Marina Sum's Blog

Simon Phipps and Patrick Finch on Open Source

I much enjoyed attending the session "Future Challenges for Open Source and Java Technology" yesterday on Day Two of JavaOne. Here's a summary of the session.

OpenSSO Showcased and Demo'd

Late afternoon this past Monday, Sun identity architect Pat Patterson, senior product line manager Daniel Raskin, and product manager Nick Wooler took the podium at CommunityOne on OpenSSO. In particular, they described the runtime scenario; explained Fedlets, a shining capability in the upcoming Sun Federated Access Manager, OpenSSO's twin; and demo'd the process of deploying applications and configuring OpenSSO for federation.

]]> It was fascinating to learn about the latest model of federation adopted by many enterprises: outsourcing of employee email and calendars to Google, for example, and the attendant needs for authentication across company borders. The savvy speakers had the details down pat and took many Q&As at and after the session. I wondered if Pat ran out of business cards?

Here's a recap of the session I wrote for SDN's CommunityOne-JavaOne coverage. AMIS Technology also posted a review.

Learning About OpenDS at CommunityOne

At CommunityOne 2008 in San Francisco yesterday, Ludovic Poitou, community lead for OpenDS; and Jim Yang, project lead for Penrose, a Java technology-based directory server, presented on the topic, "Getting Started on OpenDS.” Here's a recap.

Two Identity Management Sessions at CommunityOne

Jamie Nelson, Sun's director of engineering for access and federation management, mentioned in a recent interview that "[t]ypically, the number-one problem in developing Web applications is that identity is often an afterthought." If you plan to join CommunityOne in San Francisco next Monday, May 5, be sure to attend these identity management sessions:

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Getting Started With OpenDS

OpenSSO Workshop: Creating Federated Relationships with Software as a Service, Social Networking, and Web 2.0 Applications

Registration is free. Sign up soon.

How to Efficiently Accomplish Identity Federation With Fedlets

In a recent podcast, Sun's senior product line manager for access and federation management Daniel Raskin and RedMonk's Michael Cote and Sun's Brandon Whichard explain federation ("extended enterprise, internally and externally") with examples and a new way to federate with partners: with Fedlets in the upcoming Sun Federated Access Manager. The benefits: simplicity, speed, lightweight, scalability, seamlessness, repeatability. Stay tuned for a vodcast demo.

For more background, have a look at a recent SDN article on an interview with Daniel.

A CNET Blog Lauds the Solaris OS

A short and succinct posting on CNET explains why the Solaris OS "is no slouch"—not by far, given its 12 million licenses as of end-February 2008. The author, Matt Asay, also shares his thoughts on Linux and Sun's possible involvement.

One can't talk about the Solaris OS without mentioning its unique capabilities, such as DTrace and Zettabyte File System (ZFS). This posting calls DTrace magic. As for ZFS, these two recent blogs are fun to read:

A developer concludes, "ZFS rocks."
A Sun fellow makes a point about ZFS with a hammer.

A New Segment on Identity-Service Magic: Obtaining User Attributes

Sun Developer Network just published Part 3 of the technical series, Securing Applications With Identity Services. Through an example application built with the NetBeans IDE, you learn how to configure OpenSSO and obtain the attributes of users whose tokens are passed in service calls.

Forthcoming will be segments on auditing, creation, updates, single sign-on, and logout of identity services. Stay tuned.

A New Hub for Young Developers

Young developers who desire to learn how to build software in various intuitive programming languages, including Java, should check out a new java.sun.com hub in the New to Java Programming Center. Spotlighted there are numerous resource pointers to tutorials and introductory material: BlueJ, NetBeans IDE Blue J Edition, Greenfoot. Some of the resources are self-paced and interactive—a ton of fun!

Daniel Raskin on Federated Access Management

Early this month, I interviewed Daniel Raskin, Sun's senior product line manager for federation and access management, for Part 3 of the From the Trenches at Identity series. In this segment, Daniel points out the challenges that enterprises face with the related solutions and elaborates on the impressive capabilities of an upcoming, open-source product, Sun Federated Access Manager, designed with simplicity and ease of use in mind.

At CommunityOne in San Francisco on Monday, May 5, Daniel and his colleagues will hold an OpenSSO workshop, which pertains to social networking and Web 2.0. Do check it out and sign up if you'll be in the area then. Attendance at CommunityOne is free.

