Are you tired of going to conference and listening to supposed ‘experts’ and thinking, “Gee, I know more about this topic—I could be the presenter!” Or, have you thought, “This conference is missing some trends- why don’t they have a session on ‘Mobile social cloud of augmented reality transactional containers for SOA’?

You’re not alone. Often, the attendees at a conference offer the best ideas, knowledge and inspiration. You’re the one living these topics and the one who has to apply ideas back home in your real life.

IBM knows this. That’s why we’ve created an opportunity to tap into your knowledge and ideas. It’s call the Unconference and it works like this.

Step one: Submit a topic you would like to present, either a longer session or a 5 minute lightning talk, and vote on other topics you would like to attend. Those topics with the most votes will be presented. Attendees select the topics and attendees give the presentations. Submit your thoughts and ideas now

Step two: Register to attend Impact 2012, April 29-May 4 in Las Vegas and learn from some of the industry’s biggest stars. And attend the Unconference on May 2 from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. to share your ideas and learn from your peers. Register now

Step three: Keep voting online and onsite until May 1. Once voting is closed, we’ll create an agenda made up of the winning topics.

Oh, and we’ve cheated a bit on the Unconference idea by adding a couple of ringers to speak at the Unconference kick-off session. People we know will inspire you like Grady Booch, IBM Fellow, Research Scientist and philosopher extraordinaire and Greg Truty, Distinguished engineer and Chief Artchitect for WebSphere Mobile.

Step four: Attend the sessions that interest you. Discuss with your peers the topics that you care about. Give your session or lightning talk.

Step five: Get thought provoked. Garner peer recognition. Tell IBM what you think about important topics. Go home and apply your new knowledge. Repeat it all next year!

Learn more about the IBM Impact 2012 Unconference.

Take a fresh look at WebSphere Application Infrastructure!

The WebSphere Application Infrastructure V.8.5 Alpha release, announced October 6, 2011 (see www.wasdev.net), makes it possible for developers & organizations to deliver web apps faster, improving competitiveness and profitability.  

WAS V 8.5 Alpha introduces a new, lightweight profile of the application server for web apps, along with a simplified configuration for development environments. 

This alpha allows you to develop in a lightweight environment, but ultimately deploy (unchanged) to a variety of WAS platforms.

We have a new community for driving your feedback into the project and sharing experiences among developers.  Check it out at www.wasdev.net.

Here are some of the details of the WAS V8.5 Alpha:

• Introduces a new lightweight web app profile
• Build web apps that don’t require the full Java EE environment of traditional enterprise app servers
• Web-apps run unchanged across WAS platforms
• Free and frictionless download from the WAS Dev Community: www.wasdev.net
• Install size under 50MB
• Startup times under 5 seconds
• Runtime is 26MB for the alpha and 3MB for the tooling. It takes 3.5 minutes to download and install both.
• Broad choice in programming models:  including Servlet and Java EE web technologies, JPA, mobile and open standards. OSGi support is targeted for December 2011
• Eclipse server adapter for Eclipse development and configuration (includes WAS bindings and extensions)
• MAC development platform supported

Download the Alpha & join the Community Forum starting at: www.wasdev.net

I recently had the opportunity to interview Sridhar Sudarsan, Chief Architect, and IBM Batch processing strategy.  He has architectural and strategy responsibility for batch processing capabilities across IBM’s products and platforms.    

Sridhar, thank you for agreeing to talk with us about batch. Let’s dive right in--Why Batch?

Batch processing has actually been around since the beginning of electronic computing. It’s even more important now as the need to cost-effectively process large quantities of data becomes more challenging as data volumes increase exponentially and customer expectations continue to rise. In today’s world, the only way to achieve business agility and efficiency is by designing for and providing an always-on environment for batch and OLTP workloads. The notion of batch processing is evolving as you look at running “elastic batch” windows.

Where does Java fit in? Can it be used for batch or is ”Java batch” an Oxymoron?

