Gennaro A. Cuomo

IBM SOA "on the edge"

This paper introduces the concept of an SOA edge server and a set of complementary design patterns designed to optimize performance, improve manageability and enable customers to cost effectively deploy SOA applications into complex, mission-critical, high-volume distributed environments.

Designing WebSphere application server for performance: an evolutionary approach

Performance and scalability are critical elements for a successful Web site and therefore, are fundamental design criteria for the IBM WebSphere® platform. This paper focuses on the evolution of IBM WebSphere Application Server performance and scalability features, the improvements that were achieved, and directions for future work. There are three design principles underlying the success of WebSphere: (1) optimize the design for the predominant (no-failure) case, (2) make finite resources appear infinite, and (3) minimize the number of interprocess calls. We illustrate the application of these design principles in key areas, including workload management, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) session management, back-end connection management, session data and content caching, and Enterprise JavaBean™ (EJB™) design and deployment patterns.

QRP01-2: Challenges in Service-Oriented Networking

We believe that application-aware networks will be a core component in the development and deployment of emerging network services. However, previous attempts at enabling application-awareness in the network have failed due to issues with security, resource allocation, and cost of deployment. The emergence of the Extensible Markup Language (XML), an open standard that enables data interoperability, along with advances in hardware, software, and networking technologies, serves as the catalyst for the development of service-oriented networking (SON). SON enables network components to become application-aware, so that they are able to understand data encoded in XML and act upon that data intelligently to make routing decisions, enforce QoS or security policies, or transform the data into an alternate representation. This paper describes the motivation behind service-oriented networking, the potential benefits of introducing application-aware network devices into service-oriented architectures, and discusses research challenges in the development of SON-enabled network appliances.

The WATINFO face server and associated utilities

WATINFO is a TCP/IP server that operates at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, to provide VM-based information about services and personnel at the IBM York-town Research site. Client programs have been written for Operating System/2®. (OS/2®) and Advanced Interactive Executive (AIX®). An advanced feature of WATINFO is the display of images, when appropriate, in combination with other data. The images are supported by a face server, which fetches image data from a library of face images. The format of the face images is small—256 by 256 by one bit—and is transmitted rapidly to a variety of displays. The face library can be used for other purposes: inclusion of images in documents, the preparation of image labels, and the construction of an image telephone book.