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Issue 2, 2005
In This Issue:
FEATURES
NEWS
CONFERENCES
EVENTS
THE WEB
OTHER
Rewards And Pitfalls Of Identity Management
By
Dr. Chris Harding, The Open Group
Over
the past few decades, the amount of information available
and the speed of its delivery have been expanding exponentially.
Today, information is truly at our fingertips – a lot
of information. Often more than we actually need, or want,
or can handle. If we are looking for an update on today’s
news, information on a competitor’s products, exact
shipping status of a product, or the best deal on a flight
to New York, it is only a click of a button away. And more
information arrives to us every day: our email mailbox gets
filled with business and personal messages mixed with promotions,
merchant updates, a variety of newsletters and more, all
vying for our attention. Add an online messenger providing
us instantly with short notes, shared files and photos. And
finally there is information created by us - ranging from
simple letters and memos to complex spreadsheets and graphic
files. A lot of this information ends up stored on our computers.
The question is, how should one manage today’s information
glut?
The customer needs are genuine. We can store much more
information than we can easily manage. Although laptops
are now measured in gigabytes, and servers in terabytes,
a more appropriate unit would be “haystacks”.
Corporations complain that their executives spend much
more time finding various needles of information than actually
using it. And often, when it is found, the piece of information
has so little context that it lacks real value. Was memo6.txt
the final version, or is there a memo7 somewhere that comes
to different conclusions? Was the author a VP or a new
employee who was just hired? When was it written? Was it
reviewed?
Future Intelligent storage
systems will can address these problems. Each item stored
would also have with it its properties and its relationship
to other items. For example, properties of a memo could
include its date and its review level. It could be related
under the “author” relation
to a person item, whose properties could include “job title”,
and it could be related under the “superseded by” relation to
the next version, if there is one. Multimedia items such as audio and video
clips can have properties and relations in the same way as text items. This
data-about-the-data – or metadata – would make it easier
to find the desired information and easier to establish its context. Metadata-related
functions embedded in the operating system or an intelligent filestore layer
just above it could bring some order into our information-overflowing computers,
and make finding relevant information easier and faster. If implemented properly,
they would also improve interoperability between information management applications,
and reduce development costs.
Implementation of such features by vendors, in isolation
from each other, could mean, if history is any guide, that
product developers and end users might get locked in: if
developers use these new features, and nobody else provides
them, then their products will be tied to a particular product
implementation. But information not only needs to be found
more effectively; it needs to be able to ‘flow’ between
applications and between users on various platforms. So the
challenge is how do we develop (and ensure that vendors implement)
any new information management functionality in ways that
are open - a key interoperability requirement that is often
ignored. Some inroads into the metadata-based information
management area are already being made. But we have to make
sure the new products are built upon open standards, which
allow them to evolve through healthy competition based on
features, functionality and performance, and provide customers
with a choice.
Getting it the technology right won't be easy. Building such
complex software and developing the right functionality based
on open, cross-platform standards, which would ensure interoperability,
represents a major engineering task. The first generation of
new technology typically needs major refinements before users
are happy - just take spreadsheets and word-processing software
that have undergone a serious transformation in the last few
years. To optimize performance and usability, a number of design
iterations will most likely be needed as customers use the
new features and their full implications become clear. Getting
the standards right – and getting all the vendors to
use those standards – will, of course, be a challenge
. But the result, finally getting a handle on our information
will definitely be worth it.
For
more information, please contact Dr. Chris Harding
Top of Page
The Open Group in the Media
- March, 2005
- Lottery Insights: How
to Certify: NSI Certification Program
- March 2,
2005 - Computer Weekly: The
skills of IT architects provide the foundation for
business success
- February,
2005 - Lottery Insights: NSI
Certification Program Launches with QA Best Practice
Certification
- February,
2005 - Lottery Insights: RFP
Groupies Unite: Washington's Lottery to Test
NASPL "Best
Practices" RFP Format
- February,
2005 - SC Magazine (UK Edition) Fly
the flag for Britain – in an international
way
- February
27, 2005 – ebizQ: What’s
In A Name?
- February 22, 2005 - SC Magazine (US
Edition): Vendors
line up to see Jericho vision
- February
16, 2004 – Network
World: Get
certified on open systems architecture
- February
14, 2005 – Network World: Extending
identity management's realm
- February
9, 2005 - Linux PR: Mandrakelinux
Corporate Server 3.0 receives LSB 2.0 certification
- February
7, 2005 - LWN: Mandrakelinux
Corporate Server 3.0 now LSB 2.0 certified
- February
7, 2005 – Computing: Users
want security rethink
- February
2, 2005 Computing: Firms
take control of IT security standards
- February
1, 2005 – ECN: Companies
Partner to Provide Standards-based DDS Platform
- January
24, 2005 – ebizQ: Achieving
Semantic Interoperability
Top of Page
Certification News
TOGAF Certification News
The number of TOGAF 8 Certified Professionals exceeded
240.
