Spring Integration Kafka 1.2 is out with a major performance overhaul.

Last week’s Gartner IT Operations Strategies & Solutions Summit in Orlando, Fla., was exactly what you’d expect—a place to talk about the IT operations issues impacting some of the largest companies in the world. Even so, there were a few interesting surprises. Among them: 1. Bi-modal is big. Not everyone will succeed. Gartner continued to tell its customers to employ two modes of IT—a traditional, slower moving capability for older, typically internal systems of record; and a high-speed, experimental one for new, typically customer-facing Web and mobile apps. “This is a time of experimentation and innovation,” said Gartner VP and distinguished analyst Chris Howard in his opening keynote. Organizations can’t ignore that there are multiple speeds and they should participate in all. Gartner managing VPRonni Colville added that by 2017, 75% of IT orgs will have this “bi-modal” IT capability. See also: Bi-Modal IT: Gartner Endorses Both Disruptive and Conservative Approaches to Technology However, “50% will make a mess of it,” Colville said. Why? Not necessarily because of technology failings, but more often because of a lack of people skills. 2. IT success is all about people. Donna Scott, also a Gartner VP and distinguished analyst, told her keynote audience that “you will be judged on agility, speed, and innovation.” However, the biggest problems Gartner sees for infrastructure and operations team engagement and innovation are lack of time, company culture that’s not conducive to these approaches, and a lack of business skills in IT. More than half of the people responding to an in-room poll said “people” are the part of IT ops that must change first. Not technology. Gartner research director George Spafford underscored similar issues in large organizations trying to use DevOps at scale: people and “human factors” are the biggest concerns from his in-room poll. All these probably contributed to hiring best-selling author Daniel Pink as a keynote speaker on the opening day of the conference. His focus? Not IT or architecture. Instead, he pounded home the importance of influencing people and selling internally. 3. Big orgs are trying DevOps. But the issues are different at scale. In numerous sessions I saw many hands go up when analysts asked, “Who here is trying DevOps?” Clearly, the approach is getting traction in large companies. But there’s lots of learning still to do. In fact, that was Spafford’s biggest bit of advice. “Always be learning,” he said, “trying to see what works and what breaks, especially at scale.” And, even once you’ve had some initial success, keep learning. “If you’ve done ‪DevOps, stay humble,” he advised. 4. Looking to innovative organizations for ideas … analytics on the rise. Many sessions addressed how large organizations are taking on ideas fostered by smaller, more risk-tolerant companies, and offered advice for doing so successfully. In addition to multiple discussions of DevOps, an entire session was devoted to establishing your own “Genius Bar®—a “walk-up IT support center” as explained in this CIO article. As at previous conferences, Gartner research VP Cameron Haight ran several sessions on lessons learned from firms running massive, Web-scale IT systems. “You need lots of data … and access to it inexpensively,” he said. Some commercial monitoring companies (New Relic included!) got a shout out for taking the lessons of Web scale IT to heart in their offerings. In addition, Haight said, “Analytics are increasingly important for application performance monitoring given the huge amount of data now available.” 5. Cloud: Enterprises want it, but aren’t very good at it yet. Gartner research director Dennis Smith talked through the enterprise’s interest in cloud computing. A huge majority of his in-room poll wanted some mix of both public and private cloud, while only 9% wanted to use only a private cloud environment and a measly 4% were looking to move entirely to the public cloud. The most popular choice (41%) was an 80/20 split between private and public cloud infrastructure. “Enterprises don’t make the dean’s list,” for cloud usage, Smith said, earning no more than a C average in his opinion. Large organizations are doing well at visibility, governance, and delivering standardized stacks, he said, but are less skilled at optimizing for these new environments. Still, Smith said the trends point toward enterprises improving on all fronts. 6. Cloud security can be better than yours. Importantly, Gartner VP and distinguished analyst Neil MacDonald gave the cloud a vote of confidence: noting that, for a variety of reasons, “Well-managed public cloud can be more secure than your own data center.” For example, on-premise software can pose serious security risks, he said, because of “deployment lag” where customers are stuck using software releases with unpatched security vulnerabilities. With a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), security updates can be more quickly rolled out to all customers. But cloud security can be different, requiring a shift to information-level security from OS-level security. Best practices include doing away with a huge pool of all-powerful sysadmins in favor of JEA, or “just enough administration,” where sysadmins have just enough privileges to do their job, and no more. An analogous security practice for compute resources is “least privilege,” where apps and microservices can’t talk to each other unless they specifically need to do so. Audience polling supported MacDonald’s optimistic view of cloud security, which suggests that large enterprises may struggle less with their cloud policies moving forward. 7. Containers: Try ’em! Ahead of this week’s DockerCon in San Francisco, Gartner devoted significant airtime to educating the audience on containers and microservices. My summary of ‪Gartner VP and distinguished analyst Tom Bittman’s advice on containers was simple: Try ’em. Now. Complement them with VMs. ‪And Docker (the company) is important, but not the be-all and end-all in this space. Bittman (copping to some deja vu from Gartner presentations he made on server virtualization 13 years ago) noted that while virtualization has been focused on admin and ops functions, containers are focused on value for developers. But because containers are well suited for driving up VM utilization for workloads that share the same OS, we can expect to see more combinations of containers and server virtualization. Finally, Bittman underscored that Gartner doesn’t see containers having much impact on premise, but making a huge difference in the cloud. That doesn’t necessarily fit with what’s been shown in other research, such as this 2015 State of Containers Survey sponsored by VMblog.com and StackEngine, so we’ll want to watch how this plays out. This is all a lot to digest. The Gartner IT Operations Strategies & Solutions Summitacknowledges the importance of dealing with existing IT systems and practices as well as promising new technologies and thinking, and tries to point a way forward. In fact, Haight had a very good quote about microservices that I thought also served to wrap up the entire event: “If you want to run with the big dogs, you need to rethink application architecture,” he said. That can be very difficult for an enterprise to fully implement … but also very appealing. Note: Al Sargent contributed to this post. All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. Server, tortoise and hare, business team, and cloud security images courtesy ofShutterstock.com.

New Integration Provides Seamless Connections Between Perforce Helix and Leading Application Lifecycle Management Systems WOKINGHAM, UK. (June 24, 2015) – Perforce Software, the leader in software configuration management (SCM) and collaboration, and Go2Group, an Atlassian Platinum and Enterprise Expert, today announced the Perforce ConnectALL Adapter. The new adapter for Go2Group’s ConnectALL ALM Router connects Perforce Helix to Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) systems supported by ConnectALL. The companies also announced that they have expanded their partnership, which first began in 2002. “Very few SCMs can handle binary data, and no other SCM solution supports large file formats that scale across globally distributed enterprises like Helix,” said Brett Taylor, president of Go2Group. “Our customers demand future-proof solutions, and with Perforce we know they don’t have to worry about outgrowing their systems—it will serve them well whether they’re a team of 50 or 50,000.” With the Perforce adapter, ConnectALL automatically synchronises data and workflow with other ALM systems and integrates ALM systems components within minutes. “We’re excited to be a part of the ConnectALL ecosystem of adapters and to enable companies to more easily design, configure, synchronise, manage, and monitor their integrations with Perforce,” said Dave Robertson, vice president of Channels at Perforce. “We’re glad to extend our partnership with Go2Group to new technologies and markets.” Go2Group is part of Perforce’s network of sales partners across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and India. Perforce partners serve customers in more than 100 countries worldwide. The Perforce ConnectALL Adapter is available for purchase from the Go2Group website.

