Latest News from Agile Software Development

Aegis Analytical Hires Neal as CTO

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:01:54 EDT

Aegis Analytical Corp., the leading provider of Manufacturing and Process Intelligence software, announced today it has hired Mike Neal as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Free Tool From Systemation Helps Organizations Determine Performance Improvement Opportunities

Wed, 16 May 2012 05:15:27 EDT

How much money could be freed up if you made even small improvements in your project processes? You can now answer this question in five minutes with a free new online tool called the Project Performance ROI Calculator.

Qualtrics Raises $70 Million in Funding from Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:04:18 EDT

Qualtrics, the company that makes sophisticated research simple, today announced it has partnered with Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital in the two firms’ largest-ever joint investment. Accel and Sequoia will provide a range of services and $70 million to help Qualtrics expand its SaaS product offerings beyond market research and accelerate its global growth, beginning with the hiring of another 250 employees in the next year alone.

Santeon Group, Inc. Interim Operational and Financial Update

Tue, 15 May 2012 10:17:54 EDT

Santeon Group, Inc. (OTCBB: SANT) released key highlights of the Special Update Call it held for shareholders and all interested parties on Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 5:00 PM (EDT). The purpose of the Special Update Call was to provide an interim update on the progress of the Company's business efforts, recently-awarded contracts, its recent 2010 10-K filing, the status of its current year audit and its plans and strategy for 2012/2013. Following management's prepared remarks, shareholders and other interested parties had the opportunity to ask questions of management.

New Research Reveals Why IT Should Forget About Development

Tue, 15 May 2012 09:03:00 EDT

African Sun Shines on the New Silos

Mon, 14 May 2012 06:27:00 EDT

I am sitting in the african sunshine supposedly having a month off work. However I suppose looking after grandchildren was never going to be a cakewalk! But one of the real benefits of taking time away, even if it's not a vacation as such

10gen to Speak on Enterprise Big Data and Scaling With NoSQL at MIT/Stanford Venture Lab Event

Fri, 11 May 2012 17:04:31 EDT

10gen, the company behind the leading open source NoSQL database MongoDB, today announced that President Max Schireson will take part in a panel discussion on Big Data and how enterprises have taken note of how disruptive scaling is painless with NoSQL technology. The MIT/Stanford Venture Lab event takes place on May 15, 2012 at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and will be moderated by Robert Scoble, startup liaison officer at Rackspace Hosting. Additional speakers include: Doug Cutting, chairman of the board of directors at Apache Software Foundation and founder of Hadoop; Andrew Mendelsohn, senior vice president, database server technologies, Oracle; James Phillips, director, co-founder and senior vice president, products at Couchbase.

Flexera Software Announces InstallShield 2012 Spring, Further Enabling Desktop Transformations

Thu, 10 May 2012 08:00:21 EDT

Flexera Software, the leading provider of Application Usage Management solutions for application producers and enterprises, announced today the launch of InstallShield 2012 Spring. InstallShield is the global de facto installation development solution on more than 500 million PCs, supporting traditional and agile development teams with their Windows, cloud and virtualization installation requirements.

Flexera Software Announces InstallShield 2012 Spring, Further Enabling Desktop Transformations

Thu, 10 May 2012 08:00:00 EDT

New enhanced support for the cloud, Windows 8, Microsoft System Center 2012 and improved installation experience for on-premises, virtual and cloud applications

Maidenhead, UK - May 10, 2012 - Flexera Software, the leading provider of Application Usage Management solutions for application producers and enterprises, announced today the launch of InstallShield 2012 Spring. InstallShield is the global de facto installation development solution on more than 500 million PCs, supporting traditional and agile development teams with their Windows, cloud and virtualisation installation requirements.

"Enterprises are in the midst of significant transformation - the consumerisation of IT, virtualisation and the cloud, to name a few examples," said Maureen Polte, Vice President of Product Management at Flexera Software. "This creates new opportunities for software producers able to deliver next-generation solutions while creating an exceptional experience - starting with software installation. InstallShield 2012 Spring demonstrates Flexera Software's leadership in the installation management space as an enabler to desktop transformations and the cloud."

Helping Software Producers Deliver Desktop Transformation
The rapidly changing technology marketplace favors software producers that can adapt quickly, go to market faster, and create an exceptional customer experience consistent with a "there's an app for that" mindset. InstallShield 2012 Spring empowers software producers with support for emerging technologies using traditional and agile development processes. For instance, as the cloud transforms enterprise application strategies, software producers must support database access for their products both on-premises and in hybrid cloud environments. InstallShield 2012 Spring offers new Microsoft SQL Azure database scripting capabilities enabling software producers to support hybrid cloud deployments of their applications.

