Software Testing World

MarkitSERV

2011-06-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

Providing post-trade processing and workflow for OTC derivative transactions across all major asset classes

Website = http://www.markitserv.com/ms-en/home.page?

MarkitSERV, 50:50 owned by Markit and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), was launched in September 2009 with more than 300 employees globally.

MarkitSERV provides a single gateway for over-the-counter (OTC) derivative transaction processing globally. Our solution helps to reduce operational risk, streamline processing, and improve the safety and certainty of the OTC derivatives markets by simplifying and automating trade processing across the major asset classes, including credit, interest rate, equity, FX and commodity derivatives. We assist the industry in meeting challenging regulatory demands in a very dynamic environment.

More than 70 dealers, 50 inter-dealer brokers and 1,700 buy-side institutions are already connected to our service, which handled in excess of eight million confirmations in the last year.

MarkitSERV also connects dealers and their clients to central clearing counterparties (CCPs), trade repositories and third-party administrators.

This unparalleled network of participants and services positions MarkitSERV as the ultimate connection point for anyone participating in the OTC derivatives marketplace.

By Asset Class

The MarkitSERV platform supports all major OTC derivatives products and trade life-cycle events. New coverage is constantly being added to meet the challenging needs of a dynamic market.

Commodities

Credit

Equity

Interest Rates

By Client Type

MarkitSERV provides processing services which connect together all participant types in the OTC markets.

By Services

MarkitSERV fully automates workflow from point of trade, through to managing trade life-cycle events, and feeding downstream systems.

Portfolio Reconciliation

History

MarkitSERV was formed in 2009 by combining the flagship electronic trade confirmation, position reconciliation and related workflow platforms from our parent companies (Markit and DTCC) to provide a single gateway for over-the-counter (OTC) derivative transaction processing globally.

Markit is a leading global financial information services company with more than 1,500 employees. The company provides independent data, valuations and trade processing across all asset classes in order to enhance transparency, reduce risk and improve operational efficiency. Its client base includes the most significant institutional participants in the financial market place.

Markit was founded in 2001 as the first independent source of credit derivative pricing and has rapidly grown both organically and through strategic acquisitions. Today, their data, valuations and trade processing services are regarded as a market standard in the global financial markets.

Clients include hedge funds, asset managers, central banks, regulators, rating agencies and insurance companies. Markit provides round-the-clock support from offices in London, New York, Dallas, Toronto, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Tokyo and Singapore.

For more than 30 years,The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC)’s family of companies has helped automate, centralize, standardize and streamline processes that are critical to the safety and soundness of the capital markets.

DTCC, through its subsidiaries, provides clearing, settlement and information services for equities, corporate and municipal bonds, government and mortgage-backed securities, money market instruments and over-the-counter derivatives. In addition, DTCC is a leading processor of mutual funds and insurance transactions, linking funds and carriers with their distribution networks.

DTCC's depository provides custody and asset servicing for 3.5 million securities issues from the United States and 110 other countries and territories, valued at $28 trillion. In 2008, DTCC settled more than $1.88 quadrillion in securities transactions.

DTCC operates through seven subsidiaries - each of which serves a specific segment and risk profile within the securities industry.

Commodities Example

MarkitSERV for OTC Commodities Derivatives
Manage trade risk for your over-the-counter (OTC) commodities derivatives with an electronic network to exchange trade data, confirm transactions and achieve straight-through processing (STP).

MarkitSERV Services
Whether you are a buyer or seller, the MarkitSERV platform offers several choices to communicate with your counterparties and clearers, and provides a consistent workflow from confirmations to portfolio reconciliation and valuations.

Product coverage
The addition of commodities expands a product suite that already covers a wide range of transaction types including equity derivatives, interest rate derivatives and credit derivatives. Designed by a working group comprised of a diverse cross-section of industry players, the MarkitSERV system currently supports financial transactions based on the following commodities.

Oil and refined products
Natural gas liquids
Coal
Aggriculturals
Freight

Paper
Power*
Natural gas*
Base metals
Precious metals*

*Also supports physical delivery.
Future deliverables, according to working group priorities: allocations, physically-settled options, excess/total return swaps on commodity indices, physically-settled coal and base metals, prime brokerage give-ups.
Product Type Europe N. America Asia
Options
  European-, American- and Asian-style
Strips

Swaps
Shaped notional
Bullets (including strips)

Spreads
Forwards
Oil Coal Agriculturals Base Metals
Crude oil API 2 Canola Aluminium
Benzene API 4 Cocoa Copper
Diesel Newcastle Coffee Iron ore
Fuel oil Richard's Bay Corn Lead
Gas oil Gas Cotton Nickel
Gasoline Europe Ethanol / Biofuels Steel
Heating oil North America Livestock Tin
Jet fuel U.K. Milk Zinc
Methanol Freight Oats Precious Metals
Naptha Time Charter Orange juice Gold
Ultra-low Dry freight Palm oil Platinum
Sulphur diesel Wet freight Rubber Palladium
Natural Gas Liquids Power Soybeans Rhodium
Butane Europe Sugar Silver
EP Mix Scandinavia Sunflower seeds Paper
Ethane U.K. Wheat Containerboard
Isobutane U.S. Wool Newsprint
Natural gas Pulp
Propane Recovered paper
More

Sell side
MarkitWire provides seamless links between you and your buyer to execute trade-date legal confirmations.

Buy side
MarkitWire (FREE to buy side) and Trade Manager are the preferred platforms for trade-date tie-outs, straight-through processing (STP) and electronic confirmation workflows.
Clients who already use MarkitWire to confirm trades in other OTC derivative asset classes will automatically have access to the new commodity products. An ISDA®, EFET, NAESB, EEI or other supported Master Agreement is required to use MarkitWire for commodities.

FX

MarkitSERV for OTC FX Derivatives
Manage your operational risk for over-the-counter (OTC) FX derivatives products by using an electronic network to exchange trade data, confirm transactions and achieve straight-through processing (STP) including connectivity to clearing venues.

MarkitSERV Services
The MarkitSERV platform offers real-time STP connectivity for users, allowing confirmation and clearing of over-the-counter FX derivative deals. Standardised workflows will allow users to connect electronically to a variety of clearing venues and communicate with counterparties. By reducing the number of connections you need to maintain, MarkitSERV will simplify your trade processing environment, saving you money and reducing your operational risk.

Product coverage
The MarkitSERV solution supports:
Options
Forwards
NDFs
MarkitSERV works closely with leading industry participants to expand coverage for frequently traded products. New product and platform enhancements are developed and released in coordination with industry prioritization.

More

Sell side
MarkitSERV provides links between the sell side and their sell-side counterparties, allowing electronic delivery of trade-date legal confirmations and supporting complex workflows such as clearing.

Buy side
MarkitSERV is working with the buy side to consider support for the processing of FX bilateral confirmations and connectivity to FX clearing venues.

Prime Broker example

with the MarkitSERV platform to process over-the-counter (OTC) derivative give-ups for equity, credit and interest rates.

MarkitSERV Services

MarkitSERV is the leading solution for processing derivative give-up trades. Our industry standard platform is the only real-time tri-lateral system linking the executing broker, buy-side client and prime broker electronically to confirm trades on trade date.

MarkitSERV offers key services for prime-brokered OTC derivatives:

standardized electronic notification of give-ups
real-time 3-way communication
customizable eligibility checks
automatically generated back-to-back trades
all major global brokers connected
fully compliant with give-up agreement terms and conditions
support full life-cycle events
electronic confirmation included ― no need for separate legal bi-lateral confirmation

One prime broker solution
MarkitSERV’s rich and user-friendly functionality allows buy-side clients to receive, affirm and confirm trades in one step, communicating directly with executing brokers and prime brokers electronically. Buy-side clients can confirm all their trades in a single screen whether traded directly or given up to one or more prime brokers.

All parties can process trades straight through into risk/trade capture systems, eliminating dual keying and helping to reduce operational risk. Any queries can be dealt with immediately using the real-time chat facility, reducing trade errors to zero. In addition, post affirmation events such as amendments, terminations, option exercises and corporate actions are fully supported, providing the most efficient and flexible operational solutions to manage a dynamic workflow.

Sign up now
Contact MarkitSERV (sales@markitserv.com) to get started. Let us know if you are interested in further information.

Reference documentation
For user guides and onboarding specifications, please refer to the Help and Documentation sites via MarkitSERV product Web sites.

LV

2011-06-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

LV= formerly Liverpool and Victoria.
Friendly society/mutual with savings, investment and insurance
Started 1843

Insurance Products
Car
Home
Pet
Travel
Breakdown Cover
Life Cover

Car Cover

My Top Personal Hates on Testing CVs

2011-06-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

1) Long lists of qualifications - Nearly every job opportunity will be a little more open if you have some form of certification, that is relevant to the job applied for. Thus for a test automation job, if I have to wade through your Prince 2, banking qualifications and pig breeding artificial insemination degree, then I lose the will to live. As a minimum I the candidate appears too lazy or not wanting the job to care to amend the CV. Preferred - tailor the list so only relevant certs are listed. Any additional certifications, put "additional certification details available on request"

2) Apprentice - Over the top statements that might have appear as a soundbite on an Apprentice audition video. E.g. "if the sky is the limit, why are there footsteps on the moon? That is my target". None of these statements can be backed up by any kind of valued judgement or evidence. They just me think "what a *******" Preferred - Leave off the florid language. Use simple language and only assertions that can link to easily linked to factual evidence in the CV.

3) Old and irrelevant employment

4) Easily disproven assertions

5) Unexplained gaps in employment

6) Education missing

7) Too long

8) Hard to find details

9) Essential reason to employ them hard to find

10) Tools

Tester Candidates - CVs I like

2011-06-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

1) Employment history - periods of between one and three years where the candidate has made a commitment to a project or programme.

Conversely, the client or employer has kept them on the same project. CVs with a long list of projects/employers with "(3 months)" indicates to me they will either cut and run or they will have performance issues.

2) Test Knowledge - the candidate displays a knowledge and experience of implementing a range of test methodologies or frameworks. The degree of knowledge/experience required would depend on the role applied for. A test analyst has the basic work package planning and execution experience. A programme test manager should not only initiate a framework, but be able to implement a change of framework/methodology e.g. Waterfall to Agile, across multiple projects.

3) Test Tools - Every tester has used at least one tool, even if only Word to do planning with. I expect them to be able to talk the pros, cons, their experience and ideally how to improve the usage.

On the negative side, people who put every tool under the sun, puts two thoughts in my mind:

a) the candidate has only very light experience of each

b) has not bothered tailoring their CV to the post I am interviewing for.

4) Automation I consider Automation as a subset of Test Tools. Quality Center and QTP are only tools after all.

The candidate should at least demonstrate they will be able to talk some theory about automation. If they are claiming "automation" experience, then this should either be as a test engineer or as a test analyst creating test cases. An engineer should be able to describe how they developed frameworks, particularly at the code level.

5) Qualifications A fairly minor item in my opinion. ISEB / ISTQB Foundation is OK as a badge. However they would not influence the Yes/No decision. The Advanced levels certainly do though. The advanced levels can only be gained if you have substantial hands-on experience and not only classroom theory.

Is Life Waterfall or Agile

2011-05-24T03:13:00.000-07:00

"I think that waterfall is the natural way we do things in our lives and that it is the best big picture approach."

In relation to the assertion above we can spin this out to show the pros & cons of Waterfall/Agile. I agree that we do split and plan our lives in a big picture way. When I was eighteen my phases were university, travelling, jobs in IT or banking, get hitched and have kids. (With partying along the way.) (Pretty much the way it turned out.)

If I had planned my life in Waterfall, my university days would have been done with MS Project in minute detail. Of course, life would have forced change on me, making the plan late and missing its objectives as stated at the start. Instead I took an agile approach, all the time looking at the big picture goals (1) getting a degree 2) enjoying myself.) I suppose in terms of iterations you would have 13 weeks (1 semester). That is what suited me. In project terms this suited me as a fresh eighteen year old.

Of course, others could opt for a more structured waterfall approach. Typically these were mature students, who had to take certain options fit university in with career/family.

When people denigrate Waterfall, it is done from a perception that it means, every requirement to the nth degree is described in mind numbing detail before a single line of code is cut. Similarly when the code moves from development to testing. Conversely, Agile is seen as ad-hoc. Hardly ever can you say a project was fully Agile or fully Waterfall.

In the example above, I had to meet coursework deadlines and exam dates. These elements required structure. Conversely the mature students had enough latitude to deviate from the plan (and have a beer!)

Bank Stress Tests to be Annual?

2011-05-18T05:59:00.001-07:00

The Fed is looking for US banks to undergo annual stress tests. Failing, would allow the Fed to veto dividend payments, according to the FT

Financial Software Testing Update

2011-05-18T05:50:00.001-07:00

European Finance ministers have ruled out permantly banning naked CDS shorting. Leaves a window though for temporary bans. The European Parliament however is pushing for an out right ban.

HP Registration

2011-05-10T01:41:00.000-07:00

Finally managed to register with HP. No idea why it was not accepted first time.

There was one irritant though. On the registration form I selected UK as country. The form was not clever enough to remove the "State" field.

HP Registration

2011-05-10T01:39:00.000-07:00

QTP Annoyance

2011-05-10T00:15:00.001-07:00

Irritating annoyance of the week courtesy of HP. Yesterday I tried to download QTP as an evaluation copy. However that was before the failure of HP to handle my registration.

