DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /    ( Table of Contents )

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THIS WEEK'S BRIEF ANALYSES OF RECENT Gridtoday NEWS ITEMS
By Rolf McClellan

Following are brief evaluations of recent news stories from Gridtoday. Rolf McClellan has nearly 20 years of experience in the network and computer industry. www.mcclellanconsulting.com

Sun Helps Define Next Generation Of Web Services (04/16/04)

Sun Microsystems has announced the Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8, which adheres to the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4 specification. The new release includes support for the Web Services Integration (WS-I) with JavaServer Faces and JavaServer Pages (JSP) Standard Tag Library (JSTL), which allow GUI and JSP components to be shared across Web site implementations.

Analysis: In spite of the hype, Web services is primarily targeted at Web site builders and application integrators.

BellSouth Provides Additional Data Transport Capabilities (04/16/04)

BellSouth is enhancing features of its Managed MPLS Network VPN Service. Among the improvements is support of additional access methods including Metro Ethernet, ATM and additional tiered DSL speeds to complement the existing Frame Relay, Private Line and DSL access types supported.

Analysis: Managed MPLS VPNs offer a number of advantages over private enterprise WANs comprised of multiple technologies. In principle, an MPLS VPN could provide a higher level of service for Grid applications versus other, less critical enterprise applications.

NorduGrid Middleware Released (04/16/04)

The NorduGrid collaboration announced the first "production" release 0.4 of its open source Advanced Resource Connector (ARC) middleware. The middleware builds upon standard open source solutions like the OpenLDAP, OpenSSL, SASL and Globus Toolkit 2 libraries.

Analysis: The Grid really needs an IETF-like body (the GGF?) to at least partially rationalize all the open source middleware that is available. Otherwise, each Grid could evolve as an island in a archipelago of Grids. The IETF has proven much more time-efficient than the stuffier standards forum model, such as OSI, and more recently, the DSL Forum.

Grid Attacks Raise Concerns Among Security Experts (04/15/04)

Recent attacks on Grid-based supercomputers (including TeraGrid systems) have interrupted Grid research and raised the possibility that powerful Grid computers with high bandwidth access to the Internet could be used to source DOS attacks. The hackers gained root access to the computers via known (yet un-patched) vulnerabilities in Linux and Solaris.

Analysis: Up until this incident, the major concern had been that the Grid would be a target of DDOS attacks. In addition to good system management practices, Grid sites might consider investing in switch/routers or other devices that can rate-limit outgoing and incoming traffic of the types commonly used in DOS attacks.

ASRC Broadens Commitment To Corio Applications On Demand (04/15/04)

Corio Inc, an application service provider (ASP), announced a customer for its application development services.

Analysis: Hosted applications and application development services don't really have anything to do with Grid computing, but they did use the keyword "on demand."

Parasoft SOAPtest 2.6 Supports WS-Security (04/15/04)

Parasoft announced the release of SOAPtest 2.6, the Web services testing product.

Analysis: This tool could be beneficial for general Web service applications and for Grid applications using SOAP.

NetScreen In 'Leader Quadrant' Of Gartner Report (04/14/04)

NetScreen Technologies Inc has announced it has been categorized as a "leader" in Gartner's Magic Quadrant analysis of the SSL VPN market.

Analysis: Leader status plus $4 will get you a latte at Starbucks, and maybe occasionally influence a technology-challenged CIO.

Oracle JDeveloper 10g Enhances Grid Architectures (04/14/04)

Oracle JDeveloper 10g, the latest release of Oracle's Java and Web services development environment, is now available.

Analysis: It seems that every major vendor pushing Web services has their own Java environment.

RADCOM Intros Next-Gen Analyzer For Multi-Service Networks (04/14/04)

RADCOM Ltd has introduced the Performer Analyzer for monitoring and troubleshooting LAN, MAN and WAN technologies at speeds up to 2.48 Gb per second.

Analysis: This could be useful in trouble shooting the Grid. For clusters, an analyzer that interfaces with sFlow could also help.

BEA, Accenture Join Forces To Untangle Web Sprawl (04/13/04)

BEA Systems and Accenture are offering to use a Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to help companies rationalize IT environments that have complex Web portal deployments.

Analysis: The idea is to reuse components common to multiple portals. Maybe they could check out Sun's press release at the top of this week's edition of "Breaking News".

Inkra Licenses NextHop's GateD NGC 2.x Routing Software (04/13/04)

NextHop Technologies Inc announced that Inkra Networks has licensed NextHop's GateD NGC 2.x routing software to serve for its Virtual Service Switch family of multi-function security switches.

Analysis: The release might have informed us why a security device needs to able to route IP traffic, to re-route traffic to another more specialized security device.

Gridbus Project Status Report (04/13/04)

The Gridbus Project is offering a status report on the various open source components of the Gridbus Toolkit at: http://www.Gridbus.org/papers/Gridbus2004.pdf .

Analysis: Among the tools is the GridSim toolkit for performance modeling of Grid applications and other potentially useful tools.

Blatecky Leaves SDSC, Becomes Renci Deputy Director (04/12/04)

Alan R. Blatecky, an expert in Grid computing, middleware, advanced networking and research program development, will join the interdisciplinary Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) as Deputy Director, effective May 10, 2004. The Carolina Renaissance Computing Institute is a new model for interdisciplinary research and technology that draws on the talent and expertise of research, education and commercial activities across the North Carolina Research Triangle

Analysis: RENCI represents a potential link between Grid research and commercial Grid projects.

VERITAS, BEA Deliver Open Utility Platform For Enterprise Apps (04/12/04)

VERITAS Software and BEA Systems announced a strategic alliance to integrate their products to create an open, heterogeneous "utility computing" software platform for enterprise customers.

The joint offering will include versions of VERITAS Indepth J2EE application performance management software, VERITAS Cluster Server high availability solution and VERITAS OpForce server provisioning software integrated with BEA WebLogic and Tuxedo platforms.

Analysis: This collaboration might have be using yet another definition of utility computing.

NetScreen Raises Bar With Next-Generation Security Platform (04/12/04)

NetScreen Technologies Inc announced availability of the NetScreen-ISG 2000 which integrates firewall and VPN gateway functionality with intrusion detection and intrusion prevention (IDP) functionality.

Analysis: Integrating multiple functions into a single device can help to reduce the complexity of security management.

Foundry Introduces Industry-Leading Load Balancing Switches (04/12/04)

Foundry Networks has announced a new portfolio of ServerIron Layer 4-7 switches with improved performance for load-balancing and application-level traffic control, including DOS protection.

Analysis: Load balancers are useful for distributing browser traffic across arrays of Web servers and could also be used for delivering a popular Web service to remote applications.

Packeteer Introduces PacketShaper 9500 (04/12/04)

Packeteer Inc announced availability of the PacketShaper 9500, a traffic management system offering application-layer visibility and control of more than 500 applications at speeds up to 500 Mb per second full-duplex or 1 Gb per second asymmetric. The new platform also features data compression at speeds up to 45 Mb per second and automatically establishes and manages as many as 300 compression tunnels to other compression-enabled Packeteer devices.

Analysis: The Packeteer system optimizes the use of WAN bandwidth by key business applications while controlling malicious, recreational and other non- business traffic.