A new cloud-based API-management tool from IBM offers businesses and developers an easy, secure and flexible service for the exposure, monitoring and management of APIs. IBM plans to release an evaluation version of its new API Management Service on Sept. 26, 2014, and the initial specs show a lot of promise – especially for SMBs that want to quickly and effectively participate in the mobile and API economy, or for Fortune 500s and 1000s that want to more efficiently manage their sprawling API exposure and footprint.
The cloud-based service allows developers to easily manage SOAP and REST APIs through a single console. At the same time, it provides a simple and scalable method for businesses to advertise, market and sell their APIs worldwide across public, private and semi-gated developer communities. Just as important, it provides businesses with the tools to track and monitor API usage to measure market penetration and streamline developer billing and use-charges.
There’s no coding involved, according to IBM, and the attractive developer portal will help entice partners within the already ultra-competitive and time-strapped API economy.
The latest IT buzzword isn’t cost-control, it’s cost-optimization – in other words, how to use existing IT investment to its full potential. For many companies, the most effective path toward cost-optimization is to expose key business services to drive new collaboration and revenue. It can be done through APIs, and now it can be done entirely in the cloud through IBM’s API Management Service.
TxMQ is an IBM Premier Business Partner and can help your company with all its cloud-based computing and API needs. For a free and confidential consultation, contact vice president Miles Roty: (716) 636-0070 x228, [email protected].
Category: Uncategorized
How To Integrate Salesforce Enterprise Data Using WebSphere Cast Iron
As I’ve discussed in previous blogs, IBM’s WebSphere Cast Iron is the choice solution for integrating Salesforce data with other applications and/or other data across the enterprise. It’s a functional solution because the various integration paths (called orchestrations) are displayed through a graphical interface and can be managed and maintained by staff members who aren’t necessarily IT specialists. TxMQ helps with Cast Iron deployment, for example, but then hands off the project to internal staff once the deployment and initial orchestrations are in place. It’s really that simple (which, by the way, is one reason Cast Iron is so appealing to limited-staff SMBs).
I did want to take a bit of time in this update to discuss some of Cast Iron’s specific Salesforce integration and data-management solutions. The biggest issue – especially when an integration involves both internal and external data – is synchronization. Whether your industry is finance, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, retail, digital media or any other, you’ll inevitably need to sync your Salesforce data with your customer data, sales data, supply-chain data, logistics data, advertiser page views and so on. Any loss of synchronicity can immediately compile errors and create blockers that munch away at your uptime.
To help frame the possibilities for your company, note that Cast Iron easily connects Salesforce with:
- ERP including SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, BAAN, QAD, Lawson, Great Plains, etc.
- CRM including Siebel, Clarify, Remedy, Oracle, Kana, Vantive, etc.
- Customer support systems
- All major databases including Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, mySQL, Sybase, Informix, etc.
- Flat-files using FTP, HTTP(S), Email
- XML and Web Services
- EDI
- Middleware and all major EAI platforms
- Project management applications including Clarity/NIKU
- Custom applications
- And many, many more
Once connected, Cast Iron supports real-time sync between Salesforce and other systems, a few examples of which include:
- Data migration from other CRM systems
- Accounts and Contacts with ERP customer master
- Opportunities with Order management systems
- Forecasts with other CRM systems
- Quote requests with Order management systems
- Leads and Campaigns with marketing automation systems
- Activity history with external reporting systems
- Invoices with Billing systems
- Case data with Customer Support systems
- Pricing and product catalog data with PLM systems
- The list goes on…
I’m curious: Do any readers have a Salesforce–Cast Iron use case different from the ones above? Please sound off with a comment and let’s keep the conversation going.
As always, TxMQ is ready to confidentially answer any Cast Iron or other integration questions. For a free initial consult, please contact vice prez Miles Roty: (716) 636-0070 x228, [email protected].
Four Different Options For WebSphere Cast Iron Deployment
IBM’s WebSphere Cast Iron cloud-integration product is the industry’s best-in-class solution for two reasons: 1. Its cross-service flexibility, and 2. Its ultra-easy graphical interface. Deploy Cast Iron then drag and point your different integration preferences.
Cast Iron is perhaps best known for easy and complete Salesforce integration – use Cast Iron to integrate Salesforce data with the rest of your enterprise data – but Cast Iron recently reached a new critical mass centered on the integration and synchronization of mobile-application data and social-media data across the enterprise. Cast Iron is especially effective for integrating contemporary data, like that from mobile and social, with legacy data driven by homegrown applications.
