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Orca Blog

AutomationOrca BlogWhy Orca

BladeLogic Middleware Automation BMA Comparison with Orca

Need a BladeLogic Middleware Automation (BMA) alternative?  If you are seeking a BMA replacement, consider this   Orca supports many different types of applications in different environments. BMA supports Java EE applications only.  Orca is faster and less resource intensive than BMA whose agentless architecture relies on middleware-specific connections (such as gathering WAS configurations via the SOAP port and pulling all the MBeans). Audit and drift compliance policy reporting is…
Scott Turner
September 14, 2016
AutomationComplianceControlOrca BlogWebSphere Application ServerWhy Orca

Automating WebSphere Workflows

Orca Saves Time, Money and Hassle in Automating WebSphere workflows Essential but difficult WebSphere use cases now automated. DevOps Delivered. Automating WebSphere Workflows: Common "Compare" Scenarios Scenario #1: Compare the configuration of two different ecosystems (WAS cells) Without Orca: 2-4 Hours With Orca: 30 Minutes You come back from lunch and a bunch of developers are at your desk waiting for you.  They deployed an application update…
Scott Turner
August 30, 2016
AnnoucementsHow Orca WorksOrca BlogWebSphere Application ServerWhy Orca

DevOps Approach to WebSphere Application Server Configuration Management

WebSphere Application Server configuration management does not have to be so difficult Time for a DevOps approach WebSphere Application Server configuration management: Traditional Approaches lead to Traditional Challenges Today admins are currently forced to do one of three things to configure their WebSphere Application Server (WAS): Use the WAS admin console to manually view configurations Write and maintain wsadmin scripts, or Maintain wsadmin scripts through an automation tool.…
Scott Turner
August 29, 2016
How Orca WorksOrca Blog

Ecommerce Holiday Readiness Checklist

5 Steps for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday Readiness Ho. Ho. Ho. It’s that time of year again. Seriously. It is. It’s way too late for April Fools but it’s definitely not too early for ecommerce holiday readiness planning. In fact now is the perfect time to get your ecommerce house in order well before the planned lockdowns of your critical web based applications. Balance…
Scott Turner
July 20, 2016
CIO SeriesComplianceOrca Blog

CIO Series: Security & Privacy

Forbes contributor Steve Andriole provides his analysis of Top CIO priorities in which he advocates unorthodox approaches to Security & Privacy. Specifically, he floats the idea of aligning the budget for Security & Privacy to the organization that is tasked with protecting Security & Privacy. Andriole also cautions against companies which "buy, install and support monster enterprise applications".  We argue that this line of thinking certainly applies to…
Scott Turner
June 15, 2016
Orca BlogRisk / ROIWhy Orca

Modernizing Your DevOps Tool Chain

Build a DevOps tool chain that works today and tomorrow Doing Less with More? Or More with Less? Summary: Choose your DevOps tool chain carefully. Select tools that work with the IT you want and with the IT you have for cross-platform application release and configuration management.  The IT climate of “doing more with less” has evolved into an IT reality of “doing less with more”. Who…
Scott Turner
June 2, 2016
Orca BlogWhy Orca

Agile for Ops

IT Operations Teams are Pushed to Keep Up with Dev Can DevOps tools help achieve Agile for Ops? Until now Agile has mostly been applied to Development practices. But where does that leave Ops? Operations teams are naturally being pushed to keep up with Dev's pace. Ops is struggling though. It’s not from a lack of talent. It’s not from a lack of trying. Ops teams…
Scott Turner
May 24, 2016
Orca BlogRisk / ROIUncategorizedWhy Orca

IT Migration from Today to Someday

“Here is a blank check. Spend whatever you need on IT migration and modernization of our entire IT environment right away”, said no one ever. IT Migration: Bridging Your Today IT to Your 'Someday' IT There are simply too many new game-changing technologies and platforms to adopt all at once. Until ‘someday’ arrives you have to prioritize where and how you spend your limited IT budget. What…
Scott Turner
March 28, 2016
AutomationHow Orca WorksOrca Blog

Scripting-Centric Automation vs Intelligent Workflow Automation

Comparing Multi-step Scripting with Drag & Drop Deployments When it comes to deploying changes throughout your enterprise-scale, AIX, Linux and Windows application environment, there is Scripting-Centric “Automation”…and there is Intelligent Workflow Automation. Puppet, Chef and Orca are all used to maintain desired state and deploy routine configuration changes. But how they manage configurations and deploy those changes is very different. Puppet and Chef use scripting-centric automation while…
Scott Turner
February 15, 2016
ControlOrca BlogWhy Orca

Enforce (don’t just report) configuration compliance and policy

Monitoring is a good start. But it is not enough. Monitoring the applications, OS, and servers that make up your environment is a no-brainer. How many times have you had a customer be the first to inform you there was a problem? Those early alerts about performance problems, outages and security breaches are essential to running a tight IT ship. But they are not enough. Imagine going to a dentist and being…
Scott Turner
February 8, 2016
Ecosystem VisibilityHow Orca WorksOrca Blog

Ecosystem Modeling for Visibility & Compliance Enforcement

Modeling Your Application Ecosystem Ecosystem Modeling for Visibility & Compliance Enforcement Modeling your application ecosystem (including related applications, databases, middleware and servers in mixed Linux-Windows environments) is a powerful way to create intuitive birds-eye views of your environment as well as granular views of the full stack configurations that tie your infrastructure together - physical, virtual and cloud. Due to limited choices many IT organizations resort…
Scott Turner
February 1, 2016
AutomationOrca BlogWhy Orca

Automating Configurations in Windows Environments without Scripting

Configuration Automation for Windows without Scripting  Automating configuration compliance or bulk-deployment in a Windows (or  mixed Windows & Linux) environments has never been easy. Windows Server, IIS, MS SQL Server, MS MQ and SharePoint by their very nature are more complex than many of their non-Windows counterparts. Managing them is hard, so the desire to automate is strong. But frankly most new automation solutions cater…
Scott Turner
January 23, 2016
Orca BlogRisk / ROIWhy Orca

Less than Free: Puppet, Chef & other Open Source

Free isn't Free It is easy to understand the appeal of Open Source tools. After all, immediate gratification, community and a “free” price are certainly attention-getting for many developers. But IT Ops teams and their managers need to be careful to consider all of the costs when choosing free software such as open source versions of Puppet or Chef (especially if they are operating in…
Scott Turner
January 8, 2016
Orca BlogWhy Orca

Wishing You a Boring New Year. Drama-Free IT

Wishing you a Boring New Year We wish you a boring new year! We really do. At least at the office. After all there is nothing too exciting about Stability, Support and Security – but we want that for you. The Goal: Drama-Free IT You probably prefer excitement in your favorite sporting and entertainment events and drama at the movies. And if you are like most…
Scott Turner
December 30, 2015
ControlOrca BlogWhy Orca

It’s Enterprise “Cold and Flu” Season. Treat the DevOps Disease, Not the Symptoms.

Treat the DevOps Disease, Not Just the Symptoms. The Symptoms You recognize the symptoms a mile away. The early stages of a sore throat. That cough that seems to have come from nowhere. Darn. Why didn’t I get a flu shot this year!? Is the health of your business critical applications really all that different? Here the symptoms are web application performance glitches, security vulnerabilities and even…
Scott Turner
December 20, 2015