Are you a Directory Hero? We want to know. In the last three months I have heard from several of you via the IRC chat on OpenDS.org at identity conferences or at user groups around the world about the great projects that leverage the innovations from the OpenDS community. We have been able to share a few of the great stories via the blogs story site. Everyone learns from hearing about the ways in which you are using LDAP in your organization. It is this sharing in the open that makes being a part of an Open Source Software project exciting and a great learning experience. I am reminded of a truism "Share comes before success".
Therefore, we are annoncing a new opportunity for you to share your stories with us at Sun. If you have deployed OpenDS and are using it please send us a story at the following email address. Here are some suggested questions that you can answer. Alternatively, blog or create a video about your implementation and send us the link. We want to show our appreciation for sharing so for the top 30 stories we receive we will send you a free t-shirt. Please include an address in your submission.
Here is what to do:
Step 1: Download the questionaire.
Step 2: Answer the questions that apply to your deployment
Step 3: Create blog or videocast and post somewhere
Step 4: Share: Send us the link at the email address above and include questionaire, link to your blog or video and an address for us to send the t-shirt.
Here is the suggested questionaire to guide you through what information the community would like to hear about your implementation.
Questions (Download here) and you don't have to answer them all:
Can you tell us more about your company ?
Can you tell us about the application, site, or service in which you have adopted OpenDS? [ Note: this is where you can hopefully get some publicity for your own business or project. So consider including any hyperlinks, screenshots, etc. that you would like for us to use in that context. Also, are you embedding OpenDS in your application?]
How and when did you first find out about OpenDS?
Did you go through an evaluation process before selecting OpenDS? If so, can you tell us a little bit about the process and results?
What specific version of OpenDS are you using?
On what operating system do you run OpenDS? Do you use the same OS for both development and production deployment?
On what hardware platform do you run OpenDS? Do you use the same platform for both development and production deployment?
Have you purchased a OpenDS license? If not, have you thought about doing so and do you know it includes access to patches and sustaining releases (more details from http://wikis.sun.com/display/sunopends)?
What specific features of OpenDS are you using?
What do you like most about OpenDS?
What would you most like to see improved in OpenDS?
Does your application also use a database? If so, which one?
Are there any figures about the scale of your adoption which you would like to share (such as how much traffic is being handled, how many entries are stored in OpenDS, how many servers are used)?
How has OpenDS performed since your application/service went live? Have you run into any production issues which you would attribute to OpenDS?
Would you recommend OpenDS to others? Why?
How does OpenDS figure in your future plans?
How would your describe your participation in the OpenDS project (e.g. user only, submitter of bug reports and RFEs, developer who has contributed code)?
Is there anything else you think would be of interest in a story about your OpenDS adoption?
March is going to be an exciting month with a number of events to help make it fun by joining us at one of the events listed below. The month get's started with an Unconference in New York sponsored by the OpenSSO team. The OpenDS team will be there as well leading a discussion on using LDAP and OpenDS as an identity repository. The event is free and only requires you to sign-up at meet-up.com. Here is the link and you can see how many people are attending. As of tonight there were 54 attendees. Sign-up here.
At the wiki page for the event you can add topics that you would like to discuss. There is already a suggested list that includes a presentation by Ludo on OpenDS as a datastore. You can access the wiki here.
One of the great things about being the Product Line Manager for Directory Server at Sun is I get to work with great people like Daniel Raskin, Senior Product Line Manager for OpenSSO, and customers like Damodaram Bashyam, Directory of IT, at Verizon Wireless. Daniel wrote a great blog today posting the slides and video recording of a recent presentation where I had the great pleasure of introducing Damodaram at Gartner IAM in Orlando last Fall. The video below from Daniel's blog allows us all to hear about his deployment of OpenSSO and Directory Server. It is an example of the great content that is presented at Gartner and we hope you will join us for the next Gartner conference in London on March 23-26.
