Impact 2011

Set the Agenda at Impact
You can join the WebSphere Unconference at IBM Impact 2010 and discuss the topics you choose.

The WebSphere Unconference gives developers the unique opportunity to present and discuss the topics that interest them most. At the WebSphere Unconference, you set the agenda.  Submit topic ideas and vote on the ones you want to attend.

Agenda Builder Now Live on Impact Website
Use the Agenda Builder to create your Impact 2011 schedule.

Impact Article on IBM Software Homepage
Visit the IBM Software homepage to find out more details about the solutions featured at Impact 2011.

Impact YouTube Video
Watch this video invitation from Quentin Hardy, Executive Editor at Forbes Media and an Impact guest speaker, to find out what the Forbes Business Leadership Forum brings to the Impact 2011 conference. 

Watson at Impact!
Want to meet IBM's Watson? Register for IBM Impact and see Watson in action as it analyzes the meaning and context of human language and rapidly processes information to find answers to questions in seconds. Learn about the powerful analytics and system technologies behind Watson.

Come to the Solution Center at Impact 2011 for an interactive experience to learn more about Watson!

Industry Solution Tours at IBM Impact 2011
You are invited to register for a 45-minute customized tours designed to educate you on how WebSphere can help address specific industry challenges.

During these 45-minute tours, participants will learn about the most relevant technologies
needed to address their industry-specific challenges and look at industry frameworks,
solutions and best practices for improved return on investment. Eight different industry
tours are available:

• Banking – Discover Smarter Banking
• Communications Service Providers – Transform Operations & Deliver New Cloud-Based Services to Market Faster
• Government – Innovative Approaches to Deliver Better Citizen Services
• Healthcare & Life Sciences – Transformation to a Smarter Healthcare & Life Sciences Ecosystem
• High Tech & Manufacturing – Delivering Smarter Operational Performance
• Insurance – Drive Growth & Operational Efficiencies Across Insurance Processes
• Process Industries – Drive Innovation & Improve Operational Performance
• Retail – Delivering a Smarter Shopping Experience

Earn Points for Papers: Submit Your Topic Today for the WebSphere Unconference for Developers at Impact 2011
With Impact 2011 less than three weeks away, thousands of developers and IT professionals are preparing to get the latest on SOA, BPM, cloud computing, and ... well, you tell us!  This year's conference, which comes to Las Vegas on 10 – 15 April, will include a one-day WebSphere Unconference, where developers and tech professionals like you determine what's on the agenda.

 Here are two easy steps you can take to participate in this exciting free exchange of ideas and earn GWC Member Rewards points:

1. Submit ideas an vote on topics that you want to discuss in this highly interactive event.
2. Then by providing your presentation as a document on the Global WebSphere Community, receive GWC Member Rewards points that may make you eligible to receive valuable WebSphere Education awards.

The Global WebSphere Community has announced GWC Member Rewards, a program designed to award Global WebSphere Community members for valuable contributions and participation in the community.  Points are earned based on specific types of activity and contribution in the community.  For example, specific point values are associated with uploading presentations, including your Unconference presentation, making a blog post, participating in one of the many GWC Forums and more.

 For more information on GWC Member Rewards including activities and associated point values, please visit our GWC Member Rewards program page.   GWC members get started right away!  If you are not yet a member, join the GWC and start accruing your GWC Member Rewards points today.  
 

Note: United States Federal, state, or local government employees are not eligible for GWC Member Rewards awards.IBM employees are not eligible for GWC Member Rewards awards

Global WebSphere Community Activities at Impact
The event of the year is almost here: Impact 2011!  We invite you to join us in Las Vegas, April 10 – 15, 2011 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino for Impact 2011. GWC members receive $150 off of the standard conference rate as a benefit of GWC membership.

Once again the Global WebSphere Community presence will permeate the event with over 1,000 community members expected again this year.  You'll have opportunities to network and meet up with other members of the community and your local WUG in the Global WebSphere Community Corner (3101 A&B).  You’ll also want to attend one of the special GWC Focus Groups we will be hosting as a means to learn more about us and us to learn more about what you desire from the Global WebSphere Community.
Here are some of the exciting Impact 2011 GWC activities you’ll be hearing more about:

Attend the Impact 2011 WebSphere Unconference sponsored by the Global WebSphere Community and IBM developerWorks to hear first hand from developers what’s hot and what’s not.  

