In-Depth Features


Rundown on risk: Untangling security

Some pundits view IT security today as immature, insecure and out of control. Every organization should develop internal expertise in this area.

A look at BI vendor strategies today

A brief update on what some vendors in the BI space are up to today

What to look for in Web services management

Steve Garone, managing partner at The AlignIT Group LLC, said there are six requirements to keep in mind when evaluating WSM products.

Clusters a’plenty

Changes in the computer room are afoot, and it is not just about clusters. The emerging ‘virtualization’ of software platforms will spread apps in new ways.

SOAP forms global integration

With offices in 35 countries, Future Electronics, the third largest electronic distributor in the world, has developed its own enterprise apps to run its operations. But the firm needed a way to integrate all of its global systems.

Lydian Trust: It’s the application framework, stupid

Lydian Trust is a mid-sized financial services company based in Palm Beach, Fla. Although it was only founded in 1999, its services, including private banking and wealth management, had expanded by mid-2002 to the point where it had outgrown its original IT systems built on Microsoft Windows .COM. John Studdard’s job was to move to the .NET platform with a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that would allow development teams to build Web services applications without having to worry about the basic XML-based standards or architecture.

A modern face for a Progress engine

At NxTrend Technology Inc., Web services allowed the company to continue to use its established transaction engine while putting on a most “modern” face for other systems, indicated Ross Elliott, vice president and chief strategy officer at the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based supply distribution software house.

.NET in the ER

Keith Brophy, CTO at Robertson Research Institute, Saginaw, Mich., has been working on a Web services application whose objective has special relevance -- saving lives.

The Battle to Provision

The convergence of directory management and provisioning, and how organizations can leverage their directory management investments to meet their provisioning needs.

Introduction: 5 ways to better Web services

We are at the stage now where Web services war stories should be available. A close look shows this new technology catching on.

Think Integration

IT must move beyond mere maintenance and upgrades. Rather than being viewed by the suits as a money pit, IT needs to assume leadership and propose new business processes models.

NetJets flies with Web service-free SOA

Firm’s CTO said he considered the more typical SOA Web-based front end but determined that HTML and the current state of Web services technology was not up to tracking jet flights in real-time.

Will Application Integration Save the Enterprise?

Are you looking for something new to gain advantage over competitors? Application integration could be your vehicle for driving new and innovative information and business processes.

SOA’s up

The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) journey is entering a new phase in corporate IT shops. Experts still expect SOA to finally give IT an adequate integration solution.

Web services cure integration problems in health care enterprise

“A couple of years ago, we began breaking down application suites into XML-based service methods,” said Steve Flammini, CTO at Partners Healthcare, headquartered in Boston. This began to move the IT infrastructure for the multibillion dollar integrated health care delivery system into the Web services world.

XML and Web Services: Are We Secure Yet?

From confidentiality, integrity, and availability to authentication, authorization, and audit, find out how you can employ best practices to make Web services secure.

Where management and security collide

Web services security is being built into everything from major Web app development platforms to integration and other software.

DoD improves logistics through RFID

The DoD plans to use active RFID on freight containers and consolidated air pallets and will use passive RFID on cases, pallets and packaging on unique identification (UID) items -- items inside the freight containers and air pallets.

IT slow to embrace enterprise Linux

There is a lot of Linux talk, but can the OS walk the walk? Tools and utilities are still needed, say experts.

Who goes there?

Before Linux was accepted by the IBMs and Oracles of the world, most Linux installations tended to follow the open-source, do-it-yourself model. There, distributions were downloaded, tweaked and then shared with the rest of the open-source community in compliance with the General Public License (GPL) model that regulated its use.