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  • Laissez les bon temps rouler! (Microsoft BI Conference 2010)

    - by smisner
    Laissez les bons temps rouler" is a Cajun phrase that I heard frequently when I lived in New Orleans in the mid-1990s. It means "Let the good times roll!" and encapsulates a feeling of happy expectation. As I met with many of my peers and new acquaintances at the Microsoft BI Conference last week, this phrase kept running through my mind as people spoke about their plans in their respective businesses, the benefits and opportunities that the recent releases in the BI stack are providing, and their expectations about the future of the BI stack.Notwithstanding some jabs here and there to point out the platform is neither perfect now nor will be anytime soon (along with admissions that the competitors are also not perfect), and notwithstanding several missteps by the event organizers (which I don't care to enumerate), the overarching mood at the conference was positive. It was a refreshing change from the doom and gloom hovering over several conferences that I attended in 2009. Although many people expect economic hardships to continue over the coming year or so, everyone I know in the BI field is busier than ever and expects to stay busy for quite a while.Self-Service BISelf-service was definitely a theme of the BI conference. In the keynote, Ted Kummert opened with a look back to a fairy tale vision of self-service BI that he told in 2008. At that time, the fairy tale future was a time when "every end user was able to use BI technologies within their job in order to move forward more effectively" and transitioned to the present time in which SQL Server 2008 R2, Office 2010, and SharePoint 2010 are available to deliver managed self-service BI.This set of technologies is presumably poised to address the needs of the 80% of users that Kummert said do not use BI today. He proceeded to outline a series of activities that users ought to be able to do themselves--from simple changes to a report like formatting or an addtional data visualization to integration of an additional data source. The keynote then continued with a series of demonstrations of both current and future technology in support of self-service BI. Some highlights that interested me:PowerPivot, of course, is the flagship product for self-service BI in the Microsoft BI stack. In the TechEd keynote, which was open to the BI conference attendees, Amir Netz (twitter) impressed the audience by demonstrating interactivity with a workbook containing 100 million rows. He upped the ante at the BI keynote with his demonstration of a future-state PowerPivot workbook containing over 2 billion records. It's important to note that this volume of data is being processed by a server engine, and not in the PowerPivot client engine. (Yes, I think it's impressive, but none of my clients are typically wrangling with 2 billion records at a time. Maybe they're thinking too small. This ability to work quickly with large data sets has greater implications for BI solutions than for self-service BI, in my opinion.)Amir also demonstrated KPIs for the future PowerPivot, which appeared to be easier to implement than in any other Microsoft product that supports KPIs, apart from simple KPIs in SharePoint. (My initial reaction is that we have one more place to build KPIs. Great. It's confusing enough. I haven't seen how well those KPIs integrate with other BI tools, which will be important for adoption.)One more PowerPivot feature that Amir showed was a graphical display of the lineage for calculations. (This is hugely practical, especially if you build up calculations incrementally. You can more easily follow the logic from calculation to calculation. Furthermore, if you need to make a change to one calculation, you can assess the impact on other calculations.)Another product demonstration will be available within the next 30 days--Pivot for Reporting Services. If you haven't seen this technology yet, check it out at www.getpivot.com. (It definitely has a wow factor, but I'm skeptical about its practicality. However, I'm looking forward to trying it out with data that I understand.)Michael Tejedor (twitter) demonstrated a feature that I think is really interesting and not emphasized nearly enough--overshadowed by PowerPivot, no doubt. That feature is the Microsoft Business Intelligence Indexing Connector, which enables search of the content of Excel workbooks and Reporting Services reports. (This capability existed in MOSS 2007, but was more cumbersome to implement. The search results in SharePoint 2010 are not only cooler, but more useful by describing whether the content is found in a table or a chart, for example.)This may yet be the dawning of the age of self-service BI - a phrase I've heard repeated from time to time over the last decade - but I think BI professionals are likely to stay busy for a long while, and need not start looking for a new line of work. Kummert repeatedly referenced strategic BI solutions in contrast to self-service BI to emphasize that self-service BI is not a replacement for the services that BI professionals provide. After all, self-service BI does not appear magically on user desktops (or whatever device they want to use). A supporting infrastructure is necessary, and grows in complexity in proportion to the need to simplify BI for users.It's one thing to hear the party line touted by Microsoft employees at the BI keynote, but it's another to hear from the people who are responsible for implementing and supporting it within an organization. Rob Collie (blog | twitter), Kasper de Jonge (blog | twitter), Vidas Matelis (site | twitter), and I were invited to join Andrew Brust (blog | twitter) as he led a Birds of a Feather session at TechEd entitled "PowerPivot: Is It the BI Deal-Changer for Developers and IT Pros?" I would single out the prevailing concern in this session as the issue of control. On one side of this issue were those who were concerned that they would lose control once PowerPivot is implemented. On the other side were those who believed that data should be freely accessible to users in PowerPivot, and even acknowledgment that users would get the data they want even if it meant they would have to manually enter into a workbook to have it ready for analysis. For another viewpoint on how PowerPivot played out at the conference, see Rob Collie's observations.Collaborative BII have been intrigued by the notion of collaborative BI for a very long time. Before I discovered BI, I was a Lotus Notes developer and later a manager of developers, working in a software company that enabled collaboration in the legal industry. Not only did I help create collaborative systems for our clients, I created a complete project management from the ground up to collaboratively manage our custom development work. In that case, collaboration involved my team, my client contacts, and me. I was also able to produce my own BI from that system as well, but didn't know that's what I was doing at the time. Only in recent years has SharePoint begun to catch up with the capabilities that I had with Lotus Notes more than a decade ago. Eventually, I had the opportunity at that job to formally investigate BI as another product offering for our software, and the rest - as they say - is history. I built my first data warehouse with Scott Cameron (who has also ventured into the authoring world by writing Analysis Services 2008 Step by Step and was at the BI Conference last week where I got to reminisce with him for a bit) and that began a career that I never imagined at the time.Fast forward to 2010, and I'm still lauding the virtues of collaborative BI, if only the tools will catch up to my vision! Thus, I was anxious to see what Donald Farmer (blog | twitter) and Rita Sallam of Gartner had to say on the subject in their session "Collaborative Decision Making." As I suspected, the tools aren't quite there yet, but the vendors are moving in the right direction. One thing I liked about this session was a non-Microsoft perspective of the state of the industry with regard to collaborative BI. In addition, this session included a better demonstration of SharePoint collaborative BI capabilities than appeared in the BI keynote. Check out the video in the link to the session to see the demonstration. One of the use cases that was demonstrated was linking from information to a person, because, as Donald put it, "People don't trust data, they trust people."The Microsoft BI Stack in GeneralA question I hear all the time from students when I'm teaching is how to know what tools to use when there is overlap between products in the BI stack. I've never taken the time to codify my thoughts on the subject, but saw that my friend Dan Bulos provided good insight on this topic from a variety of perspectives in his session, "So Many BI Tools, So Little Time." I thought one of his best points was that ideally you should be able to design in your tool of choice, and then deploy to your tool of choice. Unfortunately, the ideal is yet to become real across the platform. The closest we come is with the RDL in Reporting Services which can be produced from two different tools (Report Builder or Business Intelligence Development Studio's Report Designer), manually, or by a third-party or custom application. I have touted the idea for years (and publicly said so about 5 years ago) that eventually more products would be RDL producers or consumers, but we aren't there yet. Maybe in another 5 years.Another interesting session that covered the BI stack against a backdrop of competitive products was delivered by Andrew Brust. Andrew did a marvelous job of consolidating a lot of information in a way that clearly communicated how various vendors' offerings compared to the Microsoft BI stack. He also made a particularly compelling argument about how the existence of an ecosystem around the Microsoft BI stack provided innovation and opportunities lacking for other vendors. Check out his presentation, "How Does the Microsoft BI Stack...Stack Up?"Expo HallI had planned to spend more time in the Expo Hall to see who was doing new things with the BI stack, but didn't manage to get very far. Each time I set out on an exploratory mission, I got caught up in some fascinating conversations with one or more of my peers. I find interacting with people that I meet at conferences just as important as attending sessions to learn something new. There were a couple of items that really caught me eye, however, that I'll share here.Pragmatic Works. Whether you develop SSIS packages, build SSAS cubes, or author SSRS reports (or all of the above), you really must take a look at BI Documenter. Brian Knight (twitter) walked me through the key features, and I must say I was impressed. Once you've seen what this product can do, you won't want to document your BI projects any other way. You can download a free single-user database edition, or choose from more feature-rich standard or professional editions.Microsoft Press ebooks. I also stopped by the O'Reilly Media booth to meet some folks that one of my acquisitions editors at Microsoft Press recommended. In case you haven't heard, Microsoft Press has partnered with O'Reilly Media for distribution and publishing. Apart from my interest in learning more about O'Reilly Media as an author, an advertisement in their booth caught me eye which I think is a really great move. When you buy Microsoft Press ebooks through the O'Reilly web site, you can receive it in any (or all) of the following formats where possible: PDF, epub, .mobi for Kindle and .apk for Android. You also have lifetime DRM-free access to the ebooks. As someone who is an avid collector of books, I fnd myself running out of room for storage. In addition, I travel a lot, and it's hard to lug my reference library with me. Today's e-reader options make the move to digital books a more viable way to grow my library. Having a variety of formats means I am not limited to a single device, and lifetime access means I don't have to worry about keeping track of where I've stored my files. Because the e-books are DRM-free, I can copy and paste when I'm compiling notes, and I can print pages when necessary. That's a winning combination in my mind!Overall, I was pleased with the BI conference. There were many more sessions that I couldn't attend, either because the room was full when I got there or there were multiple sessions running concurrently that I wanted to see. Fortunately, many of the sessions are accessible for viewing online at http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica along with the TechEd sessions. You can spot the BI sessions by the yellow skyline on the title slide of the presentation as shown below. 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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 15, 2011

