Sybase Blogs

Beautiful Mobile Apps

Ian Thain, Senior Technical Evangelist — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:54:36 EST

Mobile Business Applications should help users get their jobs done, intuitively, effectively and efficiently. This can be achieved with a Beautiful Mobile Application, which in turn means a great experience and that’s no different from consumer to business Applications.

Now that the Prosumer (Professional with Consumer expectations and knowledge) is part of every workforce, it is most important to satisfy your Mobile Information Workers with adequate, correct, and consistent information, in new innovative ways.

That is why companies such as Apple suggest that the design of how the Application looks and works should take at least 60% of the projects time, for any new development. For the Mobile user with experience of the Consumer App Stores it is not sufficient to offer the prospect of improvements with the next release update and even for a Enterprise Mobile Application, it is better to understand and get it right first time.

In my next blog I will start to look at the subject of User eXperience

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How to Get Execs and IT on the Same Mobility Page

Carolyn Fitton, Product Marketing — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:09:15 EST

Is today’s business mobility driving a wedge between business executives and IT management? It’s a question worth asking because information technology infrastructure is the backbone of all business activity.

A recent article (“Expect conflict in 2012 as consumerisation raises security alarm bells for CIOs”, CSO, December 2011) illustrates one aspect of this issue. This article points out that many IT executives believe the BYOD (bring your own device) trend has gone so far that it puts the enterprise information assets at risk. The article cites a survey that shows “77 per cent of CIOs said consumerisation of IT is creating unacceptable business risk”, and that “67 per cent of business mobility projects are proceeding without the ‘full involvement’ of the IT organization.” It’s important to keep in mind that in many cases it was executives and line of business managers, as early adopters of the latest smartphones and tablets, who started the trend toward BYOD.

This is just one example of the rift between IT management and mobile business operations. With the declining cost of mobile applications and new tools for more easily visualizing corporate information assets on mobile devices, today’s business mobility makes it easy to bring new business applications into the workplace. Many business managers are enthusiastic supporters of apps that make their operations more efficient. Yet ad hoc mobile solutions that start out being quick, effective, and productive can become massive headaches for IT departments tasked with supporting all these apps, securing them, and integrating them so dependent business operations can share the data they produce. It is no wonder IT departments often feel under siege from the rest of the company that is demanding more expansive mobile operations. In many cases, business mobility moves ahead without them.

This is not a good situation, especially at a time when the advantages of mobility are obvious, and companies are moving rapidly to mobilize key business processes. There are, however, a few simple rules of the road that can quickly get IT and the rest of the company on the same mobility page. These include:

• An enterprise should standardize on one application development platform. This does necessarily mean purchasing and deploying such a platform. But it does mean all applications, whether they are purchased from third parties, developed internally, or custom developed by third parties, should be compatible with a platform standard. This will simplify application management, and it will ensure that data and functionality integrates between different mobile applications.

• An enterprise should adopt a robust device and application management platform that works with all mobile devices and is compatible with the application platform standard. When I say “robust”, I mean this platform has enterprise grade controls that support self-service application portals, application pre-configuration and deployment based on job roles and device types, automatic updates, rigorous security controls, automatic triggers and alerts based on usage parameters, and detailed device tracking and reporting. This platform should provide one set of controls for all devices and applications supported by the company.

With these basic infrastructure building blocks, companies can use technology to define and enforce mobility policies that keep data secure without impinging on operational efficiencies. This will make management and IT happy, and it will make them natural allies in pursuing common business objectives.

Call for Papers: 2012 DBTEST Workshop, Scottsdale, AZ

Glenn Paulley, Director, Engineering — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:35:50 EST

This year's DBTEST Workshop, being organized by Florian Waas of EMC/Greenplum and Eric Lo of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is co-located with the 2012 ACM SIGMOD Conference and will be held on Monday, 21 May 2012 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Eric and Florian, along with the workshop's program committee which includes Guy Lohman (IBM), Jens Dittrich (University of the Saarland), Meikel Poess (Oracle), and myself, are soliciting six-page extended abstracts on a wide variety of topics related to database application and database system testing:

Besides technical contributions around test ideas, test frameworks and methodologies, we also solicit vision papers and war stories regarding quality issues. As somebody who is actively involved with the aspects of actually building data management systems I'm certain you either have specific systems knowledge that could be help and advice for other researchers or open questions that may inspire colleagues to start researching a topic! We count on practitioners to help us enrich the program with war stories that help workshop participants recognize common problems.