And More!  Stay tuned for updates on the GWC Impact Zone.  We look forward to seeing you in person at Impact 2011!

Impact 2011 GWC Button Slogan Contest Winners
The GWC announced its Impact 2011 GWC Button Slogan contest in January, and we had over 75 button slogan suggestions from our members!  After a community vote, the winners have been determined.  Please join the GWC in congratulating Marc Feit and Clayton Monkus; their slogans will be made into buttons that we'll hand out at Impact 2011.  Marc slogan was "WUGly and Lovin it" and Clayton's slogan was "DataPower Dragon Slayer".  Here's a sneak peek at what the buttons will look like:




Stop by the GWC Community Room (Lido 3101A&B) at Impact and get your buttons!  Thanks to everyone who participated and congratulations to Clayton and Marc!

WUG News and Updates

Upcoming WUG Meetings

• March 30: North Florida WUG 
• March 31: Wisconsin WUG

Upcoming GWC Events

• April 14: IBM TechChat Series: Join the discussion on improving operational efficiency and application performance with WebSphere 
• Smarter Systems Virtual Event

March 31 GWC Webcast: Rapidly Connect Your Enterprise Applications to the Cloud
Mark your calendar now to learn how WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud integration can help you simplify and accelerate integration projects while slashing costs up to 80%.

Date: March 31, 2011
Topic: Rapidly Connect Your Enterprise Apps to the Cloud
Time:  11:00 AM EDT
Presenters: Chandar Pattabhiram, VP of Product and Channel Marketing, IBM/Cast Iron Systems

Register Now!

Abstract: Discover how IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud integration enables corporate IT and SaaS Providers to easily connect a hybrid world of public clouds, private clouds and on-premise applications in days.

Rapid application integration plays a critical role in helping you get the most out of your on-premise and Cloud applications by sharing critical data, increasing the value of your applications while delivering a competitive edge. Learn how WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud integration can help you simplify and accelerate integration projects, while slashing costs up to 80%.

And the proven results are impressive. IBM/Cast Iron Systems is the #1 cloud integration company with thousands of customer integrations in production at midsize companies to global enterprises.

Join us and see with your own eyes how companies have rapidly delivered critical application integration projects in days and achieved ROI in as little as four months by utilizing the simplicity, speed, and flexibility of WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud integration. Also see a live 10-minute demo.

The Global WebSphere Community April Monthly Focus: Take Innovation to the Edge
The Global WebSphere Community April Monthly Focus is all about innovations to take your applications to the edge.  Join us for webcasts on the newly announced WebSphere Application Accelerator for Public Networks (WAXPN) and updates from Impact 2011 to improve application performance.

Date:  April 7, 2011
Topic: WebSphere Application Accelerator for Public Networks (WAXPN)
Time: 11:00 AM EDT

Register now!

In February, IBM announced a new product offering, WebSphere Application Accelerator for Public Networks. This product is based on technology collaboration with Akamai Technologies, and represents the next phase of the Akamai Ready partnership announced in 2010 at IBM's IMPACT conference. Please join us to learn how the solution can help your business or organization improve performance, availability, scalability, and security of global WebSphere-based business applications. You will understand the key value the solution brings by ensuring a positive experience for application end-users.

Date:  April 28, 2011
Topic: Delivering Innovative Applications Faster and More Effectively: Updates from Impact 2011
Time:  11:00 AM EDT

Register now!

Robert H. High Jr., IBM Fellow and BPSO Foundation Chief Software Architect, will talk about the latest WebSphere Application Infrastructure offerings and how they can help you efficiently deliver applications and services. He will discuss how you can:

• Virtualize, optimize and automate workloads with batch processing
• Support business critical applications demanding high scalability and immediate response with elastic caching, and
• Deliver and scale new services leveraging private clouds

Save the Date: April GWC Lab Chat
Mark you calendars for the April 20, 2011 Lab Chat. In this chat Jason McGee, IBM Distinguished Engineer, will lead a discussion on Application-Centric Private Cloud Computing. Dial in and participate in this interactive discussion on the latest capabilities IBM is providing in this space.

Announcing the GWC Member Rewards Program
We are excited to announce the GWC Member Rewards Program, a system to give back to our loyal Global WebSphere Community Members.  You may have noticed Lifetime Points under your profile picture on your My GWC page; you earn these points based on your activity on the Global WebSphere Community. For example, you earn points for making a blog post, uploading a presentation, posting in the forums, etc.