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 15, 2011Popular ReleasesPhalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.0 (March 2011): Phalanger 2.0 (March 2011) Release with Visual Studio 2008 integration. You can install additional managed MySQL extension to improve the performance of your application.Kooboo CMS: Kooboo 3.0 RC: Bug fixes Inline editing toolbar positioning for websites with complicate CSS. Inline editing is turned on by default now for the samplesite template. MongoDB version content query for multiple filters. . Add a new 404 page to guide users to login and create first website. Naming validation for page name and datarule name. Files in this download kooboo_CMS.zip: The Kooboo application files Content_DBProvider.zip: Additional content database implementation of MSSQL,SQLCE, RavenDB ...SQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQL Monitor 3.2: 1. introduce sql color syntax highlighting with http://www.codeproject.com/KB/edit/FastColoredTextBox_.aspxUmbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.7.0: Service release fixing 50+ issues! Getting Started A great place to start is with our Getting Started Guide: Getting Started Guide: http://umbraco.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?DownloadId=197051 Make sure to check the free foundation videos on how to get started building Umbraco sites. They're available from: Introduction for webmasters: http://umbraco.tv/help-and-support/video-tutorials/getting-started Understand the Umbraco concepts: http://umbraco.tv/help-and-support...Facebook C# SDK: 5.0.5 (BETA): This is sixth BETA release of the version 5 branch of the Facebook C# SDK. Remember this is a BETA build. Some things may change or not work exactly as planned. We are absolutely looking for feedback on this release to help us improve the final 5.X.X release. New in this release: Version 5.0.5 is almost completely backward compatible with 4.2.1 and 5.0.3 (BETA) Bug fixes and helpers to simplify many common scenarios Fixed a last minute issue in version 5.0.4 in Facebook.Web For more inf...ProDinner - ASP.NET MVC EF4 Code First DDD jQuery Sample App: first release: ProDinner is an ASP.NET MVC sample application, it uses DDD, EF4 Code First for Data Access, jQuery and MvcProjectAwesome for Web UI, it has Multi-language User Interface Features: CRUD and search operations for entities Multi-Language User Interface upload and crop Images (make thumbnail) for meals pagination using "more results" button very rich and responsive UI (using Mvc Project Awesome) Multiple UI themes (using jQuery UI themes)BEPUphysics: BEPUphysics v0.15.0: BEPUphysics v0.15.0!LiveChat Starter Kit: LCSK v1.1: This release contains couple of new features and bug fixes including: Features: Send chat transcript via email Operator can now invite visitor to chat (pro-active chat request) Bug Fixes: Operator management (Save and Delete) bug fixes Operator Console chat small fixesIronRuby: 1.1.3: IronRuby 1.1.3 is a servicing release that keeps on improving compatibility with Ruby 1.9.2 and includes IronRuby integration to Visual Studio 2010. We decided to drop 1.8.6 compatibility mode in all post-1.0 releases. We recommend using IronRuby 1.0 if you need 1.8.6 compatibility. The main purpose of this release is to sync with IronPython 2.7 release, i.e. to keep the Dynamic Language Runtime that both these languages build on top shareable. This release also fixes a few bugs: 5763 Use...SQL Server PowerShell Extensions: 2.3.2.1 Production: Release 2.3.2.1 implements SQLPSX as PowersShell version 2.0 modules. SQLPSX consists of 13 modules with 163 advanced functions, 2 cmdlets and 7 scripts for working with ADO.NET, SMO, Agent, RMO, SSIS, SQL script files, PBM, Performance Counters, SQLProfiler, Oracle and MySQL and using Powershell ISE as a SQL and Oracle query tool. In addition optional backend databases and SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 reports are provided with SQLServer and PBM modules. See readme file for details.IronPython: 2.7: On behalf of the IronPython team, I'm very pleased to announce the release of IronPython 2.7. This release contains all of the language features of Python 2.7, as well as several previously missing modules and numerous bug fixes. IronPython 2.7 also includes built-in Visual Studio support through IronPython Tools for Visual Studio. IronPython 2.7 requires .NET 4.0 or Silverlight 4. To download IronPython 2.7, visit http://ironpython.codeplex.com/releases/view/54498. Any bugs should be report...XML Explorer: XML Explorer 4.0.2: Changes in 4.0: This release is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile. Changed XSD validation to use the schema specified by the XML documents. Added a VS style Error List, double-clicking an error takes you to the offending node. XPathNavigator schema validation finally gives SourceObject (was fixed in .NET 4). Added Namespaces window and better support for XPath expressions in documents with a default namespace. Added ExpandAll and CollapseAll toolbar buttons (in a...Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 1.0.0.0: Stable Release 51 Degrees.mobi Foundation has been in beta for some time now and has been used on thousands of websites worldwide. We’re now highly confident in the product and have designated this release as stable. We recommend all users update to this version. New Capabilities MappingsTo improve compatibility with other libraries some new .NET capabilities are now populated with wurfl data: “maximumRenderedPageSize” populated with “max_deck_size” “rendersBreaksAfterWmlAnchor” populated ...ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome, jQuery Ajax helpers (controls): 1.7.3: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager added interactive search for the lookupWPF Inspector: WPF Inspector 0.9.7: New Features in Version 0.9.7 - Support for .NET 3.5 and 4.0 - Multi-inspection of the same process - Property-Filtering for multiple keywords e.g. "Height Width" - Smart Element Selection - Select Controls by clicking CTRL, - Select Template-Parts by clicking CTRL+SHIFT - Possibility to hide the element adorner (over the context menu on the visual tree) - Many bugfixes??????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2011-03-10: http://download.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1codechs&DownloadId=216140 ??,????。??????????All-In-One Code Framework ???,??20?Sample!!????,?????。http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 ASP.NET ??: CSASPNETBingMaps VBASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload CS/VBASPNETSerializeJsonString CSASPNETIPtoLocation CSASPNETExcelLikeGridView ....... Winform??: FTPDownload FTPUpload MultiThreadedWebDownloader...Rawr: Rawr 4.1.0: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a Release of the WPF version, most of the general issues have been resolved. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Tracker. Whe...PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1.2 for IIS 7: This is a localization release of PHP Manager for IIS 7. It contains all the functionality available in 56962 plus a few bug fixes (see change list for more details). Most importantly this release is translated into five languages: German - the translation is provided by Christian Graefe Dutch - the translation is provided by Harrie Verveer Turkish - the translation is provided by Yusuf Oztürk Japanese - the translation is provided by Kenichi Wakasa Russian - the translation is provid...myCollections: Version 1.3: New in version 1.3 : Added Editor management for Books Added Amazon API for Books Us, Fr, De Added Amazon Us, Fr, De for Movies Added The MovieDB for Fr and De Added Author for Books Added Editor and Platform for Games Added Amazon Us, De for Games Added Studio for XXX Added Background for XXX Bug fixing with Softonic API Bug fixing with IMDB UI improvement Removed GraceNote Added Amazon Us,Fr, De for Series Added TVDB Fr and De for Series Added Tracks for Musi...patterns & practices : Composite Services: Composite Services Guidance - CTP2: Overview The Composite Services guidance (codename Reykjavik) provides best practices and capabilities for applying industry-known SOA design patterns when building robust, connected, service-oriented composite enterprise applications. These capabilities are implemented as a set of reusable components for analytic tracing, service virtualization, metadata centralization and versioning, and policy centralization as well as exception management, included in this release. Changes in this CTP ...New ProjectsAlice:????????????demo: ???????????????,????????????,????????????????????demo。??cnblogs????????:http://www.cnblogs.com/xuqiang/android-maps: maps trackbeginner: beginnerBing Maps Android SDK: The Bing Maps Android SDK is a base project that can be used to help developers create mapping applications using Microsoft's Bing Maps. This is written in Java and built using the Bing Maps AJAX v7 control.Brokenhouse WPF Control Suite: The Brokenhouse Control Suite is library that provides a rich set of controls for the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). It provides a full featured transition control as well as WPF replacements for the standard windows Wizards and Task dialogs. Call Centre Management: This is project Q5Captcha Control: Captcha Control (C#) allows users to add a captcha to an asp.net page. The control supports declarative settings of fontsize, font family, color, captcha length, background image, character set, success, error and buttons' text. Supports audio - reading out the captcha text.CMC7 Validator: Componente para validação de códigos CMC7CRM 2011 Jscript Soap Request Formatter: Works in conjunction to soaplogger solution included in CRM 2011 SDK to format captured envelopes in Jscript, ready for use in the CRM GUI. Eventually I would like to combine the Soap Logger functionality entirely.Cross Platform Wireless Communication: This is a cross platform bluetooth communications project.CxCarbon: Business Applicationecommerce project: E-Commerces ProjectFamsWCF: final projectFitCalc: Fitnes calculator. Some math about fitnessFuturisticsPro: project Case Study 3 : Call Centre managementGame Sprite Generator: Allows to control sprite transformation in a GUI and export code to XNA.HeartLand Home FinanceQT5: Hello!HospitalManager: project q5InfoPathFilesGrabber: This tool will help you to extract InfoPath files which can be saved to local disk or to a SharePoint list item. Take a look at the project InfoPathFileDecoder in this solution. Soon I am going to clean up the code and provide some test files.iOS Movie list viewer: Movies application has several use cases which covers different functionalities, like listing popular movies or searching by keyword. The information about movies should be retrieved from http://www.themoviedb.org/ which has publically exposed API http://api.themoviedb.org/2.1/. Model XML Importer And Exporter: Contains a XML specification of a 3D model that handles animation, cameras, light, bones, and models. Also contains a Importer for C++ and C# and the C++ 3DS exporterNIIT Sample Music Store: This project is very useful.Orchard Module - Bing Map Lists: An Orchard CMS module to display more than one place on a Bing Map. This module would be great for creating a guide to an area displaying all the different points of interest.Ovvio: OvvioPigmalión: Todo lo desees puede hacerce realidad.... solo programalo.. :PPrism MVVMP Stub and Sample: This project contains a sample application demonstrating the Model View ViewModel Presenter (MVVMP) Pattern. It also contains a stub that can be used to rapidly build an MVVMP based application using Prism.ProDinner - ASP.NET MVC EF4 Code First DDD jQuery Sample App: ProDinner is an ASP.NET MVC sample application, it uses DDD, EF4 Code First for Data Access, jQuery and MvcProjectAwesome for Web UI, it has Multi-language User InterfaceProjectQ5_V2: ProjectQ5Public Key Infrastructure PowerShell module: This module is intended to simplify certain PKI management tasks by using automation with Windows PowerShell.Qmiks Digital Media Module for Orchard CSM: Qmiks - Digital Media is a Orchad CMS module which allows a user to include digital content: audio, video, images into Orchard based web site. QuickSearch Pro: This Is ProQ4-M2. Case Study 1: QuickSearchSALT: Sistema Criado para acompanhamento de licitaçõesshahnawazwsccemb: web scripting and content creationShuttle Wiki: Shuttle Wiki uses Asp.NET MVC Razor along with JQuery and Sql ServerSoftware Render: Full Software Render developed in C# and XNA using the Ploobs Engine ( http://ploobsengine.codeplex.com ). Mimic the stages of Directx 11 pipeline in software, including Vertex, Geometric,Pixel, Hull and Domain Shader programable in C#. Uses Barycentric triangle rasterization.Starter CRM Solution for SharePoint 2010: To design and build a SPF2010 template to provision basic CRM functionality for the small business owner. Core CRM Entities will be based on OOB Custom Lists (with Forms customized with SP Designer) while more elaborate features will be built using C# & VS2010. Stock# Connectors: ?????????? ? ????????? ???????? ?????????? ??? S#( http://stocksharp.com/ ). ?? ?????? ?????? ??????????????? ????????? ??? Transaq.tdryan Code Samples & Repository: This resource page serves as my file repository for code samples that I share with others.UCB_GP_A: this is a pilot project which is intented to help the college education. .VB DB - Visual Basic Database: A brand new totally Visual Basic append only object database engine. Way2Sms Applications for Android, Desktop/Laptop & Java enabled phones: Apps that allow sending free sms all over India using Way2Sms. No irritating ads are shown. Message sending is really fast and simple compared to the website. Following clients are supported - 1. Android 2. Desktop/Laptop - Mac/Windows/Linux 3. Java enabled phoneXmlAsRelationalTvf: TSQL CLR table-valued-function to read XML as relational data. Including a sample that reads wikipedia-dumps and return as relational record set.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, February 02, 2011

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, February 02, 2011Popular ReleasesTweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0.0 - Preview 10: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Note: This code is currently preview quality. Preview 9 ChangesAdded support for trends Added support for Silverlight 4 Elevated WP7 fixes Third Party Library VersionsHammock v1.1.7: http://hammock.codeplex.com Json.NET 4.0 Release 1: http://json.codeplex.comFacebook C# SDK: 5.0.0 (BETA): This is our first BETA release of the version 5 branch of the Facebook C# SDK. Remember this is a BETA build. Some things may change or not work exactly as planned. We are absolutely looking for feedback on this release to help us improve the final 5.X.X release. This release contains some breaking changes. Particularly with authentication. After spending time reviewing the trouble areas that people are having using this SDK (and Facebook in general) we decided to spend a good deal of time w...Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.0 (February 2011): Next release of Phalanger; again faster, more stable and ready for daily use. Based on many user experiences this release is one more step closer to be perfect compiler and runtime of your old PHP applications; or perfect platform for migrating to .NET. February 2011 release of Phalanger introduces several changes, enhancements and fixes. See complete changelist for all the changes. To improve the performance of your application using MySQL, please use Managed MySQL Extension for Phalanger....Chemistry Add-in for Word: Chemistry Add-in for Word - Version 1.0: On February 1, 2011, we announced the availability of version 1 of the Chemistry Add-in for Word, as well as the assignment of the open source project to the Outercurve Foundation by Microsoft Research and the University of Cambridge. System RequirementsHardware RequirementsAny computer that can run Office 2007 or Office 2010. Software RequirementsYour computer must have the following software: Any version of Windows that can run Office 2007 or Office 2010, which includes Windows XP SP3 and...StyleCop for ReSharper: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.1.15005.000: Applied patch from rodpl for merging of stylecop setting files with settings in parent folder. Previous release: A considerable amount of work has gone into this release: Huge focus on performance around the violation scanning subsystem: - caching added to reduce IO operations around reading and merging of settings files - caching added to reduce creation of expensive objects Users should notice condsiderable perf boost and a decrease in memory usage. Bug Fixes: - StyleCop's new Objec...Minecraft Tools: Minecraft Topographical Survey 1.4: MTS requires version 4 of the .NET Framework - you must download it from Microsoft if you have not previously installed it. This version of MTS adds MCRegion support and fixes bugs that caused rendering to fail for some users. New in this version of MTS: Support for rendering worlds compressed with MCRegion Fixed rendering failure when encountering non-NBT files with the .dat extension Fixed rendering failure when encountering corrupt NBT files Minor GUI updates Note that the command...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 0.8: Fixed the following bugs: *Variable name error in the jvascript file that prevented the use of the deleted item template of the Datagrid *Now after the changes applied to an item of the DataGrid are cancelled all input fields are reset to the very initial value they had. *Other minor bugs. Added: *This version is available both for MVC2, and MVC 3. The MVC 3 version has a release number of 0.85. This way one can install both version. *Client Validation support has been added to all control...Office Web.UI: Beta preview (Source): This is the first Beta. it includes full source code and all available controls. Some designers are not ready, and some features are not finalized allready (missing properties, draft styles) ThanksASP.net Ribbon: Version 2.2: This release brings some new controls (part of Office Web.UI). A few bugs are fixed and it includes the "auto resize" feature as you resize the window. (It can cause an infinite loop when the window is too reduced, it's why this release is not marked as "stable"). I will release more versions 2.3, 2.4... until V3 which will be the official launch of Office Web.UI. Both products will evolve at the same speed. Thanks.Barcode Rendering Framework: 2.1.1.0: Finally fixed bugs with code 128 symbology. It was envisioned that this would be the last release to target VS2008 but support will continue due in no small part to a desire to add SSRS support in the future.xUnit.net - Unit Testing for .NET: xUnit.net 1.7: xUnit.net release 1.7Build #1540 Important notes for Resharper users: Resharper support has been moved to the xUnit.net Contrib project. Important note for TestDriven.net users: If you are having issues running xUnit.net tests in TestDriven.net, especially on 64-bit Windows, we strongly recommend you upgrade to TD.NET version 3.0 or later. This release adds the following new features: Added support for ASP.NET MVC 3 Added Assert.Equal(double expected, double actual, int precision) Ad...Spark View Engine: Spark v1.5: Release Notes There have been a lot of minor changes going on since version 1.1, but most important to note are the major changes which include: Support for HTML5 "section" tag. Spark has now renamed its own section tag to "segment" instead to avoid clashes. You can still use "section" in a Spark sense for legacy support by specifying ParseSectionAsSegment = true if needed while you transition Bindings - this is a massive feature that further simplifies your views by giving you a powerful ...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.3: Version: 2.0.0.3 (Milestone 3): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...Rawr: Rawr 4.0.17 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 and on the Version Notes page: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you...Squiggle - A Free open source LAN Messenger: Squiggle 2.5 Beta: In this release following are the new features: Localization: Support for Arabic, French, German and Chinese (Simplified) Bridge: Connect two Squiggle nets across the WAN or different subnets Aliases: Special codes with special meaning can be embedded in message like (version),(datetime),(time),(date),(you),(me) Commands: cls, /exit, /offline, /online, /busy, /away, /main Sound notifications: Get audio alerts on contact online, message received, buzz Broadcast for group: You can ri...VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.4.2: Version 7.4.2 of VivoSocial has been released. If you experienced any issues with the previous version, please update your modules to the 7.4.2 release and see if they persist. If you have any questions about this release, please post them in our Support forums. If you are experiencing a bug or would like to request a new feature, please submit it to our issue tracker. Web Controls * Updated Business Objects and added a new SQL Data Provider File. Groups * Fixed a security issue whe...PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1.1 for IIS 7: This is a minor release of PHP Manager for IIS 7. It contains all the functionality available in 56962 plus several bug fixes (see change list for more details). Also, this release includes Russian language support. SHA1 codes for the downloads are: PHPManagerForIIS-1.1.0-x86.msi - 6570B4A8AC8B5B776171C2BA0572C190F0900DE2 PHPManagerForIIS-1.1.0-x64.msi - 12EDE004EFEE57282EF11A8BAD1DC1ADFD66A654BloodSim: WControls.dll update: Priority Update It's just come to my attention that the latest version of WControls.dll was not included in the 1.4 release and as a result, BloodSim has been unuseable. Please download WControls.dll from here, and this will rectify the issue.VFPX: VFP2C32 2.0.0.8 Release Candidate: This release includes several bugfixes, new functions and finally a CHM help file for the complete library.DB>doc for Microsoft SQL Server: 1.0.0.0: Initial release Supported output HTML WikiPlex markup Raw XML Supported objects Tables Primary Keys Foreign Keys ViewsNew ProjectsAlay Plugin for Windows Live Writer: a project for creating an alay languageAnalyse Rapide des Droits sur une Arborescence du Système de Fichiers: Outil permettant une analyse simple sur une arborescence du système de fichier. L'idée étant de repérer rapidement les parties de l'arborescence qui changent de droits (arrêt de la propagation des droits). Developpement en C#, Interface WPF.Asp.Net Chat 4 All: Asp.Net Chat Application made easy By VaibhavBlogEngine.NET Image Picker: The image picker for BlogEngine.NET An utitilty to pick previously uploaded images in BlogEngine.NET blog posts. CMS for the kubert.info web-site: CMS for the kubert.info web-siteCommonRepositoryInterface: <project name> is a interface for abstracting away the details of the underlying data store behind a repositoryDragon Library Lite: This is a free version of my game engine missing some of its components, and parts of some, to make it so I could put this up for free without giving away all my source code. Also, any developers that show an interest here may be able to get access to the full version and help meeBookInfoGrabber: eBookInfoGrabber is a simple program designed to quickly grab any possible information you could desire on a given eBook using ISBN-10, ISBN-13, or by Title. It uses the Sony eBook store to gather all the data, and is developed in C#.Japanese Character Sets - Input, Identification and Comparison: Basic application written in C# which demonstrates the input, identification and comparison of specific Hiragana (half- and full-width), Katakana (half- and full-width), Kanji and Romaji Japanese characters. May be useful for developers beginning a project for Japanese users.Lighting UP 2011: 2011 NDSU Capstone project. Developing a Windows Phone 7 service application.Localization for SharePoint: Localize for SharePoint gives you the flexibility of localizing any site collection to any language. You don't need to have any language packs installed on your server. Any page on your site will be instantly translated to your preferred language.mzXML Corrupted Scans Remover: This application makes fast error correction on mzXML files. Each empty scan is being replaced by previous one. 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Developed with C# / XNA FrameworkRPG engine: RPG engine for RPG games!Sancer: This is a school project which aids the teachers/advisers in choosing a students class depending on their grade on the placement test. Scaffold it !: "Scaffold it !" is a Visual Studio 2010 extension that enable you to scaffold elements from your entities. It's a time saver tool that leverage T4 templates and Visual Studio extensibility. SharePoint 2010 Design Guides for Developers: This projects holds visual guides to help developers and software architects take the best decision when building SharePoint ApplicationsSmith Image Converter: An easy-to-use tool to convert images format. At present, it supports bmp, png and jpeg type conversion.TFS Process Dashboard Integration: Small tool which allows integration of Team Foundation Server source control with the Process Dashboard line counter.Tibco Team Foundation Server (TFS) plugin: This project creates a Team Foundation Server plugin for Tibco BW Designer. It can be used from Tibco Designer as RCS adapter and manipulates the project files that are stored-version controlled- in TFS. ubotia: ubotiaXNA 4.0 Content Compiler: <project name> Compile to .xnb your texture files, audio files and SpriteFont files without adding to the Content project. Very Usefull in tools to create content for a game.

