Web2.0 MySQL Admin Tool - Practical?

ARMS (Advanced Resource Management System) is a Web2.0 driven graphical database management suite. (See here)

How does it work?

It is actually a cloud service. There is no shrink-wrap version where you can download and install within your data-center.

Data is all about sensitivity and security.

If my data needs to pass-through an intermediate party before I can view it, forget it.


ARMS PRO looks more promising. 




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Identity Management is No. 1 security priority

Despite the fact that Identity Management has been in the market for quite some time, the implementation has not been completed. Some not even started, especially in this region.

A local bank is in their 4th phase, while the other is just about to start Phase 2.

IAM is the No. 1 security priority for 20% of organizations surveyed, making it the clear leader among the most-important projects.

Read this article from Gartner.


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How to create a private community in LifeRay?

In some business scenarios, there is a need to create a community that is exclusive to members only.

There is a need to plan carefully. Otherwise, there'll be security loop-holes which we found out recently, due to our carelessness.

Public Community

Private Community (There's a "key" in the icon)

A Private Community, when designed properly, disallows any non-authorized person from entering, even to the extend where the URL is keyed in directly on the browser.

How to create a private community securely then?

2 things to take note of:

1. Ensure the Community Type is PRIVATE
2. Ensure only Private Pages are created


Initially, we thought Private type will be secured enough. We were so wrong! :)

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JSRs and Portal

I'm currently on a LifeRay Portal project. We are helping our customer to develop a Sales Commissioning Portal utilizing social-network medium.

Those who develops Portal, especially Java-driven portal, will need to be familiar with a lot of JSRs ( Java Specification Request ).

The more commonly references are:

JSR 168
JSR 286
JSR 170


JSR 286 is an enhancement to JSR 168. Both defines Portlet Specification. There is a good read - a detailed writeup of the differences.


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What exactly is Collaboration?

In my previous post, I quoted:

Collaboration is, in fact, the proper use of SharePoint.

So, what exactly is Collaboration?

This link from Microsoft explains it all.

The following are most commonly used by customers:

1. Real-time presence and communication
2. People and Groups lists
3. Calendars
4. E-mail integration
5. Task coordination
6. Document collaboration
7. Issue Tracking

PS: Personally, I see no point in having Wikis and Blogs. I seldom push these 2 features.

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SharePoint is not a Content Management Server equivalent

CMSWire recently conducted a survey on the adoption of SharePoint 2010. I found it to be a good read. (Read here) 

Many IT managers are very comfortable with Microsoft products. This is a fact.

When the higher management decides to implement a CMS solution company-wide, IT managers will most likely think of SharePoint. This thinking is wrong. Deploying SharePoint solely to use the CMS feature is definitely an overkill. The article shares with us why it is so.

Collaboration is, in fact, the proper use of SharePoint.

Note: I use CMS which is more commonly used in this region, while the article use WCM. 


Inside Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010


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Liferay Portal Hierarchy

We just clinched a deal to develop a social-network-driven Sales Commissioning site using LifeRay Portal.

LifeRay Portal hierarchy is built to be flexible. So flexible that one can be overwhelmed as to how to get started with organizing the users.

A bit of reading up helps...

The concepts Liferay uses to organize a portal:

1. Portals are accessed by Users.

2. Users can be collected into User Groups.

3. Users can belong to Organizations.

4. Organizations can be grouped into hierarchies, such as Home Office -> Regional Office -> Satellite Office.

5. Users, Groups, and Organizations can belong to Communities that have a common interest.

Organizations can be members of Communities, Communities can be members of Roles, Users can be members of anything, and so on.

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Service Availability

In the same ITQ which I posted about yesterday, there is a section on acceptable Service Availability.

Again, the awarding party has done a good job defining what he is looking for:

The Supplier shall ensure during any one month period, hosting services availability shall be 99.5%, excluding scheduled maintenance. Services availability in a month is being calculated as follows in percentage:

Note that scheduled maintenance is excluded. Some customers do not think this should be the case. :)

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Response Time vs Problem Resolution Time

I came across a ITQ (Invitation To Quote) document that highlighted the Problem Management the awarding party is looking for.

In short, it attempted to define clearly the response time and resolution time so that the bidding party can adhere to.

The document even provided a graphical illustration which I think is very useful.

  

The “Response Time” shall be the time between notification of the problem to Supplier’s Helpdesk and the response by the Supplier to the problem.

The “Problem Resolution Time” shall begin upon notification of the problem until the problem is resolved and the defect is restored to a satisfactory working condition.


Very simple, but I do encounter confused customers assuming resolution time to be the response time. Demanding indeed.

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