Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Stolen Bike


When coming back from the US last Sunday I was informed by police that a burglary had had happened at my house. Agony: my mountain bike had been stolen! I'm gutted, especially because I had never expected anything like this to happen in Bern and the bike was not yet 6 months old and lovely!

Here are the details, please look out for it:

Colour: Black/Carbon, Yellow
Model: Scott Genius RC10
Frame Nr: TM34120097

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

ICWS/SCC 2006 Chicago


In Chicago for the IEEE ICWS 2006 Conference: Arnaud and I are presenting a paper on the topic of service contracts. We demonstrate how a "service contract template" can help to express concerns that go beyond WSDL.

Interesting chats with Ali Arsanjani about his work of using rule evaluation to take service authorization decisions based on a client's call context.

Chat with Tony Shan about high-performance messaging.

Talk by William R. Cook about Web Service vs. Distributed Objects.

The team from Newcastle Uni won the SCC06 Service Computing Contest - congratulations!

Chicago ist eine tolle Stadt – so viel Kultur und Abwechslung und schöne Lage am Lake Michigan, der durch seine Grösse wie das Meer wirkt, nur eben Süsswasser.

Am Wasser entlang führt ein 17-mile Walk, viele Radfahrer, Rollerblader, Jogger dort unterwegs. Unser Hotel ist nur zwei Blocks davon entfernt, also waren Arnaud und ich gestern abend dort joggen: schöne Stimmung mit Sonnenuntergang über dem Hochhausmeer, Reflektionen von gleissenden Sonnenabbildern in den Fassaden, rosagefärbte Woken über Lake Michigan. Danach Indisches Restaurant (ausgezeichnet!) und hoch in den 95. Stock des John Hancock Towers. Auf 300m Höhe eine Bar, stockwerkhohe Fenster über die ganze Fassadenbreite verteile. Es eröffnet sich ein überwältigender Blick über die Stadt, in unmittelbarer Nähe weiter Wolkenkratzer (die plötzlich klein erscheinen) und bis zum Horizont zeichnen sich die Planquadrate der Stadt ab, die Hauptverkehrsachsen, man könnte stundenlang gucken und staunen. Auf den Handybildern erscheint das unscharf, aber tatsächlich sieht man feinste Details.

Hotel ist direkt an der Magnificent Mile – sozusagen die Chicago High Street. Hier ist alles was Rang und Namen hat mit einem Signature Shop vertreten. Leider nicht genügend Zeit zum Shoppen: Weil die Konferenz in einem doofen Airport Hotel stattfindet müssen wir täglich 2x1h pendeln!

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Seattle




Ich bin hier bei Savas zu Besuch, einem alten Newcaste-Freund, bevor es dann für eine weitere Woche nach Chicago geht.

Schon ein paar erkundungstouren hinter mir. Ganz hübsch war der pike place market, ein gedeckter markt mit fisch, gemüse, blumen, honig, schmuck, nippes ... ähnlich grainger market in newcastle. Dann weiter über die hillclimb stairs zum hafen. Leider geht entlang der gesamten waterfront ein zweistöckiger expressway über brücken; lärm, gestank, sieht aus wie eine grosse Zahnspange vor der Stadt. Der blick über puget sound dafür sehr schön: in der ferne sieht man mehrere inseln, berge, interessante wolkenbilder. Seattle ist von puget sound und west lake im inland zu einer art sanduhr-form zusammengeschnürt. Sehr gut sieht man das vom Observation Deck der Space Needle auf 200m Höhe. Unglaublich viel wasser rundherum und nationalparks, berge, meer. Gute lebensqualiltät wenn man es sich leisten kann, aber man merkt auch dass man in amerika ist: überall eine verschwendung von energie, schrecklicher verkehr, armut, bettler. Eine strassenüberquerung zu fuss kann zum abenteuer werden.

Als ich dann genug hatte von der stadt bin ich mit der fähre auf bainbridge island gefahren. Nett, provincial, quaint dort. Die überfahrt dauert 40 minuten incl. toller blicke auf die seattle skyline. Drüben ein nettes küstendörfchen mit vielen "antiques stores", seafood, naherholungsgebiet eben.