Java is actually growing in popularity as a programming language for batch use. There are a number of factors driving this trend. For example, batch windows are shrinking and there’s a business need to reuse business and application logic, code artifacts, system administration and operations across batch and OLTP workloads. If you run new batch applications in Java on the mainframe, there’s cost savings to be gained by offloading to zAAP engines on z/OS.

In addition, the concept of ‘batch as a service’ is emerging, and Java batch front-ended with web services is gaining ground. Java batch also allows companies to leverage in-house skills across a broader set of business requirements.

What are some of the approaches to Java batch? 

There are actually a couple of broad approaches used to engineer batch processing with Java and each has its pros and cons.

One approach is custom construction. This approach involves using custom code to tie JVM launch utilities and programming frameworks together. In the short term, this may seem like a cost effective way to extend custom functionality to meet tactical needs, but over time it becomes costly to maintain a suite of custom middleware.

Another approach is an integrated managed environment. This approach includes software that integrates batch processing in to a full function Java EE execution platform. It provides a JVM environment and a development framework, as well as a managed container environment for batch applications. This provides the batch infrastructure and allows for separation of concerns from the application code.

What role does WebSphere Application Server play?

WebSphere Application Server (WAS), IBM’s Java EE runtime environment, provides application services within a managed container environment. IBM offers WAS on hardware and operating system platforms ranging from smaller x86 all the way up to the mainframe running z/OS, providing open standard support in all cases.

Can you talk more about IBM’s Java batch offerings?

IBM has two batch offerings—IBM WebSphere Compute Grid and WebSphere Application Server Feature Pack for Modern Batch.

WebSphere Compute Grid is an enterprise strength Java batch execution platform. It runs on the WebSphere Application Server, and provides functions like the batch container, batch toolkit, parallel job management, advanced operations support and integration with enterprise schedulers.  WebSphere Compute Grid is supported on distributed and the z/OS platforms.  WebSphere Compute Grid for z/OS exploits additional functions of the z/OS platform such as WLM, RRS and SMF.

The Feature Pack for Modern Batch is an optional function that can be added to an existing WAS runtime environment. It provides a way to get started to run batch applications on WebSphere servers.  It provides a subset of the Compute Grid functionality – batch container, toolkit and the job dispatcher.  The feature pack is available at no charge to customers with Software Subscription and Support.   

Do you have any other comments you wish to add?

As I mentioned earlier, there are more and more applications that need to be written in Java batch.  You want to be careful about not getting carried away and be in the business of writing middleware.  It is best to take a decision early to write applications using the batch platform like WebSphere batch, so you can focus on the business of your applications. 

You can get started with batch tooling on RAD v8.0.1 to build your applications and run them on either of the WebSphere batch solutions.

Sridhar, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. We look forward to hearing more about Java batch solutions in upcoming conversations.

More information about Modern Java Batch

WebSphere Batch Solutions: Join our Lead Architects as they review IBM's product strategy for WebSphere Compute Grid and the WebSphere Batch Feature Pack -- our comprehensive, enterprise-class, Java-enabled batch processing platform.

Register for Part 1 of the 2 Part series.

Register for Part 2 of the 2 Part series.

Install WebSphere Application Server V7 Feature Pack for Modern Batch. Click here.

Read the white paper: Java-enabled batch for cost-optimized, efficient business processing. Click here.

Download the Redbook: batch Processing with WebSphere Compute Grid. Click here.

Follow us on Twitter @Kmholm #websphere, #computegrid, #smartwork

Cloud camps are cropping up all over the world, providing the opportunity for IT professionals, Web developers and business users to engage in conversations, share insights and discuss the benefits and challenges of cloud computing.

Defining cloud
Early cloud computing conversations focused on defining what cloud computing is. Some attributes include: it’s something hosted by someone else, it’s scalable so you can scale up or down as needed, it’s metered so you know how much you’re using, and it’s on demand, so you can get it when you need it.

Getting a bit more granular, the definition of cloud computing varies depending on your role i.e. for IT professionals, cloud computing may be infrastructure as a service; for Web developers, it tends to be platform as a service; and for a business user it’s software as a service.

