechReady, and numerous academic and technical conferences.

What: Java and the Azure Cloud
Microsoft has been promoting the use of Java in the Azure cloud, with the recent launch of "Windows Azure Starter Kit for Java." (http://preview.tinyurl.com/4hz2rp7). The intent of the new offering is to provide developers with tools for packaging and uploading Java-based web applications running on Tomcat or Jetty. However, the use cases for this offering are not realistic and, in some instances, "just don't work." The problem is that these examples are extremely constrained. While it may be possible to construct Java EE examples that work as demos, it is unlikely that any real Java EE apps, web-enabled or otherwise, can be migrated to the Azure cloud without drastic, impractical or even impossible, modifications to the underlying application servers in order to accommodate the networking issues.

Beyond technical issues in getting an app server to run on the Azure platform, developers need to ask why they would want to do this on a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), such as Azure, when it would be far simpler to run such an application on an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering such as Amazon EC2. It is one thing to say it can be done; it's another to actually want to do it, as opposed to the easier alternatives. The market seems to bear this out - a recent Forrester study shows that Eclipse (that is, Java) developers prefer Amazon EC2 or Google App Engine, while Visual Studio developers prefer Windows Azure.

Users will want to do things with Java on Azure, but not what the creators of the Azure Starter Kit for Java think they want to do. Rather than running a self-contained Java server in an Azure role, they will want to integrate their Java with the .NET code more directly supported by Azure.

How: The industry needs interoperability solutions for IT organizations that need to integrate Java and Microsoft .NET applications running in the Cloud - especially as a high-performance alternative to existing web services protocols. Citrin outlines the level of support and approaches developers can take to call Java from .NET in the cloud.

To read Wayne Citrin's full blog post on this topic please visit: (http://www.jnbridge.com/jn/blog/2011/04/26/java-in-the-azure-cloud/)

Contact: For more information or to set up an interview with Wayne Citrin, please contact:
             Christie Denniston
             Catapult PR-IR
             303-581-7760, ext. 13
             (cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com)

ESSENTIAL ISSUES, SUCH AS LICENSING AND BILLING, IN THE CLOUD WILL MAKE OR BREAK ISV SUCCESS

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:53:24 +0000

ESSENTIAL ISSUES, SUCH AS LICENSING AND BILLING, IN THE CLOUD WILL MAKE OR BREAK ISV SUCCESS

The new frontier of the Cloud hasn't been designed to accommodate software vendors who want their products to work in the cloud, says JNBridge's Wayne Citrin

WHO:  Wayne Citrin
          CTO
          JNBridge
          (www.jnbridge.com)

Citrin is Chief Technology Officer at JNBridge. He is the architect of JNBridge Pro, and has been devoted to Java and .NET interoperability issues since .NET's beta days, more than nine years ago. Prior to co-founding JNBridge, Citrin was a leading researcher in programming languages and compilers, and was on the Computer Engineering faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He was a researcher at IBM's research lab in Zürich, Switzerland and has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in Computer Science. He has given presentations at JavaOne, Microsoft's TechEd and TechReady, and numerous academic and technical conferences.

WHAT: ISVs and the Cloud

If you ask most people how software vendors can move into the cloud, they will say that the vendor should take their traditional products, put them in the cloud, and offer them as services. But what about other software vendors who create components that other developers incorporate into their own programs? In most cases, offering the component as a service doesn't make sense.

The main challenge to running components in Cloud-based programs has to do with essential issues, like licensing and billing. Windows Azure has absolutely no provision for third-party licensing and billing. It's a chicken-and-egg problem. If Microsoft is serious about its software partners producing for Azure (and not just end-user customers creating custom applications), Microsoft will have to jump-start the market by offering their own billing mechanism.
One would think that barriers to entry wouldn't be there, and that Cloud providers would do all they could to encourage software vendors to help settle this new frontier. Without a robust partner community for both Azure and Amazon Web Services, Cloud adoption will be that much slower for everyone.

HOW: The industry needs interoperability solutions for IT organizations that need to integrate Java and Microsoft .NET applications running in the Cloud - especially as a high-performance alternative to existing Web services protocols. The vision of Cloud interoperability should be any object, on any platform, in any language, anywhere, and at any time. Solutions such as this are needed because existing web services protocols are too slow for IT organizations trying to meet demanding service level agreements frequently associated with Cloud computing, Citrin says.

To read Wayne Citrin's full blog post on this topic please visit: (http://www.jnbridge.com/jn/?p=277).

Prediction #7: Web-based code editors become viable, cloud-based IDE platforms remain a pipe dream

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:44:20 +0000

Prediction #7: Web-based code editors become viable, cloud-based IDE platforms remain a pipe dream

by Mik Kersten, February 1st, 2011

A couple of years ago, a web-based code editor called Bespin was the rage at EclipseCon, and has been reborn in the form of the Cloud9 IDE for JavaScript. Eclipse re-embraced the push towards web-based IDE technologies with the introduction of a new code editor named Orion. While activity is again heating up on this front, do not expect the enterprise developer's IDE to be running in the browser this year. What we will see is web-based advances in specific IDE use cases, ranging from code editors for DevOps to GUI builders for mobile, with most developers staying within the comfort and native UI of their desktop IDE.

