Oct 2 Progress DataDirect Brings its Successful Data Connectivity Workshops to New International Cities th..
Progress DataDirect recently hosted successful workshops in South and North India and has decided to extend the well-received workshop agenda to new cities this October. The Data Connectivity Workshops covered various aspects of DataDirect’s well-established data access middleware that offers seamless connectivity between heterogeneous clients and heterogeneous data sources. These products ultimately decrease development and operation costs, while allowing for greater interoperability. Many aspects of ODBC, JDBC and ADO.NET technologies were discussed including rarely explored topics of scalability, CPU efficiency and memory footprint of database drivers and data providers. The sessions also covered various built-in functionality found in the DataDirect Connect family of products such as application failover and enterprise security features , such as Kerberos , SSL encryption , and unique secure architecture embedded in both drivers and providers. Bulk load functionality now available in DataDirect Connect is supported directly by the various APIs, allowing bulk load operations to be managed by an application and not be handled by external processed will be discussed and demonstrated. Progress DataDirect products exponentially increase the availability, capabilities and security of distributed applications for both corporate customers who can standardise on a single provider of database connectivity components and software development companies that can embed DataDirect components within their applications reducing the footprint of their overall application and ensuring that database access is provided to their application providing full coverage of all currently available popular database systems. At the September workshops in India organisations and software companies learned about the benefits from the high-performing and flexibility of DataDirect products. During the workshops there were engaging discussions between attendees and company thought-leaders about how the various technologies had been used successfully by existing companies and software houses. Also a number of questions were raised about other possible uses for the technologies. Attendees shared they gained valuable knowledge regardless of their starting point at the beginning of the workshops. The next Data Connectivity workshops will be held a various locations in Europe, Eastern Europe and the Middle East in October 2009. We hope to see you there! More information can be found at http://www.datadirect-tech.co.uk/connectivity.html

Aug 7 Easily Move Large Amounts of data with Bulk Load!
Many companies today are moving mountains of data – some are moving them into data warehouses to run reports, moving for duplication/archival, and more often than not, the design of these systems is accidental. Traditionally there has been no standards based way for moving these large amounts of data between systems, resulting in poorly architected solutions that suffer when additional systems come online or additional databases are thrown into the mix. We have now brought this technology into the ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.NET space, unlocking a standards based bulk loading mechanism that will outperform the vendor provided bulk loading tools, allowing you to easily and quickly move large amounts of data into data warehouses and other systems in a way that will grow with your company’s needs! We have recently recorded a webinar that covers real world scenarios and showcases a demonstration of our Bulk Loading in action using both our JDBC and ODBC drivers! We move data from Oracle to DB2 with ease and even showcase a way to move millions of rows of VSAM data into Oracle with only 5 lines of Java code! Take a look at the webinar recording and see how you can benefit from this technology in your environment! To view the webinar recording at your leisure, follow the link below. http://streaming.progress.com/prc/datadirect/dd_moving_mountains/index.htm A link to the slides used in the webinar are below: http://img.en25.com/Web/DataDirect/Bulk%20Webinar%20-%20Moving%20Mountains%200709.pdf -Jesse

Apr 30 ODBC Is Not Dead!
I enjoy watching the show MythBusters because I love the concept of testing out whether a belief that people collectively accept as fact holds up under scientific scrutiny. After watching the show, I find myself thinking more critically about whether the things I believe are true based on proof or myths based on blind acceptance of “prevailing wisdom”. I bring this up because it's time for me to revisit and put to rest one of my favorite myths of the application software development community – that ODBC is dead. The people who say that ODBC is dead haven't taken its pulse recently. Despite claims that ODBC usage has been eclipsed other data access APIs, the fact is there are many critical applications that still use it. There is even some degree of new application development being done with ODBC through languages such as PHP and Perl. Even though Microsoft is currently pushing alternatives data access APIs such as ADO.NET, they still seem to think there is enough of a market for ODBC to announce a beta release of ODBC 3.8 , which adds features such as asynchronous execution, streamable output parameters, and ODBC C data type extensibility. Of course, we at DataDirect have always known that ODBC isn’t dead . Every day we have new customers come to us seeking the very best ODBC drivers for new development projects as well as existing, critical application deployments. Despite the fact that it has been years between updates to ODBC, DataDirect has continued to innovate in ways that push the boundaries what defines an ODBC driver, yet work seamlessly with any ODBC compliant application. Over the next few weeks, I will outline just a few of the many features and innovations we have added to our ODBC drivers. These features not only redefine what an ODBC driver is, but also shatter perceptions about the limits of ODBC applications. With any luck, what I share will demonstrate that reports of the death of ODBC have been greatly exaggerated and thus we can all declare this myth “busted”.