The GWC Member Rewards Program will hand out awards to the GWC members with the most Lifetime Points between March 3, 2011 and March 31, 2011 in the following three categories:

• Gold Level GWC Member Rewards – No charge WebSphere online course of choice
• Silver Level GWC Member Rewards – 75% discount on WebSphere online course of choice
• Bronze Level GWC Member Rewards – 65% discount on WebSphere online course of choice

For more information, including a list of activities and their point values, please visit our GWC Member Rewards program page.

Highlights from the March blogs:

• WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance: First Official Pattern Deployed!
• Cloud Commission Being Formed to Advise Federal Government
• WebSphere Commerce Worldwide Users Group Contest: What Is Your Favorite eCommerce Site?
• The Center for Cloud Excellence Is Here!

Recap: Lab Chat with Jerry Cuomo: How Will the Trends Identified for WebSphere in 2011 Improve Your Business?
The GWC held its inaugural GWC Lab Chat and was honored to have one of the founding fathers of WebSphere join us for a discussion on trends for WebSphere in 2011.  

At the start of each year Jerry writes about the upcoming trends in WebSphere.  This year Jerry has listed 7 trends.  In this inaugural Lab Chat, Jerry will provide a brief overview of the trends, why we think they are important, and how IBM plans to build upon them to improve the WebSphere portfolio and ultimately free you to focus more on your core business and less on infrastructure.   We will then have an open discussion on these trends, how they might impact your business, and how IBM can better leverage them in WebSphere to improve your experience.  Please come prepared to participate in this open discussion.

You can watch a creative video and read more on these trends here: Jerry's 2011 WebSphere Trends.

Click here to view the replay and download the presentation.

Recap: The Global WebSphere Community March Monthly Focus: The Next Decade of BPM
Tune into these on-demand webcasts to hear how you can use Blueworks Live as a business process management tool and how to leverage your current investment in WebSphere for integration and BPM.  

Topic: BPM in the cloud: From zero to process in 90 seconds with Blueworks Live
Presenter: Mihnea Galeteanu, Chief Storyteller, IBM

View the replay and download the presentation

Abstract: Do you want to implement a better way to manage processes besides email? Would you like to use online business process management tools, but don't have the budget for IT resources or formal training? Then join Mihnea Galeteanu, IBM, as he discusses the revolutionary, ground-breaking Blueworks Live cloud-based business process management tool. Mihnea will cover: 

• How anyone, anywhere can become a process expert without taking a class
• How to discover, model, and document business processes by creating Process Blueprints
• How to easily collaborate across your team using a social approach
• How to leverage the built-in expert, online community to stay current on best practices, converse, or ask question

Topic: How to leverage your existing WebSphere platform for integration and BPM
Presenter: Eric Herness, Distinguished Engineer and BPM Chief Architect, IBM Corporation

View the replay and download the presentation

WebSphere has matured over the last decade from an application server to a platform for e-business and a foundation for SOA.  This session will help customers that already have a WebSphere platform in place look at paths and routes to extending that platform for integration and BPM.  Eric Herness, Distinguished Engineer and BPM Chief Architect, IBM will discuss specific capabilities and related business value as well as opportunities for delivering value around ESB patterns, basic process automation, business activity monitoring, and service orchestration.  Walk away with a thorough description of the relevant elements of the underlying WebSphere runtime and how they power these advanced patterns.   There is more value already at your fingertips, join us and learn how to extend your current investments in skills and infrastructure to adopt new paradigms!

Interested in Becoming a GWC Business Partner?
The Global WebSphere Community reaches tens of thousands of WebSphere professionals every month – the GWC Partner Program allows companies to get their message to decision makers in the community that they may otherwise not have the opportunity to reach. “When we want to send a targeted message specifically to people working in the WebSphere platform, the GWC Partner Program makes that happen for us”, says XebiaLabs CEO Coert Baart, a recent GWC Partner Program participant. He added, “A recent email sent to the community on our behalf resulted in dozens of new leads overnight.”

The GWC Partner Program delivers value far beyond simple advertising. They work as an advisor helping partners choose the right mix of sponsored articles, white papers and webinars that are likely to deliver the desired outcome to partners in terms of brand recognition and lead generation.

To learn how the GWC Business Partner Program can help you deliver targeted messages to WebSphere professionals, contact Scott Treggiari at scott.treggiari@wispubs.com or 1-781-751-8734.