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  • Tips for XNA WP7 Developers

    - by Michael B. McLaughlin
    There are several things any XNA developer should know/consider when coming to the Windows Phone 7 platform. This post assumes you are familiar with the XNA Framework and with the changes between XNA 3.1 and XNA 4.0. It’s not exhaustive; it’s simply a list of things I’ve gathered over time. I may come back and add to it over time, and I’m happy to add anything anyone else has experienced or learned as well. Display · The screen is either 800x480 or 480x800. · But you aren’t required to use only those resolutions. · The hardware scaler on the phone will scale up from 240x240. · One dimension will be capped at 800 and the other at 480; which depends on your code, but you cannot have, e.g., an 800x600 back buffer – that will be created as 800x480. · The hardware scaler will not normally change aspect ratio, though, so no unintended stretching. · Any dimension (width, height, or both) below 240 will be adjusted to 240 (without any aspect ratio adjustment such that, e.g. 200x240 will be treated as 240x240). · Dimensions below 240 will be honored in terms of calculating whether to use portrait or landscape. · If dimensions are exactly equal or if height is greater than width then game will be in portrait. · If width is greater than height, the game will be in landscape. · Landscape games will automatically flip if the user turns the phone 180°; no code required. · Default landscape is top = left. In other words a user holding a phone who starts a landscape game will see the first image presented so that the “top” of the screen is along the right edge of his/her phone, such that the natural behavior would be to turn the phone 90° so that the top of the phone will be held in the user’s left hand and the bottom would be held in the user’s right hand. · The status bar (where the clock, battery power, etc., are found) is hidden when the Game-derived class sets GraphicsDeviceManager.IsFullScreen = true. It is shown when IsFullScreen = false. The default value is false (i.e. the status bar is shown). · You should have a good reason for hiding the status bar. Users find it helpful to know what time it is, how much charge their battery has left, and whether or not their phone is in service range. This is especially true for casual games that you expect someone to play for a few minutes at a time, e.g. while waiting for some event to start, for a phone call to come in, or for a train, bus, or subway to arrive. · In portrait mode, the status bar occupies 32 pixels of space. This means that a game with a back buffer of 480x800 will be scaled down to occupy approximately 461x768 screen pixels. Setting the back buffer to 480x768 (or some resolution with the same 0.625 aspect ratio) will avoid this scaling. · In landscape mode, the status bar occupies 72 pixels of space. This means that a game with a back buffer of 800x480 will be scaled down to occupy approximately 728x437 screen pixels. Setting the back buffer to 728x480 (or some resolution with the same 1.51666667 aspect ratio) will avoid this scaling. Input · Touch input is scaled with screen size. · So if your back buffer is 600x360, a tap in the bottom right corner will come in as (599,359). You don’t need to do anything special to get this automatic scaling of touch behavior. · If you do not use full area of the screen, any touch input outside the area you use will still register as a touch input. For example, if you set a portrait resolution of 240x240, it would be scaled up to occupy a 480x480 area, centered in the screen. If you touch anywhere above this area, you will get a touch input of (X,0) where X is a number from 0 to 239 (in accordance with your 240 pixel wide back buffer). Any touch below this area will give a touch input of (X,239). · If you keep the status bar visible, touches within its area will not be passed to your game. · In general, a screen measurement is the diagonal. So a 3.5” screen is 3.5” long from the bottom right corner to the top left corner. With an aspect ratio of 0.6 (480/800 = 0.6), this means that a phone with a 3.5” screen is only approximately 1.8” wide by 3” tall. So there are approximately 267 pixels in an inch on a 3.5” screen. · Again, this time in metric! 3.5 inches is approximately 8.89 cm. So an 8.89 cm screen is 8.89 cm long from the bottom right corner to the top left corner. With an aspect ratio of 0.6, this means that a phone with an 8.89 cm screen is only approximately 4.57 cm wide by 7.62 cm tall. So there are approximately 105 pixels in a centimeter on an 8.89 cm screen. · Think about the size of your finger tip. If you do not have large hands, think about the size of the fingertip of someone with large hands. Consider that when you are sizing your touch input. Especially consider that when you are spacing two touch targets near one another. You need to judge it for yourself, but items that are next to each other and are each 100x100 should be fine when it comes to selecting items individually. Smaller targets than that are ok provided that you leave space between them. · You want your users to have a pleasant experience. Making touch controls too small or too close to one another will make them nervous about whether they will touch the right target. Take this into account when you plan out your game initially. If possible, do some quick size mockups on an actual phone using colored rectangles that you position and size where you plan to have your game controls. Adjust as necessary. · People do not have transparent hands! Nor are their hands the size of a mouse pointer icon. Consider leaving a dedicated space for input rather than forcing the user to cover up to one-third of the screen with a finger just to play the game. · Another benefit of designing your controls to use a dedicated area is that you’re less likely to have players moving their finger(s) so frantically that they accidentally hit the back button, start button, or search button (many phones have one or more of these on the screen itself – it’s easy to hit one by accident and really annoying if you hit, e.g., the search button and then quickly tap back only to find out that the game didn’t save your progress such that you just wasted all the time you spent playing). · People do not like doing somersaults in order to move something forward with accelerometer-based controls. Test your accelerometer-based controls extensively and get a lot of feedback. Very well-known games from noted publishers have created really bad accelerometer controls and been virtually unplayable as a result. Also be wary of exceptions and other possible failures that the documentation warns about. · When done properly, the accelerometer can add a nice touch to your game (see, e.g. ilomilo where the accelerometer was used to move the background; it added a nice touch without frustrating the user; I also think CarniVale does direct accelerometer controls very well). However, if done poorly, it will make your game an abomination unto the Marketplace. Days, weeks, perhaps even months of development time that you will never get back. I won’t name names; you can search the marketplace for games with terrible reviews and you’ll find them. Graphics · The maximum frame rate is 30 frames per second. This was set as a compromise between battery life and quality. · At least one model of phone is known to have a screen refresh rate that is between 59 and 60 hertz. Because of this, using a fixed time step with a target frame rate of 30 will cause a slight internal delay to build up as the framework is forced to wait slightly for the next refresh. Eventually the delay will get to the point where a draw is skipped in order to recover from the delay. (See Nick's comment below for clarification.) · To deal with that delay, you can either stay with a fixed time step and set the frame rate slightly lower or else you can go to a variable time step and make sure to adjust all of your update data (e.g. player movement distance) to take into account the elapsed time from the last update. A variable time step makes your update logic slightly more complicated but will avoid frame skips entirely. · Currently there are no custom shaders. This might change in the future (there is no hardware limitation preventing it; it simply wasn’t a feature that could be implemented in the time available before launch). · There are five built-in shaders. You can create a lot of nice effects with the built-in shaders. · There is more power on the CPU than there is on the GPU so things you might typically off-load to the GPU will instead make sense to do on the CPU side. · This is a phone. It is not a PC. It is not an Xbox 360. The emulator runs on a PC and uses the full power of your PC. It is very good for testing your code for bugs and doing early prototyping and layout. You should not use it to measure performance. Use actual phone hardware instead. · There are many phone models, each of which has slightly different performance levels for I/O, screen blitting, CPU performance, etc. Do not take your game right to the performance limit on your phone since for some other phones you might be crossing their limits and leaving players with a bad experience. Leave a cushion to account for hardware differences. · Smaller screened phones will have slightly more dots per inch (dpi). Larger screened phones will have slightly less. Either way, the dpi will be much higher than the typical 96 found on most computer screens. Make sure that whoever is doing art for your game takes this into account. · Screens are only required to have 16 bit color (65,536 colors). This is common among smart phones. Using gradients on a 16 bit display can produce an ugly artifact known as banding. Banding is when, rather than a smooth transition from one color to another, you instead see distinct lines. Be careful to avoid this when possible. Banding can be avoided through careful art creation. Its effects can be minimized and even unnoticeable when the texture in question is always moving. You should be careful not to rely on “looks good on my phone” since some phones do have 32-bit displays and thus you’ll find yourself wondering why you’re getting bad reviews that complain about the graphics. Avoid gradients; if you can’t, make sure they are 16-bit safe. Audio · Never rely on sounds as your sole signal to the player that something is happening in the game. They might have the sound off. They might be playing somewhere loud. Etc. · You have to provide controls to disable sound & music. These should be separate. · On at least one model of phone, the volume control API currently has no effect. Players can adjust sound with their hardware volume buttons, but in game selectors simply won’t work. As such, it may not be worth the effort of providing anything beyond on/off switches for sound and music. · MediaPlayer.GameHasControl will return true when a game is hooked up to a PC running Zune. When Zune is running, any attempts to do anything (beyond check GameHasControl) with MediaPlayer will cause an exception to be thrown. If this exception is thrown, catch it and disable music. Exceptions take time to propagate; you don’t want one popping up in every single run of your game’s Update method. · Remember that players can already be listening to music or using the FM radio. In this case GameHasControl will be false and you should handle this appropriately. You can, alternately, ask the player for permission to stop their current music and play your music instead, but the (current) requirement that you restore their music when done is very hard (if not impossible) to deal with. · You can still play sound effects even when the game doesn’t have control of the music, but don’t think this is a backdoor to playing music. Your game will fail certification if your “sound effect” seems to be more like music in scope and length.

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  • Alternate way to create a clone of a UNIX System

    - by Spirit
    THE STORY: (If you don't like to read much, down below is the question :) ) Where I work we have two HP RP2470 servers same hardware same number of hard drives same everything :). One of them is a production server and runs HP-UX 11.00. The poor ba***rd hasn't been turned off for years and now I have to make a clone of it on the other server - just in case, for redundancy. The problem is simple (or not simple) as I have to make the the other server exactly the same. However the old version of OS (UX 11.00 is a history now) and the old software running on it, have made my task almost impossible. On the production server there is also a cloning/recover utility Ignite-UX. I tried many times to create a recovery tape with it. Then when I load the tape on the backup server, it succeeds with the loading of the tape (no errors no warnings) but on the next restart it fails to load the OS :S and drops into HP`s ISL prompt. --- THE QUESTION: Is there an alternate way to create a clone of the Unix System? The environment is: 1. 2x HP RP2470 Servers (non-Intel), same hardware, same number od HDDs (two each of them) same everything. 2. OS running: HP-UX 11.00 The production server has to be cloned without downtime - sadly :( as I hope that they will reconsider on this one For example (like on Windows platforms), if you try to copy an entire HDD with Windows inside on another HDD, and then put that HDD on another PC it will still work, as long as the hardware is the same. Can I do something like that with a Unix system? Can I somehow COPY the contents of the entire HDD, put those on another HDD, and then just load the HDD into the other server? (If you haven't read the story the servers are exactly the same) Will it work? Can it be done with ordinary commands like cp or dump or something like that? Does any one have a similar experience? --- UPDATE: 26.01.2012 NOTE: The update is related to "The Story". If you haven't read that part then you can skip this update. This is just a short update on the recover logs from the Ignite Tape.. someone with more exp. might notice something.. ... --- READING CONTENTS OF THE IGNITE TAPE --- --- OUTPUT OMITED --- ... ... x ./configure3, 413696 bytes, 808 tape blocks x ./monitor_bpr, 20480 bytes, 40 tape blocks * Download_mini-system: Complete * Loading_software: Begin * Installing boot area on disk. * Enabling swap areas. * Backing up LVM configuration for "vg00". * Processing the archive source (Recovery Archive). * Wed Jan 25 15:27:32 EST 2012: Starting archive load of the source (Recovery Archive). * Positioning the tape (/dev/rmt/0mn). * Archive extraction from tape is beginning. Please wait. * Wed Jan 25 15:39:52 EST 2012: Completed archive load of the source (Recovery Archive). * Executing user specified script: "/opt/ignite/data/scripts/os_arch_post_l". * Running in recovery mode (os_arch_post_l). * Running the ioinit command ("/sbin/ioinit -c") * Creating device files via the insf command. insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 0 address 0/0/1/1.15.0 insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 1 address 0/0/2/0.1.0 insf: Installing special files for sdisk instance 2 address 0/0/2/1.15.0 insf: Installing special files for stape instance 0 address 0/0/1/0.3.0 insf: Installing special files for btlan instance 0 address 0/0/0/0 insf: Installing special files for btlan instance 1 address 0/2/0/0 insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver dlpi insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver kepd insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver framebuf insf: Installing special files for pseudo driver sad * Running "/opt/upgrade/bin/tlinstall -v" and correcting transition link permissions. * Constructing the bootconf file. * Setting primary boot path to "0/0/1/1.15.0". * Executing: "/var/adm/sw/products/PHSS_20146/pfiles/iux_postload". * Executing: "/var/adm/sw/products/PHSS_25982/pfiles/iux_postload". NOTE: tlinstall is searching filesystem - please be patient NOTE: Successfully completed * Loading_software: Complete * Build_Kernel: Begin NOTE: Since the /stand/vmunix kernel is already in place, the kernel will not be re-built. Note that no mod_kernel directives will be processed. * Build_Kernel: Complete * Boot_From_Client_Disk: Begin * Rebooting machine as expected. NOTE: Rebooting system. sync'ing disks (0 buffers to flush): 0 buffers not flushed 0 buffers still dirty Closing open logical volumes... Done Console reset done. Boot device reset done. ********** VIRTUAL FRONT PANEL ********** System Boot detected ***************************************** LEDs: RUN ATTENTION FAULT REMOTE POWER FLASH OFF OFF ON ON LED State: Running non-OS code. (i.e. Boot or Diagnostics) ... ... ... --- SERVER IS PERFORMING POST SEQUENCE HERE --- --- OUTPUT OMITED --- ... ... ... ***************************************** ************ EARLY BOOT VFP ************* End of early boot detected ***************************************** Firmware Version 43.50 Duplex Console IO Dependent Code (IODC) revision 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (c) Copyright 1995-2002, Hewlett-Packard Company, All rights reserved ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Processor Speed State CoProcessor State Cache Size Number State Inst Data --------- -------- --------------------- ----------------- ------------ 0 650 MHz Active Functional 750 KB 1.5 MB 1 650 MHz Idle Functional 750 KB 1.5 MB Central Bus Speed (in MHz) : 120 Available Memory : 2097152 KB Good Memory Required : 16140 KB Primary boot path: 0/0/1/1.15 Alternate boot path: 0/0/2/1.15 Console path: 0/0/4/1.643 Keyboard path: 0/0/4/0.0 Processor is starting autoboot process. To discontinue, press any key within 10 seconds. 10 seconds expired. Proceeding... Trying Primary Boot Path ------------------------ Booting... Boot IO Dependent Code (IODC) revision 1 HARD Booted. ISL Revision A.00.38 OCT 26, 1994 ISL booting hpux ISL>

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  • Help with Design for Vacation Tracking System (C#/.NET/Access/WebServices/SOA/Excel) [closed]

