What management tools (open source or otherwise) are there to track the location of data, the services that deliver/use that data and the services themselves. If you believe the snake oil a combination of DB, ESB and SOA will deliver anything anywhere, but how do you know what's where. BTW I'm not interested at the WSDL level, I'm thinking of a tool that the users/BA community would populate and use.
A combination of SOA and Database is now the bedrock of most applications, however what used to be called Data Dictionaries, and would now be Service Catalogues? or MetaData repositories still seem to live in purely DataCentric world.
Software AG's CentraSite.
Disclosure: I work for Software AG :)
There are public and Enterprise service repositories for this.
Related
There are a ton of online CMS services out there. And a ton of (new) backend-as-a-service products too. But I can't seem to find what I am looking for.
I am building an app for a client. The app contains data about shops, products, and more. The client must be able to update this data (and not just one person: each shop manager needs to be able to log in and edit the data for their own shop). And of course the app must be able to access this data.
Client edits data online
This has to be extremely user-friendly and completely online. I don't want to sell my client something where they need to install stuff on their server. I don't want to sell them something that's accessible online but looks like phpMyAdmin.
I want a shop owner to be able to go to a webpage, log in, and then see a pretty UI where they can edit the data for their shop. The back-end needs to have a pretty front-end that's auto-generated for whatever data this particular shop owner is allowed to edit.
So there are two bits: storing data in the cloud in such a way that it can be accessed by the app (which I am building with Titanium), and allowing the client to log into the backend and edit the data in a non-tech, user-friendly way.
Here's a list of things I tried...
Backend-as-a-service
Services with a great back-end, but without easy auto-generated data editing website:
Appcelerator (Titanium) Cloud Service
Amazon EC2
Stackmob
BackBeam
WebVanta
Parse
API o Mat
ShepHertz Cloud42
Kii
Online CMS
Services that provide a nice way for clients to edit data, but no easy way for apps to connect:
CloudCMS
(and many others I'm sure)
It's insane that no-one seems to be providing the cross-breed of BaaS and online CMS. So many people are building apps for clients, and so many clients are not tech-savvy and are reluctant to get a special server and host database software they don't understand. Why does this not exist? What am I missing?
With apiOmat it's easy to create your own data-editing app for e.g. with JavaScript SDK and HTML. Or you send a feature request so that they build a module for your preferred CMS.
As you mentioned, Cloud CMS is a really good option (disclaimer: I'm one of the founders). The product provides an enterprise content management backend and an API that lets you plug in some really powerful features right into your mobile apps.
This month, we released a brand new user interface which provides much of what you're asking about. Instant forms, document libraries, search and workflow all in one place.
You can check out Cloud CMS here: http://www.cloudcms.com
I completely agree with your assessment particularly with respect to the last mile (getting the final app built). It's kind of the wild west out there and the strong technologies are still proving out.
You mentioned Titanium - that's a good choice. I also quite like the Ionic Framework (http://www.drifty.com/). It's a step in the right direction.
I'm looking for some guidance on my research to building an SaaS. This thread seems to be related, but I'm wondering if this software Rackspace has called rBuilder is what I would be looking for to automate the process of creating an instance of the software with a unique IP address and domain name.
Also, for an application similar to Shopify, does the application work like Facebook where it serves up different information based on the account, or is it better to have separate installs of the software like WordPress, but on a server that you maintain?
IMHO, there are various levels of Multi-tenancy [level1 through level4], among them, the purest form of multi-tenancy [Level4] is to have a single code base to cater to the needs of different customers [tenant's].
In this case, you will be required to maintain all of the configuration metadata within your code base to ensure that each tenant has the capability to customize the application the way they wanted to.
Having a single codebase is very clean, easier to maintain, easy to patch, easy to onboard new customers etc...
Hence, kindly note that you have to decide on the time and expense that you have budgeted for the application that you have planned to as the purest form of multi-tenancy does require some more additional thought process.
You can consult some articles like this and also google on the pros and con's of having the purest form of multi-tenancy vs on-premise model or virtualized model of multi-tenancy.
Also read more from here
I am developing a c# web application that will be hosted in Windows Azure and use Table Data Storage (TDS).
I want to architect my application such that I can also (as an option) deploy the application to a traditional IIS server with some other NoSql back-end. Basically, I want to give my customers the option to either pay me in the software as a service model, OR purchase a license of my application that they can install on a (non-azure) production server of their own.
How can I best architect my data layer and middle tier to achieve both goals?
I will likely need a Windows Azure Worker Role and an Azure Queue. How complicated is to replicate these? Can I substitue a custom Windows Service and some other queuing technology?
How I can the entities in my data model be written such that I can deploy to Azure TDS or some other storage when not deploying to Azure? Would MongoDB or similar be useful for this?
Surely there is a way to architect for Azure without being married to it.
I will likely need a Windows Azure Worker Role and an Azure Queue. How complicated is to replicate these? Can I substitue a custom Windows Service and some other queuing technology?
Yes - a Windows service with some other queuing technology would fit this reasonably well - and worker roles have a main/Run loop which is easy to use within a Windows Service.
How I can the entities in my data model be written such that I can deploy to Azure TDS or some other storage when not deploying to Azure? Would MongoDB or similar be useful for this?
NoSql is a general term encapsulating lots of different technologies. I think Azure TDS currently belongs to the Key-Value store family of NoSql, while MongoDB is more of a document database offering much richer functionality than TDS - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoSQL_(concept). For mimmicking Azure TDS I think maybe a variant of something like Redis might work (although I believe Redis itself has wider functionality then TDS currently)
In general, it depends on the shape of your data, but I suspect if you can fit it in Azure TDS, then you'll be able to fit it into your choice of other storage too.
