Bob Rhubart's Blog

Bob Rhubart's Homepage
The path to Bob Rhubart's career as a writer and editor for BEA Systems' product marketing group spans more than thirty years and winds through stints as a furnace installer, a big-rig truck driver, and a car salesman, and includes more than 15 years working in a violin factory. Bob began freelance writing in his spare time in 1990, and his work -- mostly humor -- appeared in a variety of regional and national publications. His freelance writing led to a job in 1997 as a staff editor at Books.com -- the original online book store and the forerunner of Flashline, Inc. Bob joined Flashline in the fall of 1999, where he applied his writing and editing skills to the development of Web content, sales/marketing materials, and product documentation. Articles he has written for Flashline have appeared in Computerworld, Network World, and other industry publications. Flashline was acquired by BEA in August 2006. So was Bob.

(A new) Home at last

After a very long wait I've finally been able to set up my OTN blog. Still tweaking the layout and widgets, but I'm in business, baby.

While my Arch2Arch blog focused primarily on SOA governance, my OTN blogging will cover broader territory, pretty much anything relevant to IT architecture or of interest to architects. 

More to come...

Now available on OTN: Getting Started: Architects

The new OTN Architect  community pages debuted yesterday, with sections covering:

•  SOA
• SOA Governance
• SOA Integration
• Virtualization
• Enterprise 2.0
• Extreme Transaction Processing

Each of these Architect Centers includes links to relevant blogs, Mix groups, Forum discussions, and articles (many are revised versions of popular Arch2Arch articles). These centers are works-in-progress, and will be expanded and refined based on community input. Your comments and suggestions will define what is presented there, so don't be shy.

Check it out: Getting Started: Architects

What about the Blogs?

The migration of blogs.oracle.com to the new Movable Type platform took longer than expected, and this has delayed the creation of new homes for Dev2Dev and Arch2Arch bloggers.  The situation is frustrating, but I'm told that it's a matter of a couple of days now, so I'm cutting back on the coffee and making sincere effort to not  be too fidgety while I'm waiting for my new blog.

When I get set up you'll be the first know.

Blogging the Oracle Fusion Middleware Strategy Webcast (OTN TechBlog)

OTN Editor-in-Chief  Justin Kestelyn has just posted a synopsis of today's Webcast covering the post-acquisition strategy for BEA products.  Read the entire post: Blogging the Oracle Fusion Middleware Strategy Webcast (OTN TechBlog)

On a related note, updated information about those products is now available, as is the new OTN Architecture Center.

Almost There Part Deux: Not quite

The information in my previous post turns out to have been... optimistic. According to the latest information, BEA bloggers waiting to set up blogs on blogs.oracle.com can do so tomorrow, July 1st.  The new OTN Architect Centers are also set to debut tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Almost There: Moving to blogs.oracle.com

Beginning tomorrow, those Dev2Dev/Arch2Arch bloggers who have not already moved to independent blogs will begin set up new blogs on blogs.oracle.com, myself included.  Most will migrate content from their old blogs to these new homes. Once my new blog is active I'll post the URL and other information here, and I'm sure the others will do the same.

Along with the blog content, the rest of the editorial content from the BEA community sites is undergoing review, revision, and reformatting for republication on OTN. (And with that I've used up my allotment of alliteration.) I've been nose-to-grindstone in that effort as part of a larger project to build the soon-to-debut OTN Architect Center. A selection of articles from the BEA community sites is already available on OTN (see  the What's New section of the  OTN SOA Tech Center).  More will follow, as will brand new content, of course.

Subscribers to the Dev2Dev and Arch2Arch newsletters will soon receive the final BEA editions of those publications. Newsletter subscriptions will automatically transfer to Oracle, and subscribers will be notified by email of how to manage those subscriptions. Later this summer the new Oracle Dev2Dev and Arch2Arch newsletters will be available.

More to come...

The Great Migration continues: New Oracle Blogs

BEA bloggers will be able to set up new Oracle blogs beginning on June 27. I just watched a webcast outlining the features that will be available on the new Movable Type platform, and I'm salivating just a little.

More detail as available.