"SQL Azure is a highly available and scalable cloud database service, built on SQL Server technologies, that makes it easy for enterprises to extend solutions to the cloud without having to migrate all of their data or existing enterprise datacenter applications at once," said Gregory Leake, Director, Product Marketing at Microsoft. "InstallShield 2012 Spring's support of SQL Azure database scripting is critical to software producers that want to facilitate their customers' application migrations to hybrid cloud environments."

"Our enterprise customers are interested in adopting hybrid on-premise/cloud solutions that help in their transition to the cloud," said Mikhail Dikov, Principal Software Engineer, Open Text. "InstallShield 2012 Spring's support of SQL Azure helps ensure we can deliver a first-rate installation experience in traditional, on-premise as well as hybrid cloud environments."

Moreover, Microsoft's upcoming releases of Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 and Visual Studio 11 signal a major acceleration towards user-centric computing and the consumerisation of IT. Leading software producers will want to ensure ahead of time that their solutions will work in those environments with a positive installation experience. InstallShield 2012 Spring now provides a specification that an installation requires Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, and lets software producers build feature and component conditions for these operating systems.

"Enterprises are in the throes of their Windows 7 migrations, and are beginning to explore Windows 8," said Polte. "InstallShield 2012 Spring's support of these environments provides essential tools to facilitate a smooth migration and positive installation experience to Windows 8."

Finally, as enterprises migrate to Microsoft System Center 2012 and user-centric computing, they need accurate deployment metadata to populate Microsoft's new App Model. InstallShield 2012 Spring enables software producers to provide this metadata to their enterprise customers, reducing the burden in managing those applications.

Enhancing Customer Loyalty via Improved End User Experience
Enterprises choose software producers whose applications are easy to install, deploy and manage. InstallShield 2012 Spring makes it easier for enterprise customers to deploy and manage enterprise applications when, where and how they are needed. For instance, to appeal to a new generation of "app-store savvy" users, InstallShield 2012 Spring offers an entirely new end-user interface with redesigned built-in wizard pages and a new wizard page editor to create a better run-time experience. In addition, software producers increasingly bundle multiple products into application suites, and they must deliver a unified installation experience that is easy, intuitive and consistent. This latest release provides enhancements to Suite/Advanced UI project types with new functionality including the ability to import and reference prerequisite files as suite packages, dynamic links, advanced reporting and logging, as well as a new user interface for custom conditions.

"Accenture is dedicated to developing differentiated software-based solutions across a wide range of industries to help organisations meet their business goals. The dynamic installation experience that we create ensures smooth adoption in enterprise environments. This is just as important as the functionality of the software products as a whole," said Ferdi Öztürk, Delivery Excellence Specialist at Accenture. "Our priority is a practical application of new technologies that work in a business environment and drive business outcomes."

Öztürk added, "The ability to tailor our software to individual needs and ‐ by ease-of-use ‐ to eliminate implementation barriers is essential in order that we can offer configurable and customisable support for an individual organisation's requirements. To this end, we chose the versatile and robust InstallShield because of Flexera Software's domain expertise in innovative and flexible software suite products."

Automated Update & Patch Downloads
Finally, update and patch deployment helps ensure that end customers are deployed on the latest application versions. To facilitate this process InstallShield 2012 Spring enables automatic update and patch download at run-time. If an update is found, it will be automatically downloaded and run in place of the old installer, resulting in decreased support call volume and increased product satisfaction.

To provide additional connections between the software producer and end customer, InstallShield 2012 Spring Premier Edition offers a subscription to FlexNet Connect, providing a complete and professional software installation, software update and management solution. FlexNet Connect provides software producers with a deep understanding of the install base with rich reporting and business analytics. This subscription offer is available to InstallShield 2012 Spring Premier Edition customers when they purchase or are on a current maintenance plan.

"As a reliable and effective government contractor, we are continually enhancing and improving our applications, making it essential for customer satisfaction that users are on the latest versions of our products," said Aysen Bankeroglu, Principal Configuration Management Engineer at REI Systems. "We have to provide reliability and quality under pressure for our customers. In these efforts, InstallShield continues to differentiate itself from other installation solutions through innovative enhancements that help create stronger connections between our software and our customers."