Alpnames becomes the second largest registrar for new domain endings Wednesday 24th June 2015, Gibraltar: Alpnames smashed through the half million mark last night in terms of domain under management. As an ICANN accredited registrar specialising in new generic Top Level Domains, Alpnames manages nearly 8% of all new gTLD names registered to date making it the second most popular new gTLD registrar after the industry giant GoDaddy and recently overtaking the first and longest standing registrar Network Solutions (part of web.com). “We are delighted with the extraordinary growth of Alpnames” said Damon Barnard, Chief Operations Officer at Alpnames. “Our decision to focus on bringing competitively priced new domain extensions to the attention of Internet users, who might be frustrated at the lack of affordable domain names under .COM, is clearly the right one” There is currently a massive change happening in the Internet Name space meaning that domain names can now end in almost any series of letters such as .science, .party or .club. ICANN, the body that regulates names on the internet, relaxed the rules on internet domain extensions in 2013 in order to promote competition, innovation and consumer choice. Currently, over 5.75 million domain names have been registered in nearly 640 new domain extensions. These so called new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) will form the backbone of the next generation of the Internet, opening up the web to a whole host of new possibilities. “Alpnames is proud to be a leading player in the new era of domain names” continued Barnard. “We intend to continue bringing new domain names to Internet users at affordable prices; names that help define communities of interest online and assist Internet users in navigating to websites that provide the content or interaction that they are looking for.” With more than 500,000 web addresses under management, Alpnames is one of the fastest growing domain name registrars in history.

Combining BioConnect with Digitus server cabinet access control makes biometric identity management more effective and easier ENTERTECH SYSTEMSandDigitus Biometricshave just announced a new technology partnership between ENTERTECH’S BioConnect identity management platform and the Digitus db Bus and db Cabinet Sentry for server cabinet access control. The result is a new, fully-integrated solution called db BioConnect. The newdb BioConnectlets company data centres, co-location data centres and IT room customers simplify biometric implementation, enrollment and management for access control of perimeter doors, interior rooms, cages and now server racks all integrated into one identity platform. This game-changing solution now extends enterprise access security platforms into the data centre, making investments in Access Control Management Systems far more economical and effective. “Digitus Biometrics is the leader in providing biometric access control to the critical infrastructure market," said Rob Douglas, ENTERTECH SYSTEMS CEO. "With Digitus technology integrated to BioConnect, all 15 of our certified access control partners will now be able to offer it to their customers. For the first time, end users will have access to an integrated biometric solution that secures access control from the data centre entrance to the server cabinet instead of having to deal with stand-alone systems.” The list of BioConnect certified access control partners can be found atwww.bioconnect.com/partners. ENTERTECH SYSTEMS’BioConnectis the most advanced identity management platform on the global market today. Simple, secure and scalable, it provides Suprema biometric authentication across leading access control systems. As an application for security professionals, BioConnect helps enterprises successfully implement identity solutions by making deployment and use of biometrics easier than ever. BioConnect addresses deployment challenges by reducing costs, overcoming complexity and making it easier to on-board users. The platform provides seamless synchronization of data such as new cardholders, changes and deletions, and is tailor-made for enterprises where true identity is critical for secure access to physical facilities and software applications. “Our biometric access control solutions are designed to meet the needs of a diverse range of clients," said David Orischak, Digitus Biometrics CEO. "This technology integration to create db BioConnect will let us offer a single, centralised, highly advanced access control solution that's easy to deploy and use. An industry first, our customers will be able to use one centralised system facility-wide to secure a company’s critical infrastructure and data." db Bus ServerRack Access Controlis designed for data centres needing to secure large volumes of server cabinets with only one small component per cabinet. A single db Bus controller allows the user to secure up to 32 racks with a single 48V power supply and may be infinitely scaled.db Cabinet Sentryis designed for data centres with a structured cabling scheme. It is Digitus’ most compact, cost-effective and energy-efficient means of securing server cabinets. This extremely versatile unit can be deployed in networked or stand-alone environments, using power over Ethernet (PoE) or an external power supply.db BioLockis a server cabinet lock that uses biometric identification with prints for up to 10 fingers per user. Through this new technology partnership, these db products will be integrated with BioConnect to create the new integrated db BioConnect solution. “Digitus’ use of leading Suprema biometric technology in their server cabinet access control solutions is a natural fit for ENTERTECH SYSTEMS as the operating partner for Suprema in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Puerto Rico,” added Douglas. “The implications to the market are significant," added Orischak. "The integrated db BioConnect solution can be used to manage any cabinet system where biometric access control is warranted – even SCIF’s and locked areas housing sensitive assets such as pharmaceuticals, hazardous materials, intelligence archives, customer and patient records, as well as critical IP.” For more information on the db BioConnect integrated solution, visitwww.bioconnect.com/db.

Business leaders today are becoming more aware of the many ways social knowledge networks can bring value to an organization. Communication is enhanced, knowledge is organized and accessible, products and customer service are improved, and business culture is strengthened through team collaboration. However, what many business leaders are failing to remember is that finding the right technology is only the first step in implementing a successful social knowledge network. The technology must be paired with smart planning and a well-thought-out structure. Elizabeth Lupfer, social collaboration and HR expert, claims, “A social knowledge network is one part technology and two parts process. The technology is only an enabler, and may only be worth 20 percent of the total value of the intranet.” The other 80 percent of value is created through effective structure and long-lasting employee engagement. We have researched and created a 10-step social knowledge network success plan that if implemented properly can maximize the value of any social knowledge network. Have a plan. Taking the time to create a social knowledge network implementation plan for your organization ensures managers and employees are motivated and committed to maximizing the value of the network. The network will only become as valuable as managers and employees plan to make it. Setting expectations for productivity and engagement ahead of time is important. Give employees a detailed explanation of how the social knowledge network connects to the organizational purpose. Communicate the value and purpose of the social knowledge network. Employees must clearly understand how the social knowledge network will contribute to the organizational purpose, long term and short term goals of the organization, and their individual role. Set up the organization and structure of the intranet at the beginning. Understand the priorities of each department, region, and team within your organization and how they connect. Who communicates with whom the most? What knowledge is of most value to each team? Your social knowledge network structure should enhance easy collaboration between individuals who value the information being shared. Thinking about the structure of your social knowledge network in advance will allow for easier search capabilities in the network and less time wasted sifting through information that is not relevant. Define roles and expectations around engagement for employees. Collaboration can be encouraged by asking employees to share projects and knowledge on the social knowledge network so that all team members are on the same page and no question is asked twice. Create and announce objectives with time-specific deadlines. It is important to create quantitative and time-specific objectives for your social knowledge network, such as “60 percent of users will have contributed some knowledge to our social knowledge network by June 30th.” Creating measurable engagement expectations will encourage employees to actively work towards the objective and increase network participation toward a common goal. Assign key social knowledge network ambassadors to start and maintain collaboration. Have people in your organization serve as the “ambassadors” of the social knowledge network. The ambassadors will be the network’s support, taking care of employee questions and concerns about the social knowledge network and asking the correct individuals for answers when they don’t know the answer themselves. Get the CEO and top level management involved. CEO and top-level involvement in a social knowledge network is very valuable, as employees pay special attention to what leaders have to share. Top level management should post openly about company activities to keep employees inspired about the broader picture of the organization. Management contributions should push brand, company culture, and core values. Industry and competitor news, trends, and expectations should be shared by management as well. Determine and reward achievement of Key Performance Indicators. Financial and non-financial benefits are important ways to encourage employee engagement in your social knowledge network. Gift cards, time off, or simple acknowledgment given to active users are good ways to inspire employees to participate more. Rewards given to the most active team or department will encourage group involvement and can be a great way to spark participation. Upload company documents and shared files. Ensure that your social knowledge network is the main place to access information, forms, presentations, and documents of all kinds. Keep all documents updated and organized so that they are accurate and searchable within the platform. Onboarding information, required customer forms, sales presentations, marketing tools, company calendars, and price lists should all be easily accessible on your social knowledge network. This will immediately spark network participation because these documents are needed by many people in your organization who will now access them through your social knowledge network. Be social! Although your social knowledge network should be a valuable business tool, there are many benefits of adding social, non-business related activity. Social activity on your network will create increased openness, allowing employees to get to know each other better and become more comfortable with sharing thoughts and opinions. Adding personal employee profile contributions, weekly peer-to-peer shout-outs for special accomplishments, employee group activities outside of work, or even posting something humorous once a week can help your social knowledge network become more open and fun, drawing employees back to check and use the network more often. Finding the right social knowledge network software for your organization is only the start. Research from the 2014 Social Business Global Executive Study shows only 17 percent of respondents see their organization as having mature social business practices. Following these steps will help you successfully integrate your social knowledge network into the flow of work. Once your organization becomes a true social business, you’ll see measurable value in improved innovation, talent management, and operations. If you are interested in learning more about how a knowledge base can break down silos within your organization, check out our white paper, Proving the Value: Getting Internal Buy-In for a Knowledge Base. Like this post? Click here to subscribe to our blog and receive the latest content on social learning, customer support, sales enablement, or all three.