As usual when registering you have to give your life story. Duly did that and saved. The site happily accepted my user name/email.

Of course when trying to sign-in, the name/email was not recognized. To all intents and purposes I am non-existent.

Sure, there might be a logical explanation. That does not excuse a woeful user experience.

QTP/Quality Center Progress

2011-05-03T01:40:00.000-07:00

Further progress in installing QTP/Quality Center from HP.

Yesterday I downloaded and installed VMWare's Fusion product. This is needed to run Windows programmes on the Mac. I used Windows Vista as I have two unused instances.

The whole process was very smooth, with not too much issue with keys etc. The installation was particularly seamless with installing Windows at the same time as creating a snapshot. The whole process took less than 5 keystrokes. Fusion even handled whether I wanted an installation of Windows isolated from the Mac or one in which files could flow between the two.

My impression is of an application that functionally it does what it says on the tin and no more. Non-functionally, the process showed a lot of effort has gone in to making the user experience as smooth as possible.

VMWare

2011-04-29T01:03:00.000-07:00

Just installed VMWare's Fusion product. Without such a product, I can not load QTP or Quality Center on to my Mac. The next stage is to load Windows into the VMWare. The tools can then be downloaded from HP's site.

Learning QTP and Quality Center

2011-04-29T00:58:00.000-07:00

Rashly I have decided to increase my knowledge of QTP and Quality Center. The increasing use of the tool predicates that I have to, otherwise I will be an outcast. A bit like not learning to drive.

Obstacles to overcome:

It will have to sit on a Mac (which QTP/Quality Center does not support)
Limited knowledge of the tool.
Only 10 days for the trial version

Of course, as an experienced test manager, I know what I want. It is just in the past, someone else has done the nuts and bolts for me.

Testing vs Quality Assurance

2011-04-11T14:13:00.001-07:00

Is QA the same as Testing?
A source of endless debate in between executing test cases. What are they; when; and by whom?

What is Testing?
Testing is activity undertaken to confirm "something" conforms to one or more requirements. Said requirements can be non-functional or functional.

What is Quality Assurance?
QA is the process from which a person can be sure of the rigour with which testing and development activities were undertaken.

Do they need separate roles?
In my humble opinion No.

Prior to the start of testing the Test Manager should be able to clearly show how the testing will be

planned
prepared
executed
reported
completed

Otherwise known as a strategy. Once implemented at a day-to-day level any user should be able to see the progress so far. This view should be based on a scorecard which is clear and transparent.

Of course in the case of life- or safety-critical systems there may be a need for external QA. For instance nuclear power or jet plane navigation systems.

2011-04-11T02:28:00.000-07:00

Test of editing on my iPhone

That worked

Nebtek

2011-04-10T00:34:00.001-07:00

SALT LAKE CITY, April 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Nebtek, Inc. (www.nebtek.com) announced the integration of the Element Technica Handset (www.elementtechnica.com) with Qtake HD 3D.

Recent testing proved that horizontal image translation (also called digital convergence) in Qtake HD 3D was possible via the Technica 3D Hand Controller (THC). Using Element Technica's proprietary protocols for their handsets, engineers from the two companies were able to set horizontal image translation in Qtake HD which will retain that data and play back the convergence information in real time. The data can be exported to post production or embedded in the file on RED cameras.

The data can be exported via microSD or serial data, or in the embedded files from RED cameras.

Title on Twitter?

2011-04-09T23:56:00.001-07:00

Test of what appears on Twitter

2011-04-09T07:58:00.001-07:00

That worked

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Testing

2011-04-09T07:54:00.001-07:00

That worked

AutoTestFlash, Badboy and Big Brother

2009-05-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

AutoTestFlash Record and playback tool for UI tests in Flash applications from Tiago Simoes

Badboy Capture / replay tool with performance and regression features. Most uses are free. Source code available. Vendor is Bradley Software.

Big Brother Command-line link checker for windows and UNIX. Source code available. Binary is available for Linux.

Flash Books

Test Automation Books

Unix Books

Intelligroup Award

2009-05-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

Intelligroup, Inc. has received the 2009 Supply-Chain Technology Management Excellence Award from the Supply-Chain Council (SCC), a global not-for-profit trade association and owner of the Supply-Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model.

Intelligroup's recognition is based on a recent integration solution for a global high-tech company in which Intelligroup seamlessly integrated both in-house and sub-contractor supply information into the supply-chain planning process. This solution delivered an immediate and significant return on investment for the customer, increasing both the performance of the supply chain and the overall business.

"The Intelligroup project provides a great example of integrating shop floor execution between subcontractor and manufacturer with clear mapping to SCOR mega processes in order to gain process and data visibility of the upstream and downstream supply chain," said Dr. Tom Janoshalmi, Chair of the SCC Technical Development Steering Committee.
Winners of the Supply-Chain Excellence Award are selected by Supply-Chain Council's Technical Development Steering Committee. The awards are judged based on the following criteria:

-- Accurate demonstration of the implementation of SCOR model
-- Nature and complexity of the project
-- Ability to objectively demonstrate value
-- Ability to characterize the project and effectively communicate its
significance

"Intelligroup is proud to have our supply chain expertise and value recognized by the Supply Chain Council with this prestigious award," said Hiren Bhatt, Vice President of the Oracle Practice at Intelligroup. "The award reflects the importance we place on listening to the distinct needs of our customers and then leveraging our practice knowledge and the adoption of the SCOR model and methodology to deliver tangible business value."

Supply Chain Books

2009-05-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) , has released research findings from independent analyst firm Nucleus Research comparing application development in the cloud with traditional on premise application development. The results of the research, an in-depth analysis of 17 companies that had developed in both environments, found significant and quantifiable savings in time to development and ongoing support costs with Force.com. Specifically, the research showed that developers found they could deliver applications 4.9 times faster on Force.com than on JAVA or .NET.

"Companies are accelerating their adoption of the cloud for application development," said Marc Benioff, CEO and chairman, salesforce.com. "The benefits of the Force.com platform for enterprise cloud computing are immediate: CIOs get a real-time global infrastructure that enables application development and delivery five times faster at half the cost."

"Our in-depth analysis shows that cloud computing is dramatically changing the cost and time equation for custom application development," said Rebecca Wettemann, vice president, research, Nucleus Research. "Given the rapid time to value, lower cost, and greater ongoing flexibility, Force.com is likely to grow in popularity as an option for custom application development."
"We used the Force.com platform and our expertise from publishing more than 120,000 book titles to develop a system that is transforming our business," said James Stanley, CIO of Author Solutions. "Our Force.com projects came in under budget and ahead of schedule."

Force.com: A Proven Enterprise Cloud Computing Platform for ISVs and CIOs

Force.com is the only proven enterprise platform for building and running business applications in the cloud. Unlike a stack of disparate client/server hardware and software products, Force.com unifies the development and deployment model from the database to the device, allowing developers to easily assemble applications with clicks, components and code, and then instantly deploy them on salesforce.com's trusted global infrastructure.

The Force.com platform powers the Salesforce CRM applications, more than 750 ISV partner applications like those from CODA and Fujitsu, and more than 110,000 custom applications used by salesforce.com's 55,400 customers such as Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE and Sprint Nextel.

Research Methodology

Nucleus Research conducted an analysis of 17 Force.com projects and found significant savings in time to development and ongoing support costs. In selecting the companies analyzed, Nucleus only included companies that could accurately compare development times in both Force.com and JAVA or .NET environments. In its interviews with developers, Nucleus discussed the details of the projects as well as developers' estimates of the time, in terms of total developer hours and total time from selection to deployment, each project would take to develop in Force.com versus a JAVA or .NET environment. The analysis included:
-- Companies that had moved existing applications to Force.com
-- Companies that had evaluated both traditional (JAVA and .NET)
development environments and Force.com and selected Force.com
-- Systems integrators that had worked with customers who selected
Force.com
-- ISVs that had evaluated traditional development environments and
selected Force.com

Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing

Tableau Software for StrategicOne

2009-05-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Tableau Software (http://www.tableausoftware.com/), has announced that StrategicOne implemented Tableau to provide client-facing business dashboards and customer relationship management (CRM) analytics. StrategicOne is a proven leader in CRM analytics and serves clients including The Salvation Army, American Red Cross, Focus on the Family, Hallmark, Payless ShoeSource and Coca-Cola. A free seminar titled "Implementing Effective and Affordable BI" (http://www.tableausoftware.com/strategicone) will take place Thursday May 7 in Overland Park, Kan. to showcase how StrategicOne leveraged best practices in data visualization and rapid BI deployment to provide better results for clients.

CRM Books

Radcom in Asia Sale

2009-03-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

RADCOM today announced that one of Asia's top cellular services operators will be offering its corporate clients RADCOM's QLocate LBS (location-based system) application for localized promotional purposes.

This cellular services operator bought RADCOM's Omni-Q service assurance solution, a comprehensive, next-generation network testing, monitoring and performance quality management system, to monitor its UMTS cellular network end-to-end. It has now purchased RADCOM's new QLocate application.

QLocate is an add-on application to RADCOM's Omni-Q that offers a direct communications channel of localized messaging, thus providing the operator's corporate customers with a valuable business advantage and proving the operator's commitment to superior service. QLocate delivers precise user location information to the operator. This information can then be used to send welcome messages to both GSM and UMTS subscribers roaming in individually targeted locations, such as particular buildings or specific commercial areas.

"We are thrilled with the possibilities that QLocate opens up to the business world, and this operator's rapid adoption of Omni-Q's new application is very gratifying, and proves their satisfaction and confidence in RADCOM's products," said Eyal Harrari, RADCOM's VP Products and Marketing. "QLocate enhances the solution's offering, providing unprecedented opportunities to shape a new business model and leverages our award-winning monitoring system in a way that promotes customer satisfaction more than ever."

Mobile Communications Books

Localization Books

Telecommunications Books

ITIL Books

2009-03-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

More books on ITIL

Japanese ITIL Exam

2009-03-19T16:11:00.000-07:00

EXIN, the Examination Institute for Information Science, is to take part in the ITIL(R) V3 Qualification Scheme as the first Japanese Manager's Bridge exams enter the pilot phase in March 2009. This pilot will be the next step in a year-long project to translate the core ITIL(R) V3 examinations into the Japanese language. For the translation of the ITIL(R) V3 Foundation, Foundation Bridge and the Manager's Bridge exam in Japanese, EXIN has enlisted its network of EXIN Experts to contribute to a quality translation of the examinations. The ITIL(R) V3 Manager's Bridge exam is available for candidates who are already certified for ITIL(R) Service Manager or for candidates who have earned at least 12 credits based on Practitioner certificates.

Pilot testing
In a partnership with The APM Group that began in February 2008 with the production of the translations for ITIL(R) V3 Foundation and Foundation Bridge, EXIN Japan has recently completed the translations for the ITIL(R) V3 Manager's Bridge examination questions, based on the Japanese version 3 glossary. After the review of the exams by external experts who are members of the Japanese EXIN QA Panel, the exams will now be made available to the Accredited Examination Institutes. The APM Group, as the official owner of the new exams, will officially approve the exam material after a pilot period. These pilot sessions are scheduled to begin by the end of March 2009.

Connex 30 Passes ISO

2009-03-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

Advanced Control Systems, Inc. (ACS), announced that its Connex 30 substation manager has successfully passed the ISO New England DNP3 conformance testing, which includes DNP3 2009 Level 4 functionality. The Connex 30 meets all of the Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) specification requirements as a replacement for the obsolete Remote Intelligent Gateways (RIG) currently in use by ISO-NE market participants.

The specifications define the requirements for communication between the ISO New England Communications Front End (CFE) System servers and the RTUs owned by market participants. The existing proprietary RIG infrastructure used by ISO-NE is being replaced with a DNP3-based CFE and RTU system. ISO-NE tested the ACS Connex 30 using the actual configuration with market and reliability data from a current market participant. The tests fully demonstrate the Connex 30's ability to provide secure and reliable data transfer between the systems.

ACS' Connex 30 solution includes all of the core RIG functionality currently in use, so market participants can be assured of a smooth and seamless transition from their legacy devices. More importantly, the Connex 30 provides users with several advantages over competing RIG replacement solutions:

- This critical application demands a field-proven solution. The
Connex 30 has an impeccable reliability record, with over 400
installed units to date.

- The Connex 30 is a network-enabled, high-performance data management
platform that can be deployed as an intelligent electronic device
(IED) gateway, protocol translator and conventional RTU.

- The integrated Human-Machine Interface (HMI) module provides users
with graphical monitoring capabilities that go well beyond a simple
anunciator panel.

- The Connex 30 offers fully-compliant DNP3 2009 Level 4 functionality
(available in selected configurations).

- With 34 years of experience as an RTU manufacturer and innovator,
ACS can provide a turn-key solution for ISO-NE market participants,
providing installation, configuration, point-to-point testing and
support services - all from a single vendor.

The modular and flexible Connex 30 platform is also an extremely cost-effective retrofit option for legacy RTUs. This means that ISO-NE market participants can utilize the same Connex 30 RIG replacement platform as an upgrade kit for many aging RTU models.

ISO Books

Hansoft 5.3 to be Launched at GDC

2009-03-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

Hansoft, launch Hansoft 5.3 during GDC in San Francisco next week. Hansoft 5.3 contains a number of improvements. One of the most significant is the asset pipeline tool.