This year's workshop features a keynote address from Oxford's Oege de Moor, the principal developer behind the Semmle code analysis products, which features the query language .QL.

Papers are due Monday, March 12, 2012 (5PM Pacific Time). Notifications of acceptance will be sent on or before April 5, and camera-ready copies are due April 22.

See the Workshop site for additional information.

Developing your Enterprise Mobile 'iDea'

Ian Thain, Senior Technical Evangelist — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:15:11 EST

In my last article I looked at the motivation behind and part of the Mobile Developer's DNA. I mentioned that many great apps had started with a great 'iDea' that was either inspirational, formed by personal needs or to better apps that did not quite do it as well as they could have. It is very easy for the developer to get to thinking of how to use the technology first, but this is not a great approach and can limit the opportunities for applications. My friend Anne Skare Nielsen, at Future Navigator in Denmark (http://www.futurenavigator.dk/) identified the formula to be an innovator...

Meaning > Solution > Product > Technology

Ultimately... Think of a meaning for your application and the solution it will achieve, then come up with the concept of a product and identify the technology it will use. Using this order, you get much more of a forward thinking approach when you put the meaning and solution first. Once you have been through this process you can come up with a Application Definition Statement or ADS, that is concise, made up of a small paragraph and can clearly define the high level definition of the application. This is necessary to minimise feature creep, before you go onto the next step of a visual interface with the user.

With the introduction of the iPhone and iPad, as well as other Mobile Devices, UX (User eXperience) design has become more important than ever before. Years ago Windows Developers would probably dedicate about 40% of the total project development time to the look and feel of the GUI (Graphical User Interface), now with iOS Apple is suggesting that this become about 60%. that is how important the way an app in the Apple App Store interacts with the iPhone or iPad end user. Apple are masters of the interface and have dedicated many thousands of hours and Dollars in the usability labs of iOS. So iOS developers should make their apps at least behave like others that are part of the Core OS. This does not mean that iOS developers are restricted and should not innovate new ideas, but be aware not to deviate away from the straight and narrow set by the Cupertino Engineering and Usability Teams. Even Apple are attacking the boundaries of iOS, take the new usage of gestures as an example, that will come along in future releases of iOS.

Storyboards or Mockups on paper are a great start to initially plan an idea and amend after discussion with potential users. If you are not an artist then electronic mockup tools are available, even on the iPad (iMockups for example). These allow the iteration of ideas to be less painful than completely re-drawing and transmission of ideas instantly by email. I have seen that a developer can be so close to their idea that subtle changes that could make a massive difference can be overlooked, as well as the application not working in a way that a user instinctively would expect after using iOS for a while, so Design and Usability Labs are essential.

Again, check out some of the cool UX designs from the teams at SAP!

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Charting Data Quality

Irfan Khan, Sybase CTO — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:39:40 EST

The tragic shipwreck last month of the Costa Concordia bewilders many observers. Like most modern vessels, the cruise ship was outfitted with an electronic chart display information system (ECDIS), which is mandatory equipment on ships today. ECDIS technology replaces old paper charts and provides a wealth of navigational information to a captain and his crew. For example, it also includes data from radar about other ships in the area so as to help avoid collisions.

Perhaps the most vital information ECDIS delivers is about water hazards. Its database includes everything that has been learned about anything in the seas that can affect a ships course, including the rocks that appeared to have ripped open the Costa Concordia’s hull. What’s so baffling about this wreck is that the area in which it happened is well-charted and the seas were calm.

Without attempting to excuse a captain attempting an unauthorized maneuver with his ship, reportedly he has claimed the navigation system did not warn him about the dangers his ship faced. While that’s yet to be determined in this case, there are some who worry about the quality of data within ECDIS.

