I'm at the airport waiting for my flight to San Francisco. A colleague of mine and I will be attending Google Developer Day 2008 tomorrow and the day after. The official site is:
http://code.google.com/events/developerday/2008/
Instead of posting here, Karun and I will be posting our thoughts at a blog dedicated to the conference. You can find it here:
http://googleconference.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Gartner Emerging Trends - The Future of Search in the Post-Google Era
Today was my first day at the Gartner Emerging Trends conference. The first session of the day was titled "The Future of Search in the Post-Google Era." Overall, an informative presentation. A couple of themes coming from the talk were that IT shops should recognize that there may very well be a need to use multiple search engines within the organization. Often, picking a single search engine to fit all your needs may increase time to market for new applications requiring search capabilities. Additionally, a single search engine may force you into some corners and require compromises in the resulting applications. Instead, my spending some more money initially on a couple of search engines to complement each other, you'll reap the benefits down the road, and ultimately provide better search results to the users.
Another interesting metaphor presented was that of relating the searching a search engine does with an ant, rather than a spider. A spider (in the context of web search) determines which information is relevant to a query term by "crawling" over the content on the web. The ant metaphor, related to search, is more focused on how ants (the insects) communicate with each other by leaving trails of information related to the particular path. For instance, if an ant finds a trail to a food source, it will leave chemical traces along the path for subsequent ants to find, and know that the path leads to a food source. Cutting edge search engines are doing similar things related to the data that they find. For instance, if a user searches for "firm" and ultimately clicks a link related to a mattress sale (ya know, a firm mattress), the search engine will capture this and remember for future searches, that the user may be more interested in mattresses, than attorney firms.
Lucene, an open source search tool, was briefly recognized as a useful tool, but it was recommended to adopt with caution. The basis for this recommendation was primarily due to the fact that it's nothing more than a library of APIs to help index content. Usually, application teams have to do a lot of work around it to get to the desired endpoint.
Another random metric that was new to me, on average, search engines only receive 1.7 words in the query. Incredible, right?
Another interesting metaphor presented was that of relating the searching a search engine does with an ant, rather than a spider. A spider (in the context of web search) determines which information is relevant to a query term by "crawling" over the content on the web. The ant metaphor, related to search, is more focused on how ants (the insects) communicate with each other by leaving trails of information related to the particular path. For instance, if an ant finds a trail to a food source, it will leave chemical traces along the path for subsequent ants to find, and know that the path leads to a food source. Cutting edge search engines are doing similar things related to the data that they find. For instance, if a user searches for "firm" and ultimately clicks a link related to a mattress sale (ya know, a firm mattress), the search engine will capture this and remember for future searches, that the user may be more interested in mattresses, than attorney firms.
Lucene, an open source search tool, was briefly recognized as a useful tool, but it was recommended to adopt with caution. The basis for this recommendation was primarily due to the fact that it's nothing more than a library of APIs to help index content. Usually, application teams have to do a lot of work around it to get to the desired endpoint.
Another random metric that was new to me, on average, search engines only receive 1.7 words in the query. Incredible, right?
Friday, February 1, 2008
OEM - Balancing Control and Innovation
Presenter: Michael Ogrinz, Principal Architect, Global Markets Technology, Bank of America Securities, LLC
architect role is liason between business and IT, get to work with technology but don't have to worry abbout 2am support calls
Showed the Froogle example with rebates
Ease of Use = Business Value, who cares about the exact definitions?
Example at BOA - people joining conference calls, mashing up data from AT&T call center, whitepages.com to show who is on the conference calls
When bringing in new tech at BOA, it sounds like products go through levels of acceptance, such as "emerging"
They'll never use a mashup to broker a trade, but they would use mashups to quickly prototype how the UI should look for these systems
Generation Y vs Generation BabyBoomers
Leverage mashups for dashboards, discovery (of new ways to relate data), usability (quick testing of new UIs), application monitoring (quick, not really reliable, but useful in some circumstances)
Drawbacks: regulatory for who provides the data, brittle (who provides the SLA?),
SIFR - product for helping to secure mashup data so it doesn't get reused where you don't want it to be, basically renders the sensitive data as images
----
WSO2 Mashup Server Architecture, Apache licensed, make money from support and training.
architect role is liason between business and IT, get to work with technology but don't have to worry abbout 2am support calls
Showed the Froogle example with rebates
Ease of Use = Business Value, who cares about the exact definitions?
Example at BOA - people joining conference calls, mashing up data from AT&T call center, whitepages.com to show who is on the conference calls
When bringing in new tech at BOA, it sounds like products go through levels of acceptance, such as "emerging"
They'll never use a mashup to broker a trade, but they would use mashups to quickly prototype how the UI should look for these systems
Generation Y vs Generation BabyBoomers
Leverage mashups for dashboards, discovery (of new ways to relate data), usability (quick testing of new UIs), application monitoring (quick, not really reliable, but useful in some circumstances)
Drawbacks: regulatory for who provides the data, brittle (who provides the SLA?),
SIFR - product for helping to secure mashup data so it doesn't get reused where you don't want it to be, basically renders the sensitive data as images
----
WSO2 Mashup Server Architecture, Apache licensed, make money from support and training.