Surely there is a way to architect for Azure without being married to it.
Yes - as you've suggested in your question, you can architect your app so it can work on other technologies instead. In fact, this is quite a similar challenge to the traditional SQL data abstraction methods. However, I think there are a few places where you'll find TDS pushing you in certain
directions which won't fit well with other stores - e.g. Azure pushes you much more towards data replication; has very specific rules on keys; offers high performance using very specific mechanisms; and offers limited transaction integrity in very specific situations. These factors may mean that you do have to indeed change some middle tier layers as well as some data layers in order to get the most out of your app in both its Azure and non-Azure variations.
One other thought - It might be easier to offer your clients a multitenant SaaS version on Azure, and a singletenant version hosted on Azure - but this does depend on the clients!
I found a viable solution. I found that I can use EF Code First with SQL Server or SQL CE if I design my entities with the same PartitionKey & RowKey compound key structure that Azure Table Storage requires.
With a little help from Lokad Cloud (http://code.google.com/p/lokad-cloud/) to perform the interaction with Azure Table Storage, I was able to craft a common DataContext that provides crud operations against either EF's DbContext OR Lokad's TableStorageProvider.
I even found a nice way to manage relationships between entities and lazy-load them properly.
The solution is a bit complex and needs more testing. I will blog about it and post the link here when ready.
I wanted to make a web application through which :
user(end user) can create his own
web application online.
which will be integrated with the
databases and application/web
servers
and user can also publish that
application withing that application
only...
Doing some research i come to know it goes under category of PaaS(Platform as a Service)
But i am confuse how can i do that ?
I want to build that application using Java/J2EE.
Can any one explain me from where should i start ?
Or which framework / technology is better to implement it in Java ?
Waiting for your helpful reply....
There are several options as far as choosing a PaaS - each PaaS vendor has its pros and cons, so you need to consider a range of issues:
Language support - Do you want just Java or maybe additional languages/frameworks?
Hosting - Are you going to use a cloud computing provider like Amazon Web Services? Or are you using your own hardware? Or do you want multiple options?
DB support - You mentioned using a central DB. Do you plan on installing/administering this DB yourself, or use a hosted DB service? Do you need the PaaS to support the particular DB you want? Perhaps you need multiple Databases to provide scalability and separation among clients?
There are several good comparisons of PaaS vendors out there. This might be a good place to start: Looking for PaaS providers recommendations
Full disclosure: I work for Cloudify, an Open-Source PaaS provider.
I think while choosing a PaaS you should think of the below points.
It should be easy to deploy, scale and manage
Scaling
Flexible topology
Data safety
No vendor lock in
Open software stack
I suggest you, before going to any big vendor try a new player in town Jelastic. I recently used their services and continue to do so and they are just awesome. Their web UI is best in class and has no drama of API, SDK or downloadable software. Let me know if you use them so that I can also have some feedback before I migrate all our apps to them.
Surya
As far as i understand, you are looking for a solution that Viravis is currenlty implemented.
But believe me it is not an easy task to build that kind of platform. i strongly suggest you to look at some PaaS providers to get involved and build a business relationship to achieve your goal. They are just exists for this purpose. Provide platform for people who just want to develop a single online application or some professional who want to build an SaaS business.
I think it is better to hire the platform rather than build it from scratch (ofcourse if you dont have to...)
A web application consists of language, framework, database and Web-server.
If you want to make a web application in java, you should try GRAILS framework.
Its fast and web development is very easy and you can use java code as it is, in it.
Secondly you can choose database from MySQL, PostgreSQL etc or if you want to use No-SQL dbs, you can choose from MOngoDB, CouchDB etc.
Web-Servers can be tomcat, jetty etc.
After creating you application, you would like to host your application on web, Here PaaS comes to play. It helps you to deploy and host your application on web. So what you have to do is only to focus on your application and then deploy your app on any PaaS providers.
There are many PaaS providers in market, you can choose any.
We're currently using the SSO component of Oracle 10g App Server to authenticate users on our external / internet facing client "portal" (think similar to online banking)
SSO uses Oracle Internet Directory to store it's data, and we've been able to use PL/SQL and Java to access and modify the data held in OID (e.g create/drop users, change/verify passwords etc)
With the advent of 11g, Oracle appears to have "orphaned" SSO… it is available, but only as an add-on, and it appears to have been superseded by Oracle Access Manager. I'm guessing that it will have been dropped together by 12g. Plus it looks pretty difficult to install and get running correctly.
So, I'm wondering if anyone has any experience of having had the same migration problem as us? If so, what did you do?
Alternatively, does anyone have any experience of doing something similar using Oracle Access Manager? Do you think it will do what we want?
Or is there a better road to go down? Is there something else I should be considering?
Sorry for the very broad question, but it's one of those situations where a person's experience of what does + doesn’t work can make an enormous difference to us making some progress in a timely fashion. Thanks.
From my knowledge, Oracle Internet Directory (OID) is an LDAP compliant directory whereas Oracle Access Manager (OAM) is much more complex and consists of two main systems:
Identity System (users, groups,
workflows)
Access System (single/multi domain
SSO solution for Web and non-Web
based applications).
Access Manager relies on an Identity Server which is a stand-alone server process that communicates with any Directory Server (AD, OID, Sun Directory server..).
So you can use the new OAM and link it with your existing OID... to retrieve users/groups and metadata. All that you could do with OID will be doable with OAM as it brings more abstraction layers.
But in my opinion, and considering your case, directly accessing LDAP servers (OID, AD, etc) and using a light and "home made" SSO system is cheaper than relying on those big systems.... I think OAM is a usefull solution when you have lots of heterogeneous applications (web, non web, mobile, ...) and/or multiple organizations/domains with links and/or you need a very scalable approach.