Sun Java System Web Server Shines in Scalability and Versatility

A recent posting on Sun's Web-tier blog showcases the recent launch of Sun's multicore, multisocket systems that are based on the UltraSPARC T2 architecture. The posting also mentions the impressive capabilities of chip multithreading (CMT)-optimized Sun Java System Web Server: vertical and horizontal scalability, support of PHP and JSP implementations, and so forth. For more details on CMT at Sun, see this wiki.

The Sun Java System Web Server team has a lot to be proud of. Congratulations.

RedMonk Podcast on Identity

RedMonk's Michael Cote and Sun's Brandon Whichard recently recorded an approximately 30-minute podcast, in which they reflect on a number of interesting subjects. Those include the recent "passportgate" in the States, the difference between ESSO [enterprise single sign-on] and SSO [single sign-on], IBM's acquisition of Encentuate, OpenID, and others.

A lively, informative episode.

Highlights of Java University at 2008 JavaOne

Java University, which will begin on Monday, May 5, 2008 as part of 2008 JavaOne, is available for attendance by Conference Plus Pass and Java University Pass holders. At the podium will be experts who will expound on the latest of many popular technologies and tools as they relate to SOA and Web 2.0: the JavaFX and Java Card technologies; the Java EE, Java SE, and Java ME platforms; JRuby on Rails; Groovy and Grails; the Spring Framework; the NetBeans IDE; and the open-source GlassFish and OpenSolaris projects.

Here are the session highlights, courtesy of Joe Boulenouar, senior technical specialist at Sun.

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Using Java EE 5 and SOA to Architect and Design Robust Enterprise Applications — In this session, you learn how to structure applications to head off the rogue side effects that impact quality of service, such as performance, reliability, availability, and security. The main topics are—

Design of robust enterprise applications

SOA capabilities that efficiently and cost-effectively respond to changing market conditions

The Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) that complies with the Java Business Integration (JBI) Specification and that helps automate, manage, and optimize business processes and workflows across systems and partners

Designing and Implementing Secure Java Technology Web Services — This session focuses on B2B applications, that is, it explains how to secure Web services that communicate with each other through XML documents. You'll work with the Java API for XML-based Web services (JAX-WS) to build a seamless, transparent process, independent of operating systems and other platforms.

Web 2.0: Building Dynamic Web Sites With Ajax and the Dojo Toolkit — This session explains how to build interactive Web applications with Asynchronous JavaScript and XML technologies (Ajax). You'll also explore how to to simplify the development process with the Dojo toolkit. Dojo offers APIs that interact with the DOM, a client-side event model, and a rich set of client-side UI components.

Developing Portable Java EE Applications With the Enterprise JavaBeans 3.x Component API — Learn how to do the following with the efficient and robust EJB 3.0 and EJB 3.1 framework:

Build business logic that can be invoked synchronously or asynchronously with an application server that complies with the Java EE platform.

Assemble and deploy portable, Java EE technology-based applications.

Developing Java Technology Applications With the Java Persistence API — The Java Persistence API enables the modeling of database entities, such as Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs), and integrates with EJB 3.x components to facilitate the development of enterprise applications. You'll learn how to develop and deploy data-driven applications with JPA on the Java EE and Java SE platforms.

Learning How Java ME Development Works Best for Mobile Devices — Despite the advent of numerous mobile devices over the years, the Java ME platform continues to be the preferred platform on which to build and deploy mobile applications. This session introduces the Java ME platform and midlets and teaches you how to efficiently develop an application with the NetBeans Mobility Pack IDE.

Web 2.0: Leveraging Project jMaki and Google Web Toolkit for Rapid Web-Site Development — jMaki interacts with Ajax component libraries, such as the Dojo toolkit, thus simplifying and enhancing Web development. This session shows you how to develop Ajax-enabled Web 2.0 applications with jMaki and the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) development framework.

Developing Enterprise Applications With the Spring Framework — Learn Spring’s extensive support for middle-tier capabilities, including persistence, remoting, management, messaging, and control flow. This session also covers Spring's new features.

Developing Secure, Interactive Applications Hosted on a Variety of Clients Using JavaFX — This session focuses on JavaFX technology, a new family of Java technology-based products that enable consistent user experiences on the desktop, mobile devices, set-top boxes, and Blu-ray Disc. Also covered are the JavaFX Script and JavaFX Mobile application environments.