Microsoft’s recent announcement that Windows 10 will be the last big-bang release for the operating system was a surprise to many. But what on Earth is going on? Why have they suddenly turned round and decided to upgrade their software with a series of frequent updates instead? The answer is a term not many chief executives will be familiar with, but an important one nevertheless: continuous delivery. Continuous delivery for software applications means that new features can be released faster and companies can be more competitive. Although it requires a change in processes and an investment in the tools that make it possible, the return on investment is high – and proven. The 2014 State of DevOps Report from Puppet Labs found that high-performing IT organisations that use practices such as continuous delivery are twice as likely to exceed their profitability, market share and productivity goals. WHAT ABOUT THE DATABASE? A stumbling block many organisations find in their pursuit of continuous delivery is the database. Databases hold critical information and their stability is vital to the bottom line. Often they’re tied into those same applications that can gain from continuous delivery, but they’re seen as too risky to include in the process. In fact, the DZone Guide to Continuous Delivery 2015 showed that while 61 per cent of companies have already implemented continuous delivery for their applications, it falls to half that number when it comes to the database.The result? Application development is faster, smoother and more cost effective, while database development lags behind. “Clients such as Yorkshire Water are seeing a return on investment of 700 per cent after investing in continuous delivery for their databases” At Redgate, we’ve been working on a way to resolve the issue with a Database Lifecycle Management (DLM) solution: one that brings all the advantages of continuous delivery to the database, while protecting the data at the same time. We have some pedigree here. Our tools are already used in more than 90 per cent of Fortune 100 companies, and are trusted in areas such as finance, healthcare and manufacturing, where performance and reliability are not optional. It’s working too. Clients such as Yorkshire Water are seeing a return on investment of 700 per cent after investing in continuous delivery for their databases. Similarly, StateServ, a medical equipment supplier with customers across the United States, has adopted Redgate’s SQL Source Control and SQL Compare to reduce the time it takes to release new versions of its website by 50 per cent. Property services provider Move With Us has also adopted these tools to reduce the cost of releasing database updates by 97 per cent. As Anthony Hall, IT operations manager, says: “We spend less time deploying and more time developing better software, which keeps us ahead of our competitors. It results in a product that more closely matches what the customer wants, at a cheaper price. That equals happy customers, a happier development team and bigger profits for the company.” I love comments like that. It demonstrates that all the effort we’ve put into developing our tools and the DLM process to go with it is paying off. Not for us – for our clients. By aligning the continuous delivery of the application with the continuous delivery of the database, a company will inevitably see increased productivity, reduced risk and higher quality end-products. This suddenly means that your technology becomes a strategic advantage, as opposed to an unpredictable risk, and can be used to deliver real financial benefits to the business. CASE STUDY KEEPING DATA FLOWING FOR YORKSHIRE WATER Yorkshire Water manage the collection, treatment and distribution of water in Yorkshire, supplying around 1.24 billion litres of drinking water daily. At the same time they collect, treat and dispose of about one billion litres of waste water safely back into the environment. As might be imagined, their applications and databases are diverse and technically challenging, and deploying changes to the databases used to be manual and time consuming. The company turned to Redgate’s database development tools to automate the changes, saving time as well as avoiding errors. Using SQL Source Control and SQL Compare, they achieved every aim. In 25 days, they moved their first project from a manual deployment process to full automation and it now takes half a day to start auto-deploying a new project. As software development team leader Carl Davison says: “It’s now a minor overhead to deploy. We predict the return on investment to be in the order of 700 per cent over the next five years. We can deploy database changes as soon as the business needs them, without delays or problems.”

IoT is really hot, but can also be a bit confusing. Read about these 8 development key findings.