Current status of TOGAF Certified products, individuals,
services, and tool support:
- TOGAF 7 Certified - 28 Registered Individuals
- TOGAF 7 Training - 2 Registered Products from 1 Company
- TOGAF 7 Professional Services - 4 Registered Services
from 4 Companies
- TOGAF 7 Tool Support - 2 Registered Products from 2
Companies
- TOGAF 8 Certified - 241 Registered Individuals
- TOGAF 8 Training - 4 Registered Products from 2 Companies
- TOGAF 8 Professional Services - 4 Registered Services
from 4 Companies
- TOGAF 8 Tool Support - 2 Registered Products from 2
Companies
The full register is online at: http://www.opengroup.org/togaf/cert/register.html
LSB Certification News
We
are pleased to announce that:
* ThizLinux Laboratory Ltd has registered ThizLinux Desktop
8.0 Thiz Easy Theatre MII as conforming to the LSB Runtime
Environment for IA32 version 2.0 Product Standard.
To see the Conformance Statement please refer to the latest
official list of LSB registered products at: http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/register.html
For more information on the Free Standards Group Certification
program, please refer to http://www.freestandards.org/certification/
SIF Certification News
We are pleased
to announce that the following products have been registered:
- Follett Software Company - Destiny Resource Manager
5.5 and above with Edustructures SIF Agent for Destiny
1.x
- Follett Software Company - Circulation Plus 6.2 and
above with Follett Integration Service 3.5 and above
- Teledata Systems and Services - WebEIM 3.X
- CPSI -
SIF-Connect Universal Suite 1.5.x with Universal Agent
powered by SIF-Connect ADK 1.5.x
- Infinite Campus Inc.
- Infinite Campus 2005.4.1
- NCS Pearson, Inc. - SASIxp
6.x with Edustructures SIF Agent for SASIxp 1.1
- Municipal
Accounting Systems, Inc. - Wen-GAGE Student Information
3.x with Wen-GAGE Agent 1.x
- Wireless Generation - mCLASS
System 2.0 with mCLASS:SIF_Agent 1.0
- VersaTrans Solutions,
Inc. - VersaTrans RP 9.X with VersaTrans SIF Agent 1.5
- Eagle Software - Aeries 11.x with ZIAgent 3.2
as conforming
to the SIF-enabled Application Product Standard 1.5
To view all current SIF certifications and Conformance
Statements, please see the SIF Certification Register at http://www.opengroup.org/sif/cert/register.html
For more information on the SIF certification, please refer
to: http://www.opengroup.org/sif/cert
WAP Certification News
We are pleased
to announce that LG registered the following nine phones
as conforming to the WAP 2.0 product specification:
LG B2100, LG B2000, LG B2050, LG F2300, LG F2400, LG C3300,
LG C3300, LG C3310, LG C3320, LG C3400
To view the WAP Certified register, please refer to http://www.opengroup.org/wap/cert/register_wap2.html
Top of Page
NASPL
Standards Initiative - A Customer Testimonial
Quality
Assurance Best Practices
The Open Group has been working
with the NASPL Standards Initiative to launch its first standard
and certification program for Quality Assurance Best Practices.
Tom Shaheen, NASPL President, shared his excitement and announced
the launch in the lottery industry’s publication, Lottery
Insights.
About the program
Having covered a complete product development cycle, including
Requirements Definition, Product Development, and Acceptance
Testing, the program enables lottery organizations and industry
vendors to get certified and validate that they implemented
the Quality Assurance Best Practices within their organizations.
The Open Group has been involved every step, working closely
with NASPL to write a Business Requirements Document, issue
a Call For QA Best Practices, complete a QA Best Practices
Document, submit it for review and approval, and defining
the QA Certification Program. Across a spectrum of services,
from providing strategy consulting and other consortia services
to help with standards development and administration of
the certification process, The Open Group has been working
hard, and is proud to deliver real customer value.
 read
more
NASPL Best Practices RFP Format for
Procurement
‘NASPL Best Practices RFP Format for Procurement’,
which was developed by a working group led by The Open Group
and NASPL, is being rolled out by Washington’s Lottery.