Cast Iron is easy to adopt and deploy and there are four different deployment options. They are:
- Cast Iron Hypervisor Edition: This is a virtual appliance that sits on existing servers by way of virtualization technology. It’s a great way to speed the path through demo and staging to production, and as of June 2014 it includes Xen server support.
- Cast Iron Express: A cloud-based version that assists in the integration of Software as a Service (SaaS) data with other data sources. This is the most popular Salesforce solution.
- Cast Iron Live: This is a cloud-based multi-seat version that’s best for cloud/on-premise hybrid environments.
- DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40: This is real metal – a self-contained, physical appliance that connects cloud and on-premise applications.
TxMQ specializes in Cast Iron integration solutions for businesses of all sizes. For more information, contact vice president Miles Roty – (716) 636-0070 x228, [email protected] – for a confidential and free initial consultation.
Alan Turing's Triumphs And Tragedies Onscreen For All To See
I was truly stoked when I heard the buzz surrounding the new biopic of technology pioneer and war hero Alan Turing. The Imitation Game, from Norwegian director Morten Tyldum and starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Kahn, Star Trek Into Darkness), received triumphant ovations and cheers at the Toronto International Film Festival this week and is already an early pick for a slew of Oscar nominations.
Turing is a legend. He’s a pioneer of modern computing and the father of artificial intelligence. The Turing Test, which measures the ability of a computer to respond to a human subject, was a staple principle in every coding class from the early days of Basic. And Turing’s technological brilliance literally saved the world from the armies of Fascism.
I’ve felt a connection to Turing’s work for long time – one, because of my interest in the history of philosophy of technology, but two, because of my deep Buffalo, NY Polish roots.
We never knew Turing’s true contribution to the war effort until the Enigma files were declassified in the early 1970s. That’s when news first went public that the Allies had been able to read the German Enigma-machine ciphers, and that Turing and a small band of brilliant British scientists constructed the world’s first functional modern computer to break the daily cipher. So often, it’s war that drives invention.
Enigma allowed the allies to prevail in the Battle of Britain, we knew about the invasion of Russia (a warning which Stalin chose to ignore), and we were able to successfully land in North Africa, Italy and Normandy. It’s a testament to Turing’s genius that the breaking of the Enigma code was such a closely guarded secret during the war, and for 30 years after.
The Polish connection? It was the Polish resistance that successfully captured an Enigma machine, through great torture and loss of life, and delivered it to the Brits as the Nazis swept across the Polish plain. Buffalo during wartime was a center of US Polish culture. My grandfather was a Polish butcher on Buffalo’s East Side. Polish was spoken in his store. Our family name was changed from Zawieurcha to Storm a few months after the war ended.
Throw in the fact the film will be released in the U.S. by Harvey Weinstein – a former Buffalo resident who started his empire as the first name in the legendary Buffalo-area Harvey & Corky Productions company – and the whole story squarely hits home.
I recently toured the Museum of Computer History, where an actual Enigma machine is on display. It’s chilling. The photo is to the right.
When The Imitation Game hits theaters on November 21, it’ll be a day of celebration for those who’ve privately celebrated Turing’s contribution for decades. The ultimate irony, and the great sadness, is that Turing was doomed by the same dark forces he worked so hard to defeat. He was arrested and prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952, which after the war was still illegal in Britain, and chemically castrated. He committed suicide 2 years later.
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Even More Integration Options For the DataPower XB62
I wanted to continue yesterday’s blog with a few more details about the WebSphere DataPower XB62 appliance – in particular, its flexibility. Along with application and B2B integration, the XB62 can also very rapidly transform data between a number of different formats such as XML, industry standards and even custom data formats.
Furthermore, the XB62 is capable of broader integration functions including routing, bridging, transformation and event handling. And because it’s also a security appliance, DataPower integration solutions by their nature are stable, secure, reliable and performance-oriented.
The DataPower solution is especially elegant for companies that handle more than XML and find themselves needing to connect their B2B and SOA deployments at the same time they manage a stew of proprietary, legacy and trading-partner-specific data formats.
Essentially, the XB62 is a true drop-in B2B and SOA integration point that can stretch vital applications across the enterprise. The immediate benefit is that a company can bring services to market more quickly, and better accommodate clients and partners via painless and secure data and application integration.
For more information on TxMQ’s many DataPower solutions for all industries, contact vice president Miles Roty – (716) 636-0070 x228, [email protected] – for a confidential and free initial consultation.
Illustration by Sean MacEntee (Creative Commons license).