while at fluent conf this year, i was walking by the new relic booth when i noticed something interesting – a product called new relic browser. back when i converted my blog to wordpress, i ran into a lot of problems. my server went down, wordpress crashed, it was a bit frustrating. (much like how lemonade in a paper cut is a bit frustrating.) one of the tools i used to help diagnose my server was the new relic server monitor . outside of a few issues installing, i was really impressed with the level of detail the monitor provided. while it wasn’t the final solution for fixing my problem, it definitely helped me pinpoint what was sucking up all the ram on my box, and helped me check my changes to ensure things were going well. best of all, this was entirely free. i’ll give them huge props for offering such a powerful tool for no up front money. because i had such a good experience with them on the server side, i thought i’d give their browser product a try as well. as you can guess, this tool is meant to help you gain insights into how well your web application is performing. i decided to try it on my blog, which, admittedly, is probably not the best use case for this product. wordpress isn’t something i need to hack up and outside of the performance issues i had on the server side, i figured the client side was pretty much good enough. it certainly seemed good enough to me. but at the same time, my blog gets quite a bit of traffic so i figured it would also provide a good set of data to dig into as well. setup is relatively simple. you begin by selecting a deployment method: i selected copy/paste as i figured that would be simpler. on the next page, i said i was not using apm, even though i guess i kinda was. i was trying to test this as someone who was not also using the server side product, so there may be things i missed out on. typically when i try products like this though i try to keep things as simple as possible. the final step was copying a ginormous javascript string into my wordpress template. so that was that. i copied in the code, cleared my wordpress cache, and then promptly forgot about it for a week or so. i then took a look back at my stats. there’s a tremendous amount of information you get right on the front dashboard. first off – note the browser load times. i’m averaging 6.8 seconds or so which is quite high and not what i expected. for over ten years i ran my blog with very precise knowledge of what i had going on within my templates. with wordpress, i’ve kinda gotten lazy about it and have given up being so deeply involved. this gives me a clue that maybe i need to take a closer look at my template and plugins and see if i need everything i’ve got. also note the error graph. on average, 2% of my pages have javascript errors. the real question is – how often do those javascript errors impact the core thing people need to do on my site – read a blog post. as i said, the dashboard is pretty packed, but let’s go deeper. first, the page views report. this report shows recent pages and which page requests are consuming the most load time. you can mouse over each line item for a detailed view: you can also switch the “sort by” to show average page load time: and yes – that twenty plus second item on top there made me crap my pants. honestly i’m not sure why that page averaged so high as it is relatively simple, but it does give me something to dig into deeper. the next link, session traces , is not what you may think. i had assumed this was a report of a ‘session’ for one visitor to my blog. instead, it is a deep look at one particular web page. and when i say deep, i mean deep. here is a top level report for one session: note all the detail in the chart. you can then scroll through the session and look at every particular darn thing in the one request. for example, here i can look at what google analytics is doing. the next report shows you the ajax requests your web app is making. you get details on what is making requests as well as throughput and data size. i can say from experience that the data size chart could be really useful. back when i first learned ajax i made the mistake of not considering the size of my packets and my applications suffered through it. this is a rather long page so i’ve split the screen shot into two parts. i’m thinking that in ‘real’ web app the ajax report will be the number one place you’ll find nuggets of information. of similar importance is the js errors report. clicking on a particular item will give you details: if you click on the instance details, you can see the line number where this error was thrown. while not this particular error, earlier i found an issue with gravatar. i didn’t think i was using gravatar, but it turned out one plugin was making use of it and throwing an error. i modified the plugin and the error went away. the browsers report gives you details about what types of browsers are hitting your site and how well they perform. i mentioned how i was a bit surprised by the page load times on my site, well in this report i can see what browsers are having the worst issues with page load: look at that jump for ie and opera! that’s fascinating to me. it doesn’t necessarily mean those are bad browsers, but it gives me an area to focus in if i were to start digging into my site performance. you can then go to the geo report to see how different areas of the world (and america) handle your site. along with just reporting, you can also create alerts too. you get a default alert policy out of the box and can define your own as well. this is fairly similar to what you get in the server product as well. from what i can see, this is a really darn good tool, and as i said, i had great success with the server tool. so how much does it cost? here is the price plans as of the time i wrote the post: 150 a month isn’t necessarily cheap, but heck, that’s my rate for development (yes, that’s what i charge by the hour) and considering how much data you get the forensic information is easily worth it. the free (lite) version also has fewer reports. if you go to their pricing page you can see what you don’t get at that tier, but note that you get 14 days of free access to the top tier to see if it is worth it.

London, UK – June 23, 2015 – Information Builders, a leader in business intelligence (BI) and analytics, information integrity, and integration solutions, today announced a new webcast series, “Summer Shorts,” designed to provide viewers quick overviews of the hottest topics in BI and analytics. Information Builders’ Summer Shorts will help enterprises rethink information strategies in a world transformed by the forces of mobile, social, cloud, advanced analytics, and big data. In each session, an Information Builders expert will offer a fun, informative presentation on a different BI and analytics discipline. Viewers can join one or all of the sessions below to learn tips for leveraging emerging technologies for better BI. 8 July | 14:00 BST / 15:00 CET | The Art of Dashboard Design for Business Intelligence – What are your dashboards telling you and your customers? Peter O’Grady will walk through design theories, design and layout considerations, and form-factor awareness and responsive design. Be empowered to change your data visualisation strategies, practices, and processes. 22 July | 14:00 BST / 15:00 CET | Advanced Data Visualization – Data visualisation is red hot, and for good reason. Companies in all sectors are finding hidden insights with sophisticated data visualisation. In this webcast by Porter Thorndike, attendees will learn advanced tips for data analysis, visualisation plug-in architecture, polished finished examples, and visualisation-based InfoApps™ from Information Builders. 5 August | 14:00 BST / 15:00 CET | Social and Feedback Analysis – Join this social media analytics webcast to learn how to better understand customer sentiment and behavior. Dan Grady will discuss how to capitalise on the opportunities presented by social media, including integrating social data with enterprise data, improving customer engagement, and picking the right platform to consolidate and share this information. 19 August | 14:00 BST / 15:00 CET | 5 Hot Trends for Business Intelligence – Mobile, social, cloud, advanced analytics, and big data aren’t just big trends, they also raise big questions in BI and analytics. Chris Banks will describe in this webcast why BI is vital to making these trends work for companies. It will cover how to build once and responsibly deploy BI to mobile devices, how to expose relevant analytics to customers and partners, and best practices for harnessing big data.

Survey of open source PostgreSQL users found adoption continues to rise with 55% of users deploying it for mission-critical applications Bedford, MA – June 23, 2015 – EnterpriseDB (EDB), the leading provider of enterprise-class Postgres products and database compatibility solutions, today announced the results of its “PostgreSQL Adoption Survey 2015,” a biennial survey of open source PostgreSQL users. Conducted by EnterpriseDB, the survey found PostgreSQL adoption continuing to rise, with 55% of users – up from 40% two years ago – deploying it for mission-critical applications and 77% of users are dedicating all new application deployments to PostgreSQL. These findings give voice to end users and confirm such industry indicators as increasing job listings and monthly rankings on DB-Engines that have pointed to rising interest in and demand for PostgreSQL, also called Postgres. The growing popularity of Postgres also comes as traditional software vendors suffer setbacks in the marketplace. The enterprise-class performance, security and stability of Postgres, on par with traditional database vendors for most corporate workloads, meanwhile have helped position Postgres among the solutions from the world’s largest vendors. The opportunity to transform their data center economics has helped fuel downloads of Postgres as well. End users reported cutting costs with Postgres, with 41% reporting they had first-year cost savings of 50% or more. They’re using Postgres to build web 2.0 applications using unstructured data as evidenced by the 64% of respondents who said they were working with JSON/JSONB and the 47% who said they were using Postgres for collaboration applications. “Postgres is empowering organizations to transform the economics of IT. IT can invest in the customer engagement applications that differentiate their operations from their competition instead of continuing to pay the steep and rising licensing and support fees charged by traditional database vendors,” said Marc Linster, senior vice president of products and services of EnterpriseDB. “With the expanding adoption, EnterpriseDB has experienced dramatic growth year over year, providing the software, services and support that organizations need to be successful with Postgres.” Database Migrations, Replacements The findings also support statements in a recent Gartner report that reflect the widespread acceptance of open source databases. “By 2018, more than 70% of new in-house applications will be developed on an OSDBMS, and 50% of existing commercial RDBMS instances will have been converted or will be in process,” according to the April 2015 Gartner report, The State of Open-Source RDBMs, 2015.* Among Postgres users, the survey findings show migrations are already under way with 37% reporting they had migrated applications from Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server to Postgres. Many users were still planning further migrations, with 37% of PostgreSQL users saying they will gradually replace their legacy systems with Postgres, compared to 29% who said that in the 2013 survey. Further, end users predict their deployments of Postgres will expand significantly, with 32% saying they anticipate production deployments of Postgres to increase by at least 50% over the next year. The survey, conducted by EnterpriseDB using an online tool in May 2015, queried registered users of PostgreSQL and drew 274 respondents worldwide from government organizations and companies ranging in size and industry. *The State of Open-Source RDBMs, 2015, by Donald Feinberg and Merv Adrian, published on April 21, 2015. Connect with EnterpriseDB Read the blog: http://blogs.enterprisedb.com/ Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/enterprisedb Become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EnterpriseDB?ref=ts Join us on Google+: https://plus.google.com/108046988421677398468 Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprisedb

[This article was written by Kevin Casey] Welcome to This Week in Modern Software, orTWiMS, New Relic’s weekly roundup of the need-to-know news, stories, and events of interest surrounding software analytics, cloud computing, application monitoring, development methodologies, programming languages, and the myriad of other issues that influence modern software. This week, our top story goes inside President Obama’s secret team of tech geeks, 140 of them and counting: TWiMS Top Story: Inside Obama’s Stealth Startup—Fast Company What it’s about:If the President of the United States walked into the room and personally recruited you to rebuild the country’s technology infrastructure, could you turn him down? He’s serious, and that room is theRoosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House, by the way. AsLisa Gelobtersays: “What are you going to say that?” Gelobter’s answer was “Yes”—she’s now chief digital officer for the US Department of Education, part of a 140-person-and-counting tech team that’s functioning something like an elite startup embedded inside the federal government. Its business? Only modernizing the technical infrastructure, applications, and processes of just about every federal agency. Why you should care:What was once something of a tech desert—the federal government—is beginning to draw top private-sector talent inside the Beltway. The team, led by Mikey Dickerson (who helped lead the team that rescuedHealthcare.gov) andformer US CTO Todd Park, also includes the likes of former Googler Matthew Weaver, and it hopes to hit 500 people by the end 2016, shortly before President Obama will leave office. Its challenges are immense, from tackling government bureaucracy (to test just how entrenched the suits were, Weaver requested the official title “Rogue Leader”—and he got it) to the fact that its recruiting pitch includes the phrase: “You’ll have to take a pay cut.” But its mission is both noble and necessary, and the appeal of working on major problems with enormous public impacts appears to be working. Recommended reading. Further reading: Mikey Dickerson’s 10 Tips for Dealing with Bureaucracy—New Relic Blog [Video] Airbnb Open Sources Software to Lure Talent Amid ‘Insane’ Competition—CIO Journal What it’s about:Airbnb added three new apps to its open source portfolio earlier this month, but the motivation wasn’t just trying to give employees the best business tools or contribute to the software community at large. Sure, that might have been part of the equation, but the rental booking site hopes open-sourcing some of its toolkit will help recruit the best software talent in the face of what director of engineeringMike Curtiscalls “insane” competition in the Silicon Valley labor market. Why you should care:In the software arms race, any little edge counts. Curtis tellsCIO Journalthat Airbnb will keep the proprietary stuff closely guarded, of course. But it will open source “generic” tools with wider industry use cases, such as its recently releasedAerosolvemachine-learning package and itsAirpalcloud-based data querying tool. The latter, which works with Facebook’s open sourcePrestoDB, aims to simplify SQL queries to the point where you don’t need to be a big data wonk or business intelligence guru to run it. Indeed, one in three Airbnb employees have run a query on it in the year since it launched. Airbnb has contributed a dozen open source tools on its aptly namedNerds site(gotta love that!) to date, something the company hopes both contributes to greater good but also advertises its software innovation to potential hires. Google Is Wielding Its Own Secret Weapon in the Cloud—The New York Times What it’s about:In thecutthroat competitionfor public cloud business, Google may be its own best customer testimonial. In advance of this week’sOpen Network Summit, theTimes’Bits bloglooked at Google’s plan to not only unveil cloud customers such as HTC but reveal much more than ever before about its own infrastructure. Google did just that on Wednesday, offering a look inside itsdata center networking, including its massive-capacity, lightning-fast Jupiter network. Why you should care:As major cloud players continue to zap prices with their shrink-rays, it’s increasingly clear that features and underlying platforms will distinguish one from the other when enterprise users make their pick. Google is taking a big step toward writing its own story in this regard, and the synopsis might read something like: “We’re pretty good at this stuff.” Its Jupiter fabrics deliver 1 petabit per second of bisection bandwidth, according to Google, or “enough for 100,000 servers to exchange information at 10Gb/s each, enough to read the entire scanned contents of the Library of Congress in less than 1/10th of a second.” If it sounds like a bit of bragging, well, yeah—it is. But it’s bragging with a purpose: Attracting devs who want access to the same technology without having to build it themselves.Google’s Amin Vahdat connected the dots in a blog post: “The same networks that power all of Google’s internal infrastructure and services also power Google Cloud Platform.” Move Over, Meeker: Byron Deeter’s State of the Cloud Report—Bessemer Venture Partners What it’s about:With a nod to Mary Meeker’s classicState of the Internet report,Bessemer Venture Partners’Byron Deeterchecks in with his 2015 State of the Cloud Report. Given cloud computing’s relative youth and rampant ascension, it’s no surprise the stats are staggering. Here’s one to start: Cloud revenues have increased tenfold in the last six years, from a scant $5.6 billion in 2008 to more than $56 billion in 2014. And it’s going to double again in the next four years, according to BVP’s projections, to $127.5 billion in 2018. Why you should care:Deeter’s full presentation is worth a weekend watch or read, but it’s the forward-looking slides that may be most compelling for software pros. Deeter notes both the immense risks and opportunities in cloud security, unveiling a 10-point security plan for cloud startups on slide 37. To underscore the security landscape, Deeter quotes an unnamed cloud CEO who says aDDoSattack that took down the firm’s API caused more customer churn in one day than in the rest of its history. Wow. He also addresses the exploding market for cloud services built specifically for developers including, yes, New Relic. And for mobile developers, slide 44 underscores something we’ve talked about before in this space:the real money’s in enterprise apps, and it’s still a largely untapped market. Click through thefull slide deck hereorwatch video of Deeter’s presentation here. Bandwidth: The Next Frontier of Cloud Computing—ZDnet What it’s about:Is networking the next big thing in the everything-as-a-service age? It just might be, as firms likePacnetvie to deliver networking capacity on a pay-for-what-you-use model that some industry folks say better suits cloud environments facing significant but uneven networking needs. Why you should care:As author Drew Turney notes, there’s a common blind spot when it comes to cloud computing’s many shapes and sizes: Moving all that data from points A to Z, and everywhere in between, which can cause both performance problems and undue financial pressures. The promise of Networking-as-a-Service (NaaS), industry execs tell Turney, is that it can provide more efficient, scalable networking for short-term usage bursts such as customer traffic spikes or large cloud backup-and-storage jobs, enabling companies to later dial down their capacity as needed. Combined withSoftware-Defined Networking (SDN),NaaS makes it possible to build intelligent applications that manage their own networking needs, which might be the most significant enterprise potential of NaaS, saysNuage NetworksarchitectMarten Hauville. Page Bloat: Average Web Page Now More Than 2MB—The Performance Beacon (SOASTA) What it’s about:Do you need to put your website on a diet? Apparently so: The average Web page topped 2 MB as of May 2015, according to ongoing tracking atThe Performance Beacon. That’s double the average page weight from just three years ago. The site projects average page weight will exceed 3 MB in late 2017. Why you should care:Performance, performance, performance:Slow speedsare a killerin the modern software era. While author andSOASTAUX evangelistTammy Evertsrightly notes that page weight is not the only factor in Web optimization, we’re simply not paying it enough attention when designing and building Web pages. Images are the big culprit in the Web’s expanding waistline: they comprise nearly two-thirds of the average page’s weight, and video is a growing part of our Web diet, too. But other factors such as custom fonts play a role, adding weight even as the Web sheds previous performance hogs like Flash. The ideal weight? 1 MB, she says, which will save crucial seconds in load times. Sounds like it’s time to hit the virtual treadmill.