The new RFP standard was developed to simplify preparation,
evaluation and comparison of requests for proposal, and increase
operational efficiencies of the lottery industry.
read
more
Top
of Page
CIO
Magazine lists TOGAF as one of the most popular frameworks
The
March 1, 2005 Issue of the CIO Magazine, featured a story on
enterprise architecture “A new blueprint for
the enterprise”
read
more
The article offers advice how to get started, suggesting
standard templates that can jump-start thinking about enterprise
architecture, and lists TOGAF as one of the most popular
- and free - frameworks.
read
more
Top
of Page
Network
World reports on TOGAF: Get certified on open systems architecture
Network
World featured a story on TOGAF, describing its history, emphasizing
the importance of TOGAF ADM, and reporting on the certification.
read
more
Top
of Page
Network
World speaks to Chris Harding about the joint initiative
of The Open Group, DMTF, and Network Applications Consortium
(NAC)
Network World reported
on the efforts to tie together administering and applying security
and management controls for identity of both users and things
from a single point. The article featured the joint initiative
of The Open Group, DMTF, and NAC to come up with a common unique
identifier, that could be shared across systems, applications
and company boundaries, which is critical for enabling interoperability,
and interviewed Chris Harding, who is heading the initiative
on behalf of The Open Group.
read
more
Top
of Page
TETware
Updates
LANANA Package
name assigned for TET3 and RPM package available
The
Open Group has registered an entry for an LSB Package Name
for the Test Environment Toolkit. Package numbers are assigned
by The Linux Assigned Names And Numbers Authority (LANANA)
and are used to name LSB-compliant RPM packages.
- The
entry registered is for TET3 lite. The package name is
lsb-tet3-lite.
- Assignee: The Open Group
contact
- Initial sample LSB RPM packages for TET3.6b are available
for download.
contact
LANANA's charter is to prevent namespace collisions by
providing a responsive, easy-to-use registration service.
Fewer collisions means better interoperability and more broadly
available drivers and applications for Linux!
The full list of LANANA packages is available here
Ruby API Added
The first release
of a Ruby Binding for TET is now available. This initial
release, known as RbTET is part of the contrib distribution.
obtainable
here and here and here
RbTET is a Ruby implementation of the TET API. RbTET was
developed on a RedHat 9.0 Linux using TETware release 3.7,
but it should work on any POSIX conforming platform that
supports Ruby and one of TET 3.3, TET3.6 or TETware 3.7.
A demonstration test suite illustrating key concepts of the
new API binding is supplied at: http://tetworks.opengroup.org/contrib/ruby_api/rbtet_demo/.
Tutorial Slidesets available for
Python and Ruby bindings
Two tutorial slidesets are now available
giving a quick introduction to the two recently added test
language bindings:
TETware adds PHP-CLI binding
We're
pleased to announce the first release of a PHP-CLI Binding
for TET.
PHP-CLI is the Command Line Interface to PHP, a widely-used
general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited
for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.
This initial release is part of the contrib distribution.
obtainable
here and here and here
A set of introductory slides, giving an overview of how to
use the new binding, is available here
Top of Page
Spotlight
on Recent Publications
2005 edition of the TETware Training
Study Guide
The Open Group is pleased to announce the 2005
edition of the TETware Training Study Guide including 9 course
modules. The guide is available as a free download
here
An
enhanced CDROM, including 3 additional training modules
plus worked examples to supplement the study materials and
the full TETware documentation, is also available here
Top of Page
Join
us for the IT Architecture Practitioners Conference -
Europe 2005
- Dublin, April 25-27, 2005 -
Registrations are growing fast!
- In parallel with Member
Meetings, April 25-29, 2005
Dublin is our most popular conference - with registrations
coming in earlier and faster than any conference before. Already there are over 200 people registered
who represent over 20 different countries. Join us and
learn about some of the hottest topics in enterprise architecture
- both from strategic and implementation points of view.
About the conference
The conference will
address some of the hottest topics in enterprise architecture
- both from strategic and implementation point of view,
suitable for corporate strategists and architecture practitioners.
Keynote addresses
- Minister of State, Tom Kitt, T.D., Department of the
Taoiseach, Repubic of Ireland, with special responsibility
for the Information Society
- Colm Butler, Principal
Officer of the Information Society Policy Unit at the
Department of the Taoiseach, Republic of Ireland
see
the full program and complete list of speakers
What will you experience
- Presentations on the practice and profession of enterprise
architecture
- Highly practical workshops on the relationships
of enterprise architecture to technology, to business
transformation, and to ROI
- Study of enterprise architecture
development, its integration and necessary infrastructure
support
- Hands-on workshop on how to set up and run
an Enterprise Architecture practice
- Review of in-depth
case studies
more
register
Top of Page
Look ahead to IT Architecture Practitioners Conference - New
York 2005
- The Westin New York at Times Square, July 18-20, 2005
- In
parallel with Member meetings, July 18-22, 2005
The conference will address the following topics:
- Role and Rise of the IT Architect
- The IT architect – the
new professional
- What is IT architecture?