Jun 23 Sharing Your Love for Animals, One Bite at a Time
If you are looking at the picture above and thinking to yourself, “what does a box of cereal have to do with software,” then you might need to spend more time looking at life the way George Carlin did. Carlin, who passed away yesterday, built a career of pointing out the amusing side of stupidity and the ironies of life in our times. I imagine that the box of cereal pictured above would have made an all-too-easy target for his barbed wit. Wish you were still here to toss out one last rant, George. While walking through the grocery store yesterday I came across a box of this product. Made by Kellogg's , and promoted by / cross-marketed with the cable TV station Animal Planet , “ Wild Animal Crunch ” comes with a variety of covers. I saw ones picturing sea lions (not seals because of the presence of external ear flaps) as well as polar bears but apparently there also ones featuring meerkats and panda bears . What I found fascinating about this was the combination of both the name of the product as well as the picture shown. I'll allow that the sarcastic smart aleck demographic probably isn't one that Kellogg's was targeting for this product, but nevertheless, I can't be the first consumer to see this and think that this might be a subject of future marketing classes on how not to market your product, much some of the urban legends surrounding the sale of Gerber baby food in locations in Africa . Keeping this in mind, I read the box and found it increasingly hilarious to read things such as, “Naturally and artificially flavored and vanilla-chocolate whole grain cereal” (what, wild animals need to be sweetened to be doused in milk and eaten with a spoon?), “A good source of fiber” (presumably because they didn't remove any cute, fuzzy hair prior to processing), and my personal favorite, “Share your love for animals” (by eating them, evidently). I have to think that somewhere the folks who came up with the “ People Eating Tasty Animals ” take on the acronym PETA are licking their chops at the prospect of following through on this last exhortation by passing the box around the breakfast table. I'm also curious about how Kellogg's chose the 4 animals that grace the cover of its boxes – apparently they feel that their target market finds the idea of eating something with cute, fuzzy animals appealing. At first blush, it would seem that those who would be most likely to respond to this marketing would be: Meerkats – Animal Planet show hosts and cameramen tired of just idly sitting back while “nature takes its course” Panda bears – Vegetarians. Panda eat an exclusive diet of bamboo, after all. Polar bears – Oil company executives. Sea lions – Killer whales (bit of a niche market, but Kellogg's should have this one cornered with this master-stroke of product and positioning) I gave it some thought and came up with some other wild animals that might help them expand their market segments a bit: Bald eagles – Eat this cereal if you are patriotic. Don't and you're a terrorist. Tapeworms – “The more you eat, the less you weigh.” Offers the possibility of some cross-promotional opportunities with GNC and CBS's Survivor TV show. Sea sponges – Yes, sponges are animals . The biologists out there will be all over this one for the geek quotient alone. Dung beetles – Anyone willing to eat a cereal with one of these cuddly guys on the front would eat pencil shavings, which brings me to my final comment… Regarding the taste of Wild Animal Crunch – Kellogg's should look into some better tasting animals. The sea lion variety was a bit like a bad cup of cafeteria coffee – not enough flavor as I ate it but plenty of sweetish residue left in my mouth that I kept tasting for the next half hour even after vigorous toothbrushing. The poor flavor yet distinctive texture conjured up all sort of unpleasant thoughts about what part of the sea lion lent itself to staying crunchy in soy milk. Perhaps the Panda bear will provide redemption for Kellogg's self-anointed role as wild animal breakfast gourmet. I'm practically vegetarian anyway.