    - by Aaronaught
    I have been tasked with developing a system for tracking our company's paid time-off (vacation, sick days, etc.) At the moment we are using an Excel spreadsheet on a shared network drive, and it works pretty well, but we are concerned that we won't be able to "trust" employees forever and sometimes we run into locking issues when two people try to open the spreadsheet at once. So we are trying to build something a little more robust. I would like some input on this design in terms of maintainability, scalability, extensibility, etc. It's a pretty simple workflow we need to represent right now: I started with a basic MS Access schema like this: Employees (EmpID int, EmpName varchar(50), AllowedDays int) Vacations (VacationID int, EmpID int, BeginDate datetime, EndDate datetime) But we don't want to spend a lot of time building a schema and database like this and have to change it later, so I think I am going to go with something that will be easier to expand through configuration. Right now the vacation table has this schema: Vacations (VacationID int, PropName varchar(50), PropValue varchar(50)) And the table will be populated with data like this: VacationID | PropName | PropValue -----------+--------------+------------------ 1 | EmpID | 4 1 | EmpName | James Jones 1 | Reason | Vacation 1 | BeginDate | 2/24/2010 1 | EndDate | 2/30/2010 1 | Destination | Spectate Swamp 2 | ... | ... I think this is a pretty good, extensible design, we can easily add new properties to the vacation like the destination or maybe approval status, etc. I wasn't too sure how to go about managing the database of valid properties, I thought of putting them in a separate PropNames table but it gets complicated to manage all the different data types and people say that you shouldn't put CLR type names into a SQL database, so I decided to use XML instead, here is the schema: <VacationProperties> <PropertyNames>EmpID,EmpName,Reason,BeginDate,EndDate,Destination</PropertyNames> <PropertyTypes>System.Int32,System.String,System.String,System.DateTime,System.DateTime,System.String</PropertyTypes> <PropertiesRequired>true,true,false,true,true,false</PropertiesRequired> </VacationProperties> I might need more fields than that, I'm not completely sure. I'm parsing the XML like this (would like some feedback on the parsing code): string xml = File.ReadAllText("properties.xml"); Match m = Regex.Match(xml, "<(PropertyNames)>(.*?)</PropertyNames>"; string[] pn = m.Value.Split(','); // do the same for PropertyTypes, PropertiesRequired Then I use the following code to persist configuration changes to the database: string sql = "DROP TABLE VacationProperties"; sql = sql + " CREATE TABLE VacationProperties "; sql = sql + "(PropertyName varchar(100), PropertyType varchar(100) "; sql = sql + "IsRequired varchar(100))"; for (int i = 0; i < pn.Length; i++) { sql = sql + " INSERT VacationProperties VALUES (" + pn[i] + "," + pt[i] + "," + pv[i] + ")"; } // GlobalConnection is a singleton new SqlCommand(sql, GlobalConnection.Instance).ExecuteReader(); So far so good, but after a few days of this I then realized that a lot of this was just a more specific kind of a generic workflow which could be further abstracted, and instead of writing all of this boilerplate plumbing code I could just come up with a workflow and plug it into a workflow engine like Windows Workflow Foundation and have the users configure it: In order to support routing these configurations throw the workflow system, it seemed natural to implement generic XML Web Services for this instead of just using an XML file as above. I've used this code to implement the Web Services: public class VacationConfigurationService : WebService { [WebMethod] public void UpdateConfiguration(string xml) { // Above code goes here } } Which was pretty easy, although I'm still working on a way to validate that XML against some kind of schema as there's no error-checking yet. I also created a few different services for other operations like VacationSubmissionService, VacationReportService, VacationDataService, VacationAuthenticationService, etc. The whole Service Oriented Architecture looks like this: And because the workflow itself might change, I have been working on a way to integrate the WF workflow system with MS Visio, which everybody at the office already knows how to use so they could make changes pretty easily. We have a diagram that looks like the following (it's kind of hard to read but the main items are Activities, Authenticators, Validators, Transformers, Processors, and Data Connections, they're all analogous to the services in the SOA diagram above). The requirements for this system are: (Note - I don't control these, they were given to me by management) Main workflow must interface with Excel spreadsheet, probably through VBA macros (to ease the transition to the new system) Alerts should integrate with MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, and SMS (text messages). We also want to interface it with the company Voice Mail system but that is not a "hard" requirement. Performance requirements: Must handle 250,000 Transactions Per Second Should be able to handle up to 20,000 employees (right now we have 3) 99.99% uptime ("four nines") expected Must be secure against outside hacking, but users cannot be required to enter a username/password. Platforms: Must support Windows XP/Vista/7, Linux, iPhone, Blackberry, DOS 2.0, VAX, IRIX, PDP-11, Apple IIc. Time to complete: 6 to 8 weeks. My questions are: Is this a good design for the system so far? Am I using all of the recommended best practices for these technologies? How do I integrate the Visio diagram above with the Windows Workflow Foundation to call the ConfigurationService and persist workflow changes? Am I missing any important components? Will this be extensible enough to support any scenario via end-user configuration? Will the system scale to the above performance requirements? Will we need any expensive hardware to run it? Are there any "gotchas" I should know about with respect to cross-platform compatibility? For example would it be difficult to convert this to an iPhone app? How long would you expect this to take? (We've dedicated 1 week for testing so I'm thinking maybe 5 weeks?) Many thanks for your advices, Aaron

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  • Design for Vacation Tracking System

    - by Aaronaught
    I have been tasked with developing a system for tracking our company's paid time-off (vacation, sick days, etc.) At the moment we are using an Excel spreadsheet on a shared network drive, and it works pretty well, but we are concerned that we won't be able to "trust" employees forever and sometimes we run into locking issues when two people try to open the spreadsheet at once. So we are trying to build something a little more robust. I would like some input on this design in terms of maintainability, scalability, extensibility, etc. It's a pretty simple workflow we need to represent right now: I started with a basic MS Access schema like this: Employees (EmpID int, EmpName varchar(50), AllowedDays int) Vacations (VacationID int, EmpID int, BeginDate datetime, EndDate datetime) But we don't want to spend a lot of time building a schema and database like this and have to change it later, so I think I am going to go with something that will be easier to expand through configuration. Right now the vacation table has this schema: Vacations (VacationID int, PropName varchar(50), PropValue varchar(50)) And the table will be populated with data like this: VacationID | PropName | PropValue -----------+--------------+------------------ 1 | EmpID | 4 1 | EmpName | James Jones 1 | Reason | Vacation 1 | BeginDate | 2/24/2010 1 | EndDate | 2/30/2010 1 | Destination | Spectate Swamp 2 | ... | ... I think this is a pretty good, extensible design, we can easily add new properties to the vacation like the destination or maybe approval status, etc. I wasn't too sure how to go about managing the database of valid properties, I thought of putting them in a separate PropNames table but it gets complicated to manage all the different data types and people say that you shouldn't put CLR type names into a SQL database, so I decided to use XML instead, here is the schema: <VacationProperties> <PropertyNames>EmpID,EmpName,Reason,BeginDate,EndDate,Destination</PropertyNames> <PropertyTypes>System.Int32,System.String,System.String,System.DateTime,System.DateTime,System.String</PropertyTypes> <PropertiesRequired>true,true,false,true,true,false</PropertiesRequired> </VacationProperties> I might need more fields than that, I'm not completely sure. I'm parsing the XML like this (would like some feedback on the parsing code): string xml = File.ReadAllText("properties.xml"); Match m = Regex.Match(xml, "<(PropertyNames)>(.*?)</PropertyNames>"; string[] pn = m.Value.Split(','); // do the same for PropertyTypes, PropertiesRequired Then I use the following code to persist configuration changes to the database: string sql = "DROP TABLE VacationProperties"; sql = sql + " CREATE TABLE VacationProperties "; sql = sql + "(PropertyName varchar(100), PropertyType varchar(100) "; sql = sql + "IsRequired varchar(100))"; for (int i = 0; i < pn.Length; i++) { sql = sql + " INSERT VacationProperties VALUES (" + pn[i] + "," + pt[i] + "," + pv[i] + ")"; } // GlobalConnection is a singleton new SqlCommand(sql, GlobalConnection.Instance).ExecuteReader(); So far so good, but after a few days of this I then realized that a lot of this was just a more specific kind of a generic workflow which could be further abstracted, and instead of writing all of this boilerplate plumbing code I could just come up with a workflow and plug it into a workflow engine like Windows Workflow Foundation and have the users configure it: In order to support routing these configurations throw the workflow system, it seemed natural to implement generic XML Web Services for this instead of just using an XML file as above. I've used this code to implement the Web Services: public class VacationConfigurationService : WebService { [WebMethod] public void UpdateConfiguration(string xml) { // Above code goes here } } Which was pretty easy, although I'm still working on a way to validate that XML against some kind of schema as there's no error-checking yet. I also created a few different services for other operations like VacationSubmissionService, VacationReportService, VacationDataService, VacationAuthenticationService, etc. The whole Service Oriented Architecture looks like this: And because the workflow itself might change, I have been working on a way to integrate the WF workflow system with MS Visio, which everybody at the office already knows how to use so they could make changes pretty easily. We have a diagram that looks like the following (it's kind of hard to read but the main items are Activities, Authenticators, Validators, Transformers, Processors, and Data Connections, they're all analogous to the services in the SOA diagram above). The requirements for this system are: (Note - I don't control these, they were given to me by management) Main workflow must interface with Excel spreadsheet, probably through VBA macros (to ease the transition to the new system) Alerts should integrate with MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, and SMS (text messages). We also want to interface it with the company Voice Mail system but that is not a "hard" requirement. Performance requirements: Must handle 250,000 Transactions Per Second Should be able to handle up to 20,000 employees (right now we have 3) 99.99% uptime ("four nines") expected Must be secure against outside hacking, but users cannot be required to enter a username/password. Platforms: Must support Windows XP/Vista/7, Linux, iPhone, Blackberry, DOS 2.0, VAX, IRIX, PDP-11, Apple IIc. Time to complete: 6 to 8 weeks. My questions are: Is this a good design for the system so far? Am I using all of the recommended best practices for these technologies? How do I integrate the Visio diagram above with the Windows Workflow Foundation to call the ConfigurationService and persist workflow changes? Am I missing any important components? Will this be extensible enough to support any scenario via end-user configuration? Will the system scale to the above performance requirements? Will we need any expensive hardware to run it? Are there any "gotchas" I should know about with respect to cross-platform compatibility? For example would it be difficult to convert this to an iPhone app? How long would you expect this to take? (We've dedicated 1 week for testing so I'm thinking maybe 5 weeks?)

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  • Modelling boost::Lockable with semaphore rather than mutex (previously titled: Unlocking a mutex fr

    - by dan
    I'm using the C++ boost::thread library, which in my case means I'm using pthreads. Officially, a mutex must be unlocked from the same thread which locks it, and I want the effect of being able to lock in one thread and then unlock in another. There are many ways to accomplish this. One possibility would be to write a new mutex class which allows this behavior. For example: class inter_thread_mutex{ bool locked; boost::mutex mx; boost::condition_variable cv; public: void lock(){ boost::unique_lock<boost::mutex> lck(mx); while(locked) cv.wait(lck); locked=true; } void unlock(){ { boost::lock_guard<boost::mutex> lck(mx); if(!locked) error(); locked=false; } cv.notify_one(); } // bool try_lock(); void error(); etc. } I should point out that the above code doesn't guarantee FIFO access, since if one thread calls lock() while another calls unlock(), this first thread may acquire the lock ahead of other threads which are waiting. (Come to think of it, the boost::thread documentation doesn't appear to make any explicit scheduling guarantees for either mutexes or condition variables). But let's just ignore that (and any other bugs) for now. My question is, if I decide to go this route, would I be able to use such a mutex as a model for the boost Lockable concept. For example, would anything go wrong if I use a boost::unique_lock< inter_thread_mutex for RAII-style access, and then pass this lock to boost::condition_variable_any.wait(), etc. On one hand I don't see why not. On the other hand, "I don't see why not" is usually a very bad way of determining whether something will work. The reason I ask is that if it turns out that I have to write wrapper classes for RAII locks and condition variables and whatever else, then I'd rather just find some other way to achieve the same effect. EDIT: The kind of behavior I want is basically as follows. I have an object, and it needs to be locked whenever it is modified. I want to lock the object from one thread, and do some work on it. Then I want to keep the object locked while I tell another worker thread to complete the work. So the first thread can go on and do something else while the worker thread finishes up. When the worker thread gets done, it unlocks the mutex. And I want the transition to be seemless so nobody else can get the mutex lock in between when thread 1 starts the work and thread 2 completes it. Something like inter_thread_mutex seems like it would work, and it would also allow the program to interact with it as if it were an ordinary mutex. So it seems like a clean solution. If there's a better solution, I'd be happy to hear that also. EDIT AGAIN: The reason I need locks to begin with is that there are multiple master threads, and the locks are there to prevent them from accessing shared objects concurrently in invalid ways. So the code already uses loop-level lock-free sequencing of operations at the master thread level. Also, in the original implementation, there were no worker threads, and the mutexes were ordinary kosher mutexes. The inter_thread_thingy came up as an optimization, primarily to improve response time. In many cases, it was sufficient to guarantee that the "first part" of operation A, occurs before the "first part" of operation B. As a dumb example, say I punch object 1 and give it a black eye. Then I tell object 1 to change it's internal structure to reflect all the tissue damage. I don't want to wait around for the tissue damage before I move on to punch object 2. However, I do want the tissue damage to occur as part of the same operation; for example, in the interim, I don't want any other thread to reconfigure the object in such a way that would make tissue damage an invalid operation. (yes, this example is imperfect in many ways, and no I'm not working on a game) So we made the change to a model where ownership of an object can be passed to a worker thread to complete an operation, and it actually works quite nicely; each master thread is able to get a lot more operations done because it doesn't need to wait for them all to complete. And, since the event sequencing at the master thread level is still loop-based, it is easy to write high-level master-thread operations, as they can be based on the assumption that an operation is complete when the corresponding function call returns. Finally, I thought it would be nice to use inter_thread mutex/semaphore thingies using RAII with boost locks to encapsulate the necessary synchronization that is required to make the whole thing work.

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  • nivo slider and drop down menu doesnt work in IE

    - by venom
    Does anyone has any idea why drop down menu in IE disappear under nivo slider? tried to play with z-index, didn't help, i also know that drop down menus dissappear under flash content, but this is not the case(wmode=transparent) as far as i know the nivo slider uses just jquery, no flash. here is the html: <table> <tr height="50"><td colspan="2" align="right" class="bottom_menu"> <ul id="nav" class="dropdown dropdown-horizontal" > <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.logout" class="dir" style="border:0 !important;" >Çikis</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.list_basket" class="dir">Sepetim</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.me" class="dir">Sirketim</a> <ul> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.list_opportunities">Firsatlar</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.form_add_partner">Sirkete Kullanici Ekle</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.form_upd_my_company">Kullanici Yönetimi</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.list_analyses">Analizler</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.list_extre">Hesap Ekstresi</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.popup_add_online_pos" target="_blank">Sanal Pos</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </td></tr> </table> <div id="banner"> <img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/l_top.gif" style="z-index:1;position:absolute; left:0; top:0;" width="24px" height="24px" border="0" /> <img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/r_top.gif" style="z-index:1;position:absolute; right:0; top:0;" width="24px" height="24px" border="0" /> <img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/l_bottom.gif" style="z-index:1;position:absolute; left:0; bottom:0;" width="24px" height="24px" border="0" /> <img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/r_bottom.gif" style="z-index:1;position:absolute; right:0; bottom:0;" width="24px" height="24px" border="0" /> <div class="banner_img"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/nivo-slider.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <div id="slider" class="nivoSlider"> <img title="#1" src="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/canon.jpg" alt="" /> <img title="#2" src="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/indigovision.jpg" alt="" /> </div> <div id="1" class="nivo-html-caption"> <a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.detail_product&product_id=612&stock_id=612"><img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/daha_fazlasi.jpg" border="0" /></a> </div> <div id="2" class="nivo-html-caption"> <a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.detail_product&product_id=630&stock_id=630"><img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/daha_fazlasi.jpg" border="0" /></a> </div> <script type="text/javascript" src="/JS/jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(window).load(function() { $('#slider').nivoSlider({ effect:'random', //Specify sets like: 'fold,fade,sliceDown' slices:15, animSpeed:1000, //Slide transition speed pauseTime:10000, startSlide:0, //Set starting Slide (0 index) directionNav:true, //Next & Prev directionNavHide:true, //Only show on hover controlNav:true, //1,2,3... controlNavThumbs:false, //Use thumbnails for Control Nav controlNavThumbsFromRel:false, //Use image rel for thumbs controlNavThumbsSearch: '.jpg', //Replace this with... controlNavThumbsReplace: '_thumb.jpg', //...this in thumb Image src keyboardNav:true, //Use left & right arrows pauseOnHover:true, //Stop animation while hovering manualAdvance:false, //Force manual transitions captionOpacity:1.0, //Universal caption opacity beforeChange: function(){}, afterChange: function(){}, slideshowEnd: function(){}, //Triggers after all slides have been shown lastSlide: function(){}, //Triggers when last slide is shown afterLoad: function(){} //Triggers when slider has loaded }); }); </script> </div> </div> Here is css for dropdown menu: http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/default.css http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/default.advanced.css http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/dropdown.css and for nivo slider: http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/style.css http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/nivo-slider.css and for banner divs: #banner { position:relative; width:980px; height:435px; background:#fff; margin-bottom:20px; margin-top:-1px; color:#000; z-index:60; } .banner_img { padding:8px;position:absolute;z-index:2; } and the javascript by default, jquery and nivo slider http://www.micae.com/JS/jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js