The evolving conversation
Now that cloud computing is pretty clearly defined, the conversation is evolving to focus on questions like; How do you manage your app in the cloud? How do you scale your application up and down? How do you architect applications to run and take advantage of features of the cloud? and, How do you take existing applications and migrate them to the cloud?

Not surprisingly, security, privacy, regulations and service level agreements are huge topics of discussion. Cloud computing raises many questions in these areas including, How do you make sure data is in a secure place when you need to restrict access to information? How do you make sure your cloud provider is doing what needs to be done to keep your data and applications secure? 

Many of these issues are not unique to cloud computing. They also have to be addressed in a traditional data center that’s offered as a hosted environment. The good thing about cloud computing is that there is an expectation you are not relying on one server. There is also an expectation you have a back up strategy so data is copied somewhere else and can be restored in a reasonable amount of time.

It is clear that cloud computing is here to stay. While there are issues yet to be addressed, there are strong economic incentives to figure them out.

Find out more
To participate in the conversation, attend a Cloud Camp in your area. Click here for more information.

IBM is a sponsor and will be speaking at the cloud camps listed below.

San Francisco, November 4- Click for details

Phoenix, November 6- Click for details

Dusseldorf, Germany, November 25- Click for details

Recife, Brazil, November 26- Click for details

London, United Kingdom, November 30- Click for details

Seattle, WA, December 1- Click for details

Houston, TX, TBD- Click for details

Click here to learn more about Cloud and Virtualization offerings from WebSphere.
Follow us on Twitter @Kmholm #websphere, #cloud, #smartwork

I had the pleasure of interviewing Snehal Antani about cloud computing—what it is and why it’s so hot!

Snehal is the Business Strategy Lead & Product Manager for WebSphere Cloud & Virtualization Technologies. He’s a recognized thought leader and subject matter expert for batch processing, cloud computing, virtualization, and high-volume transaction processing technologies. Here are my questions and Snehal’s responses.

Snehal, there’s been a lot of talk out there about cloud for some time now. What is cloud and why is it such a hot topic?

I think a customer got it right when he joked at Impact, “At one point it was all about on-demand, then it was green, then it was SOA, and now it’s apparently Cloud- all the while it’s about driving more efficiencies.”

When we get away from all the marketing hype out there, cloud computing is a way to drive efficiency. It’s a Services Oriented Approach to infrastructure, middleware and applications that enables IT to be delivered as a service in a way where users see only the service, and have no need to know anything about the technology or implementation.

Can you talk a bit more about how we got where we are today?

Sure, in many ways, cloud computing can be compared to SOA because they share so many similarities. Pre-SOA applications tended to be monolithic and inflexible. SOA decomposed those huge applications into reusable services, eliminating a lot of redundancy and improving time to value.

Data centers are faced with similar challenges. They support many environments that do different things but have a lot of overlapping redundancies.  Cloud decomposes IT into three areas--application services, infrastructure services and middleware services.  This enables more flexibility and new delivery models, allowing organization to respond quickly to new demands.  Decomposing IT and standardizing service interactions across applications, middleware, and infrastructure gives customers a new set of deployment choices.

What’s the WebSphere perspective on cloud?

WebSphere & cloud computing has three main pillars. The first pillar is made up of the building blocks or pieces needed to make a cloud. IBM supplies the pieces—hardware, software, networking, storage and so on--needed to build a cloud.  WebSphere in particular provides capabilities around virtualization & automation, runtime management, cloud-enabled applications, dynamic infrastructure services, security services, and integration services.  

The second pillar is made up of middleware services, where WebSphere services like the Application Server, WebSphere eXtreme Scale, WebSphere sMash, and other technologies are made available as-a-Service via partner cloud providers like Amazon EC2 as well as the IBM Cloud.

The third pillar is hybrid cloud connectivity. This involves offerings used to integrate, govern and manage services across enterprises. The Cast Iron acquisition combined with the DataPower platform and other technologies within the connectivity suite play a key role here.