Using the Power of JRuby and Rails to Develop Robust Applications — Take advantage of the stability and reliability of the Java platform by developing applications in JRuby on Rails. This session shows you how to efficiently program in Ruby, JRuby, and Ruby on Rails on the NetBeans IDE.

Using Java Card Technology for Applications That Run on Smart Cards and Other Devices — This session introduces the Java Card technology, which offers a secure environment for applications that run on smart cards and other devices with limited memory and processing capabilities. You'll learn how to do the following:

Deploy multiple applications on a single card and add applications even after the card has been issued to the end-user.

Securely execute Java applications on smart cards from different vendors.

Rapid Web-Site Development With Groovy and Grails — This session introduces Groovy and Grails, which leverages such popular frameworks as Spring, Hibernate, and SiteMess, and shows you how to simplify the development process on a dynamic platform with a convention-over-configuration approach. You'll also learn how to integrate Groovy and Grails with Java technology on the Java EE platform.

GlassFish Application Server — Sun's open-source application server, GlassFish, is ideal for deploying Web applications and Web services on the Java EE 5 platform. Besides learning about the GlassFish clustering and enterprise profiles, you'll also step through the procedures for configuring, administering, and deploying Web applications, EJB 3.0 applications, and Web services from the GlassFish application server.

OpenSolaris Project and the Solaris Operating System — Sun's Solaris 10 Operating System boasts a modern desktop environment that supports application development for Web 2.0 with Java and other technologies. This session showcases the OpenSolaris project, including the much-acclaimed capabilities of the Solaris 10 OS. In addition, you'll learn the configurations for the development environment, networking, virtualization, zones, the predictive self-healing capability DTrace, and the Zettabyte File System (ZFS).

NetBeans 6.x and Its Powerful Plug-ins — The NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE) offers easy-to-use tools for SOA development on the Java SE, Java EE, and Java ME platforms with Java, C, C++, Ruby, and other technologies. This session delves into the nuances and offers tips and best practices.

More Wisdom on Open Source

A recent blog on CNET, Open-Source Software As Guerrilla Marketing Strategy, contains insightful quotes about the advantages of open source. Notable is the expanded horizon of contributors, some of whom end up being hired by the companies that make their software open source. In my recent conversations with champions and overseers of open-source projects at Sun, I heard about that trend, too, as a gratifying outcome.

And this quote on criticism from Marten Mickos, now at the helm of Sun's database group, is enlightening: "You must realize that criticism can be very valuable. Never be defensive. If you can forget about your ego, that's the power of open source." That attitude takes a deliberate effort to build up, I imagine, but certainly sounds like a wise one.

Start Planning for JavaOne

The 2008 JavaOne conference (Moscone Center, San Francisco, Tuesday-Friday, May 6-9) is just several weeks away. This year's agenda extends well beyond Java technology to also cover developer tools, open source, scripting, eCommerce, and Web 2.0.

Here are a few handy pointers:

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Registration: Packages, discounts, hotel accommodations, press-analyst passes

Advance Conference Guide: Details on the 300+ sessions, hands-on labs, and other activities

Content Catalog: Searchable database for the sessions

Java University: Technical training courses on May 5

RSS feed: Subscription for conference news updates

After registration, be sure to set up your schedule with Schedule Builder, from which you can also access the Content Catalog and Exhibitor Catalog.

In addition, come join CommunityOne on Monday, May 5, the day before JavaOne, also at Moscone Center. That's a "free and open developer conference" held by Sun, with sessions that address such topics as operating systems, databases, and tools.

Interview With "MySQL-Chief-Cum-Sun-Database-Head"

I enjoyed reading a recent blog by Stefanie Olsen on CNET News on an interview with Marten Mickos, now head of Sun's database group subsequent to the acquisition of MySQL by Sun. The debate on the pros and cons of proprietary and open-source software continues to draw attention, in particular the business model of "giv[ing] away software and charg[ing] at the point of value."

According to Mickos, "open source is powerful because if a company has the right application, it can draw on the criticism and help of a passionate community." He also wholeheartedly supports the concept of a global workforce and points out that "not having offices and tapping into the best resources wherever they are" is the best way of organizing staff.