RIAs can’t make the trains run on time, but they just might help the railroads know where they are. Railinc, a subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads, develops IT services for the freight railroad industry, and it’s in the midst of a proof-of-concept effort using RIAs to help the company realize its SOA vision. These services help ensure the smooth operation of the rail system by providing data about railcars and equipment, repair history, movement, and the location of trains as they travel about the country.
HOW RICH INTERNET APPS WORK
Haven’t added rich Internet applications to your online strategy? Here’s what you need to know.
Rich Internet applications leverage the power of end-user devices by introducing to browsers features commonly found in the graphical user interfaces of desktop applications. Better RIA development tools, whether based on Ajax, Java, Flash, or a hybrid model, support creation of applications that can function on a range of browsers and devices, from smartphones to the desktop. They also allow for flexible, fast, and efficient access to organizational resources, whether delivered internally or via a software-as-a-service model in the cloud.
Capabilities that are often delivered through RIAs include information mashups, high-volume data search and analysis, planning, visualization through maps and other content, and training. Beyond the improved user experience and ease of distribution, RIAs are getting easier to develop as well, thanks to hooks into robust technical libraries, declarative programming techniques, form creation abilities, Web services, and other capabilities.
A well designed RIA gives a person an immersive experience, with a diverse set of functions, data, multimedia content, and analytical support immediately available. A commonly used example is Google Maps, where users don’t have to wait for a response from the server to access an adjacent section of the map. The RIA anticipates what’s just off the map and “pre-fetches” the data so it can be immediately displayed.
RIAs run in client engines or plug-ins that operate as extensions to the browser, making the most of the computing resources in a PC or mobile device. Adding desktop features – like drag and drop, sliders to zoom in and out, scrollbars, calculations, and presentation of multimedia content – becomes fairly straightforward. The client can retrieve content on servers using XML and other data-access techniques, without going through a Web server.
As in the Google Maps example, this communication can occur asynchronously, with relevant information gathered in the background by the client engine so the user doesn’t have to wait. And content can be retrieved with less strain on the network, as it can be delivered as a message or data packet, rather than as an HTML-based Web page.
— Rob Geier
Railinc embarked on an SOA initiative about two years ago, says Brian Webb, a Railinc enterprise architect leading the project. The company recognized that an ESB could help it manage messages it needs to move among stakeholders, while providing railroad companies with better access to information. Webb also saw that a services layer would give Railinc the flexibility to modernize underlying applications with far less disruption to customers and partners.
RIAs entered the picture when Webb and his team realized that they could excel as a way to access the services and information Railinc provides. Webb started with client-side applications aimed at helping customers in the railroad ecosystem better visualize and use large volumes of location information. The dashboard is simple to use and distribute, Webb says, and lets stakeholders view railcar locations on a map in near real- time. Railcar location is tracked via telemetry devices throughout the rail system. These devices are networked to the Railinc data center, where the information is accessed via services consumed by the RIA front end. The power of the service-oriented approach is that rail companies have a choice to use the RIA provided by Railinc or access the underlying location services via their own interfaces.
Webb and his team spent several months selecting the right set of tools and learning about upcoming developments, attending AjaxWorld and other conferences, before settling on a platform. Unlike Home&Abroad, they believed standards around JavaScript/HTTP request/CSS were not sufficiently established and decided the lower-level programming required was not something they wanted to deal with. The team selected Adobe Flex, which is based on the well established Flash standard, drawn in part by its deep integration with Railinc’s company-standard Eclipse development environment and ease of use as a higher-level programming platform.
With Flex, a team of three was able to deliver the application in six weeks. Once the proof-of-concept stage is completed, a broader test and other RIAs are likely to follow next year. For example, Railinc is working on providing access to maintenance history and other data to gauge the health of a given railcar.
RIA's are certainly excellent for delivering much more responsive and useful Web applications out to customers, remote salespeople, and suppliers.
But, right now most identity and security for RIA's is a case of "Roll Your Own". If an organization wants to control the usage of RIA's so that only known users can use them, or to protect them against content-level attack (of which there are many for Web 2.0), they generally try to figure this out themselves.This is a recipe for disaster.
The key example of this interesting article is Home & Abroad. I played around with the site for a while, and I was't impressed by their Itinerary editing tool. It uses faceted search, but it didn't work very well. Based on industry best practices I distilled the top 10 rules for good faceted search, and wrote about this on the customer engagement weblog. I hope this is a useful addition to this article.
I read the story first here at IE, then saw it on the ('Big Screen') cover of Information Week. I get IW on Tuesday versus Mondays now so..I didn't realize how big of a report the BIG REPORT was.
Is the new on-demand web platform with the desktop-like environment enabling travel companies of all sizes to build company sites and have location-specific content currently available for a demo?
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Forget about Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)’s announcements of the new Apple TV, iPods, and Ping. It's kid stuff compared to what Apple has in store for you.
At the Web 2.0 Expo in New York later this month, Complex Spiral Consulting founder Eric Meyer plans to discuss the potential for HTML5 to become the “Flash killer” that Apple and others believe it to be.
A little taste of an apocalyptic scenario occurred last Friday when a large chunk of the Internet was unreachable for up to an hour. Similar to the plot of a Hollywood horror movie, this was an experiment that went wrong -- on one of the most important protocols of the Internet system.
The Internet in all its forms has become a core part of how we communicate, socialize, and handle very personal business every day. But protection of individual privacy is spotty at best, and it seems to be getting worse every day. As we become an increasingly digital nation, do access to, and privacy on, the Internet become civil rights?
At Apple’s announcement fest Wednesday, among the launch of the new iPods and the $99 Apple TV box, was the announcement about Ping, a music-based social network that out-of-the-gate has more than 160 million users, all with credit cards. Of course, it’s only about music today, but there’s nothing to stop Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) from expanding it if it suits its purposes down the road.
Getting to Work on Smart Work: How IT Is Transforming the Implementation of the 'Internet of Things' Organizations in all industry sectors are becoming more instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent -- and that's changing the way they approach virtually every facet of their operations. It's up to IT to help organizations adopt a "Three I's" approach that leverages the emerging Internet of Things and enables them to work smarter. READ THIS eBOOK
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RIM is giving in to demands by India to snoop on encrypted BlackBerry data. It's time to develop cheap or free encryption software for BlackBerrys and other cellular phones.
Nielsen’s recent numbers on the increasing use of texting bode well for enterprise networks. Shunning the phone in favor of text messaging could mean reducing bandwidth.
Two studios have filed suit against an ad broker for placing ads to help monetize P2P sites suspected of copyright infringement. That's taking a dangerous step toward what might be a worthy goal.
By 2014, mobile devices will overtake laptops as the appliance of choice for consumers. But device makers still have some wishes to fulfill, including mobile app simplification and the ability to better perform word processing/spreadsheet functions.
Google's foray into pay-for-view movies may be an indicator that the days of free ad-sponsored content are numbered, or at least that ad sponsorship won't fund nearly enough content.
Online education, improving to better replicate the interactions that occur between teachers and students face-to-face, grew in double digits during the recession. Still, there’s more work to be done.
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