Impact 2011 sponsors and exhibitors are eligible to get a 25% discount off their GWC Business Partner Program. For more information about exhibiting at Impact 2011 being held April 10-15, 2011 in Las Vegas, please contact Pari Lasch at 312-541-0567 ext. 654 or via e-mail at pari@corcexpo.com.

News on the Web

Build a Private Cloud with CloudBurst and TSAM
An organization must address a number of considerations when building a private cloud computing environment; specifically, it needs to take a holistic approach to private clouds that include creating, deploying, monitoring, and managing service construction and delivery. Both the IBM^® Tivoli^® Service Automation Manager (TSAM) and IBM WebSphere^® CloudBurst Appliance equip users with these capabilities. In this article, the authors discuss why and how you can integrate Tivoli Service Automation Manager with WebSphere CloudBurst to deliver a private cloud.

Enhance your ESB with the REST Gateway Feature in the WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance
The IBM^® WebSphere^® DataPower^® XC10 Appliance now expands the range of clients able to access simple data grids with the release of the REST Gateway feature. Non-Java™ based clients with HTTP capabilities, including PHP and .NET clients, can utilize the XC10 appliance for elastic caching via the REST Gateway. This article provides an overview of the REST APIs and discusses how an XC10 appliance can be integrated with a WebSphere DataPower XI50 Integration Appliance as a side cache to reduce response to response time to the clients, and improve total system throughput.

IBM, Solarflare and Arista Ultra Low Latency Market Data Test Results
Solarflare recently completed benchmark testing with Arista Networks and IBM. This multi-vendor testing achieved ultra low mean latencies with record breaking low jitter (standard deviations of the latency) results.
 

The solution stack for this report consisted of the following components:

• Solarflare SFN5122F 10GbE adapter
• Solarflare OpenOnload Application Acceleration Middleware
• Arista Networks 7100 Series 10GbE switch
• IBM^® WebSphere^® MQ Low Latency Messaging v2.4.0.2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server AS 5.5
• Intel Xeon CPU E5530 @ 2.40GHz
• IBM^® x3550 M2 Model 7946-E2U

The ultra-low latency, cut-through switching functionality of the Arista 7100 Series switch and its dynamic buffer allocation of packet memory, enables the switch to deliver the lowest possible latency without any compromise of its ability to manage congestion.  In the Arista switch architecture, each switching ASIC provides on-chip packet buffers that are dynamically allocated to the ports that need buffer memory during congestion. When congestion occurs, each port can use the dynamic memory to store packets, until the congestion clears. The dynamic allocation of packet memory results in efficient use of memory resources because memory is only shared across congested ports, resulting in the lowest levels of application level jitter.
 
For the STAC M2 test, Solarflare’s OpenOnload application acceleration middleware was used in combination with the low latency Solarflare SFN5122F 10GbE server adapter to enable full operating system bypass, which dramatically reduces host processing overheads and enables high transaction rates, while substantially reducing application latency with very low jitter. Solarflare’s OpenOnload library was configured to enable the application threads to run without contention with each other, and without requiring any interrupt processing or other interaction with the kernel active on the dedicated core. These techniques implemented in Solarflare’s OpenOnload enabled the system to be entirely vertically separated on CPU cores, avoiding any application level crosstalk. The server systems were also tuned so that all interrupts and background processing tasks were run on a single dedicated CPU core.
 
According to the policies of STAC, the specific results may not be disclosed publicly. A complete 89-page benchmark report has been made available to banks, trading firms and other end-user members of the STAC Benchmark Council with access to the STAC Vault™ http://www.stacresearch.com/vault.

IBM Support Portal Updated with Client-Requested Enhancements
IBM significantly updated the IBM Support Portal this month, with improvements to make this worldwide, consolidated site for technical resources for all IBM products even more efficient and useful. Some changes are enhancements requested by clients, while others are redesigns to improve efficiency in helping you find the information you need.

Highlights include: “5 Star Ratings” for technotes; expanded Technical Support Chat; improved navigation and much more.

Complete details may be found at the IBM Electronic Support Blog.

IBM Sets New Single Server Middleware Record
IBM announced record-breaking benchmark results for WebSphere middleware on a single server representing the highest performance in the information technology (IT) industry on March 2, 2011.   

IBM set new records for speed of operation in Java-based software on a Power 780 server and on Power 730 Express as validated by the independent SPECJ testing group (http://www.spec.org/jEnterprise2010/results/jEnterprise2010.html).   

