Network Computing: Life Time Fitness

WSDL by numbers

Fri, 06 Sep 2002 03:17:38 GMT

There's only one thing perhaps more complicated than Microsoft's License 6.0, that's Web Services. And there's only one thing more complicated than that...Web Services Definition Language (WSDL). So it's no surprise that when an editor capable of cutting through the chaos comes along that developers would immediately hit the download button. that's what our own Lori MacVittie did, when she happened upon Cape Clear's freely available WSDL Editor. According to Lori:

An editor makes life nice. :-) Especially since most web services toolkits include a utility to take as input a WSDL file and output the shell of an application to make use of the services described with the WSDL file. It's just like cheatin', as we used to say when we'd find a dev tool that made life easy.
We never told management, that, of course. :-)

If only they'd adapt this editor to SMIL.

Feature: On Location: Growing Gains

Sun, 01 Sep 2002 18:31:01 GMT

When last we visited Life Time Fitness, its IT staff was tasked with powering growth on a standstill budget. The approach: New data centers for flexibility and VoIP for PBX savings.
--By David Joachim

TechQuiz: Programming Paradigms

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 04:16:54 GMT

Do you know your way around a C compiler? Try your hand at our TechQuiz on tactics and strategies to improve programming productivity and foster code reuse. If you get all the answers correct, you could win bragging rights.

Special Five-Minute Workout: Implementing SOAP

Mon, 12 Aug 2002 03:21:43 GMT

We've got a special treat for you today. Grab your RealPlayer and tune in to hear Life Time Fitness' Systems Architect Gary Lien and I discuss his roll-out of SOAP as a remote site access tool. With this Web Services standard, Gary is providing a reusable and flexible application interface for Life Time's nation-wide network of health clubs.

TechQuiz: UDDI

Mon, 05 Aug 2002 01:38:41 GMT

Thanks to everyone who took our last "Life Time Fitness quiz on RSS. The official standings follow. But first, we invite you to take our new quiz on the directory services of Web Services, UDDI. Try your hand and see how you rate against our experts.

What does RSS stand for?
RDF Site Summary
28 percent
Microsoft employed RSS in IE
True
28 percent
What is the present recommendation for RSS?
1.0
42 percent
RSS was introduced by Netscape with its my.netscape.com service.
True
64 percent
Which of the following is NOT an RSS channel element?
site
42 percent

Intellectual Property?

Mon, 29 Jul 2002 04:29:54 GMT

Echoing a recent Life Time Fitness forum posting, I thought I'd ask you, our readers, how your company manages intellectual property...you know, the stuff you create, think up, implement while on the job.

The folks at Life Time had to actually pay a visit to a recently departed employee in an effort to regain the source code for their MMS system. Fortunately, they were able to retrieve the code.

So, what does your company do to protect its intellectual property? Does it go beyond mere work-for-hire, non-compete, or non-disclosure contracts? Or are you trusted and free to cash in on whatever you create while employed?

Five-Minute Workout: Benchmarking Web Infrastructure

Mon, 29 Jul 2002 04:17:20 GMT

Good morning. We invite you to put your Web site to the test with our tactical primer on assessing Web application speed and capacity. Stream our multimedia workout and let Brad Shimmin and Web application expert Lori MacVittie walk you through targets, scripts and loops.

TechQuiz: Content Syndication through RSS

Sun, 21 Jul 2002 21:23:09 GMT

We've got a new Life Time Fitness quiz for you this week. It's a particularly tricky number on the present content syndication standard, RSS. Try your hand at outsmarting our editors. The bragging rights will be all yours.

Also, check out the results from our last quiz on SOAP below.

What is SOAP?	1. An XML DTD 2. An XML-based protocol for exchanging Web data 3. A direct replacement for Remote Procedure Calls 4. A protocol for stored procedures
What does SOAP stand for?	1. Storage Operand Attenuation Prevention 2. Simple Open Application Protocol 3. Secure Object Application Protocol 4. Simple Object Access Protocol
All SOAP messages are encoded using XML.	1. True 2. False
Which of the following is NOT a part of a SOAP message grammar?	1. Envelope 2. Header 3. Body 4. Footer

Choosing a client Web app platform

Tue, 16 Jul 2002 17:22:15 GMT

We have long been debating internally how to achieve a single-sign on client environment that would facilitate web app content through our Intranet portal while simultaneously being both Microsoft and non-Microsoft web app friendly. In addition, we need greater client richness capability to allow better hardware access (like receipt printer access, credit card terminal access, signature pad access, etc.). We tallied the below chart after conducting an internal poll of our software team and network architects. Here's what they chose.