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  • z index background issue in IE

    - by Michael
    I have a jQuery tools scroller set up with controls managing two separate divs of info - one images, the other related text that needs to sit over the top of the images with a transparent bg image. I am using z-indexing to achieve this and am aware of IE's issues with this but am unable to sort it (tested in IE6-8). Image of the issue below: http://test.shakingpaper.com.au/not_working.png It seems that the overlayed div is taking on the containers white. Try as I might, I can't resolve this. HTML/CSS code below: <div id="content"> <div id="nav"></div> <div class="s4 slideshow"> <div> <img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/hero_1_white.jpg" width="770" height="367" /> </div> <div> <img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/hero_1_white.jpg" width="770" height="367" /> </div> <div> <img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/hero_1_white.jpg" width="770" height="367" /> </div> </div> <div id="overlay_bg"></div> <div class="s4 information"> <div> <h1>Support</h1> <p>Quisque lacus quam, egestas ac tincidunt a, lacinia vel velit. Aenean facilisis nulla vitae.</p> <p><a href="#">Support Us</a></p> </div> <div> <h1>Events</h1> <p>Quisque lacegestas ac tincidunt a, lacinia vel velit. Aenean facilisis nulla vitae.</p> <p><a href="#">Read More</a></p> </div> <div> <h1>Regional</h1> <p>Quisque lacus quam, egestas ac tincidunt a, lacinia vel velit. Aenean facilisis nulla vitae.</p> <p><a href="#">Support Us</a></p> </div> </div> </div> <!-- end of content --> #content { height: auto; min-height: 300px !important; overflow: hidden; position:relative; margin-left: 27px; width: 770px; padding-bottom: 43px; } #nav { width: 60px; z-index: 10000; position: absolute; top:340px; left: 28px; } .s4 { width: 770px; height: 370px; overflow: hidden; } #nav a { background-color: transparent; background-image: url(images/transition.png); background-position: 0 0; text-indent: -1000em; width: 10px; height: 10px; display: block; float: left; margin-right: 5px; } #nav a.activeSlide { background-position: 0 -10px; } #overlay_bg { background: url(images/soild_block.png) no-repeat; width: 318px; height: 339px; z-index: 5000; position: absolute; top: 28px; } .information { position: absolute; top: 60px; left: 28px; z-index: 16000; width: 290px; height: 260px; color: #FFF; } .information h1 { font-size: 50px; font-style: italic; text-transform: uppercase; } .information p { font-size: 17px; line-height: 27px; margin-top: 37px; } .information a { font-size: 13px; padding-bottom: 2px; border-bottom: 1px solid; color: #FFF; text-transform: uppercase; font-style: italic; } .information a:hover { color: #000; } Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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  • Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer

    - by mbcrump
    Tweet this list! Add a link to my site to your bookmarks to quickly find this page again! Add me to twitter! This is a list of the tools/utilities that I use to do my job/hobby. I wanted this page to load fast and contain information that only you care about. If I have missed a tool that you like, feel free to contact me and I will add it to the list. Also, this list took a lot of time to complete. Please do not steal my work, if you like the page then please link back to my site. I will keep the links/information updated as new tools/utilities are created.  Windows/.NET Development – This is a list of tools that any Windows/.NET developer should have in his bag. I have used at some point in my career everything listed on this page and below is the tools worth keeping. Name Description License AnkhSVN Subversion support for Visual Studio. It also works with VS2010. Free Aurora XAML Designer One of the best XAML creation tools available. Has a ton of built in templates that you can copy/paste into VS2010. COST/Trial BeyondCompare Beyond Compare 3 is the ideal tool for comparing files and folders on your Windows or Linux system. Visualize changes in your code and carefully reconcile them. COST/Trial BuildIT Automated Task Tool Its main purpose is to automate tasks, whether it is the final packaging of a product, an automated daily build, maybe sending out a mailing list, even backing-up files. Free C Sharper for VB Convert VB to C#. COST CLRProfiler Analyze and improve the behavior of your .NET app. Free CodeRush Direct competitor to ReSharper, contains similar feature. This is one of those decide for yourself. COST/Trial Disk2VHD Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft's Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). Free Eazfuscator.NET Is a free obfuscator for .NET. The main purpose is to protect intellectual property of software. Free EQATEC Profiler Make your .NET app run faster. No source code changes are needed. Just point the profiler to your app, run the modified code, and get a visual report. COST Expression Studio 3/4 Comes with Web, Blend, Sketch Flow and more. You can create websites, produce beautiful XAML and more. COST/Trial Expresso The award-winning Expresso editor is equally suitable as a teaching tool for the beginning user of regular expressions or as a full-featured development environment for the experienced programmer or web designer with an extensive knowledge of regular expressions. Free Fiddler Fiddler is a web debugging proxy which logs all HTTP(s) traffic between your computer and the internet. Free Firebug Powerful Web development tool. If you build websites, you will need this. Free FxCop FxCop is an application that analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements. Free GAC Browser and Remover Easy way to remove multiple assemblies from the GAC. Assemblies registered by programs like Install Shield can also be removed. Free GAC Util The Global Assembly Cache tool allows you to view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache and download cache. Free HelpScribble Help Scribble is a full-featured, easy-to-use help authoring tool for creating help files from start to finish. You can create Win Help (.hlp) files, HTML Help (.chm) files, a printed manual and online documentation (on a web site) all from the same Help Scribble project. COST/Trial IETester IETester is a free Web Browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process. Free iTextSharp iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library for PDF generation written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. Use the iText mailing list to get support. Free Kaxaml Kaxaml is a lightweight XAML editor that gives you a "split view" so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content. Free LINQPad LinqPad lets you interactively query databases in a LINQ. Free Linquer Many programmers are familiar with SQL and will need a help in the transition to LINQ. Sometimes there are complicated queries to be written and Linqer can help by converting SQL scripts to LINQ. COST/Trial LiquidXML Liquid XML Studio 2010 is an advanced XML developers toolkit and IDE, containing all the tools needed for designing and developing XML schema and applications. COST/Trial Log4Net log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets. log4net is a port of the excellent log4j framework to the .NET runtime. We have kept the framework similar in spirit to the original log4j while taking advantage of new features in the .NET runtime. For more information on log4net see the features document. Free Microsoft Web Platform Installer The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes getting the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer easy. Free Mono Development Don't have Visual Studio - no problem! This is an open Source C# and .NET development environment for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X Free Net Mass Downloader While it’s great that Microsoft has released the .NET Reference Source Code, you can only get it one file at a time while you’re debugging. If you’d like to batch download it for reading or to populate the cache, you’d have to write a program that instantiated and called each method in the Framework Class Library. Fortunately, .NET Mass Downloader comes to the rescue! Free nMap Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Free NoScript (Firefox add-in) The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript, Java and Flash and other plug-ins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank), and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser. Free NotePad 2 Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry. Free PageSpy PageSpy is a small add-on for Internet Explorer that allows you to select any element within a webpage, select an option in the context menu, and view detailed information about both the coding behind the page and the element you selected. Free Phrase Express PhraseExpress manages your frequently used text snippets in customizable categories for quick access. Free PowerGui PowerGui is a free community for PowerGUI, a graphical user interface and script editor for Microsoft Windows PowerShell! Free Powershell Comes with Win7, but you can automate tasks by using the .NET Framework. Great for network admins. Free Process Explorer Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. Also, included in the SysInterals Suite. Free Process Monitor Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. Free Reflector Explore and analyze compiled .NET assemblies, viewing them in C#, Visual Basic, and IL. This is an Essential for any .NET developer. Free Regular Expression Library Stuck on a Regular Expression but you think someone has already figured it out? Chances are they have. Free Regulator Regulator makes Regular Expressions easy. This is a must have for a .NET Developer. Free RenameMaestro RenameMaestro is probably the easiest batch file renamer you'll find to instantly rename multiple files COST ReSharper The one program that I cannot live without. Supports VS2010 and offers simple refactoring, code analysis/assistance/cleanup/templates. One of the few applications that is worth the $$$. COST/Trial ScrewTurn Wiki ScrewTurn Wiki allows you to create, manage and share wikis. A wiki is a collaboratively-edited, information-centered website: the most famous is Wikipedia. Free SharpDevelop What is #develop? SharpDevelop is a free IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on Microsoft's .NET platform. Free Show Me The Template Show Me The Template is a tool for exploring the templates, be their data, control or items panel, that comes with the controls built into WPF for all 6 themes. Free SnippetCompiler Compiles code snippets without opening Visual Studio. It does not support .NET 4. Free SQL Prompt SQL Prompt is a plug-in that increases how fast you can work with SQL. It provides code-completion for SQL server, reformatting, db schema information and snippets. Awesome! COST/Trial SQLinForm SQLinForm is an automatic SQL code formatter for all major databases  including ORACLE, SQL Server, DB2, UDB, Sybase, Informix, PostgreSQL, Teradata, MySQL, MS Access etc. with over 70 formatting options. COST/OnlineFree SSMS Tools SSMS Tools Pack is an add-in for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) including SSMS Express. Free Storm STORM is a free and open source tool for testing web services. Free Telerik Code Convertor Convert code from VB to C Sharp and Vice Versa. Free TurtoiseSVN TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows.Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like. Free UltraEdit UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and hex editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. UltraEdit is also an XML editor including a tree-style XML parser. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later). COST/Trial Virtual Windows XP Comes with some W7 version and allows you to run WinXP along side W7. Free VirtualBox Virtualization by Sun Microsystems. You can virtualize Windows, Linux and more. Free Visual Log Parser SQL queries against a variety of log files and other system data sources. Free WinMerge WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. Free Wireshark Wireshark is one of the best network protocol analyzer's for Unix and windows. This has been used several times to get me out of a bind. Free XML Notepad 07 Old, but still one of my favorite XML viewers. Free Productivity Tools – This is the list of tools that I use to save time or quickly navigate around Windows. Name Description License AutoHotKey Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder. Free CLCL CLCL is clipboard caching utility. Free Ditto Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats, ..... Free Evernote Remember everything from notes to photos. It will synch between computers/devices. Free InfoRapid Inforapid is a search tool that will display all you search results in a html like browser. If you click on a word in that browser, it will start another search to the word you clicked on. Handy if you want to trackback something to it's true origin. The word you looked for will be highlighted in red. Clicking on the red word will open the containing file in a text based viewer. Clicking on any word in the opened document will start another search on that word. Free KatMouse The prime purpose of the KatMouse utility is to enhance the functionality of mice with a scroll wheel, offering 'universal' scrolling: moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus, which is default on Windows OSes). This is a major increase in the usefulness of the mouse wheel. Free ScreenR Instant Screencast with nothing to download. Works with Mac or PC and free. Free Start++ Start++ is an enhancement for the Start Menu in Windows Vista. It also extends the Run box and the command-line with customizable commands.  For example, typing "w Windows Vista" will take you to the Windows Vista page on Wikipedia! Free Synergy Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s). Free Texter Texter lets you define text substitution hot strings that, when triggered, will replace hotstring with a larger piece of text. By entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into Texter, you can save countless keystrokes in the course of the day. Free Total Commander File handling, FTP, Archive handling and much more. Even works with Win3.11. COST/Trial Available Wizmouse WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel. Free Xmarks Bookmark sync and search between computers. Free General Utilities – This is a list for power user users or anyone that wants more out of Windows. I usually install a majority of these whenever I get a new system. Name Description License µTorrent µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows or Mac with many features. I use this for downloading LEGAL media. Free Audacity Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check our Wiki and Forum for more information. Free AVast Free FREE Antivirus. Free CD Burner XP Pro CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Free CDEX You can extract digital audio CDs into mp3/wav. Free Combofix Combofix is a freeware (a legitimate spyware remover created by sUBs), Combofix was designed to scan a computer for known malware, spyware (SurfSideKick, QooLogic, and Look2Me as well as any other combination of the mentioned spyware applications) and remove them. Free Cpu-Z Provides information about some of the main devices of your system. Free Cropper Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C#. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen. Use it to easily crop out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor. Use it to easily capture parts of a web site, including text and images. It's also great for writing documentation that needs images of your application or web site. Free DropBox Drag and Drop files to sync between computers. Free DVD-Fab Converts/Copies DVDs/Blu-Ray to different formats. (like mp4, mkv, avi) COST/Trial Available FastStone Capture FastStone Capture is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. Free ffdshow FFDShow is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, H.264, FLV1, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 movies. Free Filezilla FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. You can also download a server version. Free FireFox Web Browser, do you really need an explanation? Free FireGestures A customizable mouse gestures extension which enables you to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures. Free FoxIt Reader Light weight PDF viewer. You should install this with the advanced setting or it will install a toolbar and setup some shortcuts. Free gSynchIt Synch Gmail and Outlook. Even supports Outlook 2010 32/64 bit COST/Trial Available Hulu Desktop At home or in a hotel, this has replaced my cable/satellite subscription. Free ImgBurn ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! Free Infrarecorder InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. Free KeePass KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. Free LastPass Another password management, synchronize between browsers, automatic form filling and more. Free Live Essentials One download and lots of programs including Mail, Live Writer, Movie Maker and more! Free Monitores MonitorES is a small windows utility that helps you to turnoff monitor display when you lock down your machine.Also when you lock your machine, it will pause all your running media programs & set your IM status message to "Away" / Custom message(via options) and restore it back to normal when you back. Free mRemote mRemote is a full-featured, multi-tab remote connections manager. Free Open Office OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Free Paint.NET Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface for editing photos. Free Picasa Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Free Pidgin Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. Free PING PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated into a PXE / RIS environment. Free Putty PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform. Free Revo Uninstaller Revo Uninstaller Pro helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer easily! Even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet! It has very powerful features to uninstall and remove programs. Free Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. Free SetupVirtualCloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Point to the .ISO file and it appears in Windows Explorer as a Drive. Free Shark 007 Codec Pack Play just about any file format with this download. Also includes my W7 Media Playlist Generator. Free Snagit 9 Screen Capture on steroids. Add arrows, captions, etc to any screenshot. COST/Trial Available SysinternalsSuite Go ahead and download the entire sys internals suite. I have mentioned multiple programs in this suite already. Free TeraCopy TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features. Free for Home TrueCrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux Free TweetDeck Fully featured Twitter client. Free UltraVNC UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location. Free Unlocker Unlocks locked files. Pretty simple right? Free VLC Media Player VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats Free Windows 7 Media Playlist This program is special to my heart because I wrote it. It has been mentioned on podcast and various websites. It allows you to quickly create wvx video playlist for Windows Media Center. Free WinRAR WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. COST/Trial Available Blogging – I use the following for my blog. Name Description License Insert Code for Windows Live Writer Insert Code for Windows Live Writer will format a snippet of text in a number of programming languages such as C#, HTML, MSH, JavaScript, Visual Basic and TSQL. Free LiveWriter Included in Live Essentials, but the ultimate in Windows Blogging Free PasteAsVSCode Plug-in for Windows Live Writer that pastes clipboard content as Visual Studio code. Preserves syntax highlighting, indentation and background color. Converts RTF, outputted by Visual Studio, into HTML. Free Desktop Management – The list below represent the best in Windows Desktop Management. Name Description License 7 Stacks Allows users to have "stacks" of icons in their taskbar. Free Executor Executor is a multi purpose launcher and a more advanced and customizable version of windows run. Free Fences Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use. Free RocketDock Rocket Dock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock. Free WindowsTab Tabbing is an essential feature of modern web browsers. Window Tabs brings the productivity of tabbed window management to all of your desktop applications. Free