It is a powerful example of the talented engineers we have at Sun and the results of good partnerships with customers like Verizon. Scalability and high availability are a part of our DNA at Sun and as you can see from the video and Damodaram's presentation we believe live case studies prove the value of our product better than any controlled benchmark. Watch and listen:
Here is a quick overview of the performance statistics from the presentation. Download it here
Gartner Identity Access Management Conference in London March 23-26 is fast approaching. As one of the fun extra-curricular events planned for the conference the Sun Identity Team would like to invite you to join us for some 10 Pin Bowling on Monday evening. We will pay for your cab ride from the hotel to the event, please come by our booth for more information. In the meantime, go to the meetup page and RSVP for the event.
Join Sun and Accenture for a Gartner IAM after-hours party in the Kingpin Suite at Bloomsbury Lanes where you can: * Bowl (top scoring bowler at the end of the night wins a prize pak) * Play pool and table tennis * Show off your Karaoke skills * Enjoy delicious food and beverages * Enter an onsite raffle to win a Wii console with WiiSports. Must be present to win.
Party details: When: Monday, March 23rd from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Where: Kingpin Suite at Bloomsbury Lanes (basement of Tavistock Hotel on Bedford Way, London WC1H9EU) Check it out here. Reserve your spot by March 20th here and your cab fare to the party is on us! * Gartner IAM Badge Required for Entry
There is a great webinar being offered on Wednesday, Jan. 21 which you may have missed the announcement because of all the excitement about the Inauguration and Martin Luther King Holiday in the US. Daniel Raskin, Product Line Manager OpenSSO, and Jamie Nelson, Director of Engineering for OpenSSO, will be talking about the current release as well as the plans for the next release of OpenSSO Express. There are already 200 registrants and there is a cap at 250 so register now so you don't get left out!
The Directory crowd should be interested as well, because OpenDS is bundled with OpenSSO and is used as OpenSSO's policy store and can be leveraged as a user store as well. Here are the details:
Sun Software Webinar: See how Sun's OpenSSO Enterprise provides a single solution for Web access management, federation, and Web services security.
Join Sun for a live webinar on one of today's most exciting aspects of identity management! During this session, we will discuss OpenSSO innovation and how it pushes access management, federation, and secure Web services capabilities to a new level. Learn how to solve challenges around these capabilities with a single solution.
This webinar will be presented by Sun's OpenSSO experts: Daniel Raskin, the senior product line manager, and Jamie Nelson, the director of engineering. We hope that you can join us!
If you have any questions or feedback, please send a message to SWI_Webinar_Inquiries@sun.com.
Gary Williams, a staff engineer and the QA lead of OpenDS,
published a great article with Marina Sum on the topic of how working
on an open source software project has improved quality in product
development. The process is without challenges which he outlines in
the article as well. However, he also gives great detail about the
test harness that is used, the amount of automation and community
involvement to address the challenges and get high quality product in
community hands more frequently. The full article is available on the Sun Developer Network here.
These
are the types of processes that quality open source projects do as a
part of the project development process. Indira Thangasamy, produced a similar
article on how they approach QA within the OpenSSO project.
As companies evaluate other open source projects, especially in these
challenging economic times where cost reduction provide stronger
rational's to consider starting projects using open source software.
The quality approach of communities becomes an important differntiator
as companies use open source in production and customer facing systems.
Here is a quick overview of the test harness used on OpenDS:
We use open-source, Java platform-based test tools, such as the
following, not only to demonstrate our support for open source but also
to ensure that they are accessible to everyone:
TestNG — For running unit tests, same as in OpenSSO
Checkstyle — For checking code style and rules before commitment
Unit Testing and Automation: "Testing starts in the programming phase with unit tests, which verify
that the code works as intended and which must exist for all features.
Today, we run 30,000 automated unit tests daily on different Java
virtual machines. No code can be integrated without satisfying the
precommit requirements."