SPECjEnterprise 2010 is an industry standard online transaction processing benchmark that is commonly used to compare the performance of middleware software for online transaction processing applications.

These records demonstrate how businesses using  IBM WebSphere middleware on Power 7 hardware can get the lowest cost for performance in the industry — one-third that of the nearest competitor.   Performance is an important factor for businesses.  It speeds applications, reduces the amount of hardware and results in significant savings in hardware, software and energy costs.  

Specifically,  IBM has proven 76 percent higher performance than Oracle overall;   72 percent higher performance than Oracle per core and only one-third the cost for  performance per core.  

The announcement was covered in several online IT magazines, such as eWeek, ComputerWorld, CIO, IDG News, InfoWorld, PC World and the India Times.

For the eWeek article, please click here.

Beauty Care Retailer Achieves Four Times More Business Agility and 20% Lift
IBM WebSphere ILOG JRules helps retailer develop rules-based decision management solution

New Government Client Reference Video: Texas Education Agency
Texas Education Agency lives by the rules. IBM-Texas Education Agency Client Reference video interview with Rick Goldgar, Deputy CIO and Chief Technology Officer about working Smarter with an IBM Business Rule Management System.

See Rick Goldgar present at IBM Impact 2011 in Session ID: 1056--Accelerating Success - A Win-Win Partnership

New Telecom Industry Page on DeveloperWorks
developerWorks now offers resources dedicated for IT professionals in the telecommunications industry. Find articles, tutorials, podcasts, whitepapers, and other technical collateral. Connect with peers through the developerWorks community. Access information about industry-specific products and services that IBM offers.

Education and Certification

The Global WebSphere Community Announces Exclusive, No Charge Education: IBM CloudBurst Appliance Video Course 
IBM WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance speeds application deployment to cloud and virtualization environments. This education video, based on five online lectures and five online demonstrations, provides in-depth information about the WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance, a hardware appliance that provides access to WebSphere virtual images and patterns for easily, quickly and repeatedly creating application environments that can be securely deployed and managed in a private cloud.

This video training teaches networking and storage requirements for implementing an ESX and Power VM cloud environment, how to configure cloud resources such as hypervisors and IP groups on the appliance as well as how to create, deploy and monitor virtual systems created from predefined patterns. Additionally you’ll learn resource management procedures for both virtual systems and the CloudBurst Appliance.

View the IBM Cloudburst Appliance Video Education Course Now!

Upcoming Webcasts, Seminars, and Events

Don't miss these new whitepapers:

The ROI of Optimizing Your Deployment Process with Deployit by XebiaLabs
Leading companies have bridged the gap between dev and ops by fully automating their application deployment process.  In doing so they have increased productivity by avoiding time-consuming and expensive deployment processes.

Companies like KLM save over a million dollars a year by automating their software deployment process with XebiaLabs Deployit technology. Deployit is a Deployment Automation platform for Java EE deployments that simplifies and organizes the process of deployment, enhancing overall productivity for development and operations teams and accelerates overall time-to-market for applications. Deployit enables end-to-end automation of your deployments and provides significant bottom line advantages for your organization.

By choosing an end-to-end deployment automation solution, KLM eliminated the costs associated with unnecessary manual errors and lengthy, hard to maintain deployment scripts. KLM are now able to rapidly respond to LOB demands for e.g. new flight programs, marketing initiatives, customer support, etc, giving them numerous competitive advantages.

Choose Deployit for your business, today, and you too can:

• Lower your operational costs
• Improve your service level, significantly
• Better handle the growing number of deployments in dev, test and production
• Free up your middleware experts by enabling secure, reliable “self-service” deployment
• Improve the productivity of your development teams

Unified SOA Governance for IBM WebSphere SOA Foundation
SOA Software’s platform-independent Unified SOA Governance Automation solution promotes the use of best-practices throughout an enterprise SOA program regardless of where services and consumers are designed, built, deployed and operated.  This allows customers to confidently use IBM WebSphere products as part of a heterogeneous enterprise SOA environment sharing services with other commercial SOA platforms like SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle, as well as RedHat and other open source providers.

Service Federation Management
This white paper analyzes Service Federation Management to achieve reuse across and between service domains. It discusses identifying service domains, federation topologies to consider and the sharing, governance and monitoring of services across service domains. It is assumed that you already know the principles of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as an approach to achieve business agility and cost optimization.