How The IBM DataPower XB62 Bridges Internal And External (B2B) Integration
One of the more elegant features of the DataPower XB62 appliance is its dual ability to govern internal application integration as well as external B2B (or Trading Partner) integration. In essence, the XB62 bridges the gap between internal and external integration, which is what makes it such a complete solution for so many different types of businesses.
In support of the XB62, IBM states that the company “recognizes the convergence” of internal and external integrations. And it’s obvious that the need for integrations near or at the edge of the network is growing rapidly. By opting to deploy the XB62 you can better support complex B2B flows and become more flexible in routing and file processing. It’s therefore much easier to bridge between the DMZ and protected networks without sacrificing security. This in turn allows you to attract more partners due to the ease, flexibility and security of the external integration.
One oft-cited example of an XB62 deployment is to have the XB62 sit in the DMZ, where it securely connects to trading partners, but that same appliance also exchanges data with a DataPower X152 appliance within the protected network, which handles all the enterprise service bus functions.
TxMQ successfully deployed a DataPower XB62 solution for Medical Mutual of Ohio that serves as a strong example of the appliance’s secure integration capabilities. Medical Mutual wanted to take on more trading partners and more easily align with government protocols, but lacked the infrastructure to support it. “We needed to set up trading-partner software and a B2B infrastructure so we could move the data inside and outside the company,” says Eleanor Danser, EDI Manager, Medical Mutual of Ohio. “The parts that we were missing were the trading-partner software and the communications piece to support all the real-time protocols that are required from the ACA, which is the Affordable Care Act.”
TxMQ’s DataPower XB62 solution delivered $250,000 to $500,000 annual savings on transaction fees for Medical Mutual, as documented in this story published by Insight Magazine.
For more information on TxMQ’s many DataPower solutions for all industries, contact vice president Miles Roty – (716) 636-0070 x228, [email protected] – for a confidential and free initial consultation.
IBM HTTP Server Vulnerabilities: Fixlist, August 2014
IBM recently released a security bulletin with several high-priority fixes for its HTTP Server (APAR PI22070). Multiple vulnerabilities are documented with the following details and actionables:
CVE ID:CVE-2014-0226
Description: The IBM HTTP server is vulnerable to a heap-based buffer overflow, caused by a race condition in the mod_status module when handling the scoreboard. By sending a specially-crafted request, a remote attacker could overflow a buffer and execute arbitrary code on the system or cause the application to crash.
CVSS Base Score: 7.5
CVSS Temporal Score: See http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/94678 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P)
Workaround or Mitigation: This can be mitigated by limiting mod_status access to trusted IPs
CVE ID: CVE-2014-0231
Description: The IBM HTTP Server is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by an error in the mod_cgid module. By sending specially-crafted requests, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause child process to hang.
CVSS Base Score: 5.0
CVSS Temporal Score: See http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/94674 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P)
Work around or Mitigation: This does not affect Windows platform or if you do not have CGI enabled
CVE ID: CVE-2014-0118
Description: The IBM HTTP Server is vulnerable to HTTP trailers being used to replace HTTP headers late during request processing, potentially confusing modules that examined or modified request headers earlier.
CVSS Base Score: 5.0
CVSS Temporal Score: See http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/92235 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N)
Workaround or Mitigation: none
Affected Products and Versions
This problem affects the IBM HTTP Server component in all editions of WebSphere Application Server and bundling products:
- Version 8.5.5
- Version 8.5
- Version 8.0
- Version 7.0
- Version 6.1
- Version 6.0
Remediation/Fixes
The recommended solution is to apply the interim fix, Fix Pack or PTF containing APAR PI22070 for each named product as soon as practical.
For affected IBM HTTP Server for WebSphere Application Server:
For V8.5.0.0 through 8.5.5.2 Full Profile:
Upgrade to Fix Pack 8.5.5.2 and then apply Interim Fix PI22070
–OR–
Apply Fix Pack 8.5.5.4 or later (targeted to be available 8 December 2014).
For V8.0 through 8.0.0.9:
Upgrade to Fix Pack 8.0.0.9 and then apply Interim Fix PI22070
–OR–
Apply Fix Pack 8.0.0.10 or later (targeted to be available 16 February 2015).
For V7.0.0.0 through 7.0.0.33:
Upgrade to Fix Pack 7.0.0.33 and then apply Interim Fix PI22070
–OR–
Apply Fix Pack 7.0.0.35 or later (targeted to be available 13 October 2014).