# # #

Resources:

Learn more about InstallShield 2012 Spring
Learn more about FlexNet Connect
Learn more about Flexera Software's Installation Solutions
Subscribe to Flexera Software's InstallTalk Blog
Access InstallShield White Papers
Access InstallShield Success Stories
Access Free Trials of InstallShield

Follow Flexera Software…

About Flexera Software
Flexera Software is the leading provider of strategic solutions for Application Usage Management; solutions delivering continuous compliance, optimised usage and maximised value to application producers and enterprises. Flexera Software is trusted by more than 80,000 customers that depend on our comprehensive solutions- from installation and licensing, entitlement and compliance management to application readiness and enterprise licence optimisation - to strategically manage application usage and achieve breakthrough results realized only through the systems-level approach we provide. For more information, please go to: www.flexerasoftware.com.

For more information, contact:

Vanilla PR:
Vidushi Patel
vidushi@vanillapr.co.uk
+44 7958 474 632

Nicola Males
nicola@vanillapr.co.uk
+44 7976 652491

CloudBees Platform as a Service Now Available on HP Cloud Services

Thu, 10 May 2012 07:45:11 EDT

CloudBees, Inc., the Java Platform as a Service (PaaS) innovation leader, announced today the CloudBees PaaS is available on HP Cloud Services. CloudBees provides users the flexibility to deploy and manage applications across a variety of data center environments. HP Cloud Services is the newest addition to the list of CloudBees AnyCloud deployment options.

ThoughtWorks Live returns to drive the Continuous Delivery revolution

Thu, 10 May 2012 07:23:00 EDT

Event will see industry leaders share experience and expertise, with talks from ThoughtWorks' luminaries and guest speakers from the Cabinet Office, Compare the Market and Nokia among many more.

London, 10 May - ThoughtWorks (www.thoughtworks.com), the global leader in custom software development services, and its product division, ThoughtWorks Studios, today announced the opening of ThoughtWorks Live, an invitation-only conference with a focus on Continuous Delivery.

The event takes place at 195 Piccadilly, in London on 24th May, and provides an ideal opportunity for IT and business leaders to discuss one of the most powerful ideas shaping the industry; a practice that enables rapid, incremental delivery of high-value software.

Highlights from the programme include:

The Path to Continuous Delivery
Sam Newman, Continuous Delivery Practice Lead, ThoughtWorks
CASE STUDY: Springer - An Experience Report
Brian Bishop, VP of Platform Development & Georg Nold, Director ePlatform Software Development, Springer
Continuous Delivery and Innovation in the Public Sector
Mike Bracken, Executive Director of Digital, Cabinet Office
Measurement in a Continuous World: How the modern organisation takes its own pulse
Jim Highsmith, Agile Luminary and Executive Consultant - ThoughtWorks
Enterprises Can Be As Lean As Startups
Eric Ries, Entrepreneur and author of popular blog Startup Lessons Learned and "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses"
Panel Discussion: Can Enterprises be as Lean as Startups?
- Robert Martin, Global Process Owner for Continuous Delivery, Nokia
- Matthias Riesterer, Verivox
- Jan-Erik DeBoer, Springer
- Matt Collinge, Compare the Market
- Jim Highsmith, ThoughtWorks

A full schedule of talks and speakers is available at http://live.thoughtworks.com/europe.

Luke Barrett, Managing Director, ThoughtWorks Europe, comments: "ThoughtWorks continues to champion Continuous Delivery as the future of software development. By speeding up delivery and keeping software production-ready at any point in the application lifecycle, it allows even large enterprises to operate with the agility and innovation of a start-up.

"ThougthWorks Live once again provides the perfect platform for experts in a number of fields to come together and discuss major industry trends. Our talks, panels and case studies are grounded in real experiences, and demonstrate how Continuous Delivery is changing the face of software development for good."

While releasing software to users has often been a slow and painful process in the past, Continuous Delivery can see projects of any size or complexity released in hours thanks to automation of the build, deployment and testing process, and improved collaboration between developers, testers and operations.

ThoughtWorks and ThoughtWorks Studios continue to help enterprise IT organisations reap the full benefit of Agile development methodologies. ThoughtWorks offers dedicated development and consulting services to a global customer base of software-driven organisations. ThoughtWorks Studios provides a complete suite of Agile ALM solutions, including Mingle® (Agile project management), Twist® (Agile test automation) and Go™, its release management platform that automates the "last mile" of the software delivery process.