According to a trade union, Nautilus International, the ECDIS database contains outdated information. And Maxim van Norden, who spent 36 years in the Naval Oceanographic Office and is now in the department of marine science at the University of Southern Mississippi, says [audio] approximately 50% of the chart data provided by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used by ECDIS was collected before 1940, with some of it going back as far as the days of Captain Cook. This does not necessarily mean that the information is wrong, but more modern and accurate charting technology has been devised since those days, which could verify or enhance the existing data.

Another point van Norden makes is that ECDIS users might become beguiled by the way the system displays its information. In an interview he says, “A chart might look very fancy and colorful, but the underlying data would have been collected by very old technology.” Edward Tenner, a historian of technology, adds that such elaborate technology contributes to a sense of overconfidence in some people, leading them to take unnecessary risks, often with disastrous results.

Data quality is crucial when business and IT professionals take calculated risks. By assuring that you’re working with quality data you minimize the risk and raise the chances for success. You can’t take risk out of every decision. That’s simply the nature of a business. But if you make data-driven choices with high quality data you will succeed more often. The colorful dashboard display on your PC may look impressive, but if the data quality feeding your visual tool is poor, so will be the decision you make.

If the tragedy still unfolding off the Italian coastline teaches us anything, make absolutely certain that your organization has thoughtful managers who make data-driven choices, not egotistical ones; and that they are supported by effective business processes to assure that the data is of the highest quality. Without them, you may not risk sending a ship to the sea bottom, but you could sink an enterprise.

February 2012 2-Way SMS Enterprise Messaging coverage list

Benoît Catelin, Product Manager — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:13:45 EST

Since a long time I haven't published our SMS 2-Way coverage list.

As of today we have active services running in Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Botswana, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA, Venezuela, Vietnam and Yemen.

[caption id="attachment_275" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="Sybase 365 2-Way Standard Messaging - February 2012"][/caption]

That’s 2-Way reach using local codes to:

95countries

347 operators

3.8 Billion subscribers

As you already know if you looked at my previous updates we have agreements with 5 operators in EMEA and APAC to run international long codes; further increasing the 2-Way reach to virtually any operator.

Map licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5 License. Attribution: Russavia

Mobile Developers DNA

Ian Thain, Senior Technical Evangelist — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:52:29 EST

Excuse me for again using iOS as the example, but I have been lucky enough to travel over the last few years and either attend or work at events that centre around the iPhone and iPad, one of which being Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, but also regional iOS Developer User Group events. During this time I have met many great iOS developers each with their own stories of how their apps started with an 'iDea' (sorry for the 'i' pun, could not resist it) and more... Why they got into developing for Apple iOS, along with their motivation and each with pretty good levels of success in Apple's App Store.

The majority of these iOS Developers are what's termed as 'Indie'...that is an independent developer, working alone on their projects, either full time for their own employment or part time working in their own spare time after work. At the moment this seems to be the majority, but there is also a growing number of Corporate Developers joining the crowd. These are being seconded by their employers into iOS development, where their Company strive to be leaders with Brand presence in the Apple App Store, have a great innovative idea that will give them a competitive advantage, or follow competitors that already have beaten them to App-Leadership. What I have found is that most iPhone and iPad Developers do not just fall into one of the following motivational points, but a combination of many and I have not placed these in any order of importance. Though I have to say that the last three have seemed to be the most popular pieces, that make up the iOS developer's DNA.

Getting to grips with a new language is always a draw for developers, be they a software development professional or hobbyist. Once a developer always a developer and the well homed skills of software design and development can be used again and again. The Objective-C/C++ language and the Cocoa Touch framework is an interesting combination, and has also brought experienced C/C++ developers to the App Store.

Creating productive applications, those that save the end user time and effort is usually a reason for developers that are more business centric. These app's goals are to make a difference to the iPhone and iPad users "Mobile Lifestyle" fulfilling needs and streamlining processes.