IBM Breaks New Ground with Blueworks Live
On November 20, 2010, IBM formally launched a new SaaS offering for organizations pursuing business agility initiatives: Blueworks Live. Blueworks Live combines features and capabilities from two existing SaaS offerings in the BPM space from IBM: BPM BlueWorks and Blueprint. At first glance, Blueworks Live might look like a simple updating and blending of two overlapping services. However when you look deeper, the service offers some valuable developments to IBM's customers and prospects.

About the Author: Neil Ward-Dutton is Macehiter Ward-Dutton's co-founder and Research Director, and is one of Europe's most experienced and high-profile IT industry analysts. His areas of expertise include business process management (BPM), enterprise architecture (EA) and service oriented architecture (SOA) and IT governance, and he is currently the lead analyst for MWD's BPM Continuous Advisory Service. Neil has acted an adviser to leading vendors, including IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, BEA, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, and Borland; and to large IT user organizations in Media, Government, Transport, Financial Services, and Telecommunications.

Telecom Whitepaper: Improving Operational Decision Making for Competitive Advantage
Decision management software can help telecommunications companies benefit from emerging global opportunities by improving capabilities related to three key competitive imperatives: Becoming more customer centric, improving cost efficiency and enabling new business models.

Turbo-Charge Salesforce.com with Cloud Integration
Fueled by today's fiercely competitive business environment, IT managers must deliver rapid, innovative and low-cost solutions. Discover how application integration can help turbo-charge your Salesforce.com investment and explore successful integration approaches, including a new category of next-generation cloud integration platforms.

Simplify Software as a Service (SaaS) Integration
In order to take full advantage of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications you need to quickly integrate them with your business-critical data stored on back-end systems. Find out why traditional integration approaches are a poor fit for on-demand applications and how integration appliances and Integration as a Service deliver integration in days for a fraction of the cost.

Integration: The Critical Path to Cloud Computing
The explosive growth of cloud computing has fueled the need to integrate Software as a Service (SaaS) applications with each other and with applications that continue to reside on premise. Learn how to maximize the value of your cloud-based applications through rapid integration — without burdening specialist resources or resorting to custom programming — all while cutting costs by up to 80%.

New Solution Brief: Transform Meter-to-Cash Processes for Utilities
The IBM meter-to-cash solution based on BPM powered by Smart SOA helps to automate and optimize billing, customer interface and distribution processes for efficiency, agility and operational savings. The solution integrates utilities' communications infrastructure, advanced meters and systems such as MDMS, OMS and DMS.

Don't miss these two new blog posts:

The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) and IBM Help Retailers Adopt Cloud Computing
Contributor: Johanna Koester, Program Director of Retail & Consumer Product Standards at IBM writes about the work she's done with the National Retail Federation ARTS group on Cloud deliverables and will present with Darrell Sandefur of The Kroger Co., at IBM Impact “Retailers Realize Efficiencies By Using Industry-Developed Cloud Standards.” Follow Johanna on Twitter:  @jokoester

Government Blog Post: What You Need to Know About Delivering Citizen-Centric Services: From Strategy to Execution
In a recent paper by analyst firm MWD, analyst Neil Ward Dutton outlines the several areas where information technology has been shown to be very effective in private industry where governments are seeking to build a foundation to better deliver citizen centric services. Contributors:  Bruce D. Baron, Offerings Manager Government, Public Sector and Smarter Cities, IBM Rational, and Cecile Poyet, Industry Marketing Manager, Government and Media & Entertainment, IBM WebSphere, outline some of the key points from this paper and how IBM WebSphere solutions can help Government entities address the challenges around delivering citizen-centric services.

Don't miss these three webcast series:

Now Available:  IBM TechChat Series for Monthly Online Chat with IBM Experts
The IBM TechChat Series provides IT professionals and practitioners with an opportunity to chat online “live” with IBM experts worldwide, in three different time zones.  Each TechChat is scheduled for 30 minutes monthly between April–Nov 2011 and features built-in translation so users can chat freely and easily without a language barrier between them.  A one-time registration for one or more chats is available at www.ibm.com/smarter/techchats, where users also can submit a question to experts in advance of the TechChat.

Join us on April 14 to chat about the WebSphere solution during the IBM TechChat series "Don't get locked in.  Avoid contract pitfalls and get better efficiency and performance for your applications".  