"We have had in-depth discussions with studios for quite some time on how to take the heavy manual work out of managing asset pipelines. Many teams are also experiencing that it's hard to combine an agile process like scrum with the linear nature of asset creation. This became a large and very exiting research project on our side and we are now releasing Hansoft 5.3 where art pipelines can be created in parallel with sign-off workflows to make asset creation more lean," said Hans Andersson, Development Director at Hansoft.

Developers in over 20 countries are using Hansoft for collaborative scheduling, agile, bug tracking and workload coordination. Hansoft is also used on multi site projects, to keep close contacts and daily discussions between teams, even though the geographical distance may be large.

"Every day we get large amounts of great feedback from clients that we use to continuously make improvements of Hansoft. Some updates are small but significant for the everyday user experience and some are large. Like the new report generator. That was originally based on feedback from QA managers that wanted the reporting in the bug database part of Hansoft to be more powerful," said Hans Andersson.

Amazon Test

2009-03-18T03:31:00.001-07:00

Project Management and Games Development Books

2009-03-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

Games Development Software

Project Management Books

Projects

Service Management

2009-03-12T16:15:00.000-07:00

Service Management- -A set capabilities hat are a) specialized and b) organizational that provide value to customers in the form of services.

ITIL Organisations

2009-03-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

ITIL Intformation Technology Infrastructure Library

CCTA Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency

OGC Office of Government Commerce

Office of Government Commerce Government office that promotes best practice including IT Service Management. Ultimately owner of ITIL

itSMF IT Service Management Forum

IT Service Management Forum Not-fo-profit organization for the support of development of IT Service Management. The group is international and has national chapters.

APM Group Company contracted to manage ITIL rights, ITIL certification exams and training organization accreditation.

AutoMate and Automation Anywhere

2009-03-12T00:20:00.000-07:00

AutoMate Platform for automation testing by simulating GUI activity via a browser. Supported features include HTTPS, Excel, event database and native terminal emulation. Does not need script as tests written with drag and drop interface. Vendor is Network Automation

Automation Anywhere Web automation tool offering over 180 different actions. Uses SMART Automation Technology. Supposedly works with any websites including those with Java, Javascript, Ajax and Iframes. Scripting is via a point and click editor. Link checking is available. Remote deployment enables tasks to be automated acrossu multiple machines on a network. The capture/playback can take into account website changes. Vendor is Tethys Solutions

EXFO Oscilloscopes for 40G and 100G Optical Networks

2009-03-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:EXFO) (NASDAQ:TSX:) (NASDAQ:EXF) announced today the launch of the industry's fastest optical sampling oscilloscopes for existing and next-generation 40G and 100G optical networks.

These high-end test solutions, which can characterize optical networks reaching transmission rates up to 640 Gbit/s in the lab, are now fully brought to market under the EXFO banner, following the recent acquisition of Swedish-based PicoSolve, Inc. They have been integrated into EXFO's optical test offering, which boasts the largest market share, as recently confirmed by Frost & Sullivan. These oscilloscopes can also be combined with EXFO's growing 40G product offering to provide customers with a comprehensive, multilayer test solution for their high-speed, next-generation networks.

The PSO-101 is a single-channel oscilloscope that enables eye-diagram analysis and pattern visualization within existing high-speed optical networks. The quality of its design has been recognized by the renowned R&D Magazine, as it was selected among the top 100 R&D products for 2008.

The PSO-102 is a dual- or quad-channel version of the previous model, and is purpose-built for next-generation networks with advanced modulation schemes. These schemes, in which data is encoded in both phase and amplitude of the optical carrier, allow network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) to reach ultra-high network speeds such as 40G and 100G using existing dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) channel spacing, while maintaining resilience to chromatic and
polarization dispersion phenomena.

New software features and options for compliance testing of optical transceivers, including mask-hit analysis (40G masks with user-defined margins) and data filtering (simulation of any type of receiver filter), have also been added to the capabilities of the PSO-100 oscilloscopes.

The PSO-100 series is the only bit rate-independent test solution on the market that can measure such phase- and amplitude-modulated signals with a measurement bandwidth of more than 500 GHz, yielding a sub-picosecond temporal resolution.

The PSO-102 dual-channel optical sampling oscilloscope and the new software features will be showcased at OFC/NFOEC 2009, booth # 1035, from March 24-26, 2009, in San Diego.

"High-speed, next-generation networks involve higher transmission rates, advanced modulation schemes and multiple tests that pose serious quality-of-service issues for customers. EXFO now provides the only solution on the market that can handle all of these challenges with a single, dedicated test instrument," said Etienne Gagnon, EXFO's Vice-President of Product Development and Marketing. "The end result is that we're meeting customers' evolving needs with the fastest optical sampling oscilloscopes in the industry, which we believe will help further expand our global market leadership in optical testing. EXFO offers a very rich product portfolio - namely comprising optical spectrum analyzers, OTN and Ethernet BER analyzers, distributed PMD analyzers and chromatic dispersion analyzers - for all system vendors and network operators that are deeply engaged in the design and deployment of very-high-speed networking."

Fanfare and Agilent Technologies to Integrate Tests

2009-03-10T15:44:00.000-07:00

Fanfare is partnering with Agilent Technologies (NYSE:A) to offer joint customers the ability to integrate their test assets and automate complex system testing. Fanfare's test automation solution, iTest(R) will be more tightly integrated with Agilent's N2X multi-services test solution, accelerating the configuration and automation of test scenarios.

The Agilent N2X is widely used by NEMs and SPs to validate the performance and scalability characteristics of next-generation network equipment, and is designed to test IP-forwarding devices that deliver video, VoIP, data services and business VPNs. It is used in out-of-service lab environments to test at real-world scale with realistic traffic, ensuring quality of multiplay services. The N2X addresses the test challenges that multiplay services impose across the IP/MPLS core, carrier edge and broadband access networks.

Fanfare's iTest orchestrates system testing by executing simultaneous commands to a multitude of different devices in a network to simulate real-world network testing. This enhances the quality of services that SPs offer, reduces time to market, and improves productivity across the entire service development and product development life cycle. Integrating Agilent's N2X with iTest will ease the process of automating test assets for existing and prospective SP customers, providing a comprehensive solution for their system testing needs.

"Our customers have been telling us that they want to use Fanfare's iTest to automate the Agilent N2X in their labs to ultimately get the best of both worlds," said Toni Piwonka-Corle, general manager of Agilent's Data Networks Operation. "We're pleased to announce that the current version of Fanfare's iTest supports the latest Agilent N2X software release, and that we will continue the integration of our two products to boost our customers' productivity."

"In today's uncertain economic conditions, productivity-enhancement tools such as iTest can play a critical role in helping carriers maintain their competitive edge," said Tom Ryan, president and CEO of Fanfare. "Fanfare will continue to work with leading companies like Agilent to meet the market demand for integration between test equipment and test automation software, contributing to overall improvements in the quality chain."

EXFO Releases Characterization Test Tool

2009-03-09T16:12:00.000-07:00

EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:EXFO) (NASDAQ:TSX:) (NASDAQ:EXF) has released the FTB-7300E PON-Optimized OTDR for characterization of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks and live-fiber troubleshooting.

Given that network operators are increasingly passing fiber inside multiple dwelling units (MDUs) amid their FTTH deployment initiatives, they are faced with new challenges like testing shorter fiber sections with multiple connections (connectors or splices) containing single or double-stage splitters.

EXFO's FTB-7300E FTTx OTDR, based on its high dynamic range and high resolution at low pulses, can generate a sharp trace within 15 second for end-to-end characterization of an optical link, even testing through a 1x64 splitter. As a result, it is the tool of choice for network operators in their concomitant efforts to provide end-users with quality of service (QoS) while reducing operating expenses.

The PON-optimized OTDR also features a power meter option and live port testing (1625 nm or 1650 nm, out of band) that enables field technicians to troubleshoot a live passive optical network (PON) without interfering with other signals at 1310, 1490 and 1550 nm.

The FTB-7300E FTTx OTDR, hosted inside the FTB-500 Platform, FTB-400 Universal Test System or FTB-200 Compact Platform, will be showcased at OFC/NFOEC 2009, booth # 1035, from March 24-26, 2009, in San Diego.

"Over the years, EXFO has worked with most of the leading network operators around the world, supporting their FTTH initiatives with best-of-class test solutions," said Etienne Gagnon, EXFO's Vice-President of Product Management and Marketing. "During the course of these working relationships, we have developed an industry-leading expertise that we're delighted to pass on in the form of our PON-optimized OTDR, which is ideally suited for the deployment and troubleshooting of new FTTH networks."

EXFO Launches Mobile Test Platform

2009-03-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. has launch the portable FTB-500 test platform for high-end installation and maintenance applications on optical networks.

This PC-based, Windows-XP-driven platform, the end-result of more than 10 years of market-driven innovation, has been conceived by EXFO's test experts for network experts. Such a meeting of the minds has produced a modular platform design that's unmatched in terms of performance, flexibility and scalability.

The FTB-500 platform truly offers unlimited capabilities for characterizing next-generation, high-speed networks. Network professionals can easily mix and match up to eight test modules from EXFO's rich product portfolio, extending from market-leading optical test modules to highly innovative transport and datacom test solutions.

For example, the newly released FTB-5240SP Optical Spectrum Analyzer can be combined with the FTB-8140 40G Transport Blazer inside the FTB-500 platform to create a unique ROADM/POTS/40G test solution that's tailored to the needs of network operators deploying next-generation systems.

The FTB-500 platform also supports highly advanced test applications, allowing network professionals to carry out targeted fiber plant upgrades and cost-effective deployments of high-bandwidth transmission systems. It even has been future-proofed to host upcoming 100G field-test modules.

On top of these characteristics, EXFO's leading-edge platform addresses real-life test conditions in the field. Its 12.1-inch LCD transflective screen - the largest in the industry - renders the task of analyzing data on-site much easier in sunny or inclement weather. Information can also be transmitted via integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or mobile telephone technology for future analysis.

The FTB-500 test platform is purpose-built for network operators with central office and field-testing challenges or network equipment manufacturers with R&D and system installation activities.

"EXFO pioneered the concept of a modular platform design more than a decade ago and we remain well ahead of the curve with our FTB-500 platform and comprehensive suite of test modules," said Etienne Gagnon, EXFO's Vice-President of Product Management and Marketing. "These multi-layer, plug-and-play modules fully characterize next-generation, high-speed networks, including DWDM, OTDR, and 43G SONET/SDH and OTN testing. The performance and flexibility of our new flagship platform, combined with the depth and breadth of our product portfolio, produces a game-changing solution that's bound only by the network expert's imagination."

This third-generation platform is backwards-compatible with an established base of more than 30,000 existing "FTB" test modules and will support any new module released in the future for optical, transport and datacom testing. The FTB-500's open architecture also allows a wide range of customized or standard software applications and a variety of hardware upgrades, enabling this leading test solution to evolve with customer requirements.

EXFO and its Applications

2009-03-03T16:21:00.000-08:00

EXFO Provider of test and service assurance solutions for network service providers and equipment manufacturers in the global telecommunications industry.

FTB-500 Platform purpose-built for network operators with central office and field-testing challenges or network equipment manufacturers with R&D and system installation activities. Vendor is EXFO Optical Engineering

FTB-7300E PON-Optimized OTDR Application for characterization of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks and live-fiber troubleshooting. Vendor is EXFO Optical Engineering. Features a power meter option and live port testing (1625 nm or 1650 nm, out of band) that enables field technicians to troubleshoot a live passive optical network (PON) without interfering with other signals at 1310, 1490 and 1550 nm.

Core180 Selects Spirent

2009-03-03T16:17:00.000-08:00

Core180 has selected Spirent to support its platform which provides managed last-mile access services to large network operators. Core180, a leading network integration company in North America, will use Spirent REACT(R) Test Management Operations Support System (OSS) to reduce operating costs, improve network reliability and boost customer satisfaction.

With Spirent REACT, Core180 can now streamline DS1 and DS3 testing and conduct remote testing on a single platform. The network integrator will also take advantage of Spirent's training and administrative service program in an effort to best utilize the service assurance solution.

"Our ability to leverage REACT and its capabilities have enhanced our service offerings and customer experience," said Robert Burris, sr. vice president of engineering at Core180. "We look forward to working closely with Spirent to best address our growing needs over time."

Spirent REACT supports technologies such as analog special services, DS1/E1/DS3/E3, high-speed DSL and optical SONET networks in the world's largest and most complex data and voice networks. It provides an integrated service view with the ability to automate complex test strategies through expert dialogs, enabling providers to mainstream complex services. REACT's multiple software modules and distributed architecture provide the basis for scalable solutions integrating visibility across technology layers, vendors and networks.

"We're excited to work closely with Core180 as it continuously seeks to deliver the most reliable telecom services to large enterprises, system integrators and government agencies as well as facility and non-facility based carriers," said John Cunningham, vice president of service assurance at Spirent Communications. "Spirent looks forward to not only serving Core180's testing needs today but providing scalable solutions that meet the company's future requirements."

Shunra Software CODiE Finalist

2009-03-02T16:06:00.000-08:00

Shunra Software a provider of network emulation and application development testing solutions, has been selected as a Finalist in the Software & Information Industry Association's 24th Annual CODiE Awards for Best Software Testing Solution.

The CODiE Awards celebrate outstanding achievement and vision in the software, digital information, and education technology industries. Selected from over 850 nominations, and reviewed by third party industry expert judges, Shunra Virtual Enterprise is among a select group of products that represent the best technology and business excellence solutions on the market today. Nominees in the Best Software Testing Solution category were judged on qualities such as ease of use, diagnostic capabilities, efficiencies, compliance and fulfillment. Shunra Software demonstrated excellence in these areas, underscoring the value its solutions provide to customers.

