I wanted to point all readers to few interesting blogs on blogs.sun.com:

Jonathan’s Blog: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/
The aquarium: http://blogs.sun.com/theaquarium/
Sim Phipps: http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/
Roumen’s Weblog: http://blogs.sun.com/roumen/
Mark Dixon: http://blogs.sun.com/identity/
Identity Buzz: http://blogs.sun.com/idmbuzz/

Enjoy Reading!! Seasons Greetings.

What is an Identity? : Simple words its “YOU” on The Internet, on Your Computer, on Your Company Network, on All Your Favourite Shopping websites, on Your Internet Banking account, on Your Blog Account, on Your Online Social Network.

What is the problem? : Another simple thought on this widely discussed issue, how many people are connected to Internet these days? How many people have mobile handsets these days? How many people join forums, blogs, discussion groups, social network each day? How many people use internet banking? How many people sign-up on new websites everyday? How many people come online to Chat with friends and family everyday? How many people in this world have E-mail addresses?

Answer to all these can be different respectively but the common answer could be billions…!!!! And specially in the near future this figure is going to grow rapidly as more and more people are getting connected using one of those means.

Remember Sun Vision: “The Network is the Computer“, all this makes this sentence more and more true day-after-day.

What are the Challenges? : Where is the infrastructure to manage all those digital identities connecting with each other everyday? Who is doing what to meet those Challenges? What steps are being taken by big organizations? Who are the key players in Identity Space? Why security is everything? Where is the real transformation happening in this world? Who else is adopting Identity Management? Why all of a sudden everyone’s talking about IdM?

Its amazing the way the software mergers are taking place these days, every big software giant is after small futuristic software startups. Look at Oracle, IBM, Sun Microsystems, CA today and their software offering, compare that with few years back software offerings. Amazing thing that I notice is more focus on Security, Identity, Access Management, Access Control, Compliance etc. Virtualization is another hot cake currently dominated by software giant VMware, who is being followed by Xensource, Virtual Iron, Microsoft Viridian, Sun Microsystems Solaris xVM, Parallels etc. I won’t spend too much time on Virtualization on this post but something for future sounds good!!

The identity market is hotting up day-by-day, big organizations wants more automations around user provisioning, user on boarding process, change user access requirements, disable unwanted accounts, protect privacy, user self service, password administration, one-point-of-contact and all this while being compliant with certain government regulations. Sun is the market leader in most of these focus areas at the moment.

Identity Management Resources (Sun):

http://www.sun.com/software/products/identity/

http://www.sun.com/software/products/identity/resources.jsp

https://opends.dev.java.net/

http://www.openid.org/start.aspx

http://www.opensolaris.org/os/

A lot of things happened during this time with work..attended Sun ANZ kick-off event in sydney in early August. A nice little insight into companies last year business growth, met many new people belongs to Sun working across Australia and Newzealand. Please watch this webcast on Sun earnings in successful 2006Q4 at http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/investor/earnings_releases/audiocast.html. Its good to be back in business..fourth consecutive profitable quarter for Sun after 2001.

Personal gain for me during this Sydney trip, lot of things actually. Got to hear from some of the top guns at Sun in Systems, Storage, Software & Services. Also met lot of new people within the business, got chance to see Sun Solution Centre at North Sydney office and a lot more.

Please visit: http://www.sun.com/solutioncenters/locations/sydney/ to find out more about services offered by SSC Sydney.

Product Update Sun: Sun Ray Server Software(SRSS) and Secure Global Desktop(SGD).

Sun Ray Server Software(SRSS)

Thin Client is the technology widely known since long time now, but getting hype recently from big corporates. Everybody is concerned about environment, energy savings, space consolidation, reduced administration, security in any industry. Just imagine a bank front office person running legacy application on a desktop PC(traditional fat client). Now IT first has to manage that person’s identity(username & password for different systems, smartcard auth. details etc.), also has to manage who has access to what..on top of that the real headache would be to maintain that set of equipments called PC(fat client). Now think of something that goes within that PC, an operating systems, hard disk, RAM, USB ports, COM ports??? Now starts the real complexity keep that OS up-to-date with patching security bugs, vulnerable hard disk(possible cause of data theft?), most famous these days are USB ports..any employee can plug-in USB copy confidential data to disk and walk away with it. Answer to all these issues is the Sun solution called combination Sun Ray thin clients and Sun Ray Server software to manage your IT infrastructure far better than now. All the applications and data seats in the secure central datacenter environment, security and reduced administration cost will prove more than 100% ROI.

Most of the vertical industries considering thin client technologies nowadays, there is a huge potential market to go after for all the thin client solutions vendor. With sun being the biggest example using SunRay’s globally in our offices, the scalability and performance is just amazing.

Now if you are seriously looking for change & saving $millions please visit www.sun.com to find out more.

Secure Global Desktop(SGD)

SGD came to Sun from Tarantella acquisition back in 2005. Basically it adds value to your network and allows your employees & partners to work remotely by just using Java Enabled Browser. How cool is that..you type in your company website address, go to a link for SGD login from anywhere in the world and you will see list of applications you can fire up including Windows OS’s, Mac OS’s, Any Linux desktop, Any windows / mac based application, Any X windows based application, any green terminal including IBM mainframe & AS400 sessions. What else do you want? Excellent performance, great value of money, greater ROI within months of deployment, higher employee satisfaction and true mobility. Since the acquisition the product has got so many improvements in terms of features and performance. It uses AIP(adaptive internet protocol) to deliver applications over the internet.

Well its enough about the product but believe me I can write forever about these amazing product and its capabilities. If interested in knowing more I would highly recommend going to www.sun.com and look for Secure global desktop.

Now is the interesting bit..want a live demonstration of the product, just point your browser to:

http://sgddemo.sun.com/ , to login using Anonymous username..just press Login without any username or password, try it , experience it. Comments Welcome !!

Well its enough for now..just wait and watch for the next post which will include identity resources around the globe!!

Cheers!!

My focus areas at SUN: Identity Management(IdM) & Java Composite Application Platform Suite(JCAPS).

Its like having two to be industry standards in the era of Identity Management and Business Integration. Currently every companies are facing these two problems, how to manage the identities(employees, business partners, customers, digital assets, computer systems, access control, printers, PDA’s..who can access what??) as well as doing Business Integration(too many applications, legacy application, being competitive and provide services using SOA !!! ).

If you look at the current market trend, Security is the biggest issue evolving around IT infrastructure. Its not just about deploying IT infrastructure and provide services to your users online..BUT its essential to secure those information. Every now and then there will be some news about privacy, data theft, identity theft..don’t know where this world is heading to. As being an intern at Sun I have begun to experience the benefits of Identity and SOA for any organization.

I love the words: “The Network is the Computer” …and Finally..here is the aerial view of Sun Headquarters in Santa Clara – California.