The heat is on: Dev2Dev/Arch2Arch migration to Oracle Technology Network

Summer's here and the time is right for wrapping up the migration of Dev2Dev/Arch2Arch features and content to the Oracle Technology Network.  There's a lot going on and the work is progressing at an increasingly furious pace...

• As reported here, BEA employees who have been blogging on Dev2Dev/Arch2Arch will begin to set up  new blogs on blogs.oracle. com and migrate content soon. A few have gone the independent route, setting up external blogs. Those bloggers, as well as non-employee bloggers, can add their blogs to the list Oracle-related blogs on the OTN Wiki.
  
• The Dev2Dev Dispatch and Arch2Arch Advisor newsletters will be reincarnated in August as the "Oracle Dev2Dev" and "Oracle Arch2Arch" newsletters. If you're a subscriber to either, you can sit back and crack open a cold one -- you're subscription information will automatically transfer, so you'll continue to receive your newsletters without the risk of getting sunscreen all over your keyboard.
  
  If you're not a subscriber, you can set up a free OTN account and manage subscriptions to these and other Oracle newsletters. See Subscribe to Oracle Newsletters.
  
  A final, combined edition of the BEA versions of the Dev2Dev and Arch2Arch newsletters, with more detail on the transition, will be delivered soon.
  
• A new welcome page and FAQ is available on OTN to help keep the community in the loop. See Welcome, Dev2Dev and Arch2Arch Members . 
  
• In case you missed the ubiquitous mentions elsewhere on D2D/A2A, a special July 1st Webcast,  BEA Welcome and Oracle's Middleware Strategy Briefing, will address  your product roadmap and strategy questions. 
  
• Finally -- for now -- don't forget to join the BEA Developers & Architects group on Oracle Mix. This group will continue to have a direct impact how the combined BEA and Oracle communities evolve. Be a part of it.

More migration news as it develops...

Peering in the Arch2Arch crystal ball

Oracle Technology Network editor-in-chief Justin Kestelyn addresses the future of the Arch2Arch Advisor newsletter in a recent post on his OTN TechBlog:

[W]e have decided to maintain the Arch2Arch community's newsletter, Arch2Arch Advisor going forward in its new incarnation as "Oracle's Arch2Arch Newsletter", under the editor-ship of Bob Rhubart. You can subscribe to this newsletter right now (see "Electronic Subscriptions" section; first edition in August).

Read Justin's entire OTN TechBlog post

BEA / Oracle Product Roadmap Webcast

There is a great deal of interest in the the D2D/A2A community and elsewhere about where and how BEA products will fit into Oracle's strategy. This just-announced Webcast will provide the information everyone is after: 

Join Oracle executives Charles Phillips, President, and Thomas Kurian, Senior Vice President, for an informative briefing that will explore how the addition of BEA products to Oracle Fusion Middleware creates a best-in-class combination, advances a common vision, and reinforces Oracle's middleware strategy.

Register now

Migrating Blog Posts Using Live Writer

If you're a D2D/A2A blogger and you've been using Windows Live Writer to compose and manage your posts, migrating old posts to a new blog can be a heck of a lot easier than, say, removing your own tonsils. This is especially useful if other means of migration are unavailable.

For the uninitiated, Live Writer can be configured to work with multiple blogs on multiple platforms. This allows you to very easily cross-post, that is, publish a single post to multiple blogs. That feature also allows you to quickly and easily move content from your old  blog to its new home.

If you've been using Live Writer, and you have been saving local copies of your posts, it's a simple matter of opening that local copy, selecting the new blog from the Live Writer "Weblog" menu, and then clicking "Publish."

If you haven't saved local copies, or if you are new to Live Writer, the process is only a bit more involved.

I won't go into installing and configuring Live Writer here. You have Google -- you'll figure it out.

Once you have Live Writer installed and set up to work with both your D2D/A2A blog and your new OTN blog, here's how to migrate old posts to a new home.

1. Click the More link in the right sidebar in Live Writer. On the left side of the window that opens you'll see a list of the blogs you've configured Live Writer to work with.
   
2. In that list, click the icon for your D2D/A2A blog. Live Writer will retrieve a list of the posts from that blog. You can use the Show drop-down to limit the number of displayed posts.
   
