February 22, 2013

Dear Oracle: Cloud Multitenancy DOES Matter
Meg Bear of Oracle, who manages their Cloud Social Platform, hammered multitenancy in her post “Multitenancy and Other Useless Discussions,” on Oracle’s blog. She says “multitenancy doesn’t matter … in the same way that your VHS player having progressive scan doesn’t matter.” Alok Misra casually responded to the post but the Oracle moderators didn’t approve his response (seems like they only allow their own marketing people to comment on their blogs), so here is his more cogent argument.


Providing XACML Fine Grained Authorization to WebApps
XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language) is a XML schema based policy language used to check the authorization of requests for particular resources in a fine grained manner. To check the authorization of a request, a set of attributes of the request are checked against XACML policies. In order to obtain the authorization for a resource all the various attributes have to be matched. For an example there can be a XACML policy such as: “Only members of the WSO2 Application Server team have read access to this document within WSO2 premises”.


No, it isn't faster to do it yourself
You're feeling overwhelmed. You'd like to get some tasks off your schedule. But you think about the time it would take to train someone else -- who then wouldn't do the task as well as you do, so you'd have to supervise anyway -- and you sigh. "It's faster just to do it myself." Sound familiar? I hope not, because this approach to time amounts to being penny wise but pound foolish.


Security Enhancements in Jelly Bean
Android 4.2, Jelly Bean, introduced quite a few new features, and under the covers it also added a number of security enhancements to ensure a more secure environment for users and developers. This post highlights a few of the security enhancements in Android 4.2 that are especially important for developers to be aware of and understand. Regardless whether you are targeting your app to devices running Jelly Bean or to earlier versions of Android, it's a good idea to validate these areas in order to make your app more secure and robust.


A Smart Card Framework for .NET
This article demonstrates how to use the interoperability features of .NET and use them to write a simple framework to use a Smart Card in your applications. A Smart Card is a small embedded device that receives commands through a card reader using the PC/SC Win32 API. If you want to use this API, you will need a Smart Card reader to use a Smart Card such as a SIM card.


U.K. Public Sector's Top Security Worries
Survey results suggest that most companies do think about the importance of security when partnering with other organizations but aren't doing enough to make it happen. Ninety percent of respondents said information security was an important issue that needs to be clarified when selecting business partners and third parties. The majority (93%) said they regularly exchange information with third parties, and of this data 84% is likely to contain sensitive material.


Going Mobile with C++
Even with the boost in C++ usage, it's important to note that it has positives and negatives in this new computing era. In addition to the aforementioned power advantages, it also delivers superior efficiency without compromising its inherent object-oriented abstraction power. The latest C++ standard, C++11, is simpler and more concise, thanks to features such as smart pointers and lambda expressions.


PCI DSS cloud computing guidelines strike discord among would-be adopters
"Cloud computing is a form of distributed computing that has yet to be standardized," the report states in its executive summary. One expert said the report sets a dark tone from the start. "There is no standard yet, and you're basically led to believe that going to the cloud is fraught with danger," said Chris Steffen, principal technical architect at Kroll Factual Data and a Microsoft MVP on cloud and data center management.


Is Cloud Computing a Threat to Older Tech Companies?
In 2012, the Informational Data Corporation (IDC) made some pretty bold predictions regarding the development of a new high-tech industry in the convergence of social networking, -- cloud-based computing and data storage. The IDC suggested that many industry giants may scramble to maintain relevance, while some startups would gain leadership positions in what some anticipate will be the technology industry's fastest transition ever.


Visa introduces 'Visa Ready' partner programme
The Visa Ready Partner Program is designed to provide innovators a path to ensure that devices, software and solutions used to initiate or accept Visa payments are compatible with Visa's requirements, which may vary by country. It also provides a framework for the collaboration with Visa, as well as guidance and best practices to access the power of the Visa network.



Quote for the day:

"Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed." -- Maria Montessori, Italian physician and educator

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