For those into the fun side of mobile computing, creating cool games gives them a great buzz. Being able to produce new games, that utilise the device hardware and iOS capabilities in new ways, will put them #1 in the game charts. This has been the case with the power of iOS along with the accelerometer and gyroscope features.

Using the coolest device, well this reason has to be in the list, and pushing the limits of the device & apps that have gone before, has been mentioned to me a few times. It is fair to say that iOS apps that stand out, usually are original & ground breaking, but taking a totally new look at an idea and making it better also works.

Becoming famous and standing out amongst your mobile development peers, as well as being known by the iOS community as the developer of that '"Must have Killer App" is never much spoken. However along with the next and final reason, I feel is always always high in the subconscious of the iOS developer.

Finally success on a platform where developers can make money and strive to become the next "App Millionaire" is always a high motivator. Apple's revenue cheques continue to flow out of Cupertino, to the developers on the App Store and this does not look like changing for a long time, even now in 2012.

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SQL Anywhere Performance - "How can I make it faster?"

Jason Hinsperger, Product Manager — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:00:26 EST

I hear the following questions at least once a week in some form from sales, support and customers:

"What changes should I make to my database to make it faster?"

"What should the specs be on my server machine that will run SQL Anywhere?"

"My application is slow. How can I make it faster?"

The answer to all of these questions is:

IT DEPENDS

No really, the answers to all of these questions depends on things like:

Number of users

Size of database

Database architecture

Application design

Expected usage pattern

Identification of existing bottlenecks

etc...

A great place to start learning about various aspects of performance is with some of the papers listed on Glenn Paulley's blog, and from our webcast archives.

There is no magic bullet, no magic "go fast" option for the database server. SQL Anywhere does a fantastic job of utilizing whatever resources are available to their full extent, dynamically adjusting as things (eg. machine workload, database workload, etc...) change. However, if you want to improve performance, you are going to have to put in some time analyzing and determining what changes should be made to get you the biggest bang for your buck. If you don't, you risk ~~spending~~ wasting money on things that may have little or no impact on performance.

The above information, formatted to fit the situation, is my stock response every time the performance question comes in. Inevitably, I get the follow-up question which boils down to "Please give us some something."

I understand why these questions come in. SQL Anywhere supports a wide variety of operating environments and has relatively low minimum requirements. In turn, our customers, who embed SQL Anywhere in their solutions, have to support a variety of end-user environments. They need to provide some sort of initial guidance to their end customers to ensure a positive experience with their applications.

Because every situation is different, it is impossible to give a well-defined "if X then Y" solution to guaranteeing good performance. However, I have used the following high-level very loose rules of thumb, which don't really help at all IMO, but sometimes seem to satisfy people.

More RAM never hurts.

Faster/more disks never hurts

Faster/more processors never hurts

Basically, if you want to go out and spend money on new hardware, you will not likely decrease performance. However, we can't guarantee that it will increase performance by a specific amount either.

There is a second level of very loose rules of thumb that can be used in scenarios where people want/need guidance on where to focus their efforts/expenditures. These only apply if at least some effort has been put into identifying where bottlenecks are (or where they are likely to be). The more effort put in to understand performance characteristics, the better your chances are of making good decisions:

If the database server I/O is heavy (ie. lots of write activity), spending more on disks is probably a good idea

If the disk is 'thrashing' a lot, more RAM and more/faster disks is probably a good idea.

If the CPU is pegged at or near 100%, more faster CPUs/cores is probably a good idea.

If disk activity is light and CPU usage is low, network issues or blocking/deadlock issues are likely causing the performance problems. In both cases, improving application or database architecture is a good idea, and more/faster RAM/CPU/Disk will not likely help much.

If They’re Happy and They Tweet It, Buy the Stock

Derek Klobucher, Financial Services Editor — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 06:15:06 EST

There’s nothing revolutionary about gauging consumer opinion, except when you use social media to help. Incorporating properly distilled data from the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn offers investors access to an exponentially broader slice of the population.

Imagine going from a survey of hundreds or thousands of people to analyzing data volunteered by millions. It’s like an aggregator on steroids. And that is revolutionary.