Code coverage — With open-source EMMA, we find out the
number of code lines, blocks, methods, and classes that are exposed by
the unit and functional tests. Part of that information pinpoints the
amount of the code tested as a percentage of the total, defining if
we've met the quality criteria. We also define which areas of the code
are not tested, called coverage holes, and create new tests to fill
them.
Feature coverage — OpenDS delivers features that customers
want, that is, customer requirements. Each feature is recorded as an
issue in the Issue Tracker, a tool that monitors defects. This data
tells us the state the features are in and their status: Ready for Test
or Tested.
Documentation coverage — To ensure that the documentation is
reviewed according to the test plan, we adopt a two-phase documentation
review process: a technical review of the content followed by a formal
QA review. Like the product features, the documentation is divided into
categories—books, chapters, and sections—that are recorded in the Issue
tracker. Through this coverage, we measure the percentage of the
documentation reviewed over time and identify the reviewers and review
status.
Defect rates — This is a traditional measure. The goal is to
have no high-priority bugs open at release time. Our Bug Council
constantly studies the defects and assesses the risks to customers. We
also plot simple graph trends to gauge how well the project is
converging.
Thanks to Gary and Marina for publishing this article and allowing the community to learn from your experience.
As President-elect Obama announced his Energy Team yesterday, I was excited for two reasons. One, Steven Chu is a Californian from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and it is nice to see local citizens playing National and Global roles improving our environment. Two, I am proud to work at Sun because a large number of the energy innovators like Argonne Laboratory, which is also a part of the Department of Energy, are using Sun's Software to provide the backbone of innovation within these organizations.
Argonne Laboratory uses Directory Server Enterprise Edition to power their collaboration infrastructure. They also use MySQL, JavaES, OpenSSO Enterprise and Virtualization (e.g. xVM Server) to power their innovation. You can see a great video with David Salbego, Director of IT Infrastructure at Argonne National Labs regarding his experience and
business benefits resulting from Sun solutions.
BC Hydro also used OpenSSO Enterprise and Directory Server to reduce cost of providing a web portal for their customers to get interact with their organization. They reduced the use of paper and conserved resources for our environment. You can read about the solution here.
If you are a Facebook user that has received some crazy emails recently from "friends" with enticing subject lines to click on a video or picture should think twice before clicking the link. The Koobface virus has rared it's ugly head again and for some in the eweek article posted here have had to throw out their PC's because of being infected. Facebook has been great about identifying scams and exploits and maintains this page for users to get information about their security.
In the interest of spreading the word and propagating good usage of the internet:
Here are some ways to be smart and aware on Facebook:
If a link or message seems weird, don't click on it.
This is true of all spam—whether a chain letter, an ad, or a phishing
scam. If it seems weird for an old friend to write on your Wall and
post a link, that friend may have gotten phished. Let the person know,
and don't click on links you don't trust.
Be aware of where you enter your password. Just because
a page on the Internet looks like Facebook, it doesn't mean it is.
Learn to tell the difference between a good link and a bad one.
Report any spam or abuse you see on discussion boards and Walls.
Those report links are there for a reason. The sooner we find spam, the
sooner we can remove it and eliminate spammers from the site.
Don't use the same password on Facebook that you use in other places on the web.
If you do this, phishers or hackers who gain access to one of your
accounts will easily be able to access your others too. You might find
yourself locked out of your email and even your bank account.
Never share your password with anyone. Don't
do it. Facebook will never ask for your password through any form of
communication. If someone pretending to be a Facebook employee asks you
for it, don't give it out, and report the person immediately.
Don't click on links or open attachments in suspicious emails.
Fake emails can be very convincing, and hackers can spoof the "From:"
address so the email looks like it's from Facebook. If the email looks
weird, don't trust it, and delete it from your inbox.
Add a security question. If your account ever
does get stolen, you might need this to prove your identity to
Facebook. If you haven't already done so, you can add a security
question from the "Account Settings" page.