There are many reasons why more and more companies are shifting toward IT solutions that include cloud computing. Cloud computing can reduce the cost of owning and operating enterprise applications and middleware. Many customers spend time installing, configuring, integrating, and maintaining application infrastructures; where they execute tasks that don’t really deliver a lot of business value. Cloud computing changes the game, and enables customers to consume middleware in new ways. Customers are realizing several benefits, including lowering both operational and capital expenses, capturing new business opportunities with as-a-Service business models, and accelerating time-to-value.

What are you seeing out there? Are customers ready for cloud?

Your question makes me think of another good line I heard at Impact--“The difference between those who say mainframe and those who say cloud is the year they were born.”  

We’re seeing an ongoing infrastructure evolution. Organizations are moving from silo’d, decentralized, dedicated systems to centralized, shared environments. They start by virtualizing their hardware, consolidating systems and sharing resources to lower capital expenses. After virtualizing, they standardize as much of the stack as possible: hardware architectures, networking architectures, middleware components, and middleware topologies. After virtualizing& standardizing, they invest in automating as much as possible, freeing up their administrators and thus lowering operational expenses.  Cloud evolves this thought, driving additional resource sharing through infrastructure as-a-Service, standardized middleware & optimized service delivery through platform as-a-Service, and finally integrating higher-value application services. These new infrastructures are simply more intelligent, scalable, and agile.

What is the road map for an enterprise architect who wants to pursue the cloud?

It’s more than just buying products--customers must establish operational and application development disciplines.

Every customer has to start by assessing their maturity in a number of areas to determine their next steps in pursuing the cloud. These steps include evaluating where they are in terms of virtualization, standardization and automation; runtime management; cloud enabled applications; dynamic infrastructures; security services and connectivity services.

It’s different for each customer. Some customers are very mature in virtualization and automation and at the same time have applications that are poorly written for cloud. Other customers have cloud-ready applications but do not have the security domains in place to prevent security breach exposures.

How do you build a cloud?

The first question to ask is where does you data have to exist? Does it have to be within the boundaries of your data center or can it be in a public cloud? The location of enterprise data dictates whether a private, public or hybrid cloud is the right option.

Next, you have to establish infrastructure services to optimize the hardware layer. This involves physical assets such as servers, network devices and storage disks offered as provisioned service to consumers. Virtualization is often used to provide the on-demand rationing of physical resources. Examples of infrastructure services include IBM BlueHouse, VMWare, Tivoli Service Automation Manager (TSAM), VMControl for System z & System p, and so on.

The next step is to deploy middleware services combined with intelligent management to manage workloads in the cloud. This involves allocating resources appropriately to support high priority applications as dictated by business objectives and meet service-level agreement requirements.

In the past, customers knew how many boxes they had and how much they had to pay every quarter for their infrastructure services. In highly virtualized systems, cloud-wide chargeback and security management is needed to track who uses what resources so users can be billed accordingly.

What is WebSphere doing to help support the service-based approach to the various layers of the cloud?

IBM Software delivers proven technologies & services to support the entire lifecycle of a cloud solution.

WebSphere Cloudburst Appliance provides capabilities for Virtualization, Automation, where the technology enables speed, consistency, and repeatability for deployment middleware topologies. WebSphere Virtual Enterprise creates dynamic application infrastructures, where application resources can be throttled to meet demand.  WebSphere eXtreme Scale provides game-changing technology in elastic applications, caching, and data management. WebSphere Compute Grid enables elastic batch applications, where the technology can parallelize batch workloads and leverage the available resources in the cloud. All of these capabilities extend WebSphere Application Server, and are further enhanced by capabilities provided by Tivoli and Information Management. Ultimately, these technologies enable customers to be more responsive, more optimized, more agile, and more resilient application infrastructures.

When implemented thoughtfully and effectively, cloud computing can help companies lower the cost of delivering IT services and help companies build competitive advantage.

To find out more about cloud, why it matters and how IBM can help, register to see the Webcast, “Enabling Cloud Computing with WebSphere” with Don Boulia and Snehal Antani by clicking here.