"We are proud to have been selected as a finalist in this prestigious award competition," said Matt Reid, VP worldwide marketing, Shunra Software. "This is a testament to the fact that Shunra technologies address critical business needs and dramatically reduce IT costs, which are imperative given today's global economy. Shunra offers the software testing and performance market products that not only give the highest level of accuracy in WAN simulation, but also provide the most comprehensive and easy to use analysis and reporting tools available today."

ITIL and ITSM Glossary - F

2009-03-02T14:42:00.000-08:00

FTA Fault Tree Analysis

ITIL and ITSM Glossary - E

2009-03-02T14:35:00.000-08:00

ECAB Emergency Change Advisory Board

ELS Early Life Support

ITIL and ITSM Glossary - D

2009-03-02T14:31:00.000-08:00

DIKW Data Information Knowledge Wisdom

DML Definitive Media Library

ITIL and ITSM Glossary

2009-03-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

CAB Change Advisory Board

CCM Component Capacity Management

CFIA Component Failure Impact Analysis

CI Configuration Item

CMDB Configuration Management Database

CMIS Configuration Management Information System

CMS Configuration Management System

CS Change Schedule

CSF Critical Success Factor

CSI Continual Service Improvement

CSP Core Service Package

ITIL and ITSM Acronyms

2009-02-28T15:49:00.000-08:00

AMIS
Availability Management Information System

APMG
APM Group

BCM
Business Continuity Management

BCP
Business Continuity Plan

BCS
British Computer Society

BIA
Business Impact Analysis

BPO
Business Processing Outsourcing

BU
Business Unit

Equiduct Completes Functional and Performance Testing

2009-02-28T15:12:00.000-08:00

Equiduct and Allied Testing announce today the successful completion of functional and performance testing of the Equiduct trading platform designed for the pan-European market. The launch of trading services is scheduled for the first quarter of 2009.

The suite of state-of-the-art tools for functional and performance testing developed by Equiduct Systems in cooperation with Allied Testing, a leading specialist QA and testing firm, has allowed verification of system and business requirements; including Equiduct's HybridBook and PartnerEx trading segments, processing and consolidation of pan-European reference market data, FIX 4.4 interfaces for trading and market data dissemination and clearing connectivity.

The Equiduct platform passed through multiple cycles of rigorous verification and has been deployed into the production environment. Given the complexity of the system under test, extensive test coverage could only be achieved by developing a sophisticated automated testing framework, which Equiduct achieved with the support of Allied Testing. In combination with well-defined standards in QA and testing this has allowed comprehensive testing of the Equiduct trading platform and a high degree of confidence in the correctness of the system.

"Equiduct's unique PartnerEx model, which guarantees pan-European best execution, in combination with HybridBook and OrangeVBBO offers unique opportunities to trading participants. The correctness of the platform must be guaranteed, and Allied Testing worked as an extension of Equiduct's in-house team to ensure that comprehensive testing was achieved," says Rob Brouwer, CIO, Equiduct.

"The effort invested into checking the system's functionality and performance with the help of the comprehensive test harness has allowed us to prove that Equiduct's HybridBook and PartnerEx, thanks to its low latency and high capacity, is ideal for satisfying the demands of the modern European trading landscape," says Iosif Itkin, Head of Performance Testing and Optimization Research Department at Allied Testing.

The Equiduct (www.equiduct.com) platform operated by Borse Berlin (a regulated market operator) is due to be launched as a pan-European market offering, thus allowing investment firms to quickly and cost-effectively meet their MiFID obligations and to provide the order-by-order best execution to their clients.

ITIL Service Desk

2009-02-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

Service Desk
Single point of contact for users in need of help. The aim is to reduce time spent on ways to resolve issues and help.

"All service desks: Incident Classification, Incident Prioritisation, Incident Escalation Search for Work Around, Update the customer and IT group on progress Perform communication activities for the other ITIL processes (e.g. Release notifications, change schedules, SLM reports) ,Perform daily CMDB verification Report to Management, Process Managers and customers (through SLM) on Service Desk performance "

Call Centre
Type of ITIL service desk that only dispatches calls and no other activities.

Unskilled Service Desk
Desk that despatches calls, tracks incidents and provides a feedback mechanism to users.

Skilled Service Desk
Desk at which a large number of incidents are solved at the point of contact with the users.

Expert Service Desk
Highest level of ITIL service desk that partly incorporates Incident Management and Problem Management. Solves most incidents.

Global Up Time

2009-02-26T15:30:00.000-08:00

Global Up Time
Web monitoring service. Focuses on HTTP and HTTPS reading, Frequency, alerts and reporting are all configurable. Has a false alarm prevention mechanism. Business transactions, servers, network appliances and ports can all be monitored. Vendor is Global Web Monitor.

Presidential Helicoptor Completes Vibration Testing

2009-02-26T15:06:00.000-08:00

The first Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) production VH-71 Presidential Helicopter has completed initial ground vibration testing on schedule at the end of January at the Navy's Presidential Helicopter Support Facility in Patuxent River, MD. The testing was conducted on a pre-missionized aircraft to test the basic airframe.

Pilot Production One (PP-1) spent roughly six weeks undergoing a series of tests intended to assess the airframe's vibration characteristics. As a production representative aircraft, the results will be used as a baseline measurement for all five VH-71 production helicopters that make up the first phase, or Increment One, of the VH-71 Presidential Helicopter Program, and to refine models used for structural analysis.

"Basically we lift the aircraft off the ground and vibrate it," said Naval Air Systems Engineer Bob Riser. "An accelerometer measures vibration and we see how the aircraft responds. In this case, it responded very well, and the PP-1 aircraft completed the initial Ground Vibration Test with no issues."

The aircraft was then flown to Lockheed Martin's Owego, NY, facility for integration of mission systems and installation of the cabin interior. PP-1 will undergo a second ground vibration testing period as a fully missionized aircraft to validate modeling results.

Lockheed Martin Systems Integration-Owego is the prime contractor and systems integrator for the VH-71 program with overall responsibility for the program and aircraft system. AgustaWestland, the principal subcontractor, has responsibility for the basic air vehicle design, production build, and basic air vehicle support functions. Lockheed Martin and AgustaWestland have partnered for more than 17 years with a worldwide record of excellence dating back to the Royal Navy's EH101 Merlin Mk1 program.

MoSys

2009-02-26T14:40:00.000-08:00

MoSys, Inc., a Silicon Valley provider of high-density system-on-chip (SoC) memory intellectual property (IP), has selected Adventests's T5781 Engineering Station (T5781ES), for design and debug of its next generation embedded memory technologies. MoSys' products incorporate its patented technologies -- 1T-SRAM (based on a dynamic bit cell, which uses a single transistor and capacitor and achieves a considerable size advantage) and 1T-FLASH IP (a cost-effective, higher-performance alternative to conventional embedded non-volatile memory) -- which are widely used in advanced SoCs found in mobile devices, home entertainment, networking and storage applications. MoSys selected Advantest's T5781ES for its compact size, its unique FutureSuite(R) software tools and its ability to characterize new device technologies at speeds up to 500MHz.

The T5781ES is the laboratory complement to Advantest's T5781 high-speed, high-throughput memory test system for Flash and MCPs, devices which combine multiple memory types -- such as NAND, NOR and DRAM -- in a single package. The T5781ES integrates all of the functions and performance of the T5781 into a very compact footprint that offers low cost test program development and device evaluation and analysis. The system's FutureSuite software maximizes the functionality and engineering tools of the per-site architecture, delivering multi-language program development and device evaluation and analysis from design through production.

"The adoption of Advantest's T5781ES will enable MoSys to greatly enhance our test and characterization capability for our high-speed memory IP, allowing us to provide our customers with the extremely high performance and high quality memory IP that they require to ensure the success of their SoCs. Advantest's reputation for cost-effective, quality test capabilities precedes it, and we are confident that the selection of the T5781ES will enable MoSys to continue to offer its global customers products that are both industry-leading and highly reliable," commented Hem Hingarh, VP of Engineering of MoSys, Inc. "Furthermore, FutureSuite's powerful device characterization tools will allow MoSys to evaluate and examine deep engineering aspects of our newest technologies and improve our time to market," he continued.

"We are very proud that MoSys has chosen Advantest to serve as a test partner to their next-generation technology," said Greg Self, executive vice president at Advantest America, Inc. "We are excited for the opportunity to work with this esteemed company and to provide them with the benchmark testing capabilities and time to market advantages that will help them drive their business forward."

Web-related tools

2009-02-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

A1 Website Analyzer
Microsys produced tool for analysing websites and checking links. Response times, HTML and validation, track file sizes, optimize internal page link and search engine rankings.
Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner
Security testing application based on crawling web sites. It selects servers from a particular IP or IP range. The site is crawled accumulating information about every file and displaying the site structure. An automatic audit is performed covering common security issues. Technologies such as CGI, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET are tested for vulnerabilities. Areas covered are cross-site scripting, CRLF injection, code execution, directory traversal. MSIE and Windows required.
AppMonitor
Monitoring service based on a transactional aplication. The software creates web transaction simulations. Customer logins, purchase orde fulfillment can be conducteed up to every five minutes for application availability and performance. Vendor is Webmetrics. Full-page download of all page objects, breakdown of DNS, first byte and transfer times at various baud rates, alerting, performance reporting and benchmark comparisons are all included in the service.
AppScan
Rational/IBM suite which automates web application security testing. Outputs include defect analysis and recommending remedying security flaws. Audiors and compliance officers can use the application to validate compliance with security requirements.
Atomic Watch
Web monitoring software. The application executes tests as a background process when installed on a server. Strings can be checked for on a webpage or form. Notification is by the usual methods, email, sound alarm or URL.
Avignon Acceptance Testing System
Test scripting tool for the acceptance phase. The user can define the language to be used. XML is used as the definition, however the language can be extended to alllow the semantics to be user defined. Testing web applications through IE or FireFox, Swing and .NET WinForm applications are available.
CERIAS Security Archive
A website for all things security-related. Links organized by subject, intrusion detection resources and tools.. An FTP site is available with utilities, scanners and detection tools. Acronym for 'Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security' and hosted at Purdue University
Core Impact Pro
Web application security testing tool from Core Security Technologies. Penetration testing techniques are used to identify vulnerabilitie from emerging threats and trace attack paths even if very complex.
GeoViz
A commercial off-the-shelf, WebCentric GeoSpatial CollaborationTM tool suite that provides 2-D, 3-D and 4-D views of geographic areas of interest to military, security, safety and disaster management officials. The GeoViz tool suite provides a unique SOA-based, mission-oriented framework for allowing users and/or groups of users to compose their own specific mission (or user) defined operational picture (MDOP or UDOP) for subsequent collaboration and mission execution.
HP Assessment Management Platform software
HP Assessment Management Platform software is a distributed, scalable, web application security testing platform that helps your organization address the complexities of today’s web application security testing and scanning programs. Part of HP's HP Application Security Center
HP QAInspect software
The HP QAInspect works from the HP Quality Center interface for ease of use when performing website security testing. Part of HP's HP Application Security Center
HP Quality Center software
HP Quality Center software - an integrated, web-based application for software requirements, test and defect management. Part of HP's HP Quality Center
HP Real User Monitor software
Organizations can get complete visibility into the experience and behavior of every user, from every location, for critical web applications using HP Real User Monitor. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP WebInspect software
HP WebInspect web application security testing and assessment software enables you to thoroughly analyze today's complex web applications built on emerging Web 2.0 technologies – delivering fast scanning capabilities, broad security assessment coverage and accurate security scanning results. Part of HP's HP Application Security Center
Instant Test Site
Gomez service lets anyone instantly test the response time of their website or web application from up to ten international testing nodes without having to download or install any software or create any scripts. Simply visit www.gomez.com/testyoursite, enter the URL to be tested, select a node and within seconds the site returns a comprehensive performance report revealing the load speed of each object on the page. This granular detail helps businesses establish a performance baseline and prioritize troubleshooting by rapidly identifying the root cause of issues such as missing images, erroneous third party content, or ISP bottlenecks. The service can be used to conduct multiple tests of the same URL to compare results over time or from different locations around the world.
PocketSOAP
GUI-based packet capture tool. Packet data is captured and displayed between local client and web server. Captures can be saved to disk. Available for Windows, binaries and source. PocketXML-RPC and PocketHTTP also available.