Savas Freundin Cherie arbeitet als Fitness-Trainerin (und macht nebenbei einen PhD in Comp-Lit). Mit ihr war ich gestern auf einer Thaibo Session und zusammen waren wir ein paar Mal Karaoke-Singen (my world first). Savas wohnt gleich neben der Space Needle, dem wahrzeichen von seattle. In der unmittelbaren Umgebung gibt es einige klasse Restaurants (vor allem seafood, sushi – klar gleich am Meer). Ein anderes Wahrzeichen ist der Microsoft Campus -- Dort war ich am Donnerstag zum Lunch mit Dave, einem ehemaligen Arjuna-Kollegen aus Newcastle. Der Blick in die brodelnden Küchen, wo die nächsten Windows- und Officeversionne hergestellt werden, ist aufschlussreich. Basketballkörbe, Tischtennis, Billard, T-Shirts, schlapprige Hosen trifft man dort an: es geht sehr locker zu.

Zu meinem Geburtstag waren wir dann heute morgen noch in einem Seafood-Restaurant (Salty's) mit Blick auf die Skyline. Buffet: Krebse, Krabben, Austern, Hummer bis zum Abwinken. Highlight: der chocolate fountain sprudelte warme Schokolade aus und man kann seine Erdbeeren, etc. mit einem süssen Überguss versehen -- klasse Geburtstag also.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Ski Tour Turtmann

My ski tour in the Swiss Alps was unfortunately marred by bad weather and high avalanche risk. In the end we had to quit early--the mountain guide didn’t feel it safe to proceed as originally planned to Tracuithütte and Bishorn (which is visible in the distance on the left).

So we were stuck for three days with bad weather in Turtmannhütte and didn't climb a single summit. Pity that, but a week with lots of fun, nice people and a some great skiing nevertheless. I learned some Swiss games and yet more Swiss-german language gems. Also learned how to build an igloo and how to dig in the avalanche transceiver without being able to recover it again.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Gault Millau

Thanks to Thomas Meier I got my initiation to haute cuisine last night. I was invited to Fribourg's best restaurant, Le Perolles, which features with 17/20 points in the Gault Millau. What a difference to the usual daily bite :-). It's hard to describe the sensation of tastes and decorations in words, but anyway, here's the menu I devoured:


* * *

Amuse-bouche

* * *

Carpaccio de lapereau du Pays, sa cuisse en gelée aux légumes oubliés

* * *

Coussinnet de St-Jacques aux endives et noix, crème mousseuse de pleurotes

* * *

Filet de rouget barbet doré sur peau, tagliatelle fraîche au curry, petits légumes et moules

* * *

Tournedos de selle de renne en croustille de céleri, fond réduit au vin rouge

* * *

Chariot de fromages

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Rouleau de printemps aux fruits exotiques

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Brownies à la mousse choco-gingembre, tuile au miel, sorbet oranges sanguines

* * *

Friday, March 17, 2006

New Bike


After looking at full-suspension carbon bikes for a while and having a shortlist (Simplon Stomp, Spezialized Epic, Scott Genius) I eventually stumbled upon a really great offer I could not resist. In Ski and Velo Centre they had a 2005 Scott Genius 10 RC that was marked down considerably from its original retail price because of its previous live as a test bike. The carbon frame tips the scales at a mere 2.1 kg (and that is including the rear suspension). Am really looking forward to riding.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Powder Weekend



Last weekend was full of ski-touring (.. backcountry-skiing -- what's the proper term?). Saturday afternoon it was a quick trip to Laseberg (1910m) close to St. Stephan/Simmental.

On Sunday I decided to follow Christophe & Antonella's suggestion of skiing Gemmenalphorn. Initially, when reaching the Northern shore of Lake Thun, I regretted this decision very much: The warm micro-climate around Beatenbucht means that there wasn't a single flake of snow, but instead spring-like temperatures and palm trees growing happily. Getting off the bus I felt a little inadequate with anorak and ski equipment.

What a surprise then to find 20 cm powder on the top of Niederhorn (1950m) shortly after, accompanied by magificent views across Lake Thun. I made the first tracks down towards Unterburgfeld, then climbed up 500m to Burgfeldstand (2063m) for a final ski run to the little village of Habkern from where a postal service runs to Interlaken.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Sonic Synergy TechDays Cologne

I'm just back from the presentation of Sonic's new product suite (Sonic Workbench 7.0) which took place in Cologne 26/27 January). Here's a summary of what's the new product features and some critical comments (in italics).


Whitepapers


SOA Maturity Model

  • 5-step layered pyramid, similar to CMMI
  • ESB covers levels 2-3
  • Levels 4-5 are addressed through acquisitions:
    • Apama ESP & Dashboard,
    • Actional Looking Glas & SOAPStation.