If you have been confused by Rx-java ObservablesubscribeOn and observeOn, one of the blog articles that helped me understand these operations is this one by Graham Lea. I wanted to recreate a very small part of the article here, so consider a service which emits values every 200 millseconds: package obs.threads; import obs.Util; import org.slf4j.Logger; import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory; import rx.Observable; public class GeneralService { private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(GeneralService.class); public Observable getData() { return Observable.create(s -> { logger.info("Start: Executing a Service"); for (int i = 1; i <= 3; i++) { Util.delay(200); logger.info("Emitting {}", "root " + i); s.onNext("root " + i); } logger.info("End: Executing a Service"); s.onCompleted(); }); } } Now, if I were to subscribe to this service, this way: @Test public void testThreadedObservable1() throws Exception { Observable ob1 = aService.getData(); CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(1); ob1.subscribe(s -> { Util.delay(500); logger.info("Got {}", s); }, e -> logger.error(e.getMessage(), e), () -> latch.countDown()); latch.await(); } All of the emissions and subscriptions will act on the main thread and something along the following lines will be printed: 20:53:29.380 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Start: Executing a Service 20:53:29.587 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Emitting root 1 20:53:30.093 [main] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Got root 1 20:53:30.298 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Emitting root 2 20:53:30.800 [main] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Got root 2 20:53:31.002 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Emitting root 3 20:53:31.507 [main] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Got root 3 20:53:31.507 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - End: Executing a Service By default the emissions are not asynchronous in nature. So now, what is the behavior if subscribeOn is used: public class ThreadedObsTest { private GeneralService aService = new GeneralService(); private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ThreadedObsTest.class); private ExecutorService executor1 = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5, new ThreadFactoryBuilder().setNameFormat("SubscribeOn-%d").build()); @Test public void testSubscribeOn() throws Exception { Observable ob1 = aService.getData(); CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(1); ob1.subscribeOn(Schedulers.from(executor1)).subscribe(s -> { Util.delay(500); logger.info("Got {}", s); }, e -> logger.error(e.getMessage(), e), () -> latch.countDown()); latch.await(); } } Here I am using Guava's ThreadFactoryBuilder to give each thread in the threadpool a unique name pattern, if I were to execute this code, the output will be along these lines: 20:56:47.117 [SubscribeOn-0] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Start: Executing a Service 20:56:47.322 [SubscribeOn-0] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Emitting root 1 20:56:47.828 [SubscribeOn-0] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Got root 1 20:56:48.032 [SubscribeOn-0] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Emitting root 2 20:56:48.535 [SubscribeOn-0] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Got root 2 20:56:48.740 [SubscribeOn-0] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Emitting root 3 20:56:49.245 [SubscribeOn-0] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Got root 3 20:56:49.245 [SubscribeOn-0] INFO o.t.GeneralService - End: Executing a Service Now, the execution has moved away from the main thread and the emissions and the subscriptions are being processed in the threads borrowed from the threadpool. And what happens if observeOn is used: public class ThreadedObsTest { private GeneralService aService = new GeneralService(); private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ThreadedObsTest.class); private ExecutorService executor1 = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5, new ThreadFactoryBuilder().setNameFormat("SubscribeOn-%d").build()); @Test public void testObserveOn() throws Exception { Observable ob1 = aService.getData(); CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(1); ob1.observeOn(Schedulers.from(executor2)).subscribe(s -> { Util.delay(500); logger.info("Got {}", s); }, e -> logger.error(e.getMessage(), e), () -> latch.countDown()); latch.await(); } } the output is along these lines: 21:03:08.655 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Start: Executing a Service 21:03:08.860 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Emitting root 1 21:03:09.067 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Emitting root 2 21:03:09.268 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Emitting root 3 21:03:09.269 [main] INFO o.t.GeneralService - End: Executing a Service 21:03:09.366 [ObserveOn-1] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Got root 1 21:03:09.872 [ObserveOn-1] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Got root 2 21:03:10.376 [ObserveOn-1] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Got root 3 The emissions are now back on the main thread but the subscriptions are being processed in a threadpool. That is the difference, when subscribeOn is used the emissions are performed on the specified Scheduler, when observeOn is used the subscriptions are performed are on the specified scheduler! And the output when both are specified is equally predictable. Now in all cases I had created a Scheduler using a ThreadPool with 5 threads but only 1 of the threads has really been used both for emitting values and for processing subscriptions, this is actually the normal behavior of Observables. If you want to make more efficient use of the Threadpool, one approach may be to create multiple Observable's, say for eg, if I have a service which returns pages of data this way: public Observable getPages(int totalPages) { return Observable.create(new Observable.OnSubscribe() { @Override public void call(Subscriber subscriber) { logger.info("Getting pages"); for (int i = 1; i <= totalPages; i++) { subscriber.onNext(i); } subscriber.onCompleted(); } }); } and another service which acts on each page of the data: public Observable actOnAPage(int pageNum) { return Observable.create(s -> { Util.delay(200); logger.info("Acting on page {}", pageNum); s.onNext("Page " + pageNum); s.onCompleted(); }); } a way to use a Threadpool to process each page of data would be to chain it this way: getPages(5).flatMap( page -> aService.actOnAPage(page).subscribeOn(Schedulers.from(executor1)) ) .subscribe(s -> { logger.info("Completed Processing page: {}", s); }); see how the subscribeOn is on the each Observable acting on a page. With this change, the output would look like this: 21:15:45.572 [main] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Getting pages 21:15:45.787 [SubscribeOn-1] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Acting on page 2 21:15:45.787 [SubscribeOn-0] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Acting on page 1 21:15:45.787 [SubscribeOn-4] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Acting on page 5 21:15:45.787 [SubscribeOn-3] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Acting on page 4 21:15:45.787 [SubscribeOn-2] INFO o.t.GeneralService - Acting on page 3 21:15:45.789 [SubscribeOn-1] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Completed Processing page: Page 2 21:15:45.790 [SubscribeOn-1] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Completed Processing page: Page 1 21:15:45.790 [SubscribeOn-1] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Completed Processing page: Page 3 21:15:45.790 [SubscribeOn-1] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Completed Processing page: Page 4 21:15:45.791 [SubscribeOn-1] INFO o.t.ThreadedObsTest - Completed Processing page: Page 5 Now the threads in the threadpool are being used uniformly.