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  • Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g: Classification design

    - by Simon Thorpe
    Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g indexThis is the final article in the quick guide to Oracle IRM. If you've followed everything prior you will now have a fully functional and tested Information Rights Management service. It doesn't matter if you've been following the 10g or 11g guide as this next article is common to both. ContentsWhy this is the most important part... Understanding the classification and standard rights model Identifying business use cases Creating an effective IRM classification modelOne single classification across the entire businessA context for each and every possible granular use caseWhat makes a good context? Deciding on the use of roles in the context Reviewing the features and security for context roles Summary Why this is the most important part...Now the real work begins, installing and getting an IRM system running is as simple as following instructions. However to actually have an IRM technology easily protecting your most sensitive information without interfering with your users existing daily work flows and be able to scale IRM across the entire business, requires thought into how confidential documents are created, used and distributed. This article is going to give you the information you need to ask the business the right questions so that you can deploy your IRM service successfully. The IRM team here at Oracle have over 10 years of experience in helping customers and it is important you understand the following to be successful in securing access to your most confidential information. Whatever you are trying to secure, be it mergers and acquisitions information, engineering intellectual property, health care documentation or financial reports. No matter what type of user is going to access the information, be they employees, contractors or customers, there are common goals you are always trying to achieve.Securing the content at the earliest point possible and do it automatically. Removing the dependency on the user to decide to secure the content reduces the risk of mistakes significantly and therefore results a more secure deployment. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) Reduce complexity in the rights/classification model. Oracle IRM lets you make changes to access to documents even after they are secured which allows you to start with a simple model and then introduce complexity once you've understood how the technology is going to be used in the business. After an initial learning period you can review your implementation and start to make informed decisions based on user feedback and administration experience. Clearly communicate to the user, when appropriate, any changes to their existing work practice. You must make every effort to make the transition to sealed content as simple as possible. For external users you must help them understand why you are securing the documents and inform them the value of the technology to both your business and them. Before getting into the detail, I must pay homage to Martin White, Vice President of client services in SealedMedia, the company Oracle acquired and who created Oracle IRM. In the SealedMedia years Martin was involved with every single customer and was key to the design of certain aspects of the IRM technology, specifically the context model we will be discussing here. Listening carefully to customers and understanding the flexibility of the IRM technology, Martin taught me all the skills of helping customers build scalable, effective and simple to use IRM deployments. No matter how well the engineering department designed the software, badly designed and poorly executed projects can result in difficult to use and manage, and ultimately insecure solutions. The advice and information that follows was born with Martin and he's still delivering IRM consulting with customers and can be found at www.thinkers.co.uk. It is from Martin and others that Oracle not only has the most advanced, scalable and usable document security solution on the market, but Oracle and their partners have the most experience in delivering successful document security solutions. Understanding the classification and standard rights model The goal of any successful IRM deployment is to balance the increase in security the technology brings without over complicating the way people use secured content and avoid a significant increase in administration and maintenance. With Oracle it is possible to automate the protection of content, deploy the desktop software transparently and use authentication methods such that users can open newly secured content initially unaware the document is any different to an insecure one. That is until of course they attempt to do something for which they don't have any rights, such as copy and paste to an insecure application or try and print. Central to achieving this objective is creating a classification model that is simple to understand and use but also provides the right level of complexity to meet the business needs. In Oracle IRM the term used for each classification is a "context". A context defines the relationship between.A group of related documents The people that use the documents The roles that these people perform The rights that these people need to perform their role The context is the key to the success of Oracle IRM. It provides the separation of the role and rights of a user from the content itself. Documents are sealed to contexts but none of the rights, user or group information is stored within the content itself. Sealing only places information about the location of the IRM server that sealed it, the context applied to the document and a few other pieces of metadata that pertain only to the document. This important separation of rights from content means that millions of documents can be secured against a single classification and a user needs only one right assigned to be able to access all documents. If you have followed all the previous articles in this guide, you will be ready to start defining contexts to which your sensitive information will be protected. But before you even start with IRM, you need to understand how your own business uses and creates sensitive documents and emails. Identifying business use cases Oracle is able to support multiple classification systems, but usually there is one single initial need for the technology which drives a deployment. This need might be to protect sensitive mergers and acquisitions information, engineering intellectual property, financial documents. For this and every subsequent use case you must understand how users create and work with documents, to who they are distributed and how the recipients should interact with them. A successful IRM deployment should start with one well identified use case (we go through some examples towards the end of this article) and then after letting this use case play out in the business, you learn how your users work with content, how well your communication to the business worked and if the classification system you deployed delivered the right balance. It is at this point you can start rolling the technology out further. Creating an effective IRM classification model Once you have selected the initial use case you will address with IRM, you need to design a classification model that defines the access to secured documents within the use case. In Oracle IRM there is an inbuilt classification system called the "context" model. In Oracle IRM 11g it is possible to extend the server to support any rights classification model, but the majority of users who are not using an application integration (such as Oracle IRM within Oracle Beehive) are likely to be starting out with the built in context model. Before looking at creating a classification system with IRM, it is worth reviewing some recognized standards and methods for creating and implementing security policy. A very useful set of documents are the ISO 17799 guidelines and the SANS security policy templates. First task is to create a context against which documents are to be secured. A context consists of a group of related documents (all top secret engineering research), a list of roles (contributors and readers) which define how users can access documents and a list of users (research engineers) who have been given a role allowing them to interact with sealed content. Before even creating the first context it is wise to decide on a philosophy which will dictate the level of granularity, the question is, where do you start? At a department level? By project? By technology? First consider the two ends of the spectrum... One single classification across the entire business Imagine that instead of having separate contexts, one for engineering intellectual property, one for your financial data, one for human resources personally identifiable information, you create one context for all documents across the entire business. Whilst you may have immediate objections, there are some significant benefits in thinking about considering this. Document security classification decisions are simple. You only have one context to chose from! User provisioning is simple, just make sure everyone has a role in the only context in the business. Administration is very low, if you assign rights to groups from the business user repository you probably never have to touch IRM administration again. There are however some obvious downsides to this model.All users in have access to all IRM secured content. So potentially a sales person could access sensitive mergers and acquisition documents, if they can get their hands on a copy that is. You cannot delegate control of different documents to different parts of the business, this may not satisfy your regulatory requirements for the separation and delegation of duties. Changing a users role affects every single document ever secured. Even though it is very unlikely a business would ever use one single context to secure all their sensitive information, thinking about this scenario raises one very important point. Just having one single context and securing all confidential documents to it, whilst incurring some of the problems detailed above, has one huge value. Once secured, IRM protected content can ONLY be accessed by authorized users. Just think of all the sensitive documents in your business today, imagine if you could ensure that only everyone you trust could open them. Even if an employee lost a laptop or someone accidentally sent an email to the wrong recipient, only the right people could open that file. A context for each and every possible granular use case Now let's think about the total opposite of a single context design. What if you created a context for each and every single defined business need and created multiple contexts within this for each level of granularity? Let's take a use case where we need to protect engineering intellectual property. Imagine we have 6 different engineering groups, and in each we have a research department, a design department and manufacturing. The company information security policy defines 3 levels of information sensitivity... restricted, confidential and top secret. Then let's say that each group and department needs to define access to information from both internal and external users. Finally add into the mix that they want to review the rights model for each context every financial quarter. This would result in a huge amount of contexts. For example, lets just look at the resulting contexts for one engineering group. Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Restricted External- Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Restricted External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Restricted External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Now multiply the above by 6 for each engineering group, 18 contexts. You are then creating/reviewing another 18 every 3 months. After a year you've got 72 contexts. What would be the advantages of such a complex classification model? You can satisfy very granular rights requirements, for example only an authorized engineering group 1 researcher can create a top secret report for access internally, and his role will be reviewed on a very frequent basis. Your business may have very complex rights requirements and mapping this directly to IRM may be an obvious exercise. The disadvantages of such a classification model are significant...Huge administrative overhead. Someone in the business must manage, review and administrate each of these contexts. If the engineering group had a single administrator, they would have 72 classifications to reside over each year. From an end users perspective life will be very confusing. Imagine if a user has rights in just 6 of these contexts. They may be able to print content from one but not another, be able to edit content in 2 contexts but not the other 4. Such confusion at the end user level causes frustration and resistance to the use of the technology. Increased synchronization complexity. Imagine a user who after 3 years in the company ends up with over 300 rights in many different contexts across the business. This would result in long synchronization times as the client software updates all your offline rights. Hard to understand who can do what with what. Imagine being the VP of engineering and as part of an internal security audit you are asked the question, "What rights to researchers have to our top secret information?". In this complex model the answer is not simple, it would depend on many roles in many contexts. Of course this example is extreme, but it highlights that trying to build many barriers in your business can result in a nightmare of administration and confusion amongst users. In the real world what we need is a balance of the two. We need to seek an optimum number of contexts. Too many contexts are unmanageable and too few contexts does not give fine enough granularity. What makes a good context? Good context design derives mainly from how well you understand your business requirements to secure access to confidential information. Some customers I have worked with can tell me exactly the documents they wish to secure and know exactly who should be opening them. However there are some customers who know only of the government regulation that requires them to control access to certain types of information, they don't actually know where the documents are, how they are created or understand exactly who should have access. Therefore you need to know how to ask the business the right questions that lead to information which help you define a context. First ask these questions about a set of documentsWhat is the topic? Who are legitimate contributors on this topic? Who are the authorized readership? If the answer to any one of these is significantly different, then it probably merits a separate context. Remember that sealed documents are inherently secure and as such they cannot leak to your competitors, therefore it is better sealed to a broad context than not sealed at all. Simplicity is key here. Always revert to the first extreme example of a single classification, then work towards essential complexity. If there is any doubt, always prefer fewer contexts. Remember, Oracle IRM allows you to change your mind later on. You can implement a design now and continue to change and refine as you learn how the technology is used. It is easy to go from a simple model to a more complex one, it is much harder to take a complex model that is already embedded in the work practice of users and try to simplify it. It is also wise to take a single use case and address this first with the business. Don't try and tackle many different problems from the outset. Do one, learn from the process, refine it and then take what you have learned into the next use case, refine and continue. Once you have a good grasp of the technology and understand how your business will use it, you can then start rolling out the technology wider across the business. Deciding on the use of roles in the context Once you have decided on that first initial use case and a context to create let's look at the details you need to decide upon. For each context, identify; Administrative rolesBusiness owner, the person who makes decisions about who may or may not see content in this context. This is often the person who wanted to use IRM and drove the business purchase. They are the usually the person with the most at risk when sensitive information is lost. Point of contact, the person who will handle requests for access to content. Sometimes the same as the business owner, sometimes a trusted secretary or administrator. Context administrator, the person who will enact the decisions of the Business Owner. Sometimes the point of contact, sometimes a trusted IT person. Document related rolesContributors, the people who create and edit documents in this context. Reviewers, the people who are involved in reviewing documents but are not trusted to secure information to this classification. This role is not always necessary. (See later discussion on Published-work and Work-in-Progress) Readers, the people who read documents from this context. Some people may have several of the roles above, which is fine. What you are trying to do is understand and define how the business interacts with your sensitive information. These roles obviously map directly to roles available in Oracle IRM. Reviewing the features and security for context roles At this point we have decided on a classification of information, understand what roles people in the business will play when administrating this classification and how they will interact with content. The final piece of the puzzle in getting the information for our first context is to look at the permissions people will have to sealed documents. First think why are you protecting the documents in the first place? It is to prevent the loss of leaking of information to the wrong people. To control the information, making sure that people only access the latest versions of documents. You are not using Oracle IRM to prevent unauthorized people from doing legitimate work. This is an important point, with IRM you can erect many barriers to prevent access to content yet too many restrictions and authorized users will often find ways to circumvent using the technology and end up distributing unprotected originals. Because IRM is a security technology, it is easy to get carried away restricting different groups. However I would highly recommend starting with a simple solution with few restrictions. Ensure that everyone who reasonably needs to read documents can do so from the outset. Remember that with Oracle IRM you can change rights to content whenever you wish and tighten security. Always return to the fact that the greatest value IRM brings is that ONLY authorized users can access secured content, remember that simple "one context for the entire business" model. At the start of the deployment you really need to aim for user acceptance and therefore a simple model is more likely to succeed. As time passes and users understand how IRM works you can start to introduce more restrictions and complexity. Another key aspect to focus on is handling exceptions. If you decide on a context model where engineering can only access engineering information, and sales can only access sales data. Act quickly when a sales manager needs legitimate access to a set of engineering documents. Having a quick and effective process for permitting other people with legitimate needs to obtain appropriate access will be rewarded with acceptance from the user community. These use cases can often be satisfied by integrating IRM with a good Identity & Access Management technology which simplifies the process of assigning users the correct business roles. The big print issue... Printing is often an issue of contention, users love to print but the business wants to ensure sensitive information remains in the controlled digital world. There are many cases of physical document loss causing a business pain, it is often overlooked that IRM can help with this issue by limiting the ability to generate physical copies of digital content. However it can be hard to maintain a balance between security and usability when it comes to printing. Consider the following points when deciding about whether to give print rights. Oracle IRM sealed documents can contain watermarks that expose information about the user, time and location of access and the classification of the document. This information would reside in the printed copy making it easier to trace who printed it. Printed documents are slower to distribute in comparison to their digital counterparts, so time sensitive information in printed format may present a lower risk. Print activity is audited, therefore you can monitor and react to users abusing print rights. Summary In summary it is important to think carefully about the way you create your context model. As you ask the business these questions you may get a variety of different requirements. There may be special projects that require a context just for sensitive information created during the lifetime of the project. There may be a department that requires all information in the group is secured and you might have a few senior executives who wish to use IRM to exchange a small number of highly sensitive documents with a very small number of people. Oracle IRM, with its very flexible context classification system, can support all of these use cases. The trick is to introducing the complexity to deliver them at the right level. In another article i'm working on I will go through some examples of how Oracle IRM might map to existing business use cases. But for now, this article covers all the important questions you need to get your IRM service deployed and successfully protecting your most sensitive information.