Architecture/Positioning

ESB vs WS*: How relevant is ESB in the context of maturing WS*-standards?

Sonic Aussagen und meine Kommentare (kursiv):

  • WS* is spaghetti
  • , because of direct WS-endpoint to endpoint communication.
  • WS* RM is not HA: Persistence necessary for WS-RM is only happening at the broker (that implements the WS-RM endpoint). A WS* system is required to provide persistence at every WS-endpoint. This means the system is much more brittle (and not easily HA-capable), because two service endpoints must be online simultaneously for an exchange.
    Hmm …. the WS-RM implementations could do store-and-forward, transparent to the communicating services. It might even be possible to have a transparent message broker in-between, provided by the WS-RM implementation.
  • Event Stream Processing: Since all service traffic (queues) are visible within the ESB mediation is facilitated and can be operated upon. Event Stream Processing. Example Application: fraud detection in credit card transaction processing.
  • Another USP would be the capability of ESB to mediate between different incompatible WS*-Standards
  • Simplified Keystore Management: Since all services/clients communicate via the ESB broker, keystores need only be managed once and not for every consumer/service pair! However, every Sonic service container still needs to have a keystore to communicate with the MQ broker over SSL!
  • Simplified Authentication/authorization: Since auth happens at the broker, it is easier to configure/adjust access rights. Disadvantage: agreement is necessary, which might be difficult in a corporate setting with many different stakeholders[tri1]
  • Dynamic Message Routing/CBR/Itineraries: Dispatching from a virtual endpoint to a target service based e.g. on message criteria, dynamic environment characteristics (load, etc), or according to changed business requirements. This allows “virtual service endpoints” that are dynamically dispatched to actual service instances.
    In WS* this would probably be done via an intermediary “Routing” service.
  • BUT: vendor lock-in because of proprietary wire protocol and non-portable service APIs

Sonic Deployment Model (SDM)

  • Version 1.1 works with Sonic 6.1.1; Version 1.5 for Sonic 7 (Feb 2006)
  • Planned features in later versions:
    • Export of service/process documentation
  • Model-driven Deployment
  • Not free to use!
  • Queue reference file: allows reuse of queue sets in different broker/cluster configurations.
  • Config.properties overrides settings in default.properties (located in SDM-Core directory)
  • cfgFile=Configuration.xml: wie gehabt, um service properties zu setzen. Aber keine default/specific Struktur, um gering abweichende Service Konfigurationen je Deployment-Umgebung zu realisieren. Das ganze File muss jeweils benutzt warden??
  • Access the Container’s Logs: Managed Objects\Containers\ctInc\????
  • Startup is automatical after deployment; manual startup later via “startcontainer /w
  • cleanInstallation ist notwendig, wenn noch keine Sonic Software installiert wurde.
  • updateInstallation am laufenden Container möglich – minimum downtime when deploying new services, settings, etc….

Sonic 7 Features

  • Beta end Feb, available April; Tonight first pre-beta Release
  • No JBI yet
  • Everything except from O-Server will be in pure Java (this includes configuration, etc.). This means support for MacOS.
  • Web Services Support:
    • Sonic 7 supports WS-Policy, WS-Security, WS-Reliable Messaging and WS-Addressing on both on-ramps and off-ramps.
    • Automatic way to expose ESB Services as WS-Endpoints
    • WS-endpoints exposed by SonicMQ, serve up WSDL
    • Is ESB an anachronism in a WS* world where endpoints natively support these standards?. See section “Architecture/Positioning”
  • SOA Suite includes O-Server/C-Server in addition to ESB
  • CAA is still not capable to fail over ESB containers. ESB containers must consist of stateless services and be replicated on both active and backup machines for ESB services to work in a CAA environment.

Sonic 7 Tooling

  • Focus on Tooling, followed later by an update of the backends; in the moment the servers have only minor differences compared to Sonic 6, but better configuration, manageability, faster configuration & service implementation.
  • Unified plugins for Eclipse to do Deployment, Design and Testing: One-button deployment, etc ….
    • JMS Test Client now integrated into Eclipse and capable to produce and consume multipart messages.
    • Graphical Debugging of processes
    • Debugging view of multipart messages
  • Common Look & Feel Graphical Process Editor for Itineraries AND Orchestration Processes
    • However, no migration support ESBP à OServer
    • Need a BIG screen!
    • Still no drag-and-drop reconfiguration of processes!
    • Still no support for multiple successive decision steps
  • Actional provides a unified view across multiple Orchestration Server instances.