3. Click on the post you want to migrate. That post opens in the Live Writer editing window.
   
4. Open the Weblog menu at the top of the screen, and select the blog to which you want to migrate the post. The layout and format of the post may change, depending on any differences in layout between the source and destination blogs. That change is automatic, however, so you shouldn't have to do anything.
   
5. At this point, take a moment to review your post. Update and edit as necessary. There's no point in subjecting your new audience to your spelling, grammar, and typing issues.
   
6. Take advantage of the Set publish date function, on the lower right of the Live Writer editing window. While I haven't verified that this will work with all blog platforms, I was able to migrate one of my A2A posts to another blog, inserting it into the new blog at that same date the post was originally published on A2A, basically publishing in the past. It's like a blog time machine.  
   
7. Once you're satisfied with the content, you've verified the correct destination blog, and selected the appropriate publish date, click the Publish button on the upper left. Once the publishing process has completed, your post will now appear in its new home.

Now, a couple of closing points...

Exercise a little editorial judgment in selecting the posts to migrate. Since the process described here has to be repeated for each individual post, why waste time and effort on anything that doesn't offer any real substance or reader value? Those quick, short "great post by whatisname on blah-blah-blah" items aren't worth the effort.

Finally, during the transition, don't abandon your old blog. Use it to make sure your readers know that your blog will be moving, and to remind them of where they can find your new stuff. During the transition you don't want your current readers to stop paying attention. Keep the channel open and active.

Oracle Tweeters - Oracle Wiki

Do you Tweet?  That is, do you use Twitter? If so, and if you're interested in following the conversation among others tweeting about all things Oracle (and beyond), you should check out the Oracle Tweeters page on the Oracle Wiki:

This page is meant to be as complete a list of Oracle-related Tweeters as possible. These are employees, customers, ACEs, people interested in Oracle content and some followers of AppsLab. If you want, join the Oracle Tweeters group over on Mix. Another way to identify yourself as an Oracle-related tweeter is to follow @oracle on Twitter. If you are just getting started, here is a newbie's guide to Twitter.

Oracle Tweeters - Oracle Wiki

Follow that blog!

As part of the transition of Dev2Dev/Arch2Arch resources and assets to the Oracle Technology Network, many of the BEA community blogs you've grown accustomed to reading will pack up and move to new homes. A great many, including that of yours truly, will migrate to new blogs at blogs.oracle.com. Those new Oracle blogs will begin to appear in mid-June. 

Other BEA community bloggers are already creating independently hosted blogs:

• Peter Laird has moved his blog to its new home, Laird onDemand
• Satya Ghattu, now blogs at the eponymous Satya Ghattu's Blog
• Ross Brodbeck gets bloggy with it at the slightly less eponymous hross.net. (Ross also stole the line I was going to use: "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here.")
• Jesper Joergensen now blogulates from Jesper @ Work

If you subscribe to the feeds for these blogs. make sure you edit your feed reader settings accordingly.

More information on the BEA-to-Oracle community transition as available.

I want my Arch2Arch

Given the recent activity surrounding Oracle's acquisition of BEA, I've been embracing change so vigorously that my ribs hurt. But it's all good...

In an April 30th post in his OTN TechBlog, Oracle Technology Network editor-in-chief Justin Kestelyn mentioned plans to integrate the Dev2Dev and Arch2Arch Communities with OTN:

We are already beginning to engage with the BEA teams behind those communities to ensure as smooth an integration as possible. We don't have all the details yet, but rest assured that as we progressively flesh out the roadmap we will communicate the details as we have them.

Some of those details are now emerging, and the news is very good for members of the D2D/A2A communities. One item of particular interest is that Linda Bronson, whose behind-the-scenes management was so essential in maintaining the vibrancy of those BEA communities, will bring her considerable skills to OTN. This is a significant step in insuring that the expertise, insight, and information community members have come to expect from D2D/A2A will continue as the various resources find new homes on OTN.

As we move through this transition, A2A bloggers Mike Stamback, Dain Hansen, Henrik Stahl, and others will  flex their  expertise (SOA Governance, SOA Integration, and JRockit, respectively) in suggesting OTN points of interest to members of the BEA community.