Service Management

2009-02-25T15:33:00.001-08:00

HP Asset Manager software
HP Asset Manager software helps organizations achieve sound stewardship of IT assets through IT financial management and software license compliance. Part of HP's HP Service Management Center
HP Connect-It software
HP Connect-It software extends the value of HP asset and service management solutions via a variety of pre-packaged integrations that enable an organization’s infrastructure to respond faster to business needs. Part of HP's HP Service Management Center
HP DecisionCenter software
HP DecisionCenter helps organizations record their IT service management data and relate it to their business impacts. Part of HP's HP Service Management Center
HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software
Organizations gain real-time visibility into the dynamic relationships between applications and the IT infrastructure using HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software. Part of HP's HP Service Management Center
HP Service Manager software
HP Service Manager is a comprehensive and fully integrated IT Service Desk suite that helps you decrease the time it takes to resolve service problems. ITIL-based best practices and a highly scalable service-oriented architecture let you deploy consistent, integrated processes throughout your IT organization. Part of HP's HP Service Management Center
HP Universal CMDB software
HP Universal CMDB software is a configuration management database for IT organizations implementing business service management and ITIL-based initiatives. Part of HP's HP Service Management Center

Project and Portfolio Management Center

2009-02-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

HP Deployment Management module
Organizations can accelerate the deployment of changes to their applications portfolio using HP Deployment Management software. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center
HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software
Organizations gain real-time visibility into the dynamic relationships between applications and the IT infrastructure using HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center
HP Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Demand Management module
Organizations can consolidate, prioritize and fulfill routine and strategic demands placed on IT using HP PPM Demand Management software. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center
HP Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Financial Management module
Organizations can manage their IT portfolio with real-time visibility into financial performance using HP PPM Financial Management software. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center
HP Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Portfolio Management module
Organizations can govern their entire portfolio of IT projects, application, and opportunities in real-time using HP PPM Portfolio Management software. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center
HP Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Program Management module
Organizations can collaboratively manage programs from concept to completion using HP PPM Program Management software. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center
HP Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Project Management module
Organizations can integrate project management and process control to reduce project complexity and reduce costs using HP PPM Project Management software. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center
HP Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Resource Management module
Organizations can effectively manage resource capacity and allocation using HP PPM Resource Management software. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center
HP Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Time Management module
Organizations gain real-time visibility into the dynamic relationships between applications and the IT infrastructure using HP PPM Time Management software. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center
HP Universal CMDB software
HP Universal CMDB software is a configuration management database for IT organizations implementing business service management and ITIL-based initiatives. Part of HP's HP Project and Portfolio Management Center

Performance Center

2009-02-25T15:29:00.000-08:00

HP Center Management for Performance Center software
HP Center Management for Performance Center software - Out-of-the-box QA workflow, demand, project and resource management solution for QA organizations. Part of HP's HP Performance Center
HP Diagnostics software
HP Diagnostics –Identify and resolve performance problems, and boost application availability, with a simple yet powerful application root cause analysis solution. Part of HP's HP Performance Center
HP LoadRunner Monitors
HP LoadRunner Monitors - Quickly isolate bottlenecks with server monitors that help you measure the performance of every tier, server and component during a load test. Part of HP's HP Performance Center
HP LoadRunner software
HP LoadRunner – Leading application performance testing, stress testing and advanced diagnostics. Maximize application performance —all from one control point. Part of HP's HP Performance Center

Operations Center

2009-02-25T15:26:00.000-08:00

HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software
Organizations gain real-time visibility into the dynamic relationships between applications and the IT infrastructure using HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP GlancePlus Pak software
HP GlancePlus Pak software is a combination of two products – HP Performance Agent and GlancePlus – that lets you easily examine system activities, identify and resolve performance bottlenecks and tune your system for more efficient operation. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP Operations Dashboard software
HP Operations Dashboard software provides personalized views for key users and stakeholders into end-to-end IT infrastructure service health. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP Operations Manager Dependency Mapping Automation software
HP Dependency Mapping Automation software helps you better prioritize your IT problems based on business impact by simplifying the creation and maintenance of business service views within HP Operations Manager software. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP Operations Manager i 8.0 software
HP Operations Manager i 8.0 (OMi) helps your organization to decrease the time to incident resolution, reduce MTTR, align operational activities with the needs of your business and optimize operational expenditures. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP Operations Manager software
HP Operations Manager Software is HP’s market leading solution for distributed event, system, and availability management. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP Operations Smart Plug-ins
HP Operations Smart Plug-ins (SPIs) are ready-to-go modules that provide an essential link to bring databases and applications under control with instant intelligence. In addition, these modules also show the business impact of failures in the application quality of service. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP Performance Manager software
HP Performance Manager software enables organizations to perform in-depth examinations of resource utilization and performance trends of applications, physical and virtual systems and services. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP Reporter software
HP Reporter is a powerful management reporting solution that automatically transforms the rich performance and availability data captured by HP Software applications and performance agents into valuable management information that IT organizations can use for service level reporting and planning. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP SiteScope software
Organizations can maintain the availability and performance of their distributed IT infrastructures using HP SiteScope software. Part of HP's HP Operations Center
HP Universal CMDB software
HP Universal CMDB software is a configuration management database for IT organizations implementing business service management and ITIL-based initiatives. Part of HP's HP Operations Center

Network Management Center

2009-02-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

HP Network Node Manager (NNM) Advanced Edition software
HP Network Node Manager (NNM) Advanced Edition software provides intelligent fault and availability management for world-class networks. Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
HP Network Node Manager (NNM) Starter Edition software
HP Network Node Manager (NNM) Starter Edition Software provides fault and availability management for world class networks. Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
HP Network Node Manager i software
HP Network Node Manager i (NNMi) software provides powerful out-of-the-box capabilities to enable your network operations team to efficiently manage networks (under center section & alphabetized) Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
HP Operations Support Systems Portfolio software
HP Operations Support Systems Portfolio software helps organizations manage their next generation networks and services and cover service assurance, activation and billing usage Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
HP Performance Insight software
HP Performance Insight software provides multi-domain IT service level reporting and capacity planning. Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
HP Report Pack Gallery
The Report Pack Gallery has a number of report packs for HP Performance Insight software that are available for free download. Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
HP Route Analytics Management software
HP Route Analytics Management software provides state of the art routing and traffic flow management for world class networks. Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
HP TeMIP software
HP TeMIP software provides massively scalable fault management for communications service providers and their next generation network needs. Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
NetFlow Collector for Report Pack for NetFlow Interfaces
This is a simple NetFlow flow collector that runs on Windows. It replaces the supported HP Performance Insight NetFlow pre-processor to accept up to six flow collections. Use of this collector does require a license to use either the NetFlow Interfaces Report Pack or the Traffic Profile Report Pack. Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
Report Pack for Cisco Wireless LAN
The Cisco Wireless LAN Report Pack provides useful information for managing wireless devices. As of the first release, the Report Pack caters only to the Cisco Aironet 1200 series wireless access points. Part of HP's HP Network Management Center
Report Pack for Radius Call Detail v 1.3
The Report Pack for RADIUS Call Detail v 1.3 provides greater insights into every aspect of the RADIUS architecture by focusing on the accounting data sent to the RADIUS server. Part of HP's HP Network Management Center

Data Center Automation Center

2009-02-25T15:19:00.000-08:00

HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software
Organizations gain real-time visibility into the dynamic relationships between applications and the IT infrastructure using HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center
HP Live Network service
HP Live Network offers a community portal and an annual subscription service that provides security and compliance policies for your servers and network devices and increases your return on investment in HP Data Center Automation Center software. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center
HP Network Automation software
HP Network Automation software tracks, regulates and automates configuration and software changes across globally distributed, multi-vendor networks through process-powered automation. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center
HP Operations Orchestration software
HP Operations Orchestration helps reduce costs, errors, and service downtime with runbook automation capabilities that eliminate manual and repetitive IT processes. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center
HP Release Control software
HP Release Control is the industry’s first decision-support solution that ties the change planning and analysis process with automated change execution and validation to help you reduce the risk of service downtime. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center
HP Server Automation software
HP Server Automation software provides lifecycle management for enterprise servers and applications—from discovery to provisioning, patching to configuration management and script execution to compliance assurance—and automates operations and processes across disparate IT teams and systems. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center
HP Service Automation Reporter software
HP Service Automation Reporter software provides a comprehensive, cross-tier operational repository for reporting, supporting your ITIL initiatives and automating change in your data center. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center
HP Service Automation Visualizer software
HP Service Automation Visualizer software provides a complete, interactive map of your IT environment, including servers, software, network devices and storage infrastructure, for automated change and compliance management. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center
HP Storage Essentials software
The award-winning, standards-based SRM software and solutions reduce complexity and lowers costs for managing, visualizing and reporting on enterprise heterogeneous storage and infrastructure while it improves the efficiency of your IT staff. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center
HP Universal CMDB software
HP Universal CMDB software is a configuration management database for IT organizations implementing business service management and ITIL-based initiatives. Part of HP's HP Data Center Automation Center

Client Automation

2009-02-25T15:16:00.000-08:00

HP Client Automation software - Enterprise Edition
HP Client Automation software is a comprehensive, industry-leading client manageability solution for automating key IT processes across the PC lifecycle. Part of HP's HP Client Automation Center
HP Client Automation software, Starter and Standard Editions
HP Client Automation software, Starter and Standard Editions build a comprehensive, industry-leading client manageability solution for automating key IT processes across the PC lifecycle. Part of HP's HP Client Automation Center
HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping (DDM) Inventory software
HP Discover and Dependency Mapping Inventory software allows IT to gain visibility to optimize assets and enforce compliance. Part of HP's HP Client Automation Center

Business Availability Center

2009-02-25T14:52:00.000-08:00

HP Business Availability Center Software for Composite Application Management
HP Business Availability Center Software for Composite Application Management is the industry’s first top-down, end-to-end lifecycle solution to seamlessly monitor, isolate problems and identify root causes in composite applications running in heterogeneous environments. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP Business Process Insight software
Organizations can monitor, the performance of back-end business processes using the Business Process Insight software. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP Business Process Monitor software
Organizations can identify availability and performance issues before they impact customers by eliminating external client-dependent and ISP issues using HP Business Process Monitor software. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP Business Service Level Management software
Organizations can proactively manage service levels from the business perspective using HP Service Level Management software. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP Diagnostics software
HP Diagnostics –Identify and resolve performance problems, and boost application availability, with a simple yet powerful application root cause analysis solution. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software
Organizations gain real-time visibility into the dynamic relationships between applications and the IT infrastructure using HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP End User Management software
Organizations can proactively monitor application availability in real time and from the end-user perspective using HP End User Management software. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP Problem Isolation software
HP Problem Isolation provides a single point of access into your application problems and likely causes with advanced guided process that helps reduce time to resolution and increase time between failures. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP Real User Monitor software
Organizations can get complete visibility into the experience and behavior of every user, from every location, for critical web applications using HP Real User Monitor. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP SiteScope software
Organizations can maintain the availability and performance of their distributed IT infrastructures using HP SiteScope software. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP System Availability Management software
Organizations can collect and monitor system availability and performance data across the enterprise using HP System Availability software. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP TransactionVision software
HP TransactionVision software provides business transaction monitoring that dramatically increases visibility into your customer-facing transactions. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center
HP Universal CMDB software
HP Universal CMDB software is a configuration management database for IT organizations implementing business service management and ITIL-based initiatives. Part of HP's HP Business Availability Center

Application Security Center

2009-02-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

HP Assessment Management Platform software
HP Assessment Management Platform software is a distributed, scalable, web application security testing platform that helps your organization address the complexities of today’s web application security testing and scanning programs. Part of HP's HP Application Security Center
HP DevInspect software
HP DevInspect application security software helps you simplify security during development by automatically finding and fixing application vulnerabilities. Part of HP's HP Application Security Center
HP QAInspect software
The HP QAInspect works from the HP Quality Center interface for ease of use when performing website security testing. Part of HP's HP Application Security Center
HP WebInspect software
HP WebInspect web application security testing and assessment software enables you to thoroughly analyze today's complex web applications built on emerging Web 2.0 technologies – delivering fast scanning capabilities, broad security assessment coverage and accurate security scanning results. Part of HP's HP Application Security Center

SOA Center

2009-02-25T13:46:00.000-08:00

HP SOA Systinet service lifecycle management
All services in a SOA go through a lifecycle. HP SOA Systinet provides service lifecycle management for end-to-end control. Part of HP's HP SOA Center
HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software
Organizations gain real-time visibility into the dynamic relationships between applications and the IT infrastructure using HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software. Part of HP's HP SOA Center
HP SOA Governance Interoperability Framework (GIF)
HP Systinet Governance Interoperability Framework (GIF) SOA software helps you publish and discover business service information across multiple vendor products. Part of HP's HP SOA Center
HP SOA Policy Enforcer software
Proactively manage your SOA services through resource monitoring and analysis using HP SOA Manager policy enforcement software. Part of HP's HP SOA Center
HP SOA Registry Foundation
HP SOA Registry Foundation is a UDDI standard registry for embedded vendor applications, inactive and occasionally used applications, and developer environments. Part of HP's HP SOA Center
HP SOA Systinet
HP SOA Systinet is a complete SOA governance and lifecycle management platform that reduces the risks of SOA adoption. Part of HP's HP SOA Center
HP SOA Systinet contract management
HP Systinet Contract Management software helps you negotiate and specify SLA objectives, operational procedures, and set terms for a reusable business service. Part of HP's HP SOA Center
HP SOA Systinet policy management
HP Systinet Policy Management software simplifies the manually intensive business service validation process. Check policy conformance with a click of a button. Part of HP's HP SOA Center
HP SOA Systinet registry/repository (reg/rep) and information management
HP Systinet Registry software is a simple, powerful, standards-based repository for you to publish, categorize and discover SOA services and artifacts. Part of HP's HP SOA Center
HP Universal CMDB software
HP Universal CMDB software is a configuration management database for IT organizations implementing business service management and ITIL-based initiatives. Part of HP's HP SOA Center

http://www.hp.com/#Product

Ounce Labs

2009-02-24T21:55:00.000-08:00

Ounce Labs' Static Application Security Testing (SAST) suite brings enterprise-wide awareness of business critical vulnerabilities. With this ability to identify and prioritize issues, organizations have the information they need to address their greatest risks. Ounce's patented source code analysis delivers the scalability and automation to help organizations such as EDS, IBM, Intel, and Lockheed Martin strengthen application security and protect confidential information. Ounce also helps organizations to verify regulatory and policy compliance, addressing PCI DSS, FISMA, HIPAA and others. For more information, please visit www.ouncelabs.com.