- The art of IT architecture
- The business value of
the IT architect
- The IT Architecture Profession
- Requirements for Effective
IT Architecture Practice
- Setting up and Running an
IT Architecture Practice
- IT Architect Certification IT Architecture – A
Global Perspective
Other Conference Tracks
- Enterprise architecture integration and infrastructure
support
- IT architecture and business transformation
- The business
case for IT architecture
- IT architecture case studies
- Enterprise architecture
development
- Architecting Boundaryless Information
Flow™
more
Top
of Page
Look
ahead toService Oriented Architectures
The Open
Group’s fall conference will focus
on Service Oriented Architectures.
It will take place in Houston, TX, October 17-19, 2005.
Top of Page
Industry Events Calendar
Events of The Open
Group
IT Architecture Practitioners Conference Europe 2005
April 25-27, 2005 Dublin, Ireland
(in parallel with The Open Group Member Meetings, April
25-29, 2005)
http://www.opengroup.org/events
IT Architecture Practitioners Conference 2005
July 18-20,
2005
New York, USA
(in parallel with The Open Group Member Meetings,
July 18-22, 2005)
http://www.opengroup.org/events
Service Oriented Architectures Conference
October 17-19,
2005
Houston, TX
(in parallel with The Open Group Member Meetings,
October 17-21, 2005)
http://www.opengroup.org/events
Other Industry Events
InfoSec World™ 2005
April 4- 6, 2005
Coronado Springs Resort,
Orlando, FL
http://www.misti.com/VirtProgISW/program.asp
OASIS Symposium on the Future of XML Vocabularies
April
24-29, 2005
New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans, LA
http://www.oasis-open.org/events/symposium_2005/
Implementing the Global Enterprise: C4ISR
April 26-28, 2005
The Scottish Rite Convention Center, San Diego,
CA
http://www.afcea-sd.org/c4isr.html
Digital ID World Conference 2005
May 10-13, 2005
Hyatt Regency Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA
http://conference.digitalidworld.com/2005/index.php
TeleManagement World
May 16-19, 2005
Acropolis Convention Center , Nice, France
http://www.tmforum.org/browse.asp?catID=2194
Global Integration Summit 2005
May 23-25, 2005
Fairmont Banff Springs, Alberta, Canada
http://www.globalintegrationsummit.com/
Catalyst Conference North America 2005
July 13-15, 2005
Manchester Grand Hyatt
San Diego, CA
https://www.burtongroup.com/catalyst/
EDOC 2005
September 19-23, 2005
Enschede, The Netherlands
http://www.edocconference.org/
TeleManagement
November 7-10, 2005
Adams Mark Convention Center, Dallas, TX
http://www.tmforum.org/browse.asp?catID=734&sNode=734&Exp=Y
Top of Page
Top Downloads from the Web
Top
10 publications downloads in January 2005
- The Single UNIX Specification, Version 3
- TOGAF, Version
8 'Enterprise Edition'
- X/Open Single Sign-On Service
(XSSO) - Pluggable Authentication
- Distributed
TP: The XA Specification
- Security Design
Patterns
- Identity Management white paper
- DCE 1.1: Remote Procedure
Call
- Extended Sockets API (ES-API), Issue 1.0
- Business
Executive’s Guide to IT Architecture
- Application
Response Management (ARM) Issue 4.0, V2 - Java
Binding
Top 10 publications downloads in
February 2005
- The Single UNIX Specification, Version 3
- TOGAF, Version 8 'Enterprise Edition'
- Business Executive’s Guide to IT Architecture
- Security Design Patterns
- X/Open Single Sign-On Service (XSSO) - Pluggable Authentication
- Distributed TP: The XA Specification
- Identity Management white paper
- DCE 1.1: Remote Procedure Call
- Application Response Management (ARM) Issue 4.0, V2
- Java Binding
- Application Response Management (ARM) Issue 4.0, V2
- C Binding
Top 10 page views in January 2005
- The Open Group home
- DCE introductory page
- The Single UNIX® Specification: Keyword search page
- The Base Specifications, Issue 6
- Open Motif home
- San Francisco conference home page
- A-Z Index
- TOGAF 8 welcome page
- CDE home page
- Press Release: The Open Group Debuts Open Source Licensing
of DCE Source Code
Top 10 page views in February 2005
- The Open Group home
- The Base Specifications, Issue 6
- The Single UNIX® Specification: Keyword search page
- Open Motif home
- Architecture home page
- TOGAF 8 welcome page
- Test downloads
- Open Motif downloads
- DCE home page
- About The Open Group
Top of Page
Final Thoughts...
If you would like to send a letter to the editor for possible publication in
the future, if you have any suggestions on what you would like to see covered,
or if you have any comments on any published story or article, please email us
at memnews-feedback@opengroup.org
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