Also, if you are interested in avoiding scams during the holiday season here is a helpful site from CNET. The site can be viewed here.
BusinessWeek published an interesting article on Sunday titled "U.S. Is Losing Global Cyberwar, Commission Says". If you are interested in Identity Management or IT security this is an important topic. The plenary session was held this afternoon with press releases flying across the internet. You can find the MSNBC version here. BusinessWeek did a nice job of scooping the report and summarizing some of the recommendations which include creating a "CyberSecurity Czar". I am not sure we need more Czar's but if you are interested in the details of the report please take a look at the full report here.
Now I know that you are already aware that the "Cat's" on the OpenSSO team are very cool. But did you know that Gartner has given them a positive review in the latest Magic Quadrant of their latest release. The move up and to the right in the magic quadrant because of the innovative work on the "Fedlet", their interoperability and standards support, as well as their support of web services security via the STS has got them dancing.
Another couple of Cool Cat's, Nick Crown and Pat Patterson, posted blog entries yesterday also praising the achievement.
Check out the team as they celebrate the latest accolade for their innovative work. Thanks to the team over at Jib Jab and Office Depot who helped us record the Cool Cat's as they celebrated at a local club in Santa Clara. You should go and visit the site and get Elfed. My three kids lauged for 5 minutes straight last night after creating a video on this site.
Gartner Identity and Access Management conference is happening next week, Nov. 10-12 in Orlando, Florida. This is a great event that brings together analysts, customers and vendors to share knowledge and experience on important topics that shape the Identity and Security industry. I will be attending with a few of my notable Identity Product Managers at Sun including: Daniel Raskin, OpenSSO; Nick Crown, Identity and Role Manager; Craig MacDonald, Identity Manager; and our fearless leader John Barco.
Come by and spend some time with your favorite Identity team. On Monday, November 10 we will be watching Monday Night Football and talking identity in the Presidential Suite at the Gaylord Hotel at 9:00pm ET. There will be great food, drinks and music as well as a few discussions about Identity. We hope to see you there.
And, we will be having a few games of Identity Hero. If you want to practice, check it out here.
There are great things happening in the OpenDS project. Last week the team released a major update to the code. The release also contained a great new console to manage schema, edit entries, etc. I will blog more about this later in the week.
Additionally, Ludo is having his monthly call this morning to go over the new release and discuss some upcoming feature's. Hopefully, you can join the call. Here are the details.
Dear OpenDS users and developers,
Please join us on the phone for the next OpenDS monthly public
meeting, Tuesday November 4th, 2008, 9am PST, 6pm CET, 5pm GMT.
On the agenda for this month meeting, we will review the current
status of OpenDS 1.1, do an update on the roadmap and will present in
details the changes that being integrated in OpenDS to be able to
integrate it as part of OpenSolaris. These changes include SVR4
packages, additional features with SASL authentication, SMF support,
separation of binaries and data...
I will be attending Burton Catalyst Europe in Prague next week. This is a great conference brings
together a number of thought leaders and practitioners in the Identity,
SecuritySOA and Dyanmic Data Center spaces to talk about real problems. The event brings a fresh approach to conferences as they minimize vendor presentations. Yes I am a vendor and I do appreciate this approach. Because, as a vendor we attend the conference to have real open conversations with customers and analysts about the problems
teams are experiencing, and hear about creative solutions that are being employed to
solve those problems. Ultimately, it is about sharing in an open environment about where we all think the identity space is headed. I look forward to hearing what people are doing with virtual directories. How LDAP is being used or not used in Web 2.0 architectures? And, how this "identity bus" that Kim Cameron and Felix from Kuplinger-Cole were talking about here, may involve OpenDS or OpenESB?