Last week I was showing the foul graph to my colleague Alistair who came up with the idea of running a ‘foul revenge’ query to find out which players gained revenge for a foul with one of their own later in them match. Queries like this are very path centric and therefore work well in a graph. To recap, this is what the foul graph looks like: The first thing that we need to do is connect the fouls in a linked list based on time so that we can query their order more easily. We can do this with the following query: MATCH (foul:Foul)-[:COMMITTED_IN_MATCH]->(match) WITH foul,match ORDER BY match.id, foul.sortableTime WITH match, COLLECT(foul) AS fouls FOREACH(i in range(0, length(fouls) -2) | FOREACH(foul1 in [fouls[i]] | FOREACH (foul2 in [fouls[i+1]] | MERGE (foul1)-[:NEXT]->(foul2) ))); This query collects fouls grouped by match and then adds a ‘NEXT’ relationship between adjacent fouls. The graph now looks like this: Now let’s find the revenge foulers in the Bayern Munich vs Barcelona match. We’re looking for the following pattern: This translates to the following cypher query: match (foul1:Foul)-[:COMMITTED_AGAINST]->(app1)-[:COMMITTED_FOUL]->(foul2)-[:COMMITTED_AGAINST]->(app2)-[:COMMITTED_FOUL]->(foul1), (player1)-[:MADE_APPEARANCE]->(app1), (player2)-[:MADE_APPEARANCE]->(app2), (foul1)-[:COMMITTED_IN_MATCH]->(match:Match {id: "32683310"})<-[:COMMITTED_IN_MATCH]-(foul2) WHERE (foul1)-[:NEXT*]->(foul2) RETURN player2.name AS firstFouler, player1.name AS revengeFouler, foul1.time, foul1.location, foul2.time, foul2.location I’ve added in a few extra parts to the pattern to pull out the players involved and to find the revenge foulers in a specific match – the Bayern Munich vs Barcelona Semi Final 2nd leg. We end up with the following revenge fouls: We can see here that Dani Alves actually gains revenge on Bastian Schweinsteiger twice for a foul he made in the 10th minute. If we tweak the query to the following we can get a visual representation of the revenge fouls as well: match (foul1:Foul)-[:COMMITTED_AGAINST]->(app1)-[:COMMITTED_FOUL]->(foul2)-[:COMMITTED_AGAINST]->(app2)-[:COMMITTED_FOUL]->(foul1), (player1)-[:MADE_APPEARANCE]->(app1), (player2)-[:MADE_APPEARANCE]->(app2), (foul1)-[:COMMITTED_IN_MATCH]->(match:Match {id: "32683310"})<-[:COMMITTED_IN_MATCH]-(foul2), (foul1)-[:NEXT*]->(foul2) RETURN * At the moment I’ve restricted the revenge concept to single matches but I wonder whether it’d be more interesting to create a linked list of fouls which crosses matches between teams in the same season. The code for all of this is on github – the README is a bit sketchy at the moment but I’ll be fixing that up soon.

Opsmatic Inc., a company with a focus on creating tools to improve the effectiveness of development and operations teams, announced today the expansion of its live-state monitoring service to include Enterprise and On-Premises Editions. Opsmatic officially came out of stealth last month and continues to deliver on the promise of supporting the needs of DevOps teams, whether in the cloud or inside a corporate firewall. The Opsmatic live-state monitoring service is the only solution that provides a precise, real-time picture of the detailed configuration and changes that affect an enterprise’s computing infrastructure. The new offerings include all the features of the Professional Edition (announced last month), with the addition of a single sign-on and dedicated support in the Enterprise and On-Premises Editions. The On-Premises Edition is designed for customers with isolated infrastructure who require an internally deployed solution, while leveraging the same real-time visibility to quickly troubleshoot problems and reduce costly downtime. Opsmatic services are delivered through a purpose-built, intelligent data platform which enables customers to easily integrate events from other services for greater context (PagerDuty, Nagios, Zabbix), incorporate their own custom event data (deployment events, backups, etc.); and extend their live state host data to include custom configuration and state data from their own services to provide deeper, more complete insight. Alerts can also be posted to Slack, HipChat, DataDog and PagerDuty, to better support team collaboration and communication. “Our new single sign-on capability gives the entire technical team access to a central source of truth, reducing the number of configuration-related issues while increasing team velocity,” said Jim Stoneham, CEO, Opsmatic. “Our customers have said that incident triage that used to take them hours now takes minutes.” Opsmatic live-state monitoring features include: Real-time insight The Opsmatic service monitors the state of every host in real-time, providing a current and accurate picture of the configuration, as well as an instantaneous feed of any changes happening to that host. Any variation, or “drift” in configuration across host groups is also immediately visible to enable teams to fix minor issues before they escalate into downtime events, saving hours of detective work and remediation. Infrastructure search and Assertions Live-state inventory data can be instantly searched to find vulnerable packages, to identify every version of an open-source package that is deployed, or find hosts that are running a specific service. Specific policies (“Assertions”) can be easily defined and run against live-state data to enforce dependencies, verify configuration, or instantly identify potential issues. Customers can also add internal service configuration and other types of data with a simple inject utility to provide deeper service-level checks. Configuration management monitoring Deep integrations with popular Configuration Management tools from Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack, as well as Docker, enable tracking and reporting of automation runs, file integrity monitoring, and detailed visibility into the key host attributes set by each run. In addition, Opsmatic reaches beyond the policies deployed through the CM tool to track the entire host and report on changes made outside automation runs. Intelligent alerts Using Assertions and saved searches, Opsmatic gives teams control over alert noise and the fatigue it can cause, enabling them to focus on the changes or conditions that really matter. Any alert can be classified by host or host group, and can be fed into specific chat channels (Slack, HipChat), or emailed to the right person on team to investigate the issue. Robust Software-as-a-Service The Professional and Enterprise Editions are delivered as cloud-based services, supporting any cloud infrastructure, datacenter, or hybrid environment across a range of OS platforms. The services are hosted in a hardened data center with SAS 70 Type II and SSAE 16 certifications and 24x7 monitoring. Availability Opsmatic Enterprise Edition is sold as a monthly subscription, with billing based on usage: $7 per host, per month, based on the peak number of hosts being monitored each month. The Opsmatic On-Premises Edition is sold as a yearly contract by quote at [email protected]. The company offers an unlimited-use, 30-day free trial of Opsmatic Professional that is available at www.opsmatic.com/signup. No credit card is required for the free trial. General inquiries should be directed to [email protected]. About Opsmatic Inc. Opsmatic provides real-time visibility of any change in the live state of computing infrastructure and intelligently alerts users before trouble begins. The SaaS service is built on an underlying data platform with a robust API, and is integrated with popular monitoring and code automation tools to give customers complete context and provide the shared visibility required by modern DevOps teams. Founded in 2013, the Opsmatic team comprises experienced development and operations professionals who were involved at the beginning of the DevOps movement at major web-scale companies. The company is backed by leading investors in the cloud technology space, including AME Cloud Ventures (Jerry Yang), Freestyle Ventures, Illuminate Ventures and Index Ventures. For more info, please visit opsmatic.com or follow @Opsmatic on Twitter.

The complexity of big data makes it a difficult concept for many to grasp, and utilizing it effectively is one of the biggest challenges businesses face today. There is little doubt that big data offers organizations a number of clear advantages, but applying them across the entire enterprise is one obstacle that can truly be described as formidable, even daunting, to even the most technologically savvy companies. One department might be able to create its own business solutions through big data analytics, while another department might come up with answers of their own, but lack of true coordination and collaboration remains a significant problem. Businesses aren’t without help in this area, however, because they’ve encountered similar problems before. Many companies have encountered issues such as virtualization technology sprawl, and the lessons learned from addressing that problem could prove to be exceptionally valuable when dealing with big data true cost of ownership (TCO). To understand the problem and the solution, we must first look back at the rapid growth of virtualization technology, more specifically server virtualization. As businesses adopted virtualization, the mainframe systems soon diverged into multiple systems. The more popular virtualization became, the more projects were taken on and the more technologies diverged. Larger companies eventually sought technology specialists to work within their areas of expertise. The result of the use of these individual teams was virtualization technology sprawl, an inefficient development that eventually lead to even higher operational costs. For all the benefits virtualization technology offered, many of them were outweighed by the increased demands and greater management complexity that came from technology sprawl. Businesses were quick to come up with new solutions for the problem. The most common was to adopt a converged infrastructure . This strategy directly addressed the higher operational costs that resulted from technology sprawl, basically breaking through the silos by taking multiple technologies and combining them into single stacks for computing, storage, and networking. This made the management of virtualization technology much easier since operational complexity was significantly reduced. In other words, management of this technology was kept at a reasonable size. The same principle can apply to big data management across an entire organization. When it comes to management of big data and hadoop security, it’s easy to get caught up in the immensity of it all. The fact that big data is so versatile and can be applied to so many different use cases also means it can apply to any number of different divisions within a company. This creates silos and a general desire to hold onto data sets. In other words, big data ends up in a sprawl of its own, becoming that much more unwieldy and complicated, which is a major problem for a technology that’s already so complex to begin with. The lesson that every company should take away from the solution to virtualization technology sprawl is the breaking down of barriers to big data management. It all comes down to ready access to all the necessary data no matter what roles an employee may have within a company. Businesses shouldn’t have to worry over the cost it takes to store and process data since the insights gained from big data analytics are particularly valuable. Most importantly, it’s about avoiding big data from getting too big, to the point where it becomes unmanageable and merely adds to the overall operating costs of a company. It’s true that big data introduces more complexity, but businesses that have learned how to store and process it efficiently, sometimes through big data platforms or cloud-based services, are in a more advantageous position than companies still dealing with technology sprawl. The lessons learned from previous problems can indeed play a helpful role in solving the problems many experience today.

