Wayne Ariola

One of the business benefits organizations strive to achieve by implementing a service-oriented architecture (SOA) or in utilizing Web services is the opportunity to reuse business components. Asset reuse is one of the core drivers of the SOA or Web service ROI calculation. Although leveraging the service concept provides an avenue for application consolidation and reuse, these same efficiencies also introduce a distinct level of business risk. For example, in an architecture where multiple distributed applications provide a business with a specific operation, should a single application fail, the impact of the application downtime is isolated only to a limited set of users. Conversely, the practices of application consolidation and service reuse concentrate operations into fewer applications or perhaps a single point of failure. As seen in the Figure 1, the impact o... (more)

The Challenges of Developing Games & Other High-Resolution Graphics

Parasoft, a leading provider of Automated Error Prevention (AEP) software solutions, recently had the opportunity to work closely with leading game development organizations. Since game development differs from "standard" development, we worked with game development organizations to develop technical and process improvement strategies to suit the industry's unique development needs. This article explores the challenges of developing software for the game development industry, and describes the strategies used to overcome them. The challenges and strategies discussed apply not onl... (more)

Who's Responsible for SOA Quality in a Service-Oriented Architecture?

Service-oriented architectures are much different than our traditional siloed applications. SOAs span multiple tiers and multiple applications, their development lifecycles are multi-staged and highly iterative, and there are multiple parties impacted by both internal and perhaps external changes to the organization. Delivering a secure, reliable, compliant SOA, given these complexities, requires a different approach to quality. In a complex system, quality measures must permeate every aspect to translate into a quality deliverable. Architecture & Interface Consistency For exampl... (more)

The Next Generation of Test Environment Management

Traditional hardware and OS virtualization technology reduce software development/testing infrastructure costs and increase access to constrained systems. Yet, it's not always feasible to leverage hardware or OS virtualization for many large systems such as mainframes and ERPs. More pointedly, configuring and maintaining the environment and data needed to support development and test efforts still requires considerable time and resources. As a result, keeping a complex staged environment in synch with today's constantly-evolving Agile projects is a time-consuming, never-ending ... (more)

Accelerate the SDLC with Service Virtualization

No matter what industry you're in, software is increasingly becoming the interface to your business. Organizations that are able to increase the speed and quality of innovative software releases will capitalize on differentiable competitive advantages; those that cannot will languish behind competitors. Not surprisingly, many enterprises have begun flirting with the idea of accelerating the SDLC to drive innovation through software. However, it's critical to realize that there's an optimal balance between speed and quality with software delivery-as with all engineered products. We... (more)