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  • Red Gate Coder interviews: Robin Hellen

    - by Michael Williamson
    Robin Hellen is a test engineer here at Red Gate, and is also the latest coder I’ve interviewed. We chatted about debugging code, the roles of software engineers and testers, and why Vala is currently his favourite programming language. How did you get started with programming?It started when I was about six. My dad’s a professional programmer, and he gave me and my sister one of his old computers and taught us a bit about programming. It was an old Amiga 500 with a variant of BASIC. I don’t think I ever successfully completed anything! It was just faffing around. I didn’t really get anywhere with it.But then presumably you did get somewhere with it at some point.At some point. The PC emerged as the dominant platform, and I learnt a bit of Visual Basic. I didn’t really do much, just a couple of quick hacky things. A bit of demo animation. Took me a long time to get anywhere with programming, really.When did you feel like you did start to get somewhere?I think it was when I started doing things for someone else, which was my sister’s final year of university project. She called up my dad two days before she was due to submit, saying “We need something to display a graph!”. Dad says, “I’m too busy, go talk to your brother”. So I hacked up this ugly piece of code, sent it off and they won a prize for that project. Apparently, the graph, the bit that I wrote, was the reason they won a prize! That was when I first felt that I’d actually done something that was worthwhile. That was my first real bit of code, and the ugliest code I’ve ever written. It’s basically an array of pre-drawn line elements that I shifted round the screen to draw a very spikey graph.When did you decide that programming might actually be something that you wanted to do as a career?It’s not really a decision I took, I always wanted to do something with computers. And I had to take a gap year for uni, so I was looking for twelve month internships. I applied to Red Gate, and they gave me a job as a tester. And that’s where I really started having to write code well. To a better standard that I had been up to that point.How did you find coming to Red Gate and working with other coders?I thought it was really nice. I learnt so much just from other people around. I think one of the things that’s really great is that people are just willing to help you learn. Instead of “Don’t you know that, you’re so stupid”, it’s “You can just do it this way”.If you could go back to the very start of that internship, is there something that you would tell yourself?Write shorter code. I have a tendency to write massive, many-thousand line files that I break out of right at the end. And then half-way through a project I’m doing something, I think “Where did I write that bit that does that thing?”, and it’s almost impossible to find. I wrote some horrendous code when I started. Just that principle, just keep things short. Even if looks a bit crazy to be jumping around all over the place all of the time, it’s actually a lot more understandable.And how do you hold yourself to that?Generally, if a function’s going off my screen, it’s probably too long. That’s what I tell myself, and within the team here we have code reviews, so the guys I’m with at the moment are pretty good at pulling me up on, “Doesn’t that look like it’s getting a bit long?”. It’s more just the subjective standard of readability than anything.So you’re an advocate of code review?Yes, definitely. Both to spot errors that you might have made, and to improve your knowledge. The person you’re reviewing will say “Oh, you could have done it that way”. That’s how we learn, by talking to others, and also just sharing knowledge of how your project works around the team, or even outside the team. Definitely a very firm advocate of code reviews.Do you think there’s more we could do with them?I don’t know. We’re struggling with how to add them as part of the process without it becoming too cumbersome. We’ve experimented with a few different ways, and we’ve not found anything that just works.To get more into the nitty gritty: how do you like to debug code?The first thing is to do it in my head. I’ll actually think what piece of code is likely to have caused that error, and take a quick look at it, just to see if there’s anything glaringly obvious there. The next thing I’ll probably do is throw in print statements, or throw some exceptions from various points, just to check: is it going through the code path I expect it to? A last resort is to actually debug code using a debugger.Why is the debugger the last resort?Probably because of the environments I learnt programming in. VB and early BASIC didn’t have much of a debugger, the only way to find out what your program was doing was to add print statements. Also, because a lot of the stuff I tend to work with is non-interactive, if it’s something that takes a long time to run, I can throw in the print statements, set a run off, go and do something else, and look at it again later, rather than trying to remember what happened at that point when I was debugging through it. So it also gives me the record of what happens. I hate just sitting there pressing F5, F5, continually. If you’re having to find out what your code is doing at each line, you’ve probably got a very wrong mental model of what your code’s doing, and you can find that out just as easily by inspecting a couple of values through the print statements.If I were on some codebase that you were also working on, what should I do to make it as easy as possible to understand?I’d say short and well-named methods. The one thing I like to do when I’m looking at code is to find out where a value comes from, and the more layers of indirection there are, particularly DI [dependency injection] frameworks, the harder it is to find out where something’s come from. I really hate that. I want to know if the value come from the user here or is a constant here, and if I can’t find that out, that makes code very hard to understand for me.As a tester, where do you think the split should lie between software engineers and testers?I think the split is less on areas of the code you write and more what you’re designing and creating. The developers put a structure on the code, while my major role is to say which tests we should have, whether we should test that, or it’s not worth testing that because it’s a tiny function in code that nobody’s ever actually going to see. So it’s not a split in the code, it’s a split in what you’re thinking about. Saying what code we should write, but alternatively what code we should take out.In your experience, do the software engineers tend to do much testing themselves?They tend to control the lowest layer of tests. And, depending on how the balance of people is in the team, they might write some of the higher levels of test. Or that might go to the testers. I’m the only tester on my team with three other developers, so they’ll be writing quite a lot of the actual test code, with input from me as to whether we should test that functionality, whereas on other teams, where it’s been more equal numbers, the testers have written pretty much all of the high level tests, just because that’s the best use of resource.If you could shuffle resources around however you liked, do you think that the developers should be writing those high-level tests?I think they should be writing them occasionally. It helps when they have an understanding of how testing code works and possibly what assumptions we’ve made in tests, and they can say “actually, it doesn’t work like that under the hood so you’ve missed this whole area”. It’s one of those agile things that everyone on the team should be at least comfortable doing the various jobs. So if the developers can write test code then I think that’s a very good thing.So you think testers should be able to write production code?Yes, although given most testers skills at coding, I wouldn’t advise it too much! I have written a few things, and I did make a few changes that have actually gone into our production code base. They’re not necessarily running every time but they are there. I think having that mix of skill sets is really useful. In some ways we’re using our own product to test itself, so being able to make those changes where it’s not working saves me a round-trip through the developers. It can be really annoying if the developers have no time to make a change, and I can’t touch the code.If the software engineers are consistently writing tests at all levels, what role do you think the role of a tester is?I think on a team like that, those distinctions aren’t quite so useful. There’ll be two cases. There’s either the case where the developers think they’ve written good tests, but you still need someone with a test engineer mind-set to go through the tests and validate that it’s a useful set, or the correct set for that code. Or they won’t actually be pure developers, they’ll have that mix of test ability in there.I think having slightly more distinct roles is useful. When it starts to blur, then you lose that view of the tests as a whole. The tester job is not to create tests, it’s to validate the quality of the product, and you don’t do that just by writing tests. There’s more things you’ve got to keep in your mind. And I think when you blur the roles, you start to lose that end of the tester.So because you’re working on those features, you lose that holistic view of the whole system?Yeah, and anyone who’s worked on the feature shouldn’t be testing it. You always need to have it tested it by someone who didn’t write it. Otherwise you’re a bit too close and you assume “yes, people will only use it that way”, but the tester will come along and go “how do people use this? How would our most idiotic user use this?”. I might not test that because it might be completely irrelevant. But it’s coming in and trying to have a different set of assumptions.Are you a believer that it should all be automated if possible?Not entirely. So an automated test is always better than a manual test for the long-term, but there’s still nothing that beats a human sitting in front of the application and thinking “What could I do at this point?”. The automated test is very good but they follow that strict path, and they never check anything off the path. The human tester will look at things that they weren’t expecting, whereas the automated test can only ever go “Is that value correct?” in many respects, and it won’t notice that on the other side of the screen you’re showing something completely wrong. And that value might have been checked independently, but you always find a few odd interactions when you’re going through something manually, and you always need to go through something manually to start with anyway, otherwise you won’t know where the important bits to write your automation are.When you’re doing that manual testing, do you think it’s important to do that across the entire product, or just the bits that you’ve touched recently?I think it’s important to do it mostly on the bits you’ve touched, but you can’t ignore the rest of the product. Unless you’re dealing with a very, very self-contained bit, you’re almost always encounter other bits of the product along the way. Most testers I know, even if they are looking at just one path, they’ll keep open and move around a bit anyway, just because they want to find something that’s broken. If we find that your path is right, we’ll go out and hunt something else.How do you think this fits into the idea of continuously deploying, so long as the tests pass?With deploying a website it’s a bit different because you can always pull it back. If you’re deploying an application to customers, when you’ve released it, it’s out there, you can’t pull it back. Someone’s going to keep it, no matter how hard you try there will be a few installations that stay around. So I’d always have at least a human element on that path. With websites, you could probably automate straight out, or at least straight out to an internal environment or a single server in a cloud of fifty that will serve some people. But I don’t think you should release to everyone just on automated tests passing.You’ve already mentioned using BASIC and C# — are there any other languages that you’ve used?I’ve used a few. That’s something that has changed more recently, I’ve become familiar with more languages. Before I started at Red Gate I learnt a bit of C. Then last year, I taught myself Python which I actually really enjoyed using. I’ve also come across another language called Vala, which is sort of a C#-like language. It’s basically a pre-processor for C, but it has very nice syntax. I think that’s currently my favourite language.Any particular reason for trying Vala?I have a completely Linux environment at home, and I’ve been looking for a nice language, and C# just doesn’t cut it because I won’t touch Mono. So, I was looking for something like C# but that was useable in an open source environment, and Vala’s what I found. C#’s got a few features that Vala doesn’t, and Vala’s got a few features where I think “It would be awesome if C# had that”.What are some of the features that it’s missing?Extension methods. And I think that’s the only one that really bugs me. I like to use them when I’m writing C# because it makes some things really easy, especially with libraries that you can’t touch the internals of. It doesn’t have method overloading, which is sometimes annoying.Where it does win over C#?Everything is non-nullable by default, you never have to check that something’s unexpectedly null.Also, Vala has code contracts. This is starting to come in C# 4, but the way it works in Vala is that you specify requirements in short phrases as part of your function signature and they stick to the signature, so that when you inherit it, it has exactly the same code contract as the base one, or when you inherit from an interface, you have to match the signature exactly. Just using those makes you think a bit more about how you’re writing your method, it’s not an afterthought when you’ve got contracts from base classes given to you, you can’t change it. Which I think is a lot nicer than the way C# handles it. When are those actually checked?They’re checked both at compile and run-time. The compile-time checking isn’t very strong yet, it’s quite a new feature in the compiler, and because it compiles down to C, you can write C code and interface with your methods, so you can bypass that compile-time check anyway. So there’s an extra runtime check, and if you violate one of the contracts at runtime, it’s game over for your program, there’s no exception to catch, it’s just goodbye!One thing I dislike about C# is the exceptions. You write a bit of code and fifty exceptions could come from any point in your ten lines, and you can’t mentally model how those exceptions are going to come out, and you can’t even predict them based on the functions you’re calling, because if you’ve accidentally got a derived class there instead of a base class, that can throw a completely different set of exceptions. So I’ve got no way of mentally modelling those, whereas in Vala they’re checked like Java, so you know only these exceptions can come out. You know in advance the error conditions.I think Raymond Chen on Old New Thing says “the only thing you know when you throw an exception is that you’re in an invalid state somewhere in your program, so just kill it and be done with it!”You said you’ve also learnt bits of Python. How did you find that compared to Vala and C#?Very different because of the dynamic typing. I’ve been writing a website for my own use. I’m quite into photography, so I take photos off my camera, post-process them, dump them in a file, and I get a webpage with all my thumbnails. So sort of like Picassa, but written by myself because I wanted something to learn Python with. There are some things that are really nice, I just found it really difficult to cope with the fact that I’m not quite sure what this object type that I’m passed is, I might not ever be sure, so it can randomly blow up on me. But once I train myself to ignore that and just say “well, I’m fairly sure it’s going to be something that looks like this, so I’ll use it like this”, then it’s quite nice.Any particular features that you’ve appreciated?I don’t like any particular feature, it’s just very straightforward to work with. It’s very quick to write something in, particularly as you don’t have to worry that you’ve changed something that affects a different part of the program. If you have, then that part blows up, but I can get this part working right now.If you were doing a big project, would you be willing to do it in Python rather than C# or Vala?I think I might be willing to try something bigger or long term with Python. We’re currently doing an ASP.NET MVC project on C#, and I don’t like the amount of reflection. There’s a lot of magic that pulls values out, and it’s all done under the scenes. It’s almost managed to put a dynamic type system on top of C#, which in many ways destroys the language to me, whereas if you’re already in a dynamic language, having things done dynamically is much more natural. In many ways, you get the worst of both worlds. I think for web projects, I would go with Python again, whereas for anything desktop, command-line or GUI-based, I’d probably go for C# or Vala, depending on what environment I’m in.It’s the fact that you can gain from the strong typing in ways that you can’t so much on the web app. Or, in a web app, you have to use dynamic typing at some point, or you have to write a hell of a lot of boilerplate, and I’d rather use the dynamic typing than write the boilerplate.What do you think separates great programmers from everyone else?Probably design choices. Choosing to write it a piece of code one way or another. For any given program you ask me to write, I could probably do it five thousand ways. A programmer who is capable will see four or five of them, and choose one of the better ones. The excellent programmer will see the largest proportion and manage to pick the best one very quickly without having to think too much about it. I think that’s probably what separates, is the speed at which they can see what’s the best path to write the program in. More Red Gater Coder interviews

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  • Partner Blog Series: PwC Perspectives - The Gotchas, The Do's and Don'ts for IDM Implementations

