Information On Demand 2007 - Vegas

Sorry for the delay in my blog. I am back from IOD 2007 and I am all Vegas’ed out! Yes - I think "Vegas" should be a verb as this point (after 9 days of being there). As I had closed the Developer Den, I took a step back to snapshot the moment. “Exhausted!” is the best word for it; over 51 great sessions from the speakers. I did however feel a slight remorse that it had to end. There were many positive comments from the sessions within the Developer Den.

I must say "thank you" for the contributions from the speakers – great job. The speakers challenged the audience with new ideas ranging from Mash-ups, Web Services, cool XML and SQL content, and a new Java persistence technology in pureQuery to name a few. The Developer Den had it all which made the pace quicker than last year. We managed to find a way to give away IBM Data Studio, DB2 Viper 2 (DB2 Version 9.5) preview and the IDS Developer Edition all of which were hot off the presses.

I won’t go into new features of Viper 2 (DB2 version 9.5) for Developers as you will find more about that on November 7th Webcast titled “What is new for Viper 2 for Developers”

The Developer Den had a few of sessions on Mash-ups which were well attended. The Info 2.0 (a new Mash-up technology vision) was included in discussion in the Developer Den which complimented Business track at IOD and demos in the Exhibit Hall. From what I can tell customers’ are interested in the value proposition of the Info 2.0 vision which really makes me excited. Mash-ups are definitely on the radar for many companies as they are trying to figure out the landscape of Mash-ups for their environment. The latest edition of DB2 Magazine provides an insightful article on the Info 2.0 vision featuring comments from Anant Jhingran and Arvind Krishna. Additionally, this article provides tips on how to “brush up” on these technologies. The Info 2.0 momentum continues to grow from previous announcements on the IBM Mash-up Starter Toolkit on alphaWorks.

The IBM Data Studio also had a fair bit of content within the Developer Den which is very complimentary to the Info 2.0 vision. IBM Data Studio makes it easier for Application DBAs to produce data-centric Web Services which would be more easily consumable for Info 2.0 and in effect broadens the reach of Information on Demand. Check out the press release on IBM Data Studio. Many were interested in learning how to get started with IBM Data Studio as this session had standing room only. Additionally, IBM Data Studio ties nicely in with Rational products and Rational Data Architect.

Looking forward to next year.

Geeking Around

I have been on the road a fair bit and hence lacking real data. But recently have had a chance to run into to some very cool technology in September. I have been to:

· Web 2.0 Goes to Work from IBM developerWorks in Raleigh
· VSLive (New York)
· Web 2.0 Goes to Work from IBM developerWorks in Austin
· AjaxWorld (Santa Clara)

In my travels recently I have seen some very cool Ajax technology. The two notables demos/topics:

· Work going on with openAjax Alliance with AjaxHub and being able to search for an Ajax widget and pull it into your mashup via drag and drop. While AjaxWorld was relatively quiet – this was cool. You may also see this technology at ZendCon next week and IBM Information on Demand the following week.
· I was involved with a demo that published a Web Service from the Web 2.0 Starter Toolkit for IBM DB2 and then consumed it into what is called DAMIA on IBM alphaWorks (within minutes). The DAMIA technology will soon have a revision check out the news next week. I hope to have a write up on it very soon. I will post a url when the update occurs.


I will report to soon on my next couple of weeks at ZendCon and IBM Information On Demand.

Again, if you are a IBM Data Server technology person, check out the developer Den at IOD particularly TDN 2630 Developing with pureXML: A panel discussion. Get real life experience developing with best in breed XML data management.

Check it out.