Ounce Labs in Leaders Quadrant for Gartner SAST

2009-02-24T21:51:00.000-08:00

Ounce Labs, is positioned in the leaders quadrant in the first Gartner Magic Quadrant for Static Application Security Testing.(1) In addition to this recognition, Ounce Labs was recently named a "Champion" in the Application Security Market Update from Bloor Research and also received a fourth patent in source code analysis and security, validating the company's continuing commitment to product innovation.

"In my opinion, Gartner's assessment of the static analysis space will prove to be a valuable tool to organizations that are just embarking on their own software security strategy," said Mark Merkow, Director, IT Security Architecture for a leading American credit card issuer and an Ounce Labs customer. "This appears to me to further validate the application security landscape, and its viable players, and should help businesses accelerate their product adoption. Especially now, when many organizations outsource development, use existing open source code or their own internal development staff, none of us can be too careful when securing our organizational assets."

According to Gartner, "SAST for security vulnerabilities should be a mandatory requirement for all IT organizations that develop or procure applications. Although the market is relatively new and consolidating, enterprises must adopt SAST technologies and processes because the need is strategic."

SECNAP

2009-02-24T14:59:00.000-08:00

Provider of email and network security innovations for organizations ranging from small businesses to global enterprises. In addition to its flagship Email Security Gateway Powered by SpammerTrap(R), available as an appliance or hosted service, SECNAP offers the Network Security Solution Powered by HackerTrap(TM), a patent-pending managed service that provides unrivaled 24/7 protection of network and information assets, and Security Services that include external penetration testing, security and compliance audits, web application and WiFi assessments and more. SECNAP is a 2009 Hot Companies Award finalist. For details visit www.secnap.com.

SECNAP and Tech Data Partnership

2009-02-24T14:55:00.000-08:00

SECNAP(R) Network Security Corporation today announced a strategic distribution agreement with Tech Data Corporation (NASDAQ:TECD). Tech Data will offer SECNAP's flagship product, the Email Security Gateway Powered by SpammerTrap(R), to its nationwide network of IT reseller customers.

According to Jim Garrity, vice president of sales and marketing for SECNAP, the partnership with Tech Data is a key component of the company's channel expansion strategy. "We see tremendous potential for VARs to drive sales growth for the SpammerTrap email security solution in 2009," said Garrity, "and we're pleased that the market experts at Tech Data share that vision."

Dawn Stratton, distribution director for SECNAP, will manage the account and work with Tech Data staff to coordinate sales and marketing initiatives. Stratton has more than 15 years of experience in the technology industry, including a long-standing relationship with Tech Data. An aggressive promotion for the first quarter has been launched to showcase the product line.

"Spam-borne malware and cybercrime continue to increase," said John O'Shea, Tech Data vice president of Networking Product Marketing. "It's important that resellers have access to advanced, comprehensive security solutions like the SpammerTrap so they can protect their customers from a broad range of email threats."

Fortify

2009-02-24T14:53:00.000-08:00

Fortify 360
Vulnerability detection application. The tool can integrate with static source code analysis, runtime analysis and real-time monitoring to identify and prioritise security vulnerabilities. Vendor is Fortify Software.

Coverity In Security Magic Quadrant

2009-02-24T14:47:00.000-08:00

Coverity, Inc.,the software integrity company, today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the challengers quadrant in the 'Magic Quadrant for Static Application Security Testing(i)' report.

According to the report, "SAST for security vulnerabilities should be a mandatory requirement for all IT organizations that develop or procure applications. Although the market is relatively new and consolidating, enterprises must adopt SAST technologies and processes because the need is strategic."

The report also notes, "As attacks become more financially motivated and as organizations get better at securing their network, desktop and server infrastructures, there has been a shift in attacks to the application level. To address those new risks, several technology markets for application security have emerged, including static application security testing (SAST)."

"Coverity continues to aggressively execute our software integrity strategy to help customers solve their priority business challenges as they relate to software quality and security, such as compliance, recall prevention and componentization," said Dave Peterson, chief marketing officer at Coverity. "We believe our position in the Gartner report validates that software integrity has become an imperative for customers taking a strategic approach to driving quality, performance and security throughout every stage of the software development lifecycle."

According to Joseph Feiman and Neil MacDonald, the authors of the report, "SAST enables security vulnerability detection early in the application life cycle -- at construction (programming) and testing phases when the code is being written, built and tested. Proactively detecting and fixing security vulnerabilities earlier in the application development process reduces an application's overall security exposure and is less expensive than fixing the vulnerability when the application is in production."

Coverity recently announced a record year of growth in 2008 in which it expanded its customer base beyond 500 customers, raised its first round of external funding after six consecutive years of cash flow positive growth, executed three strategic acquisitions and received multiple awards for innovation including being named Deloitte Technology Fast 50 for the second consecutive year.

Filemon

2009-02-24T14:40:00.000-08:00

Filemon
Security and monitoring application for the Windows file system activity on a system in real-time. Every open, reaad, write or delete on it status column is logged. The tool is free from Microsoft. A Registry monitor, process monitor, thread monitor and a hard disk monitor are also available.

New Security Testing Tools

2009-02-23T14:57:00.000-08:00

Co-Advisor
Security testing application which can test for protocol compatibility, compliance and robustness. HTTP (RFC 2616) and ICAP (RFC 3507) protocol modules are available. Runs on FreeBSD, Linux RPMs, On-Demand Windows.
Coverity Prevent
Security testing application specifically for Java source code. All possible paths are explored for detection of vulnerabilities and defects. Memory leaks, memory corruption, illegal pointer accesses, buffer overruns , format string errors are all searched for. Vendor is Coverity.
Defensics Core Internet Test Suite
Hardware-centric security testing tool. Infrastructure typically under test includes routers, switches, firewalls, desktop and server systems, laptops, PDAs, cell phones and other mobile systems, as well as a large number of various embedded systems.
Documentum
Enterprise content management application focusing on enterprisee content management. Areas under test include scalability, security, business process automization, XML in a range of servers and authoring tools.

Documentum

2009-02-23T14:52:00.001-08:00

Documentum
Enterprise Content Management application focusing on enterprisee content management. Areas under test include scalability, security, business process automization, XML in a range of servers and authoring tools.

Core Internet Test

2009-02-23T14:47:00.000-08:00

Defensics Core Internet Test Suite
Hardware- and web-centric security testing tool. Infrastructure typically under test includes routers, switches, firewalls, desktop and server systems, laptops, PDAs, cell phones and other mobile systems, as well as a large number of various embedded systems.

Coverity Prevent

2009-02-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

Coverity Prevent
Security testing application specifically for Java source code. All possible paths are explored for detection of vulnerabilities and defects. Memory leaks, memory corruption, illegal pointer accesses, buffer overruns , format string errors are all searched for. Vendor is Coverity.

New Test and Security Tools

2009-02-22T14:00:00.000-08:00

Avignon Acceptance Testing System
Test scripting tool for the acceptance phase. The user can define the language to be used. XML is used as the definition, however the language can be extended to alllow the semantics to be user defined. Testing web applications through IE or FireFox, Swing and .NET WinForm applications are available.
C5 Compliance Platform
Software for checking security and compliance status across hetergenous systems. Vendor is SecureElements. Security vulnerabilities and compliance exposures are identified. Matches exposures with fixes, can deploy remediations and enforcement actions. Reporting of monitored assets can be summarized or details.
CERIAS Security Archive
A website for all things security-related. Links organized by subject, intrusion detection resources and tools.. An FTP site is available with utilities, scanners and detection tools. Acronym for 'Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security' and hosted at Purdue University

CERIAS Security Archive

2009-02-22T13:54:00.000-08:00

CERIAS Security Archive
A website for all things security-related. Links organized by subject, intrusion detection resources and tools.. An FTP site is available with utilities, scanners and detection tools. Acronym for 'Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security' and hosted at Purdue University

Compliance Platform

2009-02-22T13:47:00.000-08:00

C5 Compliance Platform
Software for checking security and compliance status across hetergenous systems. Vendor is SecureElements. Security vulnerabilities and compliance exposures are identified. Matches exposures with fixes, can deploy remediations and enforcement actions. Reporting of monitored assets can be summarized or details.

Avignon Acceptance Testing

2009-02-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

SECNAP CTO Honoured

2009-02-20T21:58:00.000-08:00

SECNAP(R) Network Security chief technology officer, Michael Scheidell, has been named a finalist in TechInsights' EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards. The ACE Awards celebrate creators of technology who demonstrate leadership and innovation in the global industry. Winners of the 2009 ACE Awards will be announced during the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, Calif. on March 31, 2009.

Scheidell was nominated in the Innovator of the Year category for ongoing development of innovative technology solutions that meet and anticipate the security needs of business. Since founding SECNAP in 2001, his impressive results include patent-pending intrusion detection and prevention technology and award-winning email security/anti-spam solutions.

"I'm honored to be included in such distinguished company," Scheidell said, "among leaders who have contributed so much to the development of information, security and other technologies."

New Test Tools

2009-02-19T14:50:00.000-08:00

AppScan
Rational/IBM suite which automates web application security testing. Outputs include defect analysis and recommending remedying security flaws. Audiors and compliance officers can use the application to validate compliance with security requirements.
Aptixia IxLoad
Communications testing tool focusing on the triple play of voice, video and data services. The performance of related networks is simulated with IPTV and subscribers to ensure Quality of Experience. IGMP, MLD, and RTSP; voice protocols like SIP and MGCP; and data protocols like HTTP, FTP, and SMTP are all tested by the tool. Infrastructure DNS, DHCP, RADIUS, and LDAP protocols can all be checked. Security vulnerabilities can also be checked for through the use of simulated malicious traffic.
Atomic Watch
Web monitoring software. The application executes tests as a background process when installed on a server. Strings can be checked for on a webpage or form. Notification is by the usual methods, email, sound alarm or URL.
Core Impact Pro
Web application security testing tool from Core Security Technologies. Penetration testing techniques are used to identify vulnerabilitie from emerging threats and trace attack paths even if very complex.

AppScan

2009-02-19T14:04:00.000-08:00

AppScan
IBM Rational suite which automates web application security testing. Outputs include defect analysis and recommending remedying security flaws. Audiors and compliance officers can use the application to validate compliance with security requirements.

Security Tools

2009-02-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner
Security testing application based on crawling web sites. It selects servers from a particular IP or IP range. The site is crawled accumulating information about every file and displaying the site structure. An automatic audit is performed covering common security issues. Technologies such as CGI, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET are tested for vulnerabilities. Areas covered are cross-site scripting, CRLF injection, code execution, directory traversal. MSIE and Windows required.
AppScan

Aptixia IxLoad

Avalanche

C5 Compliance Platform

CERIAS Security Archive

Co-Advisor

Core Impact Pro
Web application security testing tool from Core Security Technologies. Penetration testing techniques are used to identify vulnerabilitie from emerging threats and trace attack paths even if very complex.
Coverity Prevent

Defensics Core Internet Test Suite

Documentum

Filemon

Fortify 360

Global Up Time

Hailstorm

HP WebInspect

Klocwork K7

Nessus

NetIQ Security Analyzer

NMap Network Mapper

OpenDeploy

Oracle Universal Content Management System

OWASP Security Testing Tools

OWASP Security Testing Tools Listing

Parasoft SOAtest

PatchLink Scan

Perimeter Check

Qualys Free Security Scans

Qualys Guard

Radview's WebLoad

Retina Web Security Scanner

SAINT

SARA

Secure-Me

Security Center

Tools4Internet

Top 100 Security Tools

Watchmouse

Core Impact Pro

2009-02-19T13:48:00.000-08:00

Core Impact Pro
Web application security testing tool from Core Security Technologies. Penetration testing techniques are used to identify vulnerabilitie from emerging threats and trace attack paths even if very complex.

Test Studio

2009-02-19T13:33:00.000-08:00

AppPerfect Test Studio
Java development suite with monitoring, testing and tuning elements. Tools include Unit Tester, Code Analyzer, Java/J2EE profiler.

DevSuite

2009-02-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

AppPerfect DevSuite
Monitoring, testing and tuning product suite from AppPerfect. The package includes a web functional testing module. Screen element recording of interaction. JavaScript, ASP, JSP, HTML, cookies. Windows and MSIE-base.

Appmonitor

2009-02-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

AppMonitor - -Monitoring service based on a transactional aplication. The software creates web transaction simulations. Customer logins, purchase orde fulfillment can be conducteed up to every five minutes for application availability and performance. Vendor is Webmetrics. Full-page download of all page objects, breakdown of DNS, first byte and transfer times at various baud rates, alerting, performance reporting and benchmark comparisons are all included in the service.