A 2010 study in the Cornell University Library found that “collective mood states derived from large-scale Twitter feeds” predicted swings on the Dow Jones Industrial Average with 86.7 percent accuracy. Researchers used two mood tracking tools -- similar to what traders could widely employ someday -- to gauge the collective disposition of microbloggers.

“Including this mood information leads to higher accuracy,” computational social scientist Johan Bollen told Wired following the study. “We’re presuming on the basis of what we found, if you have some kind of super-duper algorithm and you add our time series, its accuracy will go up.”

And go up it has -- at least once. A hedge fund with London-based Derwent Capital Markets beat the market last summer by tallying and categorizing keywords found on Twitter such as “alert,” “happy” and “vital,” according to The Atlantic Wire.

Drilling Down to Individual Stocks

Derwent’s approach reflects a technology in its infancy. It doesn’t try to figure out why the tweets are positive or negative. That makes it suitable only for trading broad market indices such as the Dow.

And tracking social networks still isn’t the best way to predict an individual company’s stock moves. That requires traditional vigilance over SEC filings, the CEO’s state of mind and impending scandals because most social media users don’t brag about their high-performing stocks on Facebook or Tweet about their latest bargain equity.

But they do jabber at length (pun intended) about consumer products via blogs and YouTube, not to mention exposure on Flickr. That opens the door to sophisticated indirect sentiment analysis that may someday predict swings in individual stock prices.

This technique may not be as helpful if you’re tracking the manufacturer of the latest classified military fighting vehicle. But it could be great if you’re watching the manufacturer of the latest smartphone or tablet computer -- or the big-box retailer that sells them.

Market sentiment gleaned from examined social media is not yet a crucial variable in the trading equation, as my fellow Trading & Risk Technology blogger Neil McGovern pointed out to tech blog ReadWriteWeb last week. The high price of this nascent analytical technology may be a tough pill for many firms to swallow, but they ignore this type of input at their own detriment.

“Stocks can go up 5 percent or 10 percent [in one] day, which ... can often be because of rumors in the market,” McGovern said. “This [technology] seems to make sense to people in the markets as a way to be able to tap into those rumors and help their short-term trading strategies.”

Spotting Corruption, Risk

Monitoring social networks can also spot patterns among seemingly random events, which in turn can expose fraud. Deploying a platform with the right mix of analytical technologies offers firms the ability to uncover market manipulation and respond accordingly.

“[If the technology] is too far off for trading, maybe we would want to look at social media for risk management,” Peter Van Kleef, managing director at Starnberg, Germany-based consultancy Lakeview Capital Market Services told CNBC.com last week. “If we can just find a couple of those time bombs before they go off, we can reduce our exposure to them.”

That means climbing mountains of unstructured data; and social media tracking technology is still learning how to walk. But early adopters are already breaking in their boots, likely to work out the bugs to reap the juiciest data -- and create formidable buddy lists along the way.

Even if capital markets firms don’t take up social media tracking en masse, many companies have already started tracking themselves. Facebook, blogs and discussion groups are a few ways that an enterprise can manage its image online.

This image management has evolved from individuals monitoring the Web to automated reports to real-time aware businesses. And it represents a tremendous opportunity for capital markets firms to develop this technology in parallel.

So whether starting small with risk or going big with trade modeling, this is a budding technology with a lot of promise. As we have seen time and time again, failure to adapt soon enough could turn even today’s mightiest firm into the MySpace of trading tomorrow.

Mobility in Business is NOW a NECESSITY!

Ian Thain, Senior Technical Evangelist — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:49:25 EST

If you have been reading my articles and blogs you will know that I am a staunch believer that the Tablet Device (for me the iPad) is the Corporate Mobility game changer and enabler for the future and the Future of Mobility is NOW!

I totally believe that the Mobile device is a tool for the future worker that can be unlocked with the forward thinking and design of bespoke business apps.

Having a Mobile Device and never building Corporate Apps is like having a Swiss Army Knife on a Survival Trip and never using it.

Check out my full article at TechWorld here

Your Information Worker in 2012 will want Apps, Apps and More Apps!