Jun 10 SOA What I'm Saying Is, Data Access Matters
You may be wondering what the picture at right has to do with the subject of this blog entry. The answer: nothing. It's just a humorous photo that made me smile this morning. I mean, how often do you see kids these days pantomiming Snidely Whiplash ? Anyway, on to the real reason for this entry: shameless self-promotion. My article, Solving Data Access Problems in SOA Environments , has been published by ITarchitect, a UK-based online publication. It has also been published in print in ITarchitect's, sister publication, VSJ . The article covers much of the same ground as the presentation that I gave at the MySQL 2008 Conference & Expo ( the one that I blogged about last month ). Basically, if you are looking for more explanation wrapped around the slides in my presentation, then this the article to read. I am also told that insomniacs can also find something of value from reading my article. Essentially, if you are software architect who can't sleep, my article should be considered required reading. Perhaps an even better article on the same subject can be found at SOAWorld Magazine. Here we see a smart gentleman named John Goodson writing on the subject of Best Practices for SOA: Building a Data Services Layer . What makes him so smart you ask? Well, short of reading the article and figuring out why for yourself, you can always fall back on the fact that he has managed to keep me gainfully employed – in my world, that counts for something (even if it doesn't exactly make me an unbiased reviewer). ^_^ Technorati Tags | | data+access data+services data+services+layer SOA John+Goodson

Jun 9 Oyez, Oyez! New Entities Supported by DataDirect
The image of the herald is one that pervades Western culture. The Biblical image of the archangel Gabriel announcing the forthcoming births of both John the Baptist and Jesus is one that Christians are very familiar with. I'm not much of a herald. I'm hardly angelic, and I don't own a horn much less own one. I think I would have made a great town crier , though. I've been told that my voice carries – over cube walls, through doors, down hallways, across vast expanses, etc. I'm reasonably sure that being told that I have a voice with such a unique gift for being heard above the din of an office setting is a compliment. Isn't it ? All of this self-analysis brings me to the reason for my post today: my self-appointed role as town crier for news and announcements of interest to my loyal readers. To you, my faithful minions, I thrice toll my bell of harkening and lift my voice to loudly proclaim: DataDirect to Support ADO.NET Entity Framework for Oracle Data Sources Admittedly, this announcement is anti-climatic, for those of you who read this posting on the Microsoft blog last week, but it does bear repeating. There is a lot of interest right now among developers in the ease-of-use of LINQ and the productivity of the Entity Data Model. Our announcement is meant to reaffirm that LINQ-based and Entity Data Model-based applications will experience the same unique benefits of using DataDirect's Connect for ADO.NET providers for relational database access as ones built to use current technologies such as DAAB . (Sorry for that segueway, but you know I've got to give a shout out to now and again in order to pay the bills ^_^) While this is hardly earth-shattering news or something with the weightiness of, say, a royal proclamation, it is one that we're proud to make because it's a signal of where our products are headed…sort of like a graduation announcement. It's enough to make a tough guy like me misty-eyed and emotional – it's like I'm witnessing a precocious little tyke growing up right before my eyes! *sniffle* That's all for now. I'm off to hum a few bars to warm up for my daily auditory assault of my co-workers. Your comments and feedback are welcome so long as it doesn't compete with the “ 11 ” setting of volume knob of my strident self-important braying.
Technorati Tags | | ADO.NET DAAB Entities Entity+Framework LINQ Microsoft Oracle

Jun 6 Three Shouts: Virtualization, Data Services, and Beer
With apologies to Tears for Fears, it's time for me to shout (not a RickRoll) about a few items that I think deserve some attention. First and foremost, my esteemed colleague Mike Johnson has written an excellent article entitled The Importance of Data Connectivity to Virtualization . Rather than being a tribute to a cleverly written play by Oscar Wilde , Mike's article presents the case for choosing high quality data connectivity components in order to maximize an investment in virtualization. Second, if you haven't yet signed up to attend Data Services World , I would recommend you get off of your duff and do so. The conference, scheduled for June 24, 3008 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, features a keynote delivered by John Goodson , an industry luminary in data connectivity and someone that I report up to. Anyone interested in learning more about data services should attend as John is as excellent a speaker as he is a generous boss. ^_^ Third, and finally, I'd like to call attention to beer that I had recently, a 2007 Abyss from Deschutes Brewery out of Bend Oregon. For any of you who like your beer strong, dark, and complex, I would strongly recommend you find a bottle of this delicious Imperial Stout to try. If you don't – feel free to ship me another bottle so I can enjoy this beer all over again. Slàinte! Technorati Tags | | data+services John+Goodson Mike+Johnson virtualization

