Software-defined networks and Network Functions Virtualization will redefine enterprise computing and change the dynamics of the cloud. Data thefts and professional hacks will grow, and development teams will shift their focus from adding new features to hardening against attacks. Those are two of my predictions for 2015. Big Security: As 2014 came to a close, … continue reading
For development teams, cloud computing is enthralling. Where’s the best place for distributed developers, telecommuters and contractors to reach the code repository? In the cloud. Where do you want the high-performance build servers? At a cloud host, where you can commandeer CPU resources as needed. Storing artifacts? Use cheap cloud storage. Hosting test harness? The … continue reading
Drones are everywhere. Literally. My friend Steve, a wedding photographer, always includes drone shots. Drones are used by the military, of course, as well as spy agencies. They are used by public service agencies, like fire departments. By real estate photographers who want something better than Google Earth. By farmers checking on their fences. By … continue reading
Cloud-based storage is amazing. Simply amazing. That’s especially true when you are talking about data from end users that are accessing your applications via the public Internet. If you store data in your local data center, you have the best control over it. You can place it close to your application servers. You can amortize … continue reading
SEYTON The tests, my lord, have failed. MACBETH I should have used a promise; There would have been an object ready made. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Loops o’er this petty code in endless mire, To the last iteration of recorded time; And all our tests have long since found Their way to dusty death. … continue reading
Washington, D.C. — “It’s not time to regulate and control and tax the Internet.” Those are words of wisdom about Net Neutrality from Dr. Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet, held here at the MEF GEN14, the annual conference from the Metro Ethernet Forum. Bob Metcalfe is a legend, not only for his role in inventing … continue reading
I like this new Microsoft. Satya Nadella’s Microsoft. Yes, the CEO needs to improve his public speaking skills, at least when talking to women’s conferences. Yet when you look at the company’s recent activities, what appears are lots of significant moves toward openness, a very positive focus on personal productivity, and even inventiveness. That’s not … continue reading
Malicious agents can crash a website by implementing a DDoS—a Distributed Denial of Service Attack—against a server. So can sloppy programmers. Take, for example, the National Weather Service’s website, which is operated by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. On August 29, the service went down, hard, as single rogue Android … continue reading
HTML browser virtualization, not APIs, may be the best way to mobilize existing enterprise applications like SAP ERP, Oracle E-Business Suite or Microsoft Dynamics. At least, that’s the perspective of Capriza, a company offering a SaaS-based mobility platform that uses a cloud-based secure virtualized browser to screen-scrape data and context from the enterprise application’s Web … continue reading
It’s hard being a female programmer or software engineer. Of course, it’s hard for anyone to be a techie, male or female. You have to master a lot of arcane knowledge, and keep up with new developments. You have to be innately curious and inventive. You have to be driven, you have to be patient, … continue reading
Neil Sedaka insists that breakin’ up is hard to do. Will that apply to the planned split of Hewlett-Packard into two companies? Let’s be clear: This split is a wonderful idea, and it’s long overdue. Once upon a time, HP was in three businesses: Electronics test equipment (like gas spectrometers,) expensive, high-margin data center products … continue reading
I once wrote a parking sticker application for an East Coast university. If you had a faculty, staff, student or visitor sticker for the campus, it was processed using my green-screen application, which went online in 1983. The university used the mainframe program with minimal changes for about a decade, until a new client/server parking … continue reading
You’ve gotta read “Data Divination: Big Data Strategies,” Pam Baker’s new book about Big Data. Actually, let me change my recommendation. If you are a techie and you are looking for suggestions on how to configure your Hadoop installation or optimize the storage throughput in your NAS array, this isn’t the book for you. Rather, … continue reading
Thirty seconds. That’s about how long a mobile user will spend with your game before deciding if he or she will continue using it. Thirty seconds. Maybe a minute. If you haven’t engaged the customer by then, forget it. That’s according to Graeme Warring, COO of 2XL Games LLC, a game startup based in Phoenix. … continue reading