About ThoughtWorks
A company wholly devoted to the art and science of custom software. We make it, and we make our clients better at it. Our bottom line is to design and deliver software fast and predictably. ThoughtWorks employs 1,800 professionals to serve clients from more than 25 offices in ten countries. Customers include E4, The Guardian, Lonely Planet and thetrainline.com.

ThoughtWorks Ltd, Media Contacts:
Claire Hutchison/Matt Brown
Berkeley PR
0118 909 0909
thoughtworks@berkeleypr.co.uk

Five Technology Trends That Require Scrutiny

Thu, 10 May 2012 05:45:00 EDT

No individual can really track and understand the impact of change in all the emerging technologies like Cloud Computing, Mobile Computing, Social Media, Agile Methodology and Big Data … You can realistically aim to have an in depth understanding of only a small subset. By in depth understanding I mean you know significantly more about … Read more

Balancing Completion and Perfection in Agile/Scrum Projects

Wed, 09 May 2012 10:00:00 EDT

I occasionally get questions from clients who are using Agile and Scrum frameworks for software development. Techniques and tools aside, it is often questions about the fundamentals of collaboration that seem to be getting in the team’s way. Unlike most of the rest of the universe, the concept of a piece of software being “done” is always going to be the crossing of an imaginary line with invisible endpoints. Most project sponsors and product managers would think of bugs as simply features that don’t work, and form part of the value of the software they are acquiring. But I think it is possible to take one of several logical positions regarding “doneness” versus "bugginess."

Micro Focus Achieves Champion Status in Info-Tech Research Group's Agile ALM and Software Test Management Reports

Wed, 09 May 2012 03:00:14 EDT

Micro Focus (LSE:MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernization, testing and management solutions, today announced it has been named a “champion” in Info-Tech Research Group's Agile ALM Vendor Landscape and Software Test Management Vendor Landscape reports. Through a comprehensive review of companies in both areas, the reports are designed to offer an independent perspective on the range of test and agile development products available in the market.

Apply Agile When Deploying Apps

Tue, 08 May 2012 09:45:00 EDT

The application release lifecycle is unnecessarily complex, manual and time-consuming and its cumbersome nature is putting businesses in a position of weakness. This one very critical process determines how fast a business can deliver products to market and yet is complex, error-prone and full of bottlenecks. An application release process can drive products to market faster, to strengthen the overall product roadmap and get the business to be more reactive to market needs. A focus on speed of deployment is an off-shoot of the growth of cloud and Agile development methodology. The bottom line is – the faster that new features, fixes and improvements reach the customer, the better for everyone. The same principle applies in an enterprise environment – the faster the latest version of an application reaches users, the more productive they can be.

Kalido and Teradata Sign Global Reseller Agreement

Mon, 07 May 2012 09:15:00 EDT

IBM Trying to Become a Hip Agile Software Developer

Mon, 07 May 2012 08:00:00 EDT

At its annual user and partner Impact conference in Las Vegas this week, IBM announced a slew of new products, including new additions to its WebSphere applications family. There are also promises of better integration with software products from its … Continue reading →

Deconstructing Agile

Sat, 05 May 2012 14:00:00 EDT

The business must specify its requirements in a fundamentally different way. Instead of thinking about what it wants the software to do, the business should specify how agile it expects the software to be. In other words, don’t ask for software that does A, B, C or whatever. Instead, tell your techies to build you something agile. We call this requirement the metarequirement of agility—a metarequirement because agility applies to other requirements: “build me something that responds to changing requirements” instead of “build me something that does A, B, and C.”

Experts to Address Earned Value Management and Agile Development

Thu, 03 May 2012 17:26:28 EDT

Management Technologies' Ray W. Stratton, PMP, EVP, will be moderating a panel discussion on the application of Earned Value Management (EVM) to Agile software development projects. The panel discussion will be held on May 30, the first day of EVM World® 2012 in Naples, FL.

UC Irvine Extension Offers Online Application Development Course

Wed, 02 May 2012 12:23:00 EDT

University of California, Irvine Extension will offer an online course titled “Application Development for Social Networking” from July 2 through Aug.12 to meet the demands of app users in the mobile technology industry, and also provide techniques to develop, implement and distribute these programs. In addition, UC Irvine Extension will also offer free webinars called, “Mobile Development for Apple iPhone and iPad Information Session,” “Application Development for Android Devices Information Session” and “Social Networking Programming Information Session” to address trends that currently impact the development of mobile, social media and tablet applications.

