SOA filling the Gaps

This post is another post in the Vendors Survival series following posts on Microsoft , Google , HP , Sun and EMC . On July 14 th Software AG and IDS Scheer announced that Software AG is going to take over IDS Scheer . The intended acquisition is an opportunity to add another post in my Vendors Survival posts series. A brief history of Software AG Mainframe products Software AG is larger than any German software company except SAP . It was established in the Mainframe age (in 1969). I worked with many customers, who used and some of them are still using, its two flagship products Adabas and Natural . Although these products support many platforms, their main platform is IBM Mainframe. Adabas is a database and Natural is a development environment. Like other pairs of Database and Development Environment in the mainframe environment (e.g. Ideal and Datacom , Mantis and Supra) build by the same vendor, they are tied together. As a result, although it is possible t...

The title describes a Security approach. According to this approach the easiest and most plausible Security breach is by usage of the weakest link. Lessons learned from few Penetration Tests I conducted, support the cited above approach. It is true that there is no way to assure absolute Security (For deeper explanation why you can look at a well known security Guru, Bruce Schnirer's web site ). A ny Security mechanism is breakable by someone who has expertise and spends a lot of resources (including time). But it is also possible to breach Security without expertise and by spending only few resources for a very short time: just exploit the weakest link . As part of a Penetration Test, I always looked for simple unsophisticated methods to penetrate instead of penetrating by usage of very sophisticated methods. These methods could be used by anyone, unlike the sophisticated ones, which could be used only by a limited group of very talented experts. ...