Accelerating e-mail and other SaaS apps, the Akamai way
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A technology well-known for speeding up multimedia content on its way through the Web is finding a nuanced new variation -- keeping up connections between corporate e-mail services and mobile devices such as Blackberries and Windows Mobile smartphones.
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Sam  posts an interesting proposal.  This is better than the HTTP delta suggestion but still has a few issues.  The client needs to know the ETags before it can start performing differential fetches.  With date ranges you still preserve the initial archive query.  For example when you first subscribe to a feed you could fetch 30 days worth of posts.  If you like the feed you can even fetch *older* posts which could be really cool.  Also even if you still use faster checksum algorithm like CRC32 or Adler32 you still have an O(N) performance hit for your document.  If you have a btree on your post dates you will gave O(log(N)) for search for a much smaller string (64bit in most situations).  F ...
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or Web-based distributed authoring and versioning -- allows Hotmail users to write scripts that use e-mail clients, such as Outlook, to address and send many e-mails quickly.
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Will broad, long beta tests mean fast adoption? Others are doubtful.
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(Source: Symantec) Join this webcast to learn how you can maximize uptime of your e-mail infrastructure, dynamically manage storage growth without impacting user performance, quickly recover from data or application failure, and protect from the worst case - a complete site disaster.
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An investor's guide to service-oriented architecture
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Intelligent software is the Holy Grail of application development -- especially in the APM (application performance management) arena, where system administrators are perpetually on the lookout for more efficient ways to sift through mountains of metrics and alert data.
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This paper introduces some techniques for making backups without needing to stop the business applications. It also describes ways to simplify and reduce the cost of system operations.
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Hefty valuations = a bet on the future.  That future is clearly open source + SaaS, based on the multiples people are willing to pay.
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Continuing the thread on commoditization of scalable server software, the third installment. Yesterday, Matt Tucker from the OpenFire community, said: "I'm not sure that S3 magically kills off the scaling priests. It certainly makes it easy to turn on more storage resources, but writing an application to scale efficiently across multiple virtual machines is no easy task." To which I responded... It won't make scaling obsolete, but what it does do is commodify it. Right now I can't buy a Jabber server that scales without also hiring someone who will scale it for me. But in a few years I should be able to buy a Jabber server that, when it needs more CPUs, just asks for them all transparently to the user, the same way my word processor asks the OS for more memory today. I remember word processors that didn't do memory management, you got a 64K buffer and that's it. One document. When you filled it up, you started another. Technology will go forward and scaling won't be a black art, it'll be something built into the software you license.
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Akamai and Coradiant have announced products that help businesses eliminate Internet-related application performance bottlenecks.
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Exclusive Slim pickings for thin clients
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I got an interesting teaser in the e-mail this week: âStudy Suggests Nearly Half of All Leaders See a Disconnect Between Strategy and Execution.â I wonât say who sent it because they blew the execution: The so-called study wasnât posted anywhere online, and when I called the number, theyâd already left for the weekend.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Thin-client computing has been around for a decade, but the rising costs of updating software and installing security patches on networked personal computers is sparking renewed interest
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As malware threats and regulatory compliance demands continue to grow more complex, IT will become increasingly dependent on SaaS (software as a service) offerings that let them respond to problems faster while also saving money, according to top executives at the world's largest anti-malware vendors.
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Virtualised SAN and NAS bid for your storage grid
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(InfoWorld) - The great thing about SOA is that when you add a service, you instantly increase the potential of any application that can consume that service. Today, Avaya threw a new set of VoIP services into the enterprise SOA mix in the form of its CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processes) solution. For most enterprises, the benefits of VoIP have been limited to the cost savings of retiring legacy phone systems and the added productivity of a few voice/data applications -- almost exclusively for call centers. CEBP exposes an array of voice communications features as Web services, which can be called upon by any number of applications from IT operations to supply chain management. Avaya sees CEBP as a way for enterprises to optimize business processes and respond swiftly to events. For example, based on certain criteria, a temporary interruption at a manufacturing plant might cause SAP R/3 to ping CEBP, which would send an automated advisory message with a return receipt to the appropriate manager via phone, e-mail, or SMS. In the event of a total meltdown, the Notify & Conference feature could be invoked, initiating voice calls to a preset list of people and dropping them all into an emergency conference call. In other instances, CEBP could merely ensure that composite workflow applications, oft cited as a big payoff of SOA, aren't stopped in their tracks by people who aren't sitting at a computer and can't respond promptly. As Avaya senior vice president Stuart Wells puts it, "by bringing our innovation in advanced and open technologies to business processes, Avaya gives organizations the unique competitive advantage that can only arise with more intelligent communications." One customer, Whirlpool, has been experimenting with a pre-release version of CEBP for more than a year. Brian Murphy, director of e-services in Whirlpool's global development division, has already applied CEBP's array of services to IT processes, shortening response times. "If a system goes down ... that's an issue we want to be able to do something about in minutes, not hours. Straightaway, we want to be in action mode," he said. Avaya is not the first vendor to provide a Web services platform for voice communications capabilities. Last September, BlueNote Networks introduced its SessionSuite SOA Edition, designed to enable developers to embed telephony capabilities in a range of applications. But Avaya's large customer base and professional services group could help jump start the use of voice-based Web services. Whirlpool's Murphy, for one, is looking at expanding the use of CEBP in a number of areas, including supply chain management and manufacturing. "We're taking a strategic look at all parts of our business," he said.