One resource I highly recommend is Oracle Mix. This social networking site for members of the Oracle community allows you to build networks, share ideas, and engage in ongoing discussions on wide variety of topics. I've already set up my my Mix account, as have many of the A2A bloggers mentioned above. We're looking forward to the new level of interaction Mix makes possible between community members. Justin Kestelyn has even started a Mix Group for BEA Developers and Architects. This is a terrific opportunity for you to add your input to shape the emerging community. Set up your free account now, and make sure you add me to your network.

On a personal note, in my new role at Oracle I'll be managing the new OTN Architect community, working with Linda and Justin to make sure you get your regular A2A fix. As the transition proceeds, I'll continue to provide updates through this blog and through Mix.

The A2A adventure continues, so stay tuned...

Security: SOA's Velvet Rope

Part of the SOA Governance @ Work Series

To describe security as an important part of SOA Governance is bit like describing water as an important part of the lives of fish, which is to say, it's an obvious point. Like everything else in SOA governance, security is a multifaceted issue. But SOA security boils down to knowing the answer to one simple question: Who is using your stuff? 

Each service deployed within your SOA represents a significant investment, and significant potential ROI. One of the fundamental goals of SOA governance, of course, is to insure that the use of each service generates the expected return. Key to realizing that return is controlling who has access to those services, and controlling how those who have access actually use those services. In order to do that you want security measures that are more effective than the guy in the photo.

The control of access to services relates directly to the issue of the balance between governance and agility, an issue discussed in this blog and elsewhere.  Agility, of course, is one of the primary objectives of SOA. The ability to mix and match services in response to business requirements is one of SOA's defining characteristics.  But that ability, the freedom to access services and combine them in innovative ways, doesn't require throwing open the doors to the enterprise service portfolio.

In SOA -- as in anything else -- trust is a two-way street. While those who might use a particular service in a development project need assurance that the service will perform as expected, those responsible for creating and maintaining that service in the first place need assurance that the service will be used as intended. Overarching those concerns is the fundamental issue of architectural integrity. The appropriate security measures will insure that who does what with what within the SOA is in direct alignment with architectural guidelines and standards.

By assigning the appropriate privileges to the appropriate users, teams, or roles, administrators can restrict access to services to the right people, providing the assurance that those services will be used in the intended manner, and in line with business objectives.

Access, however, isn't necessarily a binary yes/no issue. Since visibility is such a key issue in maintaining a healthy SOA, security measures must take into account the value of allowing restricted access to certain assets by certain users.

For instance, inadvertent redundant development can be eliminated by restricting a development team to access to a limited spectrum of metadata about a particular service, as opposed to the service itself. Access to that information tells the team that the functionality provided by the service in question is already available, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel. That kind of security can go a long way toward preventing service sprawl and keeping your SOA as limber and agile as a yoga instructor.

For SOA security, the better analogy, perhaps, is the big, intimidating security guy who controls the velvet rope outside a really hip, popular nightclub. His job is to let only the right people into the club. Your SOA security measures must be capable of sorting out who gets to dance with the valuable stuff in your service portfolio.

For a deeper dive into security and SOA, check out the blogs by security experts Dave Garrison and Bill Dettelback.

Also see: BEA AquaLogic Enterprise Security

Previous posts in the SOA Governance@Work series:

• SOA Governance is a Matter of Balance

• Survey Says... SOA Governance is Happening

• The SOA Governance Prescription

• SOA Incentives: Wielding the Carrot and the Stick

• Peeling the Policy Onion

• Policies: The Nuts and Bolts of SOA Governance

• SOA Visibility: Keeping the Wheels On

For information on BEA's SOA Governance solution, visit the SOA Governance Resource Center.

Control Panel Podcast: More SOA Governance Misperceptions

In the second program in the Control Panel podcast series, returning panelists Cathy Lippert, Sharon Fay, and Mike Stamback discuss obstacles to SOA governance adoption and implementation, and what it takes to hit the SOA governance sweet spot.

Listen (mp3)

Subscribe

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(A new) Home at last

Now available on OTN: Getting Started: Architects

Blogging the Oracle Fusion Middleware Strategy Webcast (OTN TechBlog)