desk in hursley

vee seven oh two

2009-10-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

it's announced! our second significant update this year to our Managed File Transfer product, WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition called V7.0.2.

cool image created using www.wordle.net

actually today (friday) i'm taking a day off to rejuvenate and i will be giving the computer a rest too. so i've taken advantage of this clever feature in blogger where you can schedule a new post for a future date. so if the above link to the announcement hasn't quite gone live please try again later.

anyhoo - we've cram-packed the V7.0.2 update with lots of good stuff!

for example, we've introduced a new type of agent (called a Bridging Agent, although i confess i was also keen on Special Agent) that can "talk" protocols other than WebSphere MQ. in other words can send files over alternative transports to MQ. transports we're supporting in this update are FTP and S-FTP. why on earth would anyone want to move files over anything but MQ? well - the objective here is to enable co-existance with existing environments such as home-grown solutions based on those protocols as well as support situations where the sender or receiver simply can't run MQ. because the protocol is handled by a Bridging Agent it's fully integrated into the graphical, command line and XML scripting interfaces. most importantly the Bridging Agents feeds all FTP and SFTP status into the single, centralized audit trail making it easy to track all the file movements regardless of transport. although FTP and SFTP aren't as robust as MQ, we provide check-point re-start to improve the reliability across FTP & SFTP too.

if you read Gartner's comments in their latest Magic Quadrant for Managed File Transfer (G00170848, 18 Sept 2009) you'll have noticed that Frank makes mention that IBM needs to expand its product beyond the MQ protocol alone and alludes to IBM having something up its sleeve in this regard. well, this was it. FTP and SFTP support via these new Bridging Agents.

the protocol support provided by the Bridging Agents are client-side only and are designed to complement the extensive Server-side protocol support provided by IBM B2B gateway offerings like WebSphere Partner Gateway and DataPower XB60 B2B Appliance, in addition to partner onboarding and management.

speaking of IBM DataPower Appliances, in V7.0.2 we're also supplying documented and tested configurations for integrating WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition with DataPower Appliances. This enables file transfers to be sent across WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition networks and on to trading partners via the DataPower XB60 B2B gateway across a range of protocols like AS2. this great article on developerWorks from my colleagues in Italy describes how to take advantage of DataPower as a file gateway in the DMZ and link it to WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition to handle the internal traffic.

V7.0.2 also bolsters the security support with finer grain access control to agent resources at the user and group levels. this extends the "sandboxing" feature we have to limit agent's access to the local file directories. we've also found the time to extend the platform coverage to include iSeries, HP-UX 11.11 on PA-RISC and more. also, to help our clients move to production faster we're providing a scriptable interface for creating the file transfer artefacts and enable the configurations to be stored. this can help automate the transition from pilot to production.

we're excited about this V7.0.2 update and i'm keen to know what you think. please let me know. and i'll bring you more news, as ever, from my desk in hursley.

tinker, tailor

2009-10-01T04:41:00.000-07:00

i tinker. i really do. whether it's a powerpoint slide or an excel spreadsheet. i can't help it. nudge the graphics this way a bit. align everything centrally. fiddle with the font style. deliberate over the colour scheme. the end result just feels right. in a world where much of what IT professionals do (and certainly Product managers) produces only intangible results, the need to tinker is driven by that sense of satisfaction one experiences from knowing that you’ve produced something you can be proud of. but in a face-paced, throw-away world, where most things are out-of-date before they’re even finished, endless tinkering isn’t a virtue. that said, when you’re trying to communicate a message to an audience, material that shows evidence of thoughtfulness (usually that little bit of polish produced by a measure of tinkering) can make all the difference. i see this when I create presentations for our sales teams and our clients. sometimes that little bit of polish makes all the difference. but, life, as ever, is about balance. walking that middle path between slap-dash, and tinkered into meaningless sheen. so it’s about knowing when to stop. i’ve been indulging in some tinkering today over lunch. the result is the new logo/title for this blog and mild indigestion. was it worth it? did i know when to stop? can I resist the urge to tinker with this page layout in the future? time will tell. meanwhile, if you’re a tinkerer too: welcome, and thanks for stopping by my desk in hursley.

perspective

2009-09-25T04:14:00.000-07:00

yesterday my wife and i went hot air ballooning. it is great fun. if you have the opportunity to i would seriously recommend it. we had a lot of difficulty finding good weather because we’d been booking our adventure for over 2 years without success. so what my wife originally planned as a surprise for our 1st wedding anniversary finally got the lift off well into our 3rd year. the weather always turned out to be the wrong kind. too windy. not windy enough. wrong kind of wind. yesterday’s flight was very nearly cancelled to because most of the south became covered in a blanket of fog. fortunately the experienced team at go ballooning had good local knowledge and drove us to a launch site away from the fog. once you’re up there, hanging silently above the earth, looking down on the patchwork quilt of fields, the tiny model houses and moss of trees, it certainly puts things into perspective.

peering down from the clouds, the familiar world takes on a whole new shape. tying this back to my day job, makes me realise how much our clients would benefit from a bird’s eye view of their IT systems so that they can step back and take stock of what’s going on. in our busy lives and jobs that might seem an expensive step to take, but it may help put IT priorities into perspective. and that could be priceless. in particular i want to take a look at how we can do this for WebSphere MQ and our other SOA Connectivity products. to see how we can provide IT Architects with an abstracted high-level view of their connectivity solutions, see how everything’s interrelated, where the cross-dependencies are between applications, services and middleware artefacts like queues, channels, message flows etc. if you’re one of our clients and you’d be interested in exploring this with us, please drop me a line. together we can help get some more perspective on connectivity. and while it’s breathtaking to be up at four and a half thousand feet, it’s nice to be back on terra firma, safe and sound, at my desk in hursley.

already a leader

2009-09-22T03:19:00.000-07:00

it's very satisfying. we first entered the market for managed file transfer with WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition only last december. since we didn't announce our product until after gartner published the first ever magic quadrant for this space last year, we've been explaining to our prospects why we were absent from it ever since. now gartner's updated the quadrant and we're very nicely positioned. we've got a great vision for where we want to take our managed file transfer story and i'll share what i can (and expand on it more when we make official announcements soon), as ever, from my desk in hursley.

fail over

2009-08-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

new blog. a new start. my previous attempt at blogging - started just over a year ago - didn't last long. i've never really been disciplined enough to keep on creating entries despite the link in my web brower to the blog staring at me every day. my prior efforts were disrupted by a bout of illness (an acute dizziness caused by labyrinthitus) but really that excuse can only account for a couple of months – not an entire year. so why does this blog begin with such an apologetic tone? because i know that i’ve missed that chance to share a lot of the exciting and interesting things that have happened since. i’ve spent more time than ever with customers – my favourite part of my job – learning much about their challenges, concerns and fears and deepening my respect for how they do what they do, and my appreciation for the ways that we can help them succeed. we’ve also shipped brand new products. nothing in work is more satisfying than taking the idea from a new product from its inception right the way through to delivery and the first clients moving into production. yesterday brought yet another noteworthy example: announcing a significant update to WebSphere MQ, numbered as V7.0.1. the feedback so far has been so positive – i’m really looking forward to getting more from our clients as they get hands-on when we release the code. one of the many highlights is more choice on how MQ fails over when problems occur. no only can that help when bad things happen, but makes it easier to handle those planned outages. take a look and let me know what you think. i’m waiting at my desk in hursley.