Ashish Patel

On November 29, 2007, I got an e-mail from my peers in the IBM Redbook publishing house letting me know that the book I co-authored last year as finally reached draft status! In 2006, various members in the product development team for IBM Rational Performance Tester got together and started putting “ink to paper”. About a year later, we produced 14 chapters that outline architecture, use cases, operating environment, and configuration details that users normally wouldn’t find in the product documentation. In addition, each of these areas are explained in technical detail for our users to understand.

My contribution was Chapters 8 and 9 in the book. These are primarily based on the component “formerly known as” IBM Performance Optimization Toolkit and its integration into the IBM Rational Performance Tester product.

The draft version is available in PDF (about 8MB) and for more information please visit the IBM Redbook website.  The final publication is slated for printing on January 31, 2008.

I’ve been extremely quiet over the last 4 months and I’m very happy to say I don’t have to keep my mouth shut any longer! Our team at IBM (literally 7 people including management, developers, architects and testers) have been working on integrating the Watchfire AppScan product into the IBM software stack. This morning we made our public beta debut this morning with IBM Rational AppScan Developer Edition v7.7 Open Beta.

Product Information (Click here to view the IBM product page)

Rational AppScan Developer Edition software extends Rational Application Developer for WebSphere® with support for Web application security testing that automates vulnerability assessments.

This first release of Rational AppScan Developer Edition expands IBM’s industry leading application development platform focusing on the following themes and capabilities:

• Early detection and remediation of vulnerabilities: Automates application vulnerability scanning. Security testing takes place during development without requiring the involvement of a security expert. Vulnerabilities are found early in the process and intelligent fix recommendations allow you to quickly resolve security issues.
• AppScan Enterprise Edition integration: AppScan Enterprise Edition is a separately-purchased Web-based, multi-user application vulnerability testing and reporting solution. AppScan Developer Edition can be used as a part of the AppScan Enterprise solution, combining early detection of security issues by each developer with enterprise-scale control and reporting tools.
• IBM Rational ClearQuest integration: Application vulnerabilites can be submitted and tracked seamlessly with ClearQuest. Rational AppScan Developer Edition provides support for logging discovered security issues as ClearQuest defects, automatically including the title, severity, advisory, remediation information, and any other information required to easily prioritize and remediate these issues within your regular defect management process. Note: IBM Rational ClearQuest is a separately-purchased product.

Got a very intriguing e-mail today, its included below. Also, an update to my stats:

• Registered: September 22, 2005
• Run Time: 477 days
• Points: 394,264
• Results: 1,623

World Community Grid is pleased to announce that the Help Defeat Cancer (HDC) project is finished. The last work units have been sent out and when the final results are returned, the project will come to an end. This project, which launched on July 20, 2006, will have run for just over 9 months by the time the last results are returned. During this time 88,000 members will have donated 2,900 years of computer time on 138,000 different computers. This is a significant contribution to cancer research.

But the end of this project is really only a beginning. Based on the results, the researchers who are working on this project have a very aggressive plan to make Tissue Microarray technology an integral part of early cancer detection. World Community Grid’s team will keep in close touch with the research team and will post updates on the website in the Research pages. The researchers will also continue to update their HDC website with exciting updates about this project and the inroads it is making on cancer research.

On behalf of the research staff at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, World Community Grid’s team wish to express our thanks to you for contributing your PC power to this project. With your contribution, this project was completed in a fraction of the time it would otherwise have taken.

We also want to inform you that World Community Grid has started work on a new cancer project to discover ways to accelerate the crystallization process used in studying cancer protein structure using X-ray Crystallography, which will help researchers identify proteins involved in cancers and lead to new drug therapies and cures. We plan to launch this new cancer project in the May/June 2007 time frame. You will receive more information on this project prior to the official launch date.

We still need your help with other ongoing projects! World Community Grid continues to run the FightAIDS@Home, Genome Comparison, Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy and Human Proteome Folding - Phase II projects. These critical research projects need your computer time as well.

Again, thank you for your contribution to the highly successful completion of the Help Defeat Cancer project!

I’ll be attending the LEAP conference in San Jose, CA. I put my name into the barrell back in 2005, and finally a spot opened up for me yesterday. This event will run from Feb 26 - March 2.

Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc. (LEAP) has been intent on “growing leaders” within the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities across the country. When LEAP opened its doors 25 years ago, it had a simple yet powerful idea: that in order for AAPI communities to realize their full potential and to foster robust participation in the larger democratic process, those communities would have to begin producing leaders who could advocate and speak on their behalf.

Through the creation of culturally relevant workshops and programs, 125,000 people across the nation have participated in over 2,500 leadership development programs, organizational development workshops, career management and diversity trainings for an extensive roster of clients, including colleges and universities, community and student organizations, federal and state government agencies and Fortune 1000 companies across the country. Click here to view client list.

I’m really looking forward to meeting all the people from various organizations. It will be really interesting networking opportunity.

We’re also being put up in a sweet mansion, yep you heard that right…a MANSION. Its the Dolce Hayes Mansion in SJ, CA. Check it out below:

A little update on my participation on the World Community Grid project. I’ve been running one of my desktops at work on the project for over a year now and the progress is looking quite impressive.

Each project has unique minimum requirements. If your computer does not meet the minimum requirements for a project, you will not receive work from that project. I have been involved in the following projects:

• FightAIDS@Home
• Genome Comparison
• Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy
• Help Defeat Cancer
• Human Proteome Folding 2

My statistics from the day I started this project include solving 1511 results and accumulating over 350000 points, ranking me a mere 8790 in the project. So much for being number one I strongly encourage anyone with an idle computer to join the program and put that computing power to bettering mankind!