Scary: backdoor in FTP server software

While reading security.nl, I picked up the news that hackers had put a backdoor in the popular FTP server ProFTPD. A version of the software containing a backdoor was put on the distribution server by some hackers.

How often does one install software from the Internet without any verification. Yes, there are the fingerprints, but who checks them? Even more scary if you were the one installing that software on a customers's server.

And if some hacker ever finds its way into the Windows Update software distribution mechanism, the world will come to a halt (don't smile you Apple users).

Java on Microsoft Azure

Triggered by my colleague Koen Van Oost and the upcoming Microsoft session at Devoxx, I looked into Java on the Microsoft Azure platform. Watched the talk "Open in the cloud: Windows Azure and Java" of PDC10. I wasn't aware that one could run Tomcat on Azure! Well, seems to be the case already since 2009. But the Eclipse tooling and JDBC connection to the SQL Azure Database are brand new. During the talk, it was also shown how the Fujitsu Interstage application server can run on Azure. Having WebLogic or WebSphere Application Server running on Azure would be very big news! For now, let's see how the ESB and integration capabilities of Azure are usable from Java.

Devoxx 2010

Next week is Devoxx! Three talks and three speakers that I can really recommend:

• Designing Java Systems to Operate at a Cloud Scale by George Reese
  

• Does dev/ops matter for me? by Michael Coté and John Willis

• Pragmatic Cloud Computing, or, Dealing with Morlocks, or, Agile Infrastructure by Michael Coté

In particular as I invited the speakers myself for these talks! Just too bad that I can't be there myself, damned.

But many more interesting things: Activiti in Action by Tom Baeyens, Scalable Java Applications on Azure by Microsoft, Comparing JVM Web Frameworks by Matt Raible, Encryption Bootcamp on the JVM, loads of NoSQL stuff, and so many more great talks.

Looking forward to meet you next week @ Devoxx on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

Dell acquires Boomi

Boomi is a very interesting Integration-As-A-Service player. Integration in the cloud is a new trend that looks very promising. But what is not yet clear is the reason why Dell acquired Boomi. A big cloud player such as Google or Amazon or a big software players such as Microsoft, IBM or SAP have probably more chances. Curious to see what direction Dell will take with Boomi.

XML schema's for verticals

With XML as the alphabet, many languages are defined through XML schema's. But typical is the way each vertical defines its own language. Latest example that I was pointed at: XML schema's for the oil industry at energistics.org.

But there are very little initiatives to define a common foundation, to define the words (nouncs, verbs) from which each vertical could define variations or specific XML languages. Many XML languages lead to many translations or transformations. Fine for us the integration experts, but overall not very efficient. ebXML Core Components gave the structure to define re-usable XML building blocks that could be used in different contexts and adapted based on region, industry, business process etc. But ebXML CC is used in some of the verticals, but not one a broad scale as is the case with good old EDIFACT.

And as the XML standards in the oil industry proof, the trend of the last 10 years continues, many domain specific XML languages, specific for each vertical.

Cloud Computing Economies of Scale

Great recorded talk about the hardware and data centre side of cloud computing. This great presentation explains why it (also) makes sense to leverage cloud computing simply to have cost efficient hardware. Got pointed to it while listening to the Cloud Computing Show #31.

Also interesting (via the same podcast): CloudHarmony. The blog in particular contains different benchmark results (memory, IO, network) of a large number of Infrastructure-As-A-Service providers.

New name: Liaison

Had never heard about Liaison Technologies until I learned they recently acquired ADX. Looked onto their website and they had also acquired Contivo 2 years ago. Contivo is somewhat know for their transformation (mapping) tools.