OEM - The Right Approach
Presenter: Bob Buffone, Chief Architect, NexaWeb
What is a mashup?
Why mashup? Productivity, agility, efficiency
Everyone can be a user of mashups
Does the creator have to be in IT or not?
Need to define what people are good at... creating content, consuming content
making decisions
Evolution or Revolution? Probably an evolution from SOA and RIA
Programmable Web - largest inventory of the mashups available
Downfall of mashup market - there are really no standards
Things to consider if you were to develop a Mashup Servers - cxn to SOA governance, hot deployable widgets, integration w authentication, role-based access, federated mashup repository, handling portal users
Steps to success - production (need services to feed into the mashup, leverage companies like kapop, mashery, strikeiron), consumption (look at complete platforms, standards, open, mission critical), proof of concepts
What is a mashup?
Why mashup? Productivity, agility, efficiency
Everyone can be a user of mashups
Does the creator have to be in IT or not?
Need to define what people are good at... creating content, consuming content
making decisions
Evolution or Revolution? Probably an evolution from SOA and RIA
Programmable Web - largest inventory of the mashups available
Downfall of mashup market - there are really no standards
Things to consider if you were to develop a Mashup Servers - cxn to SOA governance, hot deployable widgets, integration w authentication, role-based access, federated mashup repository, handling portal users
Steps to success - production (need services to feed into the mashup, leverage companies like kapop, mashery, strikeiron), consumption (look at complete platforms, standards, open, mission critical), proof of concepts
OEM - Web Services Management Infrastructure
Presenter: Oren Michels, CEO, Mashery
How easy is it for two companies to partner and get a beneficial work relationship started?
Mashery is designed to help with this, particularly for solutions in which are independent of the IT organization
Facebook as a reverse API - as long as you code an API to their definition, they'll distribute your app to millions of people
Would we ever want to open our API to external clients?
An open is all about business, not data (what does this mean?)
How easy is it for two companies to partner and get a beneficial work relationship started?
Mashery is designed to help with this, particularly for solutions in which are independent of the IT organization
Facebook as a reverse API - as long as you code an API to their definition, they'll distribute your app to millions of people
Would we ever want to open our API to external clients?
An open is all about business, not data (what does this mean?)
OEM - Delivering Data as a Service
Presenter: Bob Brauer, CEO, President and Co-Founder StrikeIron
Overview of StrikeIron, "Like is easy, data is hard."
State of external data today: authentication, different development key structures, SOAP headers with email address, ip address throttling
Business models and their associated data are all different, how can we reconcile these differences?
Presentation is still focusing around StrikeIron....uggg
StrikeIron intends to simplify the details around consuming a lot of different backends
Be aware of the context by which you describe mashups to the business so they understand the benefit, rather than get scared away
Overview of StrikeIron, "Like is easy, data is hard."
State of external data today: authentication, different development key structures, SOAP headers with email address, ip address throttling
Business models and their associated data are all different, how can we reconcile these differences?
Presentation is still focusing around StrikeIron....uggg
StrikeIron intends to simplify the details around consuming a lot of different backends
Be aware of the context by which you describe mashups to the business so they understand the benefit, rather than get scared away
OEM - Building the Future of Enterprise Mashups
Presenter: Scott Feldman, Senior Director, Global Customer Communities, SAP Americas, Inc.
Must be careful about using mashups and consider IP laws, especially when considering other people's data or sites
In the enterprise sense of things, must balance governance with freedom (both have their place)
Enterprise service - bringing together disparate backends using a tool that till allows them to be loosely coupled
Business Network - what can be done from a creative perspective from the user base
SAP CEO one of the biggest proponents of value networks
Business leaders generally are not driving mashup development
mashups are part of a broader social context of Webb 2.0 leverage power of the net to augment collaboration and communication among individuals
SOBA apps are rooted in business context
Enterprise SOA delivers flexible IT resources to meet continually changing business needs
Users are the ones developing solutions with mashups, where with SOA IT is the one developing the solutions
What is the difference in definition between SOA and Mashups?
Example App - an entire application based on mashup technologies that allowed power companies to view information in Google Earth. Better view than in an table
Must be careful about using mashups and consider IP laws, especially when considering other people's data or sites
In the enterprise sense of things, must balance governance with freedom (both have their place)
Enterprise service - bringing together disparate backends using a tool that till allows them to be loosely coupled
Business Network - what can be done from a creative perspective from the user base
SAP CEO one of the biggest proponents of value networks
Business leaders generally are not driving mashup development
mashups are part of a broader social context of Webb 2.0 leverage power of the net to augment collaboration and communication among individuals
SOBA apps are rooted in business context
Enterprise SOA delivers flexible IT resources to meet continually changing business needs
Users are the ones developing solutions with mashups, where with SOA IT is the one developing the solutions
What is the difference in definition between SOA and Mashups?
Example App - an entire application based on mashup technologies that allowed power companies to view information in Google Earth. Better view than in an table
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