Additionally,
while we are in Europe, on Tuesday, October 28 we will be attending the
Sun Identity User Group in Munich. This User Group session is open to
all Identity Manager, Access Manager, Directory Server Enterprise
Edition, and Federation Manager customers. For anyone new to this User
Group, it is a customer driven forum providing a valuable opportunity
for customers to exchange practical and technical knowledge and
experiences. Here is information on the time and location:
Sun Identity Management User Group - EMEA 2008 Tuesday, October 28, 2008 9:00 am - 4:30 pm Registration & Continental Breakfast will begin at 8:30 am Sun Microsystems GmbH Sonnenallee 1 85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
The agenda of the User Group can be found here. You can register for the User Group by going here.
I recently moved over to the Directory Services team to take on the Product Line Management position. I had a lot of fun working with the OpenSSO team and I am excited about the great things that team has released into the market place. Another exciting thing about the job change, besides continuing to work with the OpenSSO team as they embed OpenDS as the configuration store in their product, is that I get to work with another team that values the importance of User Experience when building software. Enterprise software for years has promulgated the myth that all that matters is innovation or features within new releases. User Experience has always been an after-thought.
OpenDS has worked hard to promulgate a different approach which puts User Experience at the top of the priority list. You can see this in the installation experience of the software. MySQL builds software with a design guideline Martin Mickos call the "15 minute rule". This is the rule that their enterprise version should be downloaded and installed in 15 minutes or less. OpenDS can beat this by being installed in less than 3 minutes. This is even true when you are allowing OpenDS to generate 2000 simluated Directory Entries. Powerful stuff. Not only do you get a great directory engine up and running quickly but if you are a Developer or QA Engineer you can get going quicker as well.
More to come on the performance data and some of our plans soon. See for yourself how great the User Experience is for OpenDS in the video below:
I have been reading Daniel Raskin, aka The Smoking Monkey (Ask Mr. Cote why), Pat Patterson and Mr. Dixon's posts recently and I thought that things were getting very interesting in the Identity space at Sun. The phenomenon of the IdentiCat has caused interesting questions to be raised about the role of identity as related to the Yeti, BigFoot and now the IdentiCat. I saw this offer to register for a presentation in SecondLife. I am going to be there to find out what this is all about.
Mr. Winky, The IdentiCat will be giving an overview of OpenSSO Enterprise 8 in SecondLife on September, 30 at 8:00am PST. You can register the for the presentation here.
The IdentiCat is rumored to outnumber the Yeti and BigFoot throughout the world. It is just not as big or is commonly confused with Tigger (Image to the Right provided by Disney) or Tony the Tiger. As a result there is not as much press that is generated because sightings often result in "back away from the sugar cereal" comments. It has even resulted in some people wanting to ban or limit the use of sugar cereals by children lest they start to proclaim they had actualy seen an IdentiCat.
The real IdentiCat has come out to set the record straight. It is refreshing that we are able to get the truth about this confusion and be able to see the true IdentiCat. At the same time it is fitting to have Mr. Winky explain what great features will be available in the OpenSSO Enterprise 8 release. The juxtaposition of identity protection and revealing the IdentiCat now that he is ready to reveal himself attests to the security capabilities of OpenSSO Enteprise 8. I hope to see you all in SecondLife.
at identity conferences or at user groups around the world about the great projects that leverage the innovations from the OpenDS community. We have been able to share a few of the great stories via the blogs story site. Everyone learns from hearing about the ways in which you are using LDAP in your organization. It is this sharing in the open that makes being a part of an Open Source Software project exciting and a great learning experience. I am reminded of a truism "Share comes before success".
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March is going to be an exciting month with a number of events to help make it fun by joining us at one of the events listed below. The month get's started with an Unconference in New York sponsored by the OpenSSO team. The OpenDS team will be there as well leading a discussion on using LDAP and OpenDS as an identity repository. The event is free and only requires you to sign-up at meet-up.com. Here is the link and you can see how many people are attending. As of tonight there were 54 attendees. Sign-up 
about the current release as well as the plans for the next release of OpenSSO Express. There are already 200 registrants and there is a cap at 250 so register now so you don't get left out!
If you are a 
an register the for the presentation 