IBM Business Partners: Get Ready to Sell the BPM Capability Being Announced at Impact 2011 – Apr 20
What You'll Get from the Webinar
You absolutely won't want to miss this exciting webinar introducing the new BPM capability IBM will be announcing at IMPACT 2011. Attend this webcast and get a first-hand look at the new solution that all of your customers will want, that will help you sell BPM more easily, and that will help you beat the competition hands-down and make more money.

Join Kramer Reeves, IBM Director of BPM Marketing, and Marc Smith, BPM Product Management, on April 20 as they give you a hot-off-the presses overview of our new BPM offering.

Get ready for this eagerly-anticipated new IBM BPM offering!

Who should attend?
For IBM Partners focused on BPM
For all Channel sales/marketing/technical teams working with partners focused on BPM

When/Where:
Live Webcast #1: Asia Pacific
Date: Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Time: 9:00 a.m. (Bangalore); 11:30 a.m. (Singapore); 1:30 p.m. (Sydney)
Register now

Live Webcast #2: Americas and Europe, Middle East, Africa
Date: Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Time: 8 a.m. (San Francisco); 11 a.m. (New York); 4 p.m. (London); 5 p.m. (Paris)
Register now

View replays of prior webinars
To view replays of past webinars, go to the ILOG technologies pages on IBM PartnerWorld

5 Small Scale IT Projects for Big Time Business Results Webcast Series
This webcast series features five proven IT projects for greater business agility and flexibility, designed to deliver faster ROI by taking a practical and incremental approach to implementation.

Each project:

• Targets a key initiative where IT can expand its business impact as a value creator and cost cutter – process improvement; operational decision-making; business connections; cloud and virtualization; build, deploy and manage applications.
• Provides assurance of a successful initial implementation with actual business results; establishing the proper infrastructure for expansion and preventing wrong and costly redesign and changes down the line.

Free Upcoming April 2011 WebSphere Support Technical Exchange Webcasts
The upcoming links below will work for two days past the presentation. A week after the webcast, an audio replay of the exchange will be available on the Previous Webcast tab on the WebSphere Technical Exchange home page.

Participation is easy and free — no registration required.

Date: April 5, 2011
Time: 11 AM EDT (GMT-4)
Title: WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus (WESB) Service Update - Avoiding High Memory and CPU Usage Pitfalls
Presenter: Robert Marra, Andy Passman
Presenter Title: WESB L2 and WESB L3
Abstract: This presentation provides information every administrator and developer needs to know about Out-of-Memory (OOM) and High CPU Usage pitfalls when designing and implementing WESB Mediation Flows, and possible alternative solutions.

Date: April 6, 2011
Time: 11 AM EDT (GMT-4)
Title: Debugging Jython Scripts for wsadmin Configuration Changes
Presenter: Preston Law
Presenter Title: Staff Software Engineer
Abstract: This presentation covers the basics of performing configuration changes within wsadmin in WebSphere Application Server along with debugging common scripting exceptions.

Date: April 13, 2011
Time: 11 AM EDT (GMT-4)
Title: Ask the Experts - Service Integration Bus Scalability Best Practices
Presenter: Justin Fries, Rich Montjoy, Mohamed Najih, Ty Shrake, Belinda Fuller, Tim McCormick, Andrew Whitfield & Paul Slater
Presenter Title: WebSphere Service Integration Technology Support, WebSphere Platform Messaging Support, MQSeries - Java and Linux Integrator, WebSphere Service Integration Bus Team, L2 WebSphere MQ Distributed Support, Team Lead WebSphere L3 Service - WAS (Transactions, SIB, JMS, WSRM, WSN, OSGi) & MQ FTE, WebSphere L3 Service: App Server (Transactions, SIB, JMS, WSRM, WSN, OSGi) & MQ File Transfer Edition, WebSphere L3 Service: App Server (Transactions, SIB, JMS, WSRM, WSN, OSGi) & MQ File Transfer Edition
Abstract: The Service Integration Bus messaging provider in WebSphere Application Server can scale from a single server up to large environments with multiple clusters. This Ask the Experts session discusses best practices for exploiting the scalability of the Service Integration Bus to improve performance.

Date: April 14, 2011
Time: 11 AM EDT (GMT-4)
Title: WebSphere Adapter for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) V7.0.2
Presenter: Pavani Bayappu
Presenter Title: Staff Software Engineer
Abstract: This WebSphere Support Technical Exchange covers details on WebSphere Adapter for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) V7.0.2, one of the new additions to the Adapters portfolio. Topics discussed include a brief overview of the Adapter, key features, configuration details and troubleshooting information.