London, UK – FusionExperience, the business and data solutions provider, today announces the success of its first salesforce.com partnership with Cloud Consulting Ltd. (CCL). CCL was working with an international airline client to migrate a legacy charter and group booking application from one Salesforce.com instance to a new one. Very early on in the project CCL discovered that there were considerable elements of unsupported custom code and that these had to be redesigned and redeveloped. The airline took the opportunity at this stage to request changes and improve the application in line with their new business processes. CCL worked with FusionExperience to migrate the application to the latest salesforce.com environment and re-architected the booking engine functionality and complex pricing algorithms using Apex and VisualForce. For business reasons the airline had a strict project deadline and despite all the unknowns involved the project timescales were maintained and FusionExperience delivered on time and to budget. The airline went live with the application on schedule without any post-production problems or warranty fixes required. They now have an up to date system that has achieved a game changing transformation in the way it does business. Robin James, Platform Evangelist for FusionExperience said; “The ability to seamlessly work with our partners on salesforce.com projects enables rapid scaling of resources and capabilities. This ensures that the client is delighted by the results, yet unaware of the complex extended ecosystem that has been involved. This is facilitated by that fact that we all speak the same salesforce.com language. Cloud Consulting is an ideal partner to work with in this way, as our delivery and technical strengths are well matched with their intimate client facing approach.” Tim Pullen, Managing Director of CCL added: “We already had a close relationship with FusionExperience and it was natural for us to turn to them for help with this suddenly extremely challenging project. The combination of cleaning, segmenting and splitting the data in Salesforce.com, extracting the system configuration and custom code and then creating a new system was tough enough to start but then having to redevelop the application from scratch took it to a new level. Right from the start Robin James and his team took everything in their stride and provided a level of comfort, reassurance, skill and professionalism that we’d never experienced before from other partners. Bear in mind that the old system had no user or technical documentation plus undocumented code and you begin to understand just how good the end result has been for the airline. Thank you Fusion!”

Spring Data Couchbase provides transparent way to save and load Java classes to and from Couchbase. However, if a loaded class contains a property of unknown class, you will receive org.springframework.data.mapping.model.MappingException: No mapping metadata found for java.lang.Object This may happen if, for example, different versions of your code save and load information. In order to handle situation when we want to load an object, which contains another object on unknown class (in a map or list property) we should override the default SPMappingCouchbaseConverter. Let's see how we do this with Spring XML configuration: I replace my old XML: to the following XML: And create the following class: public class MyMappingCouchbaseConverter extends MappingCouchbaseConverter { public MyMappingCouchbaseConverter(final MappingContext, CouchbasePersistentProperty> mappingContext) { super(mappingContext); } @Override protected R read(final TypeInformation type, final CouchbaseDocument source, final Object parent) { if (Object.class == typeMapper.readType(source, type).type) { return null; } return super.read(type, source, parent); } } Now, if loaded object will contain a property of unknown class or an object of unknown class in a list or map, this property or object will be replaced by null. view source print?

June 22, 2015: Purple WiFi, the cloud-based Social WiFi software company, today announced the appointment of Collin Tan as Regional Manager, ASEAN reporting to Allen Pan, VP Asia Pacific. He will be based in Singapore and will be responsible for all Purple WiFi’s business in the ASEAN region. He will be working to develop the distributors and reseller channels across countries in ASEAN, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and engage directly with key service providers in these countries. Collin was previously the Managing Director of Singapore start-up, 1Care Global Pte Ltd, providing after sales services, such as equipment protection and extended warranty. Under his leadership 1Care enjoyed tremendous growth with customers in the Asia Pacific region, which includes the world’s Top 2 PC manufacturers. Before joining 1Care Global, Collin spent 10 years with Intel Corporation, serving as Country Manager for Intel Singapore before he left in 2013. Previous roles with Intel include leading the regional OEM team for one of Intel’s largest MNC customers and Manager for the Field Applications Engineers Team based out of Taiwan. Purple WiFi is expanding globally following a $5m investment announced earlier this year. The investment was raised in order to accelerate product development and recruitment of a truly global sales team, which already has strongholds in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. The WiFi offering focuses on engaging, understanding and delivering value by allowing users to gain free access to a public WiFi network through their existing social media accounts or a short form. The user gets access to family friendly WiFi, while the benefit to the business hosting the service (such as a restaurant, hotel, retailer, museum, sports stadium or shopping mall) is valuable analytic insights into the profiles and movements of their customers and a sophisticated built-in marketing platform. Thousands of venues globally have been secured and deep technology partnerships established, most notably with Cisco, Cisco Meraki, BT and Verizon but also many others. Collin Tan, Regional Manager ASEAN, Purple WiFi, comments: “Purple WiFi provides the perfect solution for companies that wish to monetise their free WiFi, as well as enabling direct targeted marketing to users within its proximity. It also combines the four fastest growing technology sectors of Mobile, Cloud, Social Media and Analytics in a single product, making it extremely valuable as a service and technology organisation.” Allen Pan, VP Asia Pacific, Purple WiFi, comments: “Collin brings the perfect combination of experience and drive to the role and we’re excited to have him onboard. The market in ASEAN is growing quickly and Collin’s in-depth knowledge of the region will allow us to capitalise on the opportunities for Purple WiFi.”

COLOGNE, Germany – June 22, 2015 – ParStream, the IoT analytics company, today announced its participation at the TDWI Munich Conference 2015, one of the largest gatherings of expert Business Intelligence, Big Data and data warehousing leaders and educators in Europe. The conference will take place June 22-24, 2015 at the MOC Order and Event Center in Munich, Germany. Albert Aschauer, Sales Director DACH at ParStream, will present on requirements for an analytics platform for the Internet of Things (IoT) based on real-world use cases from the renewable energy and telecommunications industries. Big Data, fast data, edge analytics and real-time insights are driving new technology innovation to meet the demand for getting more value from IoT data. Additional details on the speaking session are below. What: “Requirements of an Analytics Platform for the Internet of Things” When: Monday, June 22, 2015 at 11:35 a.m. CEST Who: Albert Aschauer, Sales Director DACH at ParStream Where: MOC Munich, Germany – Room F112 To schedule a one-on-one meeting with Albert Aschauer and ParStream at TDWI Munich Conference 2015, send an email to events(at)parstream(dot)com.