For V6.1.0.0. through 6.1.0.47:
Upgrade to Fix Pack 6.1.0.47 and then apply Interim Fix PI22070
For V6.0.2.0 through 6.0.2.43:
Upgrade to Fix Pack 6.0.2.43 and then apply Interim Fix PI22070 from IBM Support.
Important note: IBM strongly suggests that all System z customers be subscribed to the System z Security Portal to receive the latest critical System z security and integrity service. If you are not subscribed, see the instructions on the System z Security website.
<i>(Photo courtesy of Flickr contributor OpenSource.com.)</i>
IBM Watson & Why I Believe In The Goodness Of Technology
Count me as genuinely excited about IBM’s announcement that researchers are now able to use its Watson cognitive computer for medical research. This is the computer that dusted the all-time human Jeopardy champs in a real-time game. The announcement came a few days after I toured the Museum of Computer History in Palo Alto, Calif. and stood at the podium of the actual Jeopardy set used for the Watson game.
I want to see cancer gone. I have family members surviving it, I’ve lost family members because of it over the past 2 years. And although we’ve improved some treatments, it just seems we’re nowhere nearer a cure. A computer like Watson can help. It can essentially synthesize all the world’s data on the disease. It can fairly quickly scan and distill more than 60,000 or 600,000 journal articles about a single topic, whereas a researcher is lucky to be able to read one or two articles a day.
IBM calls the new cloud-based Watson service “Discovery Advisor” – a nod toward a conviction I share, that technology combined with human curiosity and passion is what drives exploration, discovery and advancement.
The fact that we can all now essentially tap into the most powerful computer in the world – a computer unlike built before – is a comforting light in a world that suddenly seems to be turning darker with armies on the march that want nothing more than to destroy technology and launch a second Dark Ages.
Here’s a great retroactive vid on Watson’s Jeopardy victory, in case you missed it the first time around.
(Photo courtesy of IBM)
TxMQ News Flash – Critical WAS Outage Restored
A leading full service transaction processing business made TxMQ aware of a node synchronization problem after a weekend install had taken down their website and a file restore did not rectify the situation.
TxMQ appointed SME Bob Becktell to an audio bridge for details on the customer’s corrective steps up to the present point. The customer explained that the code change had failed and they backed out, but the website continued to fail. After restoring the entire WebSphere Application Server related file system on both nodes, the website still failed to load.
Bob identified a certification problem by looking at screen shots that the customer sent to him and determined that this was the first order of business to resolve. Upon further study, he uncovered that the self-signed certificate between WAS servers had expired the previous weekend. The customer was instructed to re-generate the certificates stop the WAS instance and node agent for all the nodes, then restart the Deployment Manager, one node agent, then the WAS instance – in that order.
Bob and the customer watched as the log files of each component started and the website loaded properly. The customer was then instructed to complete the same action on the second node and that node loaded properly as well.
With the website working properly, Bob was able to examine their WAS Admin Console to make sure things were running normally. The node agents were communicating with the Deployment Manager, but the node synchronization was still broken. The customer indicated that they had been having synchronization errors for several months now.
Bob uncovered a Tech Note which matched the symptom and error message, but the resolution didn’t fix the synchronization. The client was running WAS 6.1.0.37 which is out of support and not the most recent 6.1 fixpack, so Bob recommended a short-term fix would be to update to the latest fixpack- 6.1.0.47. Since the customer is no longer under IBM support for WAS 6.1 Bob recommended that the customer consider extended WAS v6.1 support or upgrading to WAS 8- either of which we could help resolve their ongoing issues.
Photo Provided by SmartSignBrooklyn
WebSphere Cast Iron Hypervisor Delivers Xen Support
WebSphere Cast Iron Hypervisor fix pack version 7.0.0.1 became available on June 30, 2014, and with it came support for the Xen server as hosting environment.
Cast Iron Hypervisor delivers rapid cloud integration for companies that want to harmonize business processes across a hybrid landscape. Cast Iron delivers elegant integration solutions like the ability to:
- Quickly connect cloud and on-premise applications
- Chaperone legacy integrations into the cloud
- Collaborate with IBM Worklight to externalize mobile-app enterprise data and processes
With the 7.0.0.1 fix pack, Hypervisor can now run on one of these following hosting environments:
- VMware ESX/ESXi 4.1, 5.0 or 5.1
- IBM PureApplication System W1500 1.0.0.4
- Xen server 4.1.2 running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server release 5.6 and later 6.0
TxMQ offers full Cast Iron service and support. Contact VP Miles Roty for more information: [email protected], 716-636-0070 x228.