Date: April 19, 2011
Time: 11 AM EDT (GMT-4)
Title: Getting Started with WebSphere MQ and JMS Message Bindings in WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus
Presenter: Brian Hobson, Srivanthi Chintakuntla, Shinsou (Al) Wang
Presenter Title: Staff Software Engineers
Abstract: This presentation shows you how to get the WebSphere MQ and JMS Messaging Bindings to work with WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus (WESB), including how to test them to demonstrate that they are working correctly.

Date: April 21, 2011
Time: 11 AM EDT (GMT-4)
Title: Troubleshooting WebSphere Application Adapters
Presenter: Dhamu Veluswamy, Pavani Bayappu
Presenter Title: Associate Software Engineer (Team Lead) , Staff Software Engineer
Abstract: This WebSphere Support Technical Exchange is designed to discuss some of the common issues, solutions, best practices and troubleshooting information on the Application Adapters (SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle E-Business Suite) from the WebSphere Adapters portfolio.

Date: April 26, 2011
Time: 11 AM EDT (GMT-4)
Title: A Day in the Life of a WebSphere MQ Transmission Queue
Presenter: Angel Rivera
Presenter Title: WebSphere MQ Support Team for Unix, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA
Abstract: This webcast focuses on how the WebSphere MQ message descriptor is handled in a message that is sent from a remote queue definition to a transmission queue. Additional topics related to the transmission queues are also covered, such as basic troubleshooting, clusters and triggering of channels.

Date: April 27, 2011
Time: 11 AM EDT (GMT-4)
Title: Configuring WebSphere Adapter for File Transfer Protocol using Secure Socket Layer Protocol
Presenter: Alex Reyes
Presenter Title: WBI Adapter L2 Support
Abstract: This presentation explains how to configure WebSphere Adapter for File Transfer Protocol (FTP) using the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Protocol. This session also includes notes on how to set up File Transfer Protocol server and all the different settings needed to perform inbound operations with the Adapter.

Date: April 28, 2011
Time: 11 AM EDT (GMT-4)
Title: Events-Based Messaging Monitoring in WebSphere Message Broker V7
Presenter: Rao Nanduri
Presenter Title: Staff Software Engineer
Abstract: Message flows can be configured for monitoring transactions and auditing and business processes via monitoring events. This presentation discusses some of the intricacies of its implementation in different scenarios within WebSphere Message Broker V7.

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Today’s analytics technology provides marketers with an unprecedented wealth of information about what their customers want and need. But to take full advantage of these data, marketers must use it to personalize their messages to customers using automated marketing processes. This Webcast digs into the details of how best to do this, examining critical topics such as how to use profiles to create a customer dialogue that is both automated and personalized, and how to nurture those customers with loyalty programs that transform them from a one-off sale into a long-term, vocal fan of the brand. We also examine how companies can create and integrate multiple marketing channels and technologies to create a seamless campaign.

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Insider Tips: Manufacturing Best Practices through Cloud Computing and Rapid Integration
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Access Now!  Smarter Systems Virtual Event On-Demand
As the amount of data continues to grow, IT departments need to be more agile. Organizations in all industry segments are taking advantage of IBM's economical and efficient approach to integrated systems to handle their transactional and analytical workloads. Today's IT solutions require systems that can quickly and dynamically respond to changing needs. Sign up for this virtual event to hear how IBM can help you get past speeds, feeds, and misleads and into smarter systems for better decision-making.

• Attend the keynote presentation and hear from an IBM client and independent industry analyst as they share their perspective on Smarter Systems
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Attend the IBM Exceptional Web Experience Conference 2011
Exciting news to share! On May 15–19 Customers, Business Partners and IBMers will come together at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel in Orlando, Florida for the 2011 Exceptional Web Experience Conference. This year, the conference not only moves from Chicago to sunny Florida, it also moves beyond a Portal focus to bringing to the forefront a suite of tools, proven business solutions and industry-leading integration capabilities to deliver an exceptional web experience. Don't delay — visit the Conference website and register for this "exceptional" event today!  

Programs and Tracks:
Business Impact Program
Track 1: Customer Case Studies and Industry Solutions
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Technology Program
Track 4: Web Experience Platforms and Solutions
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Come learn how to enrich your web environment and customer experiences, deliver engaging customer interactions and drive operational efficiencies. Come to the IBM Exceptional Web Experience Conference!  See full details here.