Agile Project Management Training Program from PM College Prepares Project Teams to Manage Rapidly Changing Business Demands

Wed, 02 May 2012 11:17:43 EDT

Today’s sonic pace of business change demands agility. Nowhere is this more important than in project management where projects are being continuously started and stopped; interrupted, refined, and restarted. In fact, an estimated 28% of Project Management Offices (PMOs) today are implementing agile methods with the use of agile methods tripling since December 2008. Moreover, the Project Management Institute (PMI^®) recently introduced a new agile accreditation – Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)^SM. Now PM College introduces a corporate Agile Project Management Training Program to prepare project teams to effectively integrate agile methods in the workplace as well as to prepare for PMI’s new certification exam.

Parasoft Announces Extended Service Virtualization Capabilities for IBM WebSphere Environments

Tue, 01 May 2012 09:37:10 EDT

Parasoft Corporation, a leader in helping organizations define and deliver defect-free software, announced today Parasoft Virtualize’s extended capabilities for IBM WebSphere Environments. Parasoft Virtualize helps development and QA teams create and access any environment needed to develop or test an application. With Parasoft Virtualize, development and QA teams can capture the necessary system behavior of dependent applications and provision virtual assets in order to execute complex test scenarios.

Klocwork Insight(TM) Ensures Software Security and Reliability for Bids Trading's Financial Trading System

Tue, 01 May 2012 09:00:05 EDT

Klocwork Inc., the global leader in automated source code analysis (SCA) solutions for developing more secure and reliable software, today announced that BIDS Trading, operators of a major financial trading system for US institutional traders, has chosen Klocwork Insight to help ensure the security and reliability of its financial services software.

The Scrum Field Guide: Practical Advice for Your First Year

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EDT

This is one cool book. If you are starting to use Scrum, read it. If you are using Scrum, read it. If you are just wondering what Scrum is all about, read it. It gives the best insight into the workings of Scrum I have seen in a book. The chapters are laid out in a really nice to read format. Each one contains sections titled The Story, The Model (or The Practices in some chapters), Keys to Success, References, and sometimes Works Consulted (although I never figured out what the difference between these and references where?). The story is literally a story that comes from the author's field experience that introduces the topic the chapter covers and brings to light problems being solved by the next section, The Model.

Software Engineering Institute Hosts 2012 SEI Agile Research Forum for Developers, Managers, and Acquisition Professionals

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:09:58 EDT

PITTSBURGH, April 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Learn how a developer of large systems views the changes that are needed to adopt Agile methods. Explore strategies for applying Agile technologies to software initiatives "at scale." On May 22, 2012 from 1:00 to 4:00 pm ET, the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute will host an Agile Research Forum on how Agile approaches confront the challenges of complexity, exacting regulations, and schedule pressures in the large-scale development found in government and many industry environments.

CollabNet and MSDevelop Partner to Offer Agile and Cloud Development Solutions to Fast-Growing IT Industry in Brazil

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:43:08 EDT

BRISBANE, Calif. and SAO PAULO, April 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- CollabNet®, a leading provider of enterprise cloud development and Agile ALM solutions, and MSDevelop, a Brazil-based IT services firm, today announced a partnership to jointly deliver Agile- and cloud-based development and deployment solutions to software-driven organizations in Brazil. MSDevelop will now offer and fully support CollabNet's suite of products and services to help enterprise IT organizations adopt and scale Agile methodologies and emerging cloud development practices to improve productivity, collaboration and customer value.

Schneider Electric Selects Valtech as Global Partner for Agile Training and Coaching

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:33:16 EDT

Schneider Electric announced that is has selected Valtech as a global partner for large scale Agile training and coaching following the deployment of its strategic change program called ‘Agile Offer Creation,’ launched in 2011.

Gladinet Cloud New Feature Updates

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:11:00 EDT

SmartPros Extends Software Product Development Partnership With Ness Technologies Through 2015

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:02:42 EDT

TEANECK, New Jersey, April 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Netsmart's Focus on Innovation to Help Health and Human Service Providers Span the Spectrum of Care in the Healthcare 3.0 Environment

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:26:51 EDT

Research and Markets: APAC Development Survey 2011 v.2 Focuses On Developers and IT Managers in Asia and Pacific

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:42:25 EDT

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/pmgh33/apac_development_s) has announced the addition of the "APAC Development Survey 2011 v.2" report to their offering.