May 21 Will You Be Paying For That With Your Identity?
Today I am revisiting a subject that I've tackled previously – that of data security. Specifically, network encryption – the kind of data security that protects sensitive information as it traverses a network. The kind of data security that some organizations still have not figured out is key to the success of their IT security strategy. First, there was the story of the data breach at Hannaford , an East Coast-based supermarket chain. Over 4 million credit card numbers were exposed as part of the data breach which resulted in 1,800 cases of fraud (was that all?). Last week we hear about a similar breach at the restaurant chain Dave & Busters , where hackers used a simple packet sniffer to capture patron credit and debit card payment information. In both cases, sensitive information was transmitted across a network in an unencrypted format. Now, I don't want to come down too hard on the principals involved in these two incidents. I'm willing to bet that the lack of network encryption in both cases was due to a combination of possible factors: A lack of network encryption support when the systems were initially brought online Overconfidence in the data protection offered by use of an external firewall or other security measures Simple oversight There may be other factors that I am not listing here, but I believe that the reality of what gave rise to these two situations is covered by one or more of those items. The question that I have is, how many of these news items like this will those who work for corporate IT organizations have to read about before they start to take network encryption seriously? The repercussions of data breaches are serious enough that I would think IT organizations of all shapes and sizes would implement a regular security audit process. Ideally it would encompass determining the sensitivity of data moving through or contained within the corporate network and review whether adequate end-to-end security measures are in place to protect the data. Perhaps it would include review of other factors and considerations as well. What I'm mentioning is really the minimum for what folks should be doing. So the takeaway of all of this is (for those who still haven't gotten it), if the data is something you or your customers wouldn't want someone else seeing / accessing / using without your permission, for the sake of Pete – encrypt it before you send it across the network. If you don't, I will list you as an additional offending party here (and I can't promise I will be as charitable in my criticism the next time around).

I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on what other steps organizations can take to avoid data breaches like that. Perhaps you have some feedback on other incidents as well. I welcome all comments on this subject. Technorati Tags | | data+breach encryption data+encryption data+security network+encryption

May 14 MySQL, MyPresentation, MyThoughts
Like the picture? It's not really relevant to anything contained in the following post except that it is an excellent visual aid for describing my professional life of late. “To leave whatever you're doing, you have to change your course.” Yep, that about sums it up. Let it never be said that I can't be motivated to do things. Roughly a month and a half has passed since my last post and at last the combination of guilt over my silence and my overwhelming need to be heard has driven me into action. I'm leaving out the indirect financial motivation (job-based compensation) for me to stay on top of this but it also comes into play as well. All of it adds up to me being prodded into action. I did want to revisit my experience at the 2008 MySQL Conference & Expo. My attendance could be summarized this way: I attended, I spoke, I met, I listened, I left. Unfortunately taking this approach would leave out a lot of details that breathe a little more life into my retelling of the experience. First off, let me just say that despite a technical hitch that delayed the start of my presentation by 10 minutes, I managed to keep an audience of around 20 people around long enough to sit through the entire session. This is a personal victory and a milestone. The last time I spoke at a conference , it was to a rapt audience of 3 people – 1 fast asleep, 1 who was sitting down to rest his weary legs (before he too, fell asleep, presumably) , and 1 person from my company who was essentially, paid to be there. Yes, I've come a long way, and while I was not offered any barleywine by any of the attendees (*tsk tsk*), I appreciated the attentiveness and polite questions afterward. If you missed my presentation and for some crazy reason would like to see my slide deck, have at it, and don't forget to let me know what you think or share any comments or questions that you might have: MySQL%202008%20SOA%20Data%20Access%20Presentation.ppt I was an attendee at a couple of sessions at the conference myself – the most interesting one for me was MySQL, LINQ and the ADO.NET Entity Framework , a presentation by Dave Sceppa, who is a Program Manager at Microsoft (I came late, so I just caught the tail end of Dave's intro where he explained that Reggie Burnett couldn't make it due to an injury he suffered during the trip? I'm not sure what happened). Dave had a lot of interesting things to present about ADO.NET and LINQ in particular. I had an opportunity to meet and introduce myself him after his presentation – very nice guy and one that I would recommend anyone who is interested in ADO.NET seek out at trade shows. I was also at the MySQL Partners meeting where it was announced that MySQL was considering rolling out some new MySQL features (specifically ones related to backup and encryption) into MySQL Enterprise only. Jeremy Cole, whose blog more or less broke this news, was at the meeting and was pointed in his requests to the MySQL executive team for clarification and confirmation of the facts around this decision. Based on the rash of comments on his post and the prolific blogosphere hand-wringing over this announcement, it was clear that a lot of people in the MySQL community weren't happy about it. In fact, some claimed that Sun, who had just completed their acquisition of MySQL was now starting to close source it. In the software world, close sourcing an open source product is seen as the equivalent of Darth Vader freezing Han Solo in carbonite . While Han (MySQL) is technically still alive after his imprisonment, his state is considered unchangeable and subject to the whims of the Empire (Sun). It should be noted that after all of the fuss over this consideration, Sun seems to have backtracked on this a bit, but there's still debate over Sun's intentions with regards to making dividends on their billion-dollar investment in MySQL. I was not as shocked and dismayed by this announcement / consideration as others apparently were. To me, it comes down to simple economics: why wouldn't Sun be looking for ways to add value to MySQL Enterprise and thus help justify why customers should pay for it versus simply downloading and using a free edition? Of course, some may argue that as an employee of a software company that makes money on closed source software, my perspective is easily dismissed. Without wanting to explain DataDirect's business model in great detail, I'll just say that if our products did not demonstrate value over our competition (which is almost always free or ridiculously cheap), we would have gone out of business a long time ago. So yeah, I guess I'm not afraid to say that because value is what differentiates software companies that make money on their products and services (and stay in business for over 20 years) and the ones that don't make money (and consequently, fail to stay in business). My final thought on my trip is a bit lighthearted – any of you who consider yourselves beer snobs (a la, yours truly) and find yourself hunting for a place to buy and sip great beer in Bay Area would do well to consider showing up at the City Beer Store in San Francisco. The owners were terrific – extremely friendly and helpful, and the selection was terrific (I scored 2 bottles each of Russian River Beatification (Batch 002) and Supplication!). I managed to stuff my suitcases full of enough bottles of deliciousness that the TSA saw fit to inspect my bags, though I am happy to report that they did so professionally and did not “borrow” any of my precious goodies for themselves. (THANK YOU!!) I'm planning to move up to a more regular update schedule, so look for a new entry well within the month and a half long interval that I established previously. Oh, and look for things to get alternately more business-focused AND more whimsical. You were warned. ^_^ craft+beer barleywine MySQL SOA Data+Access ADO.NET speaking+opportunity