Options for Future Client Architecture	First Choice	Second Choice
VB client shell w/ imbedded IE browser	0	0
Java client shell w/ imbedded Mozilla browser	4	2
Both rich client, separate browser	8	4
IE Browser + Active X	0	2
Non IE Browser + Applets	3	8
Flash MX	0	0
Custom LTF browser as rich client	0	0

If you're considering a client/server Web interface combination, we invite you to cast your vote for first or second choice with the comment link below. Thanks for your input!

Q and A with Life Time CEO Bahram Akradi

Mon, 15 Jul 2002 01:06:37 GMT

Good day. We've got a special treat for you. Our own Dave Joachim sat down recently with Life Time Fitness CEO, Bahram Akradi to talk turkey on how upper management funds and supports strategic IT projects. Here is the complete, unabridged version of the interview. Enjoy.

Special On Location TechQuiz: SOAP 101

Thu, 11 Jul 2002 16:23:30 GMT

Hi Folks, as a part of our special Life Time Fitness coverage, we invite you to try your hand at a special TechQuiz on the one truly useful Web services technology, SOAP -- a technology very much in use at Life Time. If you outsmart the Network Computing editors, you won't win a thing, except for some pretty hefty bragging rights of course. Good luck! We're actually working on a special Five-Minute Workout on this very topic, illustrating how the folks at Life Time Fitness are utilizing SOAP to open their Membership Management System up to disparate and remote client locations. So stay tuned.

System Monitoring Tools

Wed, 10 Jul 2002 04:49:19 GMT

If you're looking for some good monitoring services/tools, check out Eric Edgar's recent post on our Life Time Fitness forum. He touches on a number of interesting options and the way he ties them into his existing technical support center. I have the feeling that many of you have your own "preferred" methods for outage notification, and I'm sure Eric will enjoy hearing your suggestions.

Stability and the IE bug

Mon, 08 Jul 2002 14:14:35 GMT

In the process of deploying the Siebel MidMarket server, we've gotten the server stabilized finally. What did the trick was having the implementation vendor remove their debug code and Siebel's bundled report engine Actuate.

The other difficulty we're having with Siebel is that many of the bells and whistles are tied-in with IE 5.5 Active X plugins. The problem is, with a shop like ours that has several web apps, not all of these apps are compatible with IE 5.5. We're exploring some workarounds, such as porting Siebel and our other apps to a non IE browser. Netscape allows you to run multiple versions, for example.

We'll have more to come on the SFA pilot. Stay tuned.

Hello from the IT Department at Life Time Fitness!

Tue, 02 Jul 2002 14:14:26 GMT

We're pleased and excited that NC has asked us to share the endeavors of our upcoming weeks/months with you. LIFE TIME FITNESS, Inc. is a privately held, category-redefining health, fitness, and nutrition products and services company with 26 state-of-the-art Athletic, Sports and Fitness center operations in eight markets, including Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Washington D.C., Arizona and Texas. Our job is to support Life Time Fitness's strategic vision which includes everything from integrating and delivering the finest services and products to our customers across multiple channels and touchpoints to supporting back office corporate systems. As we endeavor to fulfill these expectations through the art and science of technology, we welcome your thoughts and participation.

Welcome to Our On Location Weblog

Mon, 01 Jul 2002 03:03:18 GMT

We're glad to have you here. Over the course of the next few months, our friends at Life Time Fitness will bring you their trials and triumphs as they roll out a nationwide Web Services application to their 400,000 some-odd fitness club members. In their day-to-day postings, we hope you'll gain a candid look inside an aggressive IT department.

In case you're wondering just who these guys are, take a read through our case study on Life Time Fitness. Just published today, this in-depth report follows the Life Time crew over the course of two years. As author Dave Joachim puts it:

This is the inside story of a midsize fitness club operator that continues to overhaul its application infrastructure to help the company grow 50 percent per year. At the center of that activity is the two-year-old, custom-developed MMS, which Life Time uses to track customer demographics, provide daily field reports for operations managers and finance executives, conduct electronic funds transfer for bill collection, and offer one-second check-in for club members. The system also takes advantage of a Web services platform--built on Java 2 Enterprise Edition tools, a BEA Systems application server and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) interfaces--to connect member records with an ASP-provided online scheduling application.

While you're on this weblog, be sure to submit your comments on each post (believe me, they are reading these things). We also invite you to send in your technical (and even business/political questions) to the Life Time IT department.

Enjoy yourself, and thanks for reading.

Brad Shimmin