Research and Markets: Global Developer Population and Demographic Study 2011 v. 2 Provides the Most Comprehensive View of Developers

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:26:49 EDT

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/d6hr78/global_developer_p) has announced the addition of the "Global Developer Population and Demographic Study 2011 v. 2" report to their offering.

Research and Markets: EMEA Development Survey 2011, v2 - Conducted biannually, 364 developers

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:02:09 EDT

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/hx3x7h/emea_development_s) has announced the addition of the "EMEA Development Survey 2011, v2" report to their offering.

Which Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto Are the Most Important?

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:46:00 EDT

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

Gale's Nineteenth Century Collections Online Arrives at Academic Institutions Worldwide

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:15:39 EDT

Santeon CEO to Speak at London's Technology Innovation Summit

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:07:18 EDT

Santeon Group, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: SANT) today announced that Dr. Ash Rofail, Santeon Chairman and CEO, is a featured keynote speaker at London's Technology Innovation Summit (www.innotechsummit.com) sponsored by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London. The Technology Innovation Summit ("InnoTech"), sponsored by HULT International Business School, is an ideal venue for entrepreneurs, technology companies and venture capital firms to share ideas on the future of technology and the impact of funding on innovation.

Rally Software to Present at Rocky Mountain Project Management Symposium

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:00:28 EDT

QSM Associates and COHAA to Benchmark Columbus, Ohio's Agile Software Development against Industry

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:18:28 EDT

A first-of-its-kind study contrasting the Agile development practices of one development community against world-wide results is under way in Columbus, Ohio. The study, being conducted by software productivity researchers QSM Associates in tandem with the Central Ohio Agile Association (COHAA), will answer several questions that challenge software development organizations.

CollabNet Provides TeamForge ALM Platform for Alembic Foundation's Aurion Open Source Healthcare Project

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:03:26 EDT

BRISBANE, Calif., April 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- CollabNet (www.collab.net), a global leader for enterprise cloud development and Agile ALM products and services, today announced that its TeamForge ALM solution is being used by the Alembic Foundation in support of Aurion, an open source project that enables the secure exchange of interoperable health information among diverse organizations using a wide variety of technologies. The Alembic Foundation (www.alembicfoundation.org), a nonprofit organization founded by former leaders of the Federal Health Architecture's CONNECT project, is leading the development of open source applications that will expand information sharing capabilities industry-wide to improve the efficiency, openness and public value of the national healthcare system.

CATTOR als Fallstudie für agile Software Entwicklung

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:13:00 EDT

Skytap to Speak and Exhibit at Upcoming Technology Conferences

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:00:24 EDT

Skytap, the leading provider of cloud automation solutions, today announced it will be showcasing its award-winning Skytap Cloud service at several upcoming industry events, including STAREAST, Interop and HP Discover. Skytap experts will be on hand at each event to provide a product demonstration and an overview of how Skytap Cloud is used by more than 150 customers for development and testing, software demos and evaluations, and virtual training. In addition, Nate Odell, director of marketing at Skytap, will be discussing software development methodologies at the Agile Development Practices West conference on Thursday, June 14, in Las Vegas.

Agile Alliance Announces Keynote Presenters for Agile2012 Conference

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:03:38 EDT

PORTLAND, Ore., April 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Agile Alliance (www.agilealliance.org) a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the advancement of Agile software development principles and practices, today announced technology innovators Bob Sutton, Dr. Sunita Maheshwari and Joe Justice as keynote speakers for the Agile2012 Conference, scheduled for Aug. 13-17 in Dallas, (http://agile2012.agilealliance.org/). Agile2012 is the leading international conference on Agile methods in software development, bringing together many disciplines in the fields of information systems and software development to foster the exchange of fresh ideas and best practices.

Tasktop's Mik Kersten and Independent Research Analyst Dave West to Present Webinar on Deploying ALM2.0+ Across the Enterprise

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:03:28 EDT

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

The Cloud in Numbers. Plotted.

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:00:00 EDT

If you are using CloudBerry Explorer or Cyberduck to access your S3 storage and to configure your CloudFront distributions you may have used the feature to let the service write access logs to a dedicated bucket. CloudBerry Explorer gives you the possibility to get a basic static chart that shows you the number of requests or transferred bytes per day. But what are the options if you want to get a deeper, faster and automated insight into your log files?