New Testing Terms, Tools and Firms

2009-02-17T15:29:00.000-08:00

EXFO
Provider of test and service assurance solutions for network service providers and equipment manufacturers in the global telecommunications industry.
National Instruments
National Instruments (www.ni.com) is a vendor of applications to for engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications.
LabVIEW Unit Test Framework Toolkit
Engineers can automate requirements-based testing and the validation of VIs developed in LabVIEW. Automating this process reduces the amount of time developers spend performing tests and enables more exhaustive testing. Engineers can specify test cases that define inputs and compare the results after execution with expected output to perform functional and regression testing of software. The included reporting functionality can automatically generate validation documents in HTML, ATML/XML or ASCII formats, which are valuable for documenting that the application works correctly. The LabVIEW Unit Test Framework Toolkit also integrates with NI Requirements Gateway to help engineers manage requirements documents for software testing.
"LabVIEW Desktop Execution Trace Toolkit
dynamic code analyzer that engineers can use during run time to detect and locate problems in code that could impact performance or cause unexpected behavior. It shows a chronological view of events, queue operations, reference leaks, memory allocation, unhandled errors and subVI execution. Highlighting individual events gives engineers additional information such as the call chain, thread ID and CPU number to help them debug and optimize their LabVIEW code. They can also double-click many events to highlight the corresponding object on the block diagram.
"

2009-02-17T15:22:00.000-08:00

National Instruments (www.ni.com) is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware and sells to a broad base of more than 25,000 different companies worldwide, with no one customer representing more than 3 percent of revenue and no one industry representing more than 10 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 5,000 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the past 10 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. Readers can obtain investment information from the company's investor relations department by calling (512) 683-5090, e-mailing nati@ni.com or visiting www.ni.com/nati.

National Instruments Release Test Frameworks and Tools

2009-02-17T15:19:00.000-08:00

National Instruments (NASDAQ:NATI) today announced the NI LabVIEW Unit Test Framework and LabVIEW Desktop Execution Trace toolkits, which are new software engineering tools for the LabVIEW graphical development environment. This coincides with the release of NI Requirements Gateway 1.1 requirements management software. When developing large-scale or complex applications with LabVIEW software, engineers can use these toolkits to help validate systems, improve software quality and test code against requirements.

Software debugging and testing is a complex, expensive and time-consuming task for developers. As the complexity and sophistication of software increase, developers need more regimented and automated procedures to ensure thorough testing and help with code validation. The LabVIEW Unit Test Framework and LabVIEW Desktop Execution Trace toolkits are designed to automate and improve common software engineering tasks.

With the LabVIEW Unit Test Framework Toolkit, engineers can automate requirements-based testing and the validation of VIs developed in LabVIEW. Automating this process reduces the amount of time developers spend performing tests and enables more exhaustive testing. Engineers can specify test cases that define inputs and compare the results after execution with expected output to perform functional and regression testing of software. The included reporting functionality can automatically generate validation documents in HTML, ATML/XML or ASCII formats, which are valuable for documenting that the application works correctly. The LabVIEW Unit Test Framework Toolkit also integrates with NI Requirements Gateway to help engineers manage requirements documents for software testing, track the amount of coverage and understand the impact of changes.

The LabVIEW Desktop Execution Trace Toolkit is a dynamic code analyzer that engineers can use during run time to detect and locate problems in code that could impact performance or cause unexpected behavior. It shows a chronological view of events, queue operations, reference leaks, memory allocation, unhandled errors and subVI execution. Highlighting individual events gives engineers additional information such as the call chain, thread ID and CPU number to help them debug and optimize their LabVIEW code. They can also double-click many events to highlight the corresponding object on the block diagram.

Engineers can use other LabVIEW toolkits to enhance software testing. The LabVIEW VI Analyzer Toolkit performs static analysis of VIs to improve code style and readability as well as increase performance and usability. Also, the NI Real-Time Execution Trace Toolkit helps engineers gather low-level information about the execution of LabVIEW code on a real-time target.

With NI Requirements Gateway 1.1, engineers can improve the quality and efficiency of their new test system and product designs by conducting requirements traceability from documentation to implementation in National Instruments software. With the new version, engineers can map requirements to objects on LabVIEW block diagrams as well as the contents of LabVIEW Project files.

With software engineering tools, developers can mitigate the risk of bugs and ensure high-quality, reliable applications. LabVIEW users can take advantage of code analyzers and unit test frameworks to demonstrate the quality of graphical code and automate practices such as regression testing and validation against requirements.

CIMI Corporation Espouses ExperiaSphere

2009-02-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

CIMI Corporation, has announced that the ExperiaSphere open source NGN Services Architecture project it launched a year ago has completed its prototype and begun demonstrating it to interested service providers and equipment vendors. The project is designed to provide effective service, application, and experience management to both public networks and private networks regardless of their technology. ExperiaSphere is a Java toolkit that provides developers the ability to create abstract service components, then tie them together to create services. By linking components through management APIs to equipment EMS/NMS products, the services are then created on the network.

CIMI Corporation is also very pleased to announce the first vendor partnership for ExperiaSphere, Extreme Networks (NASDAQ:EXTR) . Extreme will be providing technical support and testing for the connection of ExperiaSphere to its EPICenter management interface using industry-standard XML. The EPICenter connection will support provisioning of E-LINE, E-LAN, and E-TREE services as well as monitoring and management on a per-switch basis. "Carriers offering next-generation services will clearly benefit from this collaborative architecture," said Mark Showalter, director of service provider marketing for Extreme Networks. "We are pleased to be part of this team."

ExperiaSphere provides an open-source service and service feature abstraction layer that fits between any service user and the set of network and computing resources needed to fulfill the service, whether they are one provider network or many networks, public infrastructure or private. It is compatible with any order source, including simple HTML, and with network connections based IP, Ethernet, optical, ATM, frame relay, SIP, RTP or any other technology with a basic management API exposed. ExperiaSphere can build any IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) application (in fact, you could build IMS itself with it) but it goes far beyond IMS in network technology and service flexibility.

"ExperiaSphere came out of work with international telecom carriers in early 2008," said Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corporation and Chief Strategist for ExperiaSphere. "Operators told us they were concerned that the standards in NGN services were developing too slowly to be useful, and often were proving too complicated to be implemented. We launched ExperiaSphere to prove that it was possible to create robust service architectures from web- oriented tools. We wanted to build what the web community would have created if it had been tasked with creating IMS."

ExperiaSphere is based on Java 2 Standard Edition, and it focuses on creating functional "atoms" called "Experiams" that represent a specific service feature or behavior. The Experiams are composed into structures that represent services, and when activated they control underlying service resources through standard APIs. The interfacing between Experiams and management systems or other outside processes is strictly compartmentalized from functional behavior, so any interface capable of exchanging the required data elements can be accommodated in any mission.

"We believe that even the telco standards world is moving away from a walled garden, call-based, architecture for NGN services," said Nolle. "The older IMS model is being modified in ITU work to create something that works better with web-based services. ExperiaSphere has modeled the same approach as that being taken in the ITU."

The first working prototype of a service based on ExperiaSphere has been completed. This service simulates the ordering and delivery of a video stream by either a PC/browser user or a smartphone user. The order/delivery process is based not on complex APIs but on a simple HTML exchange that could be added to any website with any HTML editor tool. The user, in the prototype, enters a video name and format and the result, as an HTML form, is dispatched to ExperiaSphere.

The ExperiaSphere service logic software runs a Yahoo Video search, identifies the correct video based on the request, and returns the URL to the user. At the same time, it activates the logic to create a priority path across an arbitrary set of service providers to insure quality streaming. The service provider interfaces are simulated in the prototype, but ExperiaSphere is seeking service provider partners to work with in creating an actual controlled delivery demonstration later in 2009. The same service logic would support mobile or wireline users, IP or Ethernet networks; services are completely abstracted from resources and service order interfaces are also completely abstracted.

The next phase of ExperiaSphere, which has already begun in a design sense, will create a second set of tools designed to provide social-based communications services. This is more than social networks, it's a whole new model that blends social networking, calling, collaboration, and unified communications into a single package. These tools will also be open source and the first versions will be included in the Beta release that will be made available on SourceForge, the open source repository, in late spring 2009. At the same time, CIMI Corporation will be seeking partners to host ExperiaSphere.net, a prototype social communications network running ExperiaSphere elements throughout, as a worldwide testbed for the next generation of public communications.

ExperiaSphere is unique in four primary ways:

1. It is the first next-generation services architecture to be based on
web concepts of social communication, on web-friendly interfaces, and
on Java open source code.

2. It is not just an abstract architecture, as IMS is, but rather a
toolkit that can actually be used to build services. Each tool can be
modified and customized as needed to support new requirements.

3. It completely abstracts the notion of a service as a set of related
features, from the resources that fulfill the service. The same
service logic can set up an MPLS LSP or a PBT tunnel, a SIP call or a
PSTN call.

4. Because it's based on Java, ExperiaSphere elements can run on anything
that supports Java 2 release 1.6 or higher, and so it's compatible
with personal computers, servers, laptops, nettops, smartphones,
tablet systems, and any other appliance or device with a Java Virtual
Machine. Thus, ExperiaSphere is the first truly open and distributed
telco services architecture. ExperiaSphere goes beyond open handsets
to open services.

AXS-200 Expanded by EXFO

2009-02-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering has launched software suite that brings powerful capabilities to the AXS-200/850 - a handheld Ethernet and IP tester that dramatically simplifies the testing processes used by field technicians when turning-up metro Ethernet and IP services. Available as a software option for existing or new AXS-200/850 testers, the new features allow field technicians to perform one-step, multi-stream traffic generation and monitoring to emulate tiered-service offerings and establish base-line quality-of-service (QoS) metrics that are critical to any service level agreement (SLA).

The continuing popularity of bandwidth-intensive residential triple-play, mobile data, and IP-based business services is driving the proliferation of carrier Ethernet in access and metro networks. As these services have evolved, the need for more stringent SLA metrics and tiered-service offerings have risen, in turn requiring stronger testing capabilities by front-line field technicians. Novice and expert technicians alike must not only turn up and test these new Ethernet connections, but they are also being called upon to monitor and measure QoS performance to quickly and efficiently establish baseline metrics for SLAs.

EXFO's AXS-200/850 handheld tester puts powerful, yet intuitive multi-stream traffic generation and monitoring tools into the hands of field technicians. A quick glance at the AXS-200/850's exclusive graphical multi-stream traffic generation gauges allows any technician to immediately and accurately interpret real-time pass/fail thresholds. The innovative GUI uses speedometer-like images to display real-time test results that eliminate errors in data interpretation with clear, easily recognizable color-coded graphics. Full-line rate throughput, packet jitter, real-time latency, frame loss, out-of-sequence statistics and on-the-fly adjustment of throughput and frame size give all technicians the power to quickly and easily determine if the Ethernet and IP services are meeting expected SLAs.

"Even as networks and component configurations continue to grow in complexity, the current economic climate is forcing service providers to drive more productivity out of their resources," said Etienne Gagnon, EXFO's Vice-President of Product Management and Marketing. "The latest AXS-200/850 software suite supports our customers' business initiatives with focused functionality that expands their field-testing capabilities, while enabling them to meet stringent SLAs. It is another example of EXFO's commitment to deliver innovative, relevant testing solutions that address real-world challenges."

WDSGlobal Launches Live Device Analysis

2009-02-17T14:55:00.000-08:00

WDSGlobal, has released Live Device Analysis, a new product designed to help mobile network operators better understand the capabilities and profitability of devices attached to their networks.

Tracking device capabilities, features and standards within a network and measuring profitability and cost-to-support across device models and brands, Live Device Analysis allows an operator to support critical investment and planning decisions with analysis of the actual devices attached to its network. From evaluating an addressable market for a new service to qualifying investment decisions in retail strategy and customer care, Live Device Analysis is the industry's first solution to accurately analyze the composition of an installed base of devices and allow data to be quickly published across departments.

"Decisions in network infrastructure, handset ranging, service deployment, customer care and marketing require a detailed understanding of the device technologies and standards present on the network," explains David Ffoulkes-Jones, WDSGlobal's CEO. "Today's CRM and analysis tools can only go so far in delivering the necessary intelligence. WDSGlobal believes that Live Device Analysis represents a fundamental shift in the way that network operators will extract intelligence and business advantage from their installed base of mobile devices."

Extracting and analyzing this type of device intelligence from a network has traditionally been challenging. Data often resides in disparate engineering systems across a network operator's business and its accuracy can be compromised by increased device diversity, churn, multiple device ownership and the use of grey market devices.

Live Device Analysis is the industry's first solution to turn this raw data into actionable intelligence for use across operational departments such as marketing, retail, product management, customer care and finance.

"Using Live Device Analysis, a marketing team can quickly segment a subscriber base not just on the traditional demographics but also on the capabilities of their mobile devices. That sort of analysis is vital in launching new services and running highly targeted promotions. Similarly, device profitability or cost-to-support can quickly be correlated to device features, allowing more qualified handset ranging and customer care decisions to be made," adds Ffoulkes-Jones.

Swisscom Selects Nexperience

2009-02-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

Swisscom, one of Switzerland's telecoms provider, has selected the Nexperience system. Using the Nexperience system Swisscom will provide its internal users and partners, including device manufacturers and application developers, located anywhere in the world, with a secure environment where they can test embedded applications on pre-launched Swisscom handsets via the Internet. The Nexperience system will help Swisscom ensure the performance of embedded mobile applications on its handsets, and enable the Company to deliver new handsets to market on time. It will also help Swisscom reduce the costs and logistical efforts needed to manage the pre-deployment process.

"We typically have a very tight window to fully test embedded applications on our handsets. Given the logistical efforts needed to coordinate shipments of device prototypes to vendors all around the world, getting the testing done on time is a difficult process," said Lukas Fluri, Head of Devices at Swisscom. "The Nexperience system provides Swisscom with the ideal solution to resolve these issues, and it enables us to enhance the depth and breadth of our testing processes. Furthermore, Nexperience's ability to support new devices and add additional devices very quickly when needed was a primary reason for selecting this solution."