Apart from the OS, the IDE may now be the most complex piece of software running on your desktop computer. Eclipse pushes the limits of the UI element handling of the desktop OS as well as the classloader model of common JVMs. What makes an IDE platform even harder to port into the browser is the need for extensibility, ranging from interaction with the filesystem to shared data models of the large variety of code and ALM artefacts that constitute an application.

Just as mobile applications are constantly pushing the limits of the hardware behind our 3.5" handheld screens, the IDE tool suite continues to push the limits of the hardware driving dual 24" displays. Third party plug-in developers need to be very aware of the performance of their extensions to Eclipse so that they don't bring an Intel Core i7 CPU with 8GB of RAM to a crawl. The current generation of browser-based JavaScript runtimes is not up to the task of running the IDE platform as we know it. But we are starting to see the first crop of high-performance web-based code editors. Between the drive towards cloud hosting of applications and the push to lower the barrier to entry for mobile development, there will be plenty of incentive for vendors to provide SaaS offerings that incorporate key parts of the application development experience.

The 15M or so professional developers (Evans Data, 2009) will spend their day in Eclipse and Visual Studio, but these IDEs will begin to feel more like a connected Rich Internet Application (RIA) than a desktop-bound dinosaur. The data accessed by the open source developer, including source code, tasks and builds, is already cloud hosted. Eclipse extensions like Tasktop Enterprise mash up the web browser experience with the rich IDE experience. The professional IDE will start feeling more like a connected and offline capable Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook, with collaboration and planning facilities taking a front seat alongside social coding tools. Just as iOS has found the sweet spot between native experience and web service-based data sources, so will the IDE.

Outside of enterprise application development, domains where a simplified tool stack is applicable will start seeing web-based IDE features. Xcode is one or two order of magnitude less complex than a full-blown enterprise Java IDE. Palm's Ares project was the pioneering example of how effective combining Bespin functionality with a JavaScript GUI builder for webOS could be for providing a simple user experience to hobbyist mobile developers. Even our Smalltalk forefathers would be impressed with an environment that supports authoring JavaScript widgets in a JavaScript-based GUI builder. Given the lack of a clear winner for JavaScript development environment on the Eclipse front, JavaScript will continue to be a natural target driving progress on moving IDE functionality into the browser. But the amount of work here should not be underestimated, as a lot of what already exists in the desktop-based IDE will need to be re-created to get to the sort of fidelity and breadth of tool support that's now taken for granted.

Cloud ALM hosting with the connected IDE and Browser-based clients

On the cloud hosting front, key parts of ALM data such as source code, builds and tasks, are already starting to be hosted in a unified manner, as exemplified by the upcoming Code2Cloud offering. Some stakeholders in the development process, such as DevOps and QA engineers, will start to benefit from Eclipse Orion-style code editors accessing and fixing entries in Spring config files without launching the IDE. This will lead to easier management of production since the need for console access for these sorts of tweaks will be removed.

Looking further out, the increasingly connected IDE will have all of its configuration data hosted, making the experience of the first launch of Eclipse similar to that of the first launch Skype, where entering credentials causes the rich client to instantly provision the user's desktop. The division of labour between web and desktop based access of software artefacts will improve, with some content that was previously browser-bound, such as Scrum task boards, being supported within the IDE. The mobile hobbyist, casual web developer, and specific stakeholders such as the DevOps engineer, will see nearer term benefits from the growing convergence of the browser and the IDE.

For more blog entries from Mik Kersten or Tasktop Technologies, please visit: (http://tasktop.com/blog/).

Click here to Watch Tasktop webinars

DATAPIPE’S ED LACZYNSKI TO OUTLINE BEST PRACTICES FOR ENTERPRISE IT VIRTUALIZATION AT VMWARE PARTNER EXCHANGE

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:44:17 +0000

DATAPIPE'S ED LACZYNSKI TO OUTLINE BEST PRACTICES FOR ENTERPRISE IT VIRTUALIZATION AT VMWARE PARTNER EXCHANGE

WHO: Ed Laczynski, VP of Cloud Strategy and Architecture

Datapipe

(www.datapipe.com)

Laczynski is responsible for driving Datapipe's cloud computing strategy and architecting new cloud platforms and integrations. He joined Datapipe, a leading global managed IT, hosting and cloud services provider, after founding and serving as CTO for a cloud computing company that helped pioneer the delivery of software and infrastructure services to the enterprise. Laczynski has extensive experience in high-availability web infrastructure and development for media, financial services and telecommunications industries.

WHAT: Enabling Global Enterprise Virtualization

2011 is the year when industry giants from across the spectrum - including major financial institutions, pharmaceuticals and retailers - will migrate major internal and external IT systems to the cloud. At the VMware Partner Exchange, (http://communities.vmware.com/ community/partner-exchange/) an annual partner conference dedicated to educating and enabling partners for success with VMware, Laczynski will discuss emerging strategies and the best practices that Datapipe employs to enable global enterprise virtualization. His presentation will draw from direct customer deployments and provide attendees with practical information they can use to plan and implement cloud and virtualization initiatives.

WHERE: VMware Partner Exchange

Disney Coronado Springs Resort

Orlando, FL

(http://communities.vmware.com/community/partner-exchange/)

WHEN: Thursday, Feb 10 at 11:40 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Eastern

INFO:

For more information on enterprise cloud computing and virtualization, or to arrange an interview with Ed Laczynski, please contact Christie Denniston at 303-581-7760 or via email at cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com