Axstores Selects ExtraHop Networks as Customer Momentum Grows in Europe, Middle East, and Africa

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:03:27 EDT

ExtraHop Networks, the leading provider of network-based application performance management (APM) solutions, today announced that it has won four new customers in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region, including Axstores, a retail group in the Nordic region with more than 390 beauty, fashion, home furnishing, and department stores. The announcement comes just months after ExtraHop launched in EMEA and highlights the growing importance of the company’s innovative network-based approach to APM.

Why Is Scrum So Widely Adopted and So Very Dangerously Deceptive

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:45:00 EDT

Axstores Selects ExtraHop Networks as Customer Momentum Grows in Europe, Middle East and Africa

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:14:00 EDT

Increasing Complexity in Modern IT Environments Leads Organisations to Look for Innovative Approaches to Application Performance Management (APM)

LONDON, UK - 3 April 2012 - ExtraHop Networks, the leading provider of network-based Application Performance Management (APM) solutions, today revealed that it has signed four new customers in the EMEA region, including Axstores, a retail group in the Nordic region with more than 390 beauty, fashion, home furnishing and department stores. The announcement comes just months since ExtraHop launched in EMEA and highlights the growing importance of the company's innovative network-based approach to APM.

Owen Cole, VP EMEA, ExtraHop Networks, comments: "The growth of complexity in today's IT environments, including cloud, virtualisation, mobile and agile development, means that traditional approaches to APM are no longer sufficient. Diagnosing and spotting problems is becoming incredibly difficult, and the recent wins by ExtraHop are proof that organisations are beginning to realise the significant value that a network-based approach can provide. In particular we are seeing strong interest in the financial and ecommerce sectors."

Stefan Pörn, Operations Manager of Axstores comments: "Whether it's a customer browsing one of our online stores or an employee entering an order at the checkout, the success of our business depends on fast and reliable performance. By providing a top-down view of application performance, the ExtraHop system enables us to measure performance across all tiers of our application environment and ensure that our customers and employees can quickly complete transactions and access information."

Pörn continues: "Previously we were measuring the performance of individual elements of the infrastructure but could not easily isolate the root cause of interrelated problems. However, with the ExtraHop system we can immediately see all the devices present on the network and their dependencies, as well as the impact of core network services such as LDAP and DNS on application performance."

When Axstores needed a monitoring solution to ensure the successful migration of a critical business application, the company implemented the ExtraHop system to perform the following business-critical functions:

Isolate an issue in the application servers that slowed performance for retail stores
Solve database performance issues related to indexing and poorly written application queries
Detect TCP timeouts caused by DNS issues and server misconfigurations using IPv6 instead of IPv4
Optimise HTTP front-end communications with back-end business systems

Owen concludes: "In today's connected world, customers expect services to be working 24/7 and deliver flawless performance. Any downtime or slowdown can be detrimental to both a brand's reputation and its revenue. Organisations need to be able to see, predict and fix issues in real time, safeguarding the business from critical failure. It's a pleasure to be able to help customers improve their performance using our unique approach to combat these challenges. We look forward to the next phases of these projects and also the potential new customers in the months to come."

To learn more about how ExtraHop supported the Axstores migration of a business-critical application, read the full Axstores application migration case study.

- ends -

About ExtraHop Networks
ExtraHop Networks is a leading provider of network-based application performance management (APM) solutions. The ExtraHop Application Delivery Assurance system performs the fastest and deepest analysis in the industry, achieving real-time transaction monitoring at speeds up to a sustained 10Gbps in a single appliance and application-level visibility with no agents, configuration, or overhead. The ExtraHop system quickly auto-discovers and auto-classifies applications and devices, delivering immediate value out of the box. ExtraHop Networks provides award-winning solutions to companies across a wide range of industries, including ecommerce, communications, and financial services. The privately held company was founded in 2007 by Jesse Rothstein and Raja Mukerji, engineering veterans from F5 Networks and architects of the BIG-IP v9 product. Follow us on Twitter @ExtraHop. For more information, visit www.extrahop.com.

Press Contact
Rocket Communications
Jo Ashford / Ella Thompson
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Five Questions to Ask Before You Take Up an Agile Contract

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:00:00 EDT

You are a software service provider. You develop software for you clients. Majority of your clients are from a different city or even a different country. You are in a discussion with your client where you are exploring the option of adopting Agile Development Methodology for your next project. Does the above paragraph describe you? Are you concerned about how the whole thing will work out? If the above paragraph describes you, then I can assure you that you are not in minority. Many of us have been in a similar situation. The biggest challenge of adopting agile for an outsourced project is that there aren’t any clearly defined best practices available which you can adopt. The whole field is still evolving and the best practices are yet to emerge.

