Oracle Joins HSA Foundation To Help Java Devs with Heterogeneous Computing

Oracle wants to make it easier for Java developers to leverage the combined power of CPUs, graphics processing units (GPUs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and digital signal processors (DSPs) -- so-called heterogeneous computing -- and the database giant has thrown in with other organizations in an industry consortium to do it.

Oracle was among several industry leaders to announce plans to join the Heterogeneous System Architecture Foundation (HSAF) at this year's 2013 AMD Developer Summit. The not-for-profit consortium of system-on-a-chip vendors, OEMs, academics, ISVs and others is developing royalty-free specifications for system architectures that combine different kinds of processors. The foundation's goal is to make it easier to write code for these multi-breed systems, and to grow a heterogeneous compute ecosystem based on an industry standard.

Posted by John K. Waters on November 20, 20130 comments

HTML5 App Builder Updated with the Enterprise in Mind

How do enterprise developers extend their corporate apps to the ever expanding universe of mobile devices with the least amount of pain? Visual dev tool maker Sencha made the argument this week for the less-coding-is-more approach provided by Sencha Architect, the latest version of which the company just released.

Sencha Architect is a visual app builder designed to allow developers to create applications using the Redwood City, Calif.-company's enterprise-class frameworks: Sencha Touch, which is an HTML5 framework for building mobile applications, and Ext JS, which is a JavaScript framework for business-grade Web app development.

Posted by John K. Waters on November 14, 20130 comments

New Virtual Java Users Group Goes for Global Membership

Ready for a shot of "Vitamin V"? If you're one of those Java jocks with no access to a local User Group, that's just the professional supplement you need, say the folks at Zeroturnaround's RebelLabs. The Java toolmaker's research and content organization has launched a new virtual Java User Group (vJUG) that aims to provide "a central online hub of Java-related knowledge, accessible to developers everywhere regardless of location," according to the company.

Posted by John K. Waters on November 5, 20130 comments

GitHub Launches Government Portal, Opens New Offices

Earlier this month GitHub, the hosted collaboration platform that all but defined "social coding," launched a new portal site designed to encourage governments and public organizations to connect and share best practices. The new government portal is "dedicated to showcasing the amazing efforts of public servants and civic hackers around the globe," the company says.

Posted on October 21, 20130 comments

Java Community Process: Still Making Progress on Reform

When the Java Community Process (JCP) set out four years ago to take advantage of the Oracle acquisition to implement some much needed reforms, the Java standards organization started with what JCP Chair Patrick Curran referred to as the "low-hanging fruit."

That first Java Specification Request, JSR 348, was all about transparency, participation, agility and governance. It was approved without much fuss. A year later, the JCP sought to merge the two JCP Executive Committees (ECs) -- the SE/EE EC and the ME EC -- under JSR 355. That plan was also approved.

Posted by John K. Waters on October 9, 20130 comments

OpenWorld and JavaOne Round-Up: Third-Party Products

Azul and MS Open Tech Launch Zulu
One announcement that did grab some press attention concerned a development in the evolving partnership between Java runtime maker Azul Systems and the Microsoft Open Technologies group (MS Open Tech). The two companies launched Zulu, an OpenJDK build for Windows Azure. The free, open source JDK is integrated with MS Open Tech's Windows Azure Plugin for Eclipse Java tooling. It's Java SE 7-compliant, verified using Java SE 7 OpenJDK Community TCK (Technology Compatibility Kit). And it works with Jetty Java and Tomcat servlet containers. The two organizations first announced the collaboration back in July. Azul is best known as the maker of Zing, a 100 percent Java-compatible JVM. MS Open Tech is an independent subsidiary of the software giant focused on open source.

Posted by John K. Waters on October 2, 20130 comments

Oracle Expands Cloud Services, Ellison Skips Out of Keynote

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison didn't make it to his own keynote at this year's OpenWorld conference. (He was seen hanging out by the San Francisco Bay watching some boats.) But his redoubtable EVP of product development, Thomas Kurian, pitched in to announce a major expansion of the company's cloud services that will include Oracle Database as a Service (DaaS), Oracle Java as a Service and Oracle Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Oracle unveiled its first public cloud at last year's conference. The Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering is an enterprise cloud service designed to run Oracle apps, middleware and database products in a self-service, subscription-based, elastically scalable system. Currently, 21.5 million users of that PaaS complete 19 billion transactions a day across more than 10,000 companies in 180 companies in 34 languages, Kurian said. Oracle also announced a new enterprise social platform last year, which Kurian said is currently used by 900. The company is building on those systems with its new suite of cloud platform services, he said.

Posted by John K. Waters on September 26, 20130 comments

JavaOne 2013: It's a Great Time To Be a Developer

I've been saying in this blog for a while now that it's a great time to be a developer, but it's nice to hear that notion echoed from someone like IBM distinguished engineer John Duimovich.

Duimovich, who serves as Big Blue's Java CTO, spoke on Sunday in San Francisco at the annual JavaOne kickoff keynote. IBM is focusing on the developer this year, Duimovich told attendees, by sending 28 "engineers of all ranks" to present 28 talks, and limiting the marketing team to...one. (He had the guy wave from the audience.)

Posted by John K. Waters on September 23, 20130 comments

DevOps Drives Revenue, Study Finds

Think DevOps is still just a buzzword? The recently published results of a survey of 1,300 senior IT decision makers might change your mind.

Commissioned by CA Technologies and published in the white paper, "TechInsights Report: What Smart Businesses Know about DevOps," the survey suggests that IT execs are taking the DevOps movement quite seriously, investing resources in developing DevOps strategies and seeing "concrete business benefits" from their efforts.

Posted by John K. Waters on September 19, 20130 comments