The Nexperience system provides a web-based user-interface through which Swisscom's internal users and partners can quickly and easily use any handset in the same way a real-life user would, through its keys, touch-screen, or QWERTY keyboard, to validate that the handset and applications work properly. The Nexperience system also enables users to automate standard testing tasks.

In addition to its powerful remote access capabilities, the Nexperience system will provide Swisscom with a shared testing environment to facilitate collaboration between testers, developers and device manufacturers. Through the Nexperience system all users will be able to quickly and easily recreate and share sessions, and collaborate and communicate with each other to resolve problems and avoid the finger pointing that often occurs in distributed environments.

"Nexperience provides Swisscom and its partners with a unique solution for testing pre-launched devices that no other vendor can match. Using the Nexperience system Swisscom is no longer limited by the number of device prototypes it has and can centralise its handset testing, thereby saving significant time, money and logistical effort. Most importantly, with the Nexperience system Swisscom can complete its testing of embedded applications within the tight schedules," said Eran Yaniv, CEO of Nexperien

BOSaNOVA and Leostream Partnership

2009-02-16T14:21:00.000-08:00

BOSaNOVA and Leostream(TM) Corporaton (www.leostream.com), a developer of virtual hosted desktop software, today announced a partnership that will provide Leostream Connection Broker software on BOSaNOVA Thin Clients. The solution will enable enterprises using BOSaNOVA Thin Clients to take advantage of the flexibility, scalability and enterprise class policies the Connection Broker brings to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) initiatives. In combination with the advantages offered by BOSaNOVA Thin Clients - longer life-span, smaller form-factor, overall cost-savings - the joint solution delivers on the promise of fully-featured, enterprise-class VDI.

BOSaNOVA VDI-Ready Thin Clients include the Leostream Connection Broker on BOSaNOVA's XPe and Linux Thin Clients. The Leostream Connection Broker enables enterprises using BOSaNOVA units to integrate physical and virtual desktops, blades and Terminal Server sessions. In addition, the Connection Broker integrates whatever systems are required by the VDI: multiple authentication servers (Active Directory, eDirectory, OpenLDAP), external SSL VPNs and multi-factor authentication. The Connection Broker provides advanced policies, including location-based policies and global user redirection, enabling enterprises to implement business rules exactly while providing an excellent end-user experience. Together, BOSaNOVA Thin Clients and the Leostream Connection Broker "make desktop virtualization work."

"BOSaNOVA's impressive line of industry-leading thin clients support a comprehensive range of virtualization platforms and end-user computing resources," said Michael Palin, CEO of Leostream. "This partnership has resulted in a solution that maximizes the value of customer VDI environments and allows comprehensive integration of existing resources. With our independent approach to session management, the Connection Broker gives BOSaNOVA end-users an excellent experience with Windows, Linux, and Citrix desktops, applications and more."

"Together, we have been able to deliver thin clients that are designed specifically for desktop virtualization, offering customers lower cost, easy and secure management and greater reliability," said Martin Pladgeman, BOSaNOVA President. "Leostream makes VDI integration easy and straightforward with their proven, vendor-independent connection broker - a good match for the strong performing and versatile thin clients that are our hallmark."

Leostream Connection Broker Highlights:

-- Browser-based management console, providing easy access from almost
anywhere;
-- Scales to support large-scale, enterprise-wide VDI deployments;
-- No changes to enterprise systems such as Active Directory or SSL VPNs
required;
-- Easily configured to work with a user's current environment including
firewalls, load balancers and DNS servers;
-- Windows-like environment with a superior end-user desktop experience;
-- Easy to manage, easy to deploy, easy to install and configure; and
-- Supports heterogeneous, enterprise-class data center architectures.

BOSaNOVA Thin Clients Highlights:

-- VDI Ready Thin Clients in a wide-range of hardware options;
-- Low total cost of ownership;
-- Energy efficient and small form factor units;
-- Easy to install and maintain; and
-- Customization available.

Software Test and Performance Conference

2009-02-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

The Software Test and Performance Conference and Expo (http://www.stpcon.com/), the industry's leading event for the testing and QA community, will be held at the Marriott Hotel in San Mateo, Calif. March 31 - April 2, 2009. The event will bring together hundreds of software developers, development managers, test/QA managers and senior test professionals for three days filled with more than 60 classes and full day tutorials.

With a theme of "Reach Your Peak Performance," participants will be inspired by keynote speaker Dr. Arlene Blum, a renowned scientist and mountain climber, who will share her stories of the challenges she has faced, successes she has achieved, and lessons of leadership she has learned through her many expeditions. In addition, Hung Q. Nguyen, chairman and CEO of LogiGear Corporation, will present a keynote titled "Learn How To Keep Your Testing Budget."

Attendees of the Software Test and Performance Conference and Expo will discover the latest solutions to the most pressing issues and challenges they face, such as security flaws, usability problems, functional defects, and performance issues. They will learn new ways to implement quality assurance across an entire project, how to pinpoint and fix performance bottlenecks, and how to adopt emerging testing methods to be more efficient and effective.

"We are very proud of this year's STPCon program and faculty," stated Eddie Correia, conference chair. "Our classes provide in-depth training on the newest techniques, and our experienced faculty of test industry experts and practitioners will share valuable tips and insights to help attendees improve fundamental practices such as requirements gathering, user interface design, and function testing, as well as techniques for load and performance testing."

NEC Sphere Communications in SAI Deal

2009-02-13T15:25:00.000-08:00

NEC Sphere Communications, a subsidiary of NEC Corporation is collaborating with Science Applications International Corporation [NYSE: SAI] to deliver robust interactive unified communications capabilities as part of their service-oriented architecture (SOA) collaborative infrastructure.

Leveraging the UC services with SAIC’s SOA is their GeoViz product, a commercial off-the-shelf, WebCentric GeoSpatial CollaborationTM tool suite that provides 2-D, 3-D and 4-D views of geographic areas of interest to military, security, safety and disaster management officials. The GeoViz tool suite provides a unique SOA-based, mission-oriented framework for allowing users and/or groups of users to compose their own specific mission (or user) defined operational picture (MDOP or UDOP) for subsequent collaboration and mission execution. Geospatial collaboration has become one of the hottest areas for government IT organizations seeking to provide a more complete emergency response solution using this new technology.

NEC Sphere’s software is designed as a business application that fits naturally into SOA environments. Its flexibility and openness allows solution integrators to easily create applications that are tailored to customers' needs. When combined with SAIC’s GeoViz collaborative framework the solution can deliver shared VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) through IP phones or soft phones, instant messaging and on-demand conferencing to different users across multiple domains. The result is rich collaboration among first responders and other emergency personnel that helps to assure emergency resources are deployed efficiently. A very complex technical problem of integrating rich media content is addressed for the first time in a manner that allows users to easily define their own need-based content, including voice communication for timely responses in a mission critical situations.

Instant Test Site

2009-02-13T14:26:00.000-08:00

A new free Instant Test Site from from Gomez a vendor provider of web application experience management services, Inc. has been released. Testing website performance from outside a business' firewall -- from its customers' perspective -- is a more accurate way of identifying issues like slow page loads and outages so that businesses can ensure their web applications keep running, their revenues keep flowing, and their customers have quality web experiences.

The new Gomez service lets anyone instantly test the response time of their website or web application from up to ten international testing nodes without having to download or install any software or create any scripts. Simply visit www.gomez.com/testyoursite, enter the URL to be tested, select a node and within seconds the site returns a comprehensive performance report revealing the load speed of each object on the page. This granular detail helps businesses establish a performance baseline and prioritize troubleshooting by rapidly identifying the root cause of issues such as missing images, erroneous third party content, or ISP bottlenecks. The service can be used to conduct multiple tests of the same URL to compare results over time or from different locations around the world.

In addition to running free, on-demand performance tests, the site provides a video tutorial featuring tips for interpreting results, remedying issues and improving overall web performance. It is also a springboard to a micro site of educational materials about web performance measurement best practices and case studies.

"In today's economy, it's important to protect every dollar of online revenue, and a customer's first impressions of your website can be the difference between a sale or a fail," said Eric Schurr, SVP of marketing at Gomez. "Taking the Gomez Instant Test is a free and easy way to understand if technical issues are impeding the performance of your website and impacting your customers' experiences."

Nexperience

2009-02-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

Nexperience significantly reduces the complexity and cost of developing, deploying and maintaining mobile applications and content across devices, networks and geographies. The Nexperience Handset Cloud service enables mobile application developers and content providers to remotely access and control a multitude of real mobile handsets located around the world, and automatically run tests and validation procedures on them. Nexperience continuously provides immediate access to the latest and most popular devices through the service. Mobile operators and device manufacturers can also utilize Nexperience's unique Private Handset Cloud to provide their partners with a secure environment where they can access new devices before they are launched commercially.

Vodafone Selects Nexperience

2009-02-13T14:17:00.000-08:00

Vodafone, has selected the Nexperience system from the company of the same name. The Nexperience system will be used to provide Vodafone's global network of Premium Partners, including device manufacturers and application developers, with a secure online environment to access pre-launched Vodafone handsets, for pre-deployment development and testing. This will help Vodafone ensure the quality of its handsets and embedded mobile applications and support the delivery of new handsets to market. The Nexperience system will also help Vodafone reduce the costs and logistics of the pre-deployment process.

The Nexperience system provides a web-based user-interface through which Vodafone and its partners can quickly and easily use any handset in the same way a real-life user would, through its keys, touch-screen, or QWERTY keyboard, to validate that the handset and is applications work properly. The Nexperience system also enables Vodafone's users to automate standard testing tasks.

In addition to its powerful remote access capabilities, the Nexperience system provides a secure, shared testing environment to facilitate collaboration between testers, developers and device manufacturers.

"We are delighted that Vodafone has selected our system to help them fulfill their mission," said Eran Yaniv, CEO of Nexperience. "Our ability to support new devices quickly enables Nexperience to provide Vodafone with a unique solution for testing pre-launched devices, and supporting and enhancing the breadth and depth of their existing testing process."

AppLoader

2009-02-13T14:07:00.000-08:00

AppLoader
NRG Global produced load testing application. Based on a Windows desktop it is used for web and other applications. The load is generated from the end user's perspective. The vendor claims that it is protocol independent and supporting enterprise class applications. Integrates with Chroniker monitoring suite.

ApacheBench

2009-02-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

ApacheBench
Benchmarking and regression tool in the Perl API for transaction-based mod-perl sites. Stress-testing can also be undertaken in HTTP response verification.

New Tools

2009-02-12T15:48:00.000-08:00

Abbot Java GUI Test Framework
Timothy Wall produced testing framework. Features include automated event generation, Java validation of GUI components. The framework can be invoked directly from Java code or without programming vis Costello scripts. Builds upon the java.awt.Robot class. Suitable for both unit tests by developers and functional testing.
actiWate
Freeware web application testing environment. An advanced framework for scripting tests, Atttached is the Test Writing Assistant which is a browser plug -in.
Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner
Security testing application based on crawling web sites. It selects servers from a particular IP or IP range. The site is crawled accumulating information about every file and displaying the site structure. An automatic audit is performed covering common security issues. Technologies such as CGI, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET are tested for vulnerabilities. Areas covered are cross-site scripting, CRLF injection, code execution, directory traversal. MSIE and Windows required.
AgentWebRanking
Search engine monitoring software aiming to improve search engine ranks and submit URLs. Features include keyword searches and specified search depth. Comparisons can be made with competitor sites and meta tag creation. Windows and MSIE required. [It has to be noted that most search engines do not automated URL submission. Users are forced to enter a bespoke text.]
Agitator
Unit test tool for Java developers from Agitar Software. Eclipse and other IDEs available. Instances of classes are created, each method is called with dynamically created sets of input data. XML storage of information. Junit generation and code-rule enforcement are also available.
Alchemy Eye
Server monitoring tool for availability and performance. Vendor is Alchemy Lab. Notifications can be by cell phone, pager, e-mail. External programs can be executed externally and events loggeed.
Alert Linkrunner
Windows-based link checking tool from Viable Software.
AlertBot
Monitor service that enables webmasters to test website availability and performance. They can be alerted of downtime. FTP, HTTP, https, pop3, snmp, ip and dns server monitoring
AlertMeFirst
Web site performance and availability monitoring service. The perspective taken is the consumer. Mail servers, proxy servers, transaction servers and databases can be all monitored.
AlertSite
A package of monitoring tools and services for webmasters. Performance and availability are the focus. Notification can be by e-mail, pager or mobile.
Apache JMeter
Functional load testing tool from the Apache Software Foundation. The software both tests behaviour and measures performance. A wide range of applications can be tested, the original use was for web applications. Static and dynamic resources. E.g. files, Servlets, Perl scripts, Java Objects, Data Bases and Queries and FTP Servers. Servers, networkd or objects can be placed under heavy loads. Alternatively a range of loads and types can be applied. Reporting can be graphical of performance. Jave-based.
PocketSOAP
GUI-based packet capture tool. Packet data is captured and displayed between local client and web server. Captures can be saved to disk. Available for Windows, binaries and source. PocketXML-RPC and PocketHTTP also available.
PowerMapper
Tool for automated site mapping, accessibility and usability checking. HTML validation, link checking, CSS validation, browser compatibility. Vendor is Electrum Multimedia. Requires Windows and MSIE.