Why is Scrum so widely adopted and so very dangerously deceptive

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:03:00 EDT

I was sitting in a meeting sometime ago with a company that was embracing Scrum like a ten year old being offered a warm plate of chocolate chip cookies. They were grabbing at it as fast as they're little hands could reach out and grab the goodies.

Watching this made me wonder what is was about Scrum that made them embrace it so emphatically. They had claimed to be an Agile shop for years, but were still failing to deliver quality software on time with in budget. Over the past years they refused every single proposed process improvement recommendation made by dozens of consultants. They literally went from zero process (using the name Agile to execute no process at all) to zealot Scrumbots overnight. After spending some time pondering this and interviewing a few people I found the answers I was looking for.

Scrum was allowing them to preform the magic trick of perceived success better than they had ever been able to before just using the generic fake Agile process. A scary realization. This of course was not the fault of the Scrum process. It was the team's refusal to truly change anything except a few timelines, titles of individuals, and a few names like iteration to sprint.

First lets look at the developers. Scrum did not require the developers to change anything they were doing except code less in a given iteration (now called sprint) because the only required change imposed on them was shorter deadlines. They were still not required to adopt agile programming practices, because the scrum process they implemented didn't advocate for change at a developer level, only a middle management level.

No code reviews, no difference in testing, no difference in the use of patterns or TDD, no difference in anything except, now missed deadlines were written off to "we are not only agile we are Scrum, push it to the next sprint". Bugs… they don't exist, they are errors or simply new requirements that need new user story written for them. Of course their favorite part of the process they implemented is that there is no design or architecture involved. Just cowboy coding as fast as their little fingers can spew the crap out to the screen.

Project managers were renamed Scrum Masters. They were not given the responsibilities of the role of Scrum Master as defined by scrum. They simply changed role names and continued to project manage.

Upper management doesn't care. They are planning the same and paying the same prices for projects. They are getting reports that improvements are taking place, but don't bother to look at the bottom line which isn't actually changing.

None of the several projects run under Scrum have come in within budget, on time, or any less buggy. It just shows me that the same thing I have watch over the years is still happening with software development process. Most places are only pretending to adopt them. The same sad truth remains, that they actually usually think that they are changing. They are whole organizations in denial about their development environments.

Like I said above this is not the fault of Scrum. I have seen it make improvements, but only when change actually happens. It must happen at the upper management level, the project (middle) management level, and huge changes have to happen at the developer level. Architecture on any decent size project is just as important as it ever was, so to think you can do without it is naïve and shows immaturity. I have been seeing the Waterfall syndrome happening way too much with Scrum. People look at the picture and read a few lines of information about the process and think they got it. Waterfall was iterative, people simply did not read the entire paper behind the diagram. Scrum needs much more implemented than the time management aspects shown in the diagram.

Agile processes require agile development practices, which include architecture and design. Without them, you are only pretending to execute Scrum. I would recommend taking a look at the Scaled Agile Framework. Scrum is one small blip in the big picture of enterprise development.

How do you avoid this company's same fate? Bring in an outside consultant who knows software process engineering and put them in charge. Your team's best thinking have gotten them to where they are today, if that is not where you want your company to be, their best thinking won't get you anywhere different tomorrow. I have now seen Scrum transform one organization's development team and process, but that team brought in a consultant and allowed that consultant to lead the initiative. Although there was some resistance to the changes being made, because a majority of the team went along with them, the rest eventually followed.

I do not believe Scrum offers anything more than any other process including OpenUP, the Unified Process, RUP, XP, etc. Where the difference between success and failure lies is in the implementation of them, actually executing them with someone who has successfully executed them on multiple projects, and your willingness to take and execute their advice. That will mean change. Change in skill sets of your people, or change in your people, but to believe you can go from using no process to implementing any of these processes without help and changing is just naive and guaranteed to fail. That is unless you fake it like the company from this blog did and so many others I have seen do.

Five Questions You Need to Ask Before You Outsource an Agile Project

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EDT

Traditionalists would say that outsourcing and agile do not mix. After all agile is about collocated team and outsourcing is about distributed team. However, in reality, there is no escaping from outsourcing. Trying to mix the two effectively is a very complex subject. Here are 5 questions that are good starting point for your research before you actually go ahead and outsource an agile project. You are already engaged in outsourcing and have established a good working relationship with the outsourced vendor. You have tried agile way of working internally and it has worked for you. You want to extend it to outsourced projects.