Apr 1 Another Shameless Plug: Listen To Me at the 2008 MySQL Conference
Those familiar with my personality (the real-life, much more interesting one) know that I am given to spontaneous speechifying on frequent, mostly inappropriate occasions. As a result, they rarely encourage me to share one of my not-so-humble opinions or to grace them with my pithy, Gibran -esque observations on the nature of the human condition, et al. (For those of you who deign to counter this self-assessment of my wisdom, consider the date of this posting before commenting… ^_^) Every so often, however, I manage to fool someone into thinking that my pedagogical pontifications are worth listening to and I am thus granted a podium on which to speak and share my wisdom (such as it is). Such an occasion is nigh and I encourage you to come out and support my heretofore unfulfilled dream of having a full room with a rapt audience spellbound by my oratory. Event: The 2008 MySQL Conference & Expo Location: Santa Clara, CA Time: 11:55am through 12:40pm on Tuesday, April 15th Title (sure to whet any appetite): Increase the Flexibility of MySQL-based SOA Frameworks with a Data Access Layer The Goods:
While many organizations implementing Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) are adopting a standards-based approach for development of new application services, few are applying the same methodology to their MySQL database access logic. A tightly coupled, MySQL-specific approach to application service design eliminates the benefits of an SOA strategy and results in an infrastructure that slows application deployment and reduces business logic reuse and flexibility. In this presentation, Mike Frost, product manager for DataDirect Technologies, will introduce a strategy for separating application logic from MySQL database access logic. The presentation will describe the benefits of a loosely coupled approach for all application and data access logic such as reduced development time, simplified deployment, and increased overall flexibility all within an SOA framework. Frost will introduce and describe the concept of a data access layer based on the emerging Service Data Objects (SDO) specification and Data Access Service (DAS) standard and describe what the future of data access logic will look like for MySQL users within an SOA framework. Additional Details: See http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/schedule/detail/2578 If you come, you should know that I accept heckling so long as it is followed with an offer of a craft beer not sold within the state of North Carolina – barleywines are my favorite though anything strong that I can fit into my suitcase for the flight back will be graciously accepted. Oh, and don't forget to leave me your business card so that I know who to credit for the soothing of my bruised ego. craft+beer barleywine MySQL DAS Data+Access shameless+plug Data+Access+Layer SDO SOA speaking+opportunity