Columns: Dev How-To and Advice


Credit union takes SAFE approach to patch automation

Some organizational names carry inherent assumptions. Just ask the Sacramento Air Force Employees (SAFE) Federal Credit Union in California, which maintains assets of $1.2 billion for its roughly 120,000 members.

How to pick a winner

If you’ve been reading about the profiles of this year’s nominees for ADT’s annual Innovator Awards, here’s what’s been going on behind the curtain.

Taking Java Around the Table

JavaOne brought them to San Francisco, and FTP brought them to the 2006 Java Technology Roundtable. Get a sampling of what industry thought leaders had to say about the state of Java.

This is your brain on HPC

For about 2 years now, server vendors have been flogging the idea that high-performance computing is spreading beyond traditional academic and government environments, and is emerging as a serious option for enterprise IT.

World-champion architectures in training

If there’s a constant in this month’s issue, it’s that big-time enterprises are looking for service-oriented architectures to give them the ability to float and sting like Ali.

Snippets, widgets and other levels of AJAX development

Gartner analyst Ray Valdes recommends orgs focus on usability and user-centric design from the start of any AJAX project.

IT powers high-voltage substations

As Michigan Electric Transmission Company prepares to take over its outsourced operations in May 2007 from service provider Consumers Energy, customer recordkeeping and better data management are at the top of the startup’s IT list.

New Business Rules to Live By

Business rules management technologies, which separate the logic behind a business decision from the mechanics of carrying it out, simplify development and promise business users greater ability to manage changes to business processes.

Shrink-wrapped ETL is on SQL codejockeys’ short list

What do IT organizations have on tap business intelligence-wise in 2006? A whole lot of SQL Server 2005, for starters: With so much pent-up demand, many SQL shops will make the move to Microsoft's next-gen database this year.

Energy company puts juice into monitoring IM

Is your company's use of instant messaging secure? Does it meet regulatory requirements?

Service-oriented Architectures: Tool time for service-oriented architectures

"New tools for an emerging class of app developers, who will create the B-school policies that drive SOAs, promise to help orgs mediate services and monitor their networks."

The buzz about operational biz intelligence

You can’t say Information Builders CEO Gerry Cohen doesn’t speak his mind. You might be tempted to call him a straight shooter. For example, even though IBI is sitting on one of the niftiest data integration technologies on the market—its iWay family of connectivity solutions— Cohen dismisses data integration as an over-hyped buzz term.

Manage e-mail and IM info-glut

As the use of e-mail and instant messaging for business communications has grown, so too has another problem: storing and managing that content.

We Have Trends of Our Own

Regular readers of Application Development Trends know we cover more of the application scene than development, despite the name. We regularly run articles on apps management, integration, innovation and more. That’s why, starting with next month’s issue, we’ll be operating under a new moniker: Application Trends. We’ll show off our new logo and tell you all about the name change in the January issue.

Bits & Bytes

Insight, analysis and stuff for managers