Hon Wong

Cloud computing utilizes computing resources, network bandwidth, storage, applications, and services available in the Internet "cloud" to deliver scalable Web functionalities to end users anywhere in the world. Drawing on the cloud for computing resources is similar to tapping into the electric grid for electricity - cost is incurred only as resources or computing cycles are consumed. Application owners can theoretically take advantage of the highly scalable infrastructure available from vendors like Amazon, Google, and IBM and services available from application vendors like Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce to deliver application functionalities without incurring capital expenditure, the headache and expense of operating a data center, or the cost of developing common application functions like billing, shopping carts, and CRM. In effect, application owners can f... (more)

Overcome the Frustrating Lack of .NET Deployment Tools

Developing custom applications using Microsoft's .NET Framework is a growing trend. According to Forrester Research, 56% of enterprises are choosing .NET versus 44% opting for J2EE, while IDC reports that 35.7% of large corporations use .NET for their most important applications compared to 25.3% for Java. While .NET lets your development team develop applications quickly and efficiently, it's still a challenge to make sure that: Applications get into production smoothly (and stay in production). Performance is optimized under real-world conditions involving the unruly Internet,... (more)

ITIL: The Blueprint for SOA Success

In its day the colossal Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. When it fell in the fourteen century, the building blocks were reused by the Sultan of Egypt to build the Citadel at Qaitbey that still stands today. Waste not, want not. Our modern concept of Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) updates the ancient approach to recycling. The SOA technology framework enables the rapid implementation of business applications using reusable services or functions. It includes a methodology for finding and consuming these pre-fabricated services. Yet... (more)

SOA World - Racing Without a Speedometer

Accelerators, Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs), application switches...whatever you call them, this new breed of performance enhancing appliances is selling like hotcakes. The market for these turbochargers has zoomed from zero to over $1 billion in the span of a few years, heading towards what Gartner estimates will be $3.7 billion in annual sales in 2008. Yet even as IT organizations are spending up to $100,000 a pop on these boxes, few have any idea how well they're working. These high-octane accelerators are like Formula One racecars without a speedometer - the pedal ... (more)

SOA or DOA

Web applications built on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) promise to greatly improve IT efficiency and business agility. SOA establishes data and protocol standards so that existing internal and third-party application modules or services can be reused and orchestrated into business applications. Unfortunately, while SOA enables the rapid implementation of business applications, it also greatly increases the complexity of managing performance when these applications are deployed in production – often diminishing the benefits of the SOA adoption. Without an effective way of ... (more)