    - by Tanu Sood
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mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Georgia; mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:major-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Georgia; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; color:#968C6D; mso-themecolor:text2; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6FirstCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:first-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddColumn {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} It is generally accepted among business communities that technology by itself is not a silver bullet to all problems, but when it is combined with leading practices, strategy, careful planning and execution, it can create a recipe for success. This post attempts to highlight some of the best practices along with dos & don’ts that our practice has accumulated over the years in the identity & access management space in general, and also in the context of R2, in particular. Best Practices The following section illustrates the leading practices in “How” to plan, implement and sustain a successful OIM deployment, based on our collective experience. Planning is critical, but often overlooked A common approach to planning an IAM program that we identify with our clients is the three step process involving a current state assessment, a future state roadmap and an executable strategy to get there. It is extremely beneficial for clients to assess their current IAM state, perform gap analysis, document the recommended controls to address the gaps, align future state roadmap to business initiatives and get buy in from all stakeholders involved to improve the chances of success. When designing an enterprise-wide solution, the scalability of the technology must accommodate the future growth of the enterprise and the projected identity transactions over several years. Aligning the implementation schedule of OIM to related information technology projects increases the chances of success. As a baseline, it is recommended to match hardware specifications to the sizing guide for R2 published by Oracle. Adherence to this will help ensure that the hardware used to support OIM will not become a bottleneck as the adoption of new services increases. If your Organization has numerous connected applications that rely on reconciliation to synchronize the access data into OIM, consider hosting dedicated instances to handle reconciliation. Finally, ensure the use of clustered environment for development and have at least three total environments to help facilitate a controlled migration to production. If your Organization is planning to implement role based access control, we recommend performing a role mining exercise and consolidate your enterprise roles to keep them manageable. In addition, many Organizations have multiple approval flows to control access to critical roles, applications and entitlements. If your Organization falls into this category, we highly recommend that you limit the number of approval workflows to a small set. Most Organizations have operations managed across data centers with backend database synchronization, if your Organization falls into this category, ensure that the overall latency between the datacenters when replicating the databases is less than ten milliseconds to ensure that there are no front office performance impacts. Ingredients for a successful implementation During the development phase of your project, there are a number of guidelines that can be followed to help increase the chances for success. Most implementations cannot be completed without the use of customizations. If your implementation requires this, it’s a good practice to perform code reviews to help ensure quality and reduce code bottlenecks related to performance. We have observed at our clients that the development process works best when team members adhere to coding leading practices. Plan for time to correct coding defects and ensure developers are empowered to report their own bugs for maximum transparency. Many organizations struggle with defining a consistent approach to managing logs. This is particularly important due to the amount of information that can be logged by OIM. We recommend Oracle Diagnostics Logging (ODL) as an alternative to be used for logging. ODL allows log files to be formatted in XML for easy parsing and does not require a server restart when the log levels are changed during troubleshooting. Testing is a vital part of any large project, and an OIM R2 implementation is no exception. We suggest that at least one lower environment should use production-like data and connectors. Configurations should match as closely as possible. For example, use secure channels between OIM and target platforms in pre-production environments to test the configurations, the migration processes of certificates, and the additional overhead that encryption could impose. Finally, we ask our clients to perform database backups regularly and before any major change event, such as a patch or migration between environments. In the lowest environments, we recommend to have at least a weekly backup in order to prevent significant loss of time and effort. Similarly, if your organization is using virtual machines for one or more of the environments, it is recommended to take frequent snapshots so that rollbacks can occur in the event of improper configuration. Operate & sustain the solution to derive maximum benefits When migrating OIM R2 to production, it is important to perform certain activities that will help achieve a smoother transition. At our clients, we have seen that splitting the OIM tables into their own tablespaces by categories (physical tables, indexes, etc.) can help manage database growth effectively. If we notice that a client hasn’t enabled the Oracle-recommended indexing in the applicable database, we strongly suggest doing so to improve performance. Additionally, we work with our clients to make sure that the audit level is set to fit the organization’s auditing needs and sometimes even allocate UPA tables and indexes into their own table-space for better maintenance. Finally, many of our clients have set up schedules for reconciliation tables to be archived at regular intervals in order to keep the size of the database(s) reasonable and result in optimal database performance. For our clients that anticipate availability issues with target applications, we strongly encourage the use of the offline provisioning capabilities of OIM R2. This reduces the provisioning process for a given target application dependency on target availability and help avoid broken workflows. To account for this and other abnormalities, we also advocate that OIM’s monitoring controls be configured to alert administrators on any abnormal situations. Within OIM R2, we have begun advising our clients to utilize the ‘profile’ feature to encapsulate multiple commonly requested accounts, roles, and/or entitlements into a single item. By setting up a number of profiles that can be searched for and used, users will spend less time performing the same exact steps for common tasks. We advise our clients to follow the Oracle recommended guides for database and application server tuning which provides a good baseline configuration. It offers guidance on database connection pools, connection timeouts, user interface threads and proper handling of adapters/plug-ins. All of these can be important configurations that will allow faster provisioning and web page response times. Many of our clients have begun to recognize the value of data mining and a remediation process during the initial phases of an implementation (to help ensure high quality data gets loaded) and beyond (to support ongoing maintenance and business-as-usual processes). A successful program always begins with identifying the data elements and assigning a classification level based on criticality, risk, and availability. It should finish by following through with a remediation process. Dos & Don’ts Here are the most common dos and don'ts that we socialize with our clients, derived from our experience implementing the solution. Dos Don’ts Scope the project into phases with realistic goals. Look for quick wins to show success and value to the stake holders. Avoid “boiling the ocean” and trying to integrate all enterprise applications in the first phase. Establish an enterprise ID (universal unique ID across the enterprise) earlier in the program. Avoid major UI customizations that require code changes. Have a plan in place to patch during the project, which helps alleviate any major issues or roadblocks (product and database). Avoid publishing all the target entitlements if you don't anticipate their usage during access request. Assess your current state and prepare a roadmap to address your operations, tactical and strategic goals, align it with your business priorities. Avoid integrating non-production environments with your production target systems. Defer complex integrations to the later phases and take advantage of lessons learned from previous phases Avoid creating multiple accounts for the same user on the same system, if there is an opportunity to do so. Have an identity and access data quality initiative built into your plan to identify and remediate data related issues early on. Avoid creating complex approval workflows that would negative impact productivity and SLAs. Identify the owner of the identity systems with fair IdM knowledge and empower them with authority to make product related decisions. This will help ensure overcome any design hurdles. Avoid creating complex designs that are not sustainable long term and would need major overhaul during upgrades. Shadow your internal or external consulting resources during the implementation to build the necessary product skills needed to operate and sustain the solution. Avoid treating IAM as a point solution and have appropriate level of communication and training plan for the IT and business users alike. Conclusion In our experience, Identity programs will struggle with scope, proper resourcing, and more. We suggest that companies consider the suggestions discussed in this post and leverage them to help enable their identity and access program. This concludes PwC blog series on R2 for the month and we sincerely hope that the information we have shared thus far has been beneficial. For more information or if you have questions, you can reach out to Rex Thexton, Senior Managing Director, PwC and or Dharma Padala, Director, PwC. We look forward to hearing from you. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:12.0pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Meet the Writers: Dharma Padala is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has been implementing medium to large scale Identity Management solutions across multiple industries including utility, health care, entertainment, retail and financial sectors.   Dharma has 14 years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which he has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past 8 years. Praveen Krishna is a Manager in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  Over the last decade Praveen has helped clients plan, architect and implement Oracle identity solutions across diverse industries.  His experience includes delivering security across diverse topics like network, infrastructure, application and data where he brings a holistic point of view to problem solving. Scott MacDonald is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has consulted for several clients across multiple industries including financial services, health care, automotive and retail.   Scott has 10 years of experience in delivering Identity Management solutions. John Misczak is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has experience implementing multiple Identity and Access Management solutions, specializing in Oracle Identity Manager and Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL).

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  • Heartbeat won't successfully start up resources from a cold boot when a failed node is present

    - by Matthew
    I currently have two ubuntu servers running Heartbeat and DRBD. The servers are directory connected with a 1000Mbps crossover cable on eth1 and have access to an IP camera LAN on eth0. Now, let's say that one node is down and the remaining functional node is booting after having been shut down. The node that is still functioning won't start up heartbeat and provide access to the drbd resource from a cold boot. I have to manually restart heartbeat by sudo service heartbeat restart to get everything up and running. How can I get it to start fine from a cold start, when only one server is present? Here is the ha.cf: debug /var/log/ha-debug logfile /var/log/ha-log logfacility none keepalive 2 deadtime 10 warntime 7 initdead 60 ucast eth1 192.168.2.2 ucast eth0 10.1.10.201 node EMserver1 node EMserver2 respawn hacluster /usr/lib/heartbeat/ipfail ping 10.1.10.22 10.1.10.21 10.1.10.11 auto_failback off Some material from the syslog: harc[4604]: 2012/11/27_13:54:49 info: Running /etc/ha.d//rc.d/status status mach_down[4632]: 2012/11/27_13:54:49 info: /usr/share/heartbeat/mach_down: nice_failback: foreign resources acquired mach_down[4632]: 2012/11/27_13:54:49 info: mach_down takeover complete for node emserver2. Nov 27 13:54:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Initial resource acquisition complete (T_RESOURCES(us)) Nov 27 13:54:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: mach_down takeover complete. IPaddr[4679]: 2012/11/27_13:54:49 INFO: Resource is stopped Nov 27 13:54:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4605]: info: Local Resource acquisition completed. harc[4713]: 2012/11/27_13:54:49 info: Running /etc/ha.d//rc.d/ip-request-resp ip-request-resp ip-request-resp[4713]: 2012/11/27_13:54:49 received ip-request-resp IPaddr::10.1.10.254 OK yes ResourceManager[4732]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 info: Acquiring resource group: emserver1 IPaddr::10.1.10.254 drbddisk::r0 Filesystem::/dev/drbd1::/shr::ext4 nfs-kernel-server IPaddr[4759]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 INFO: Resource is stopped ResourceManager[4732]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 info: Running /etc/ha.d/resource.d/IPaddr 10.1.10.254 start IPaddr[4816]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 INFO: Using calculated nic for 10.1.10.254: eth0 IPaddr[4816]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 INFO: Using calculated netmask for 10.1.10.254: 255.255.255.0 IPaddr[4816]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 INFO: eval ifconfig eth0:0 10.1.10.254 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.1.10.255 IPaddr[4804]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 INFO: Success ResourceManager[4732]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 info: Running /etc/ha.d/resource.d/drbddisk r0 start Filesystem[4965]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 INFO: Resource is stopped ResourceManager[4732]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 info: Running /etc/ha.d/resource.d/Filesystem /dev/drbd1 /shr ext4 start Filesystem[5039]: 2012/11/27_13:54:50 INFO: Running start for /dev/drbd1 on /shr Filesystem[5033]: 2012/11/27_13:54:51 INFO: Success ResourceManager[4732]: 2012/11/27_13:54:51 info: Running /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server start Nov 27 13:55:00 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Local Resource acquisition completed. (none) Nov 27 13:55:00 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: local resource transition completed. Nov 27 13:57:46 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Heartbeat shutdown in progress. (4586) Nov 27 13:57:46 EMserver1 heartbeat: [5286]: info: Giving up all HA resources. ResourceManager[5301]: 2012/11/27_13:57:46 info: Releasing resource group: emserver1 IPaddr::10.1.10.254 drbddisk::r0 Filesystem::/dev/drbd1::/shr::ext4 nfs-kernel-server ResourceManager[5301]: 2012/11/27_13:57:46 info: Running /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server stop ResourceManager[5301]: 2012/11/27_13:57:46 info: Running /etc/ha.d/resource.d/Filesystem /dev/drbd1 /shr ext4 stop Filesystem[5372]: 2012/11/27_13:57:46 INFO: Running stop for /dev/drbd1 on /shr Filesystem[5372]: 2012/11/27_13:57:47 INFO: Trying to unmount /shr Filesystem[5372]: 2012/11/27_13:57:47 INFO: unmounted /shr successfully Filesystem[5366]: 2012/11/27_13:57:47 INFO: Success ResourceManager[5301]: 2012/11/27_13:57:47 info: Running /etc/ha.d/resource.d/drbddisk r0 stop ResourceManager[5301]: 2012/11/27_13:57:47 info: Running /etc/ha.d/resource.d/IPaddr 10.1.10.254 stop IPaddr[5509]: 2012/11/27_13:57:47 INFO: ifconfig eth0:0 down IPaddr[5497]: 2012/11/27_13:57:47 INFO: Success Nov 27 13:57:47 EMserver1 heartbeat: [5286]: info: All HA resources relinquished. Nov 27 13:57:48 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing /usr/lib/heartbeat/ipfail process group 4603 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBFIFO process 4589 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBWRITE process 4590 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBREAD process 4591 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBWRITE process 4592 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBREAD process 4593 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBWRITE process 4594 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBREAD process 4595 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBWRITE process 4596 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBREAD process 4597 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBWRITE process 4598 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: killing HBREAD process 4599 with signal 15 Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4589 exited. 11 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4596 exited. 10 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4598 exited. 9 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4590 exited. 8 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4595 exited. 7 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4591 exited. 6 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4592 exited. 5 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4593 exited. 4 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4597 exited. 3 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4594 exited. 2 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: Core process 4599 exited. 1 remaining Nov 27 13:57:49 EMserver1 heartbeat: [4586]: info: emserver1 Heartbeat shutdown complete. Here is some more from the log ResourceManager[2576]: 2012/11/28_16:32:42 info: Acquiring resource group: emserver1 IPaddr::10.1.10.254 drbddisk::r0 Filesystem::/dev/drbd1::/shr::ext4 nfs-kernel-server IPaddr[2602]: 2012/11/28_16:32:42 INFO: Running OK Filesystem[2653]: 2012/11/28_16:32:43 INFO: Running OK Nov 28 16:32:52 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: WARN: node emserver2: is dead Nov 28 16:32:52 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Dead node emserver2 gave up resources. Nov 28 16:32:52 EMserver1 ipfail: [1807]: info: Status update: Node emserver2 now has status dead Nov 28 16:32:52 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Link emserver2:eth1 dead. Nov 28 16:32:53 EMserver1 ipfail: [1807]: info: NS: We are still alive! Nov 28 16:32:53 EMserver1 ipfail: [1807]: info: Link Status update: Link emserver2/eth1 now has status dead Nov 28 16:32:55 EMserver1 ipfail: [1807]: info: Asking other side for ping node count. Nov 28 16:32:55 EMserver1 ipfail: [1807]: info: Checking remote count of ping nodes. Nov 28 16:32:57 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Heartbeat shutdown in progress. (1695) Nov 28 16:32:57 EMserver1 heartbeat: [2734]: info: Giving up all HA resources. ResourceManager[2751]: 2012/11/28_16:32:57 info: Releasing resource group: emserver1 IPaddr::10.1.10.254 drbddisk::r0 Filesystem::/dev/drbd1::/shr::ext4 nfs-kernel-server ResourceManager[2751]: 2012/11/28_16:32:57 info: Running /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server stop ResourceManager[2751]: 2012/11/28_16:32:57 info: Running /etc/ha.d/resource.d/Filesystem /dev/drbd1 /shr ext4 stop Filesystem[2829]: 2012/11/28_16:32:57 INFO: Running stop for /dev/drbd1 on /shr Filesystem[2829]: 2012/11/28_16:32:57 INFO: Trying to unmount /shr Filesystem[2829]: 2012/11/28_16:32:58 INFO: unmounted /shr successfully Filesystem[2823]: 2012/11/28_16:32:58 INFO: Success ResourceManager[2751]: 2012/11/28_16:32:58 info: Running /etc/ha.d/resource.d/drbddisk r0 stop ResourceManager[2751]: 2012/11/28_16:32:58 info: Running /etc/ha.d/resource.d/IPaddr 10.1.10.254 stop IPaddr[2971]: 2012/11/28_16:32:58 INFO: ifconfig eth0:0 down IPaddr[2958]: 2012/11/28_16:32:58 INFO: Success Nov 28 16:32:58 EMserver1 heartbeat: [2734]: info: All HA resources relinquished. Nov 28 16:32:59 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing /usr/lib/heartbeat/ipfail process group 1807 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBFIFO process 1777 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBWRITE process 1778 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBREAD process 1779 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBWRITE process 1780 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBREAD process 1781 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBWRITE process 1782 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBREAD process 1783 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBWRITE process 1784 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBREAD process 1785 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBWRITE process 1786 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: killing HBREAD process 1787 with signal 15 Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1778 exited. 11 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1779 exited. 10 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1780 exited. 9 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1781 exited. 8 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1782 exited. 7 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1783 exited. 6 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1784 exited. 5 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1785 exited. 4 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1786 exited. 3 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1787 exited. 2 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: Core process 1777 exited. 1 remaining Nov 28 16:33:01 EMserver1 heartbeat: [1695]: info: emserver1 Heartbeat shutdown complete. If I restarted heartbeat at this point... the resources heartbeat controls would start up fine.... please help!

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  • Asset Pipeline acting up

    - by Abram
    Ok, so my asset pipeline has suddenly started acting up on my development machine. JS functions that previously worked are now throwing "not a function" errors.. I know I must be doing something wrong. A minute ago the datatables jquery function was working, then it was throwing an error, then it was working, and now it's not working or throwing an error. Here is my application.js //= require jquery //= require jquery-ui //= require jquery_ujs //= require_self //= require_tree . //= require dataTables/jquery.dataTables //= require dataTables/jquery.dataTables.bootstrap //= require bootstrap //= require bootstrap-tooltip //= require bootstrap-popover //= require bootstrap-tab //= require bootstrap-modal //= require bootstrap-alert //= require bootstrap-dropdown //= require jquery.ui.addresspicker //= require raty //= require jquery.alphanumeric //= require jquery.formrestrict //= require select2 //= require chosen/chosen.jquery //= require highcharts //= require jquery.lazyload Here is some of my layout header: <%= stylesheet_link_tag "application", media: "all" %> <%= yield(:scripthead) %> <%= javascript_include_tag "application" %> <%= csrf_meta_tags %> <%= yield(:head) %> Above I am using the yield to load up online scripts from google as they're only needed on some pages, and generally slow down the site if included in the application layout. I tried removing the yield but things were still broken, even after clearing the browser cache and running rake assets:clean (just to be on the safe side). Here's what shows up between CSS and metatags (for a page with nothin in the yield scripthead): <script src="/assets/jquery.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/jquery-ui.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/jquery_ujs.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/application.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/aidmodels.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/audio.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-alert.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-dropdown.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-modal.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-popover.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-tab.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-tooltip.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/branches.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/charts.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/chosen/backup_chosen.jquery.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/chosen/chosen.jquery.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/consumers.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/dispensers.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/favorites.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/features.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/generic_styles.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/gmaps4rails/gmaps4rails.base.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/gmaps4rails/gmaps4rails.bing.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/gmaps4rails/gmaps4rails.googlemaps.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/gmaps4rails/gmaps4rails.mapquest.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/gmaps4rails/gmaps4rails.openlayers.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/highcharts.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/jquery-ui-1.8.18.custom.min.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/jquery.alphanumeric.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/jquery.formrestrict.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/jquery.lazyload.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/jquery.ui.addresspicker.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/likes.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/messages.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/overalls.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/pages.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/questions.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/raty.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/reviews.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/sessions.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/styles.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/tickets.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/universities.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/users.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/dataTables/jquery.dataTables.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/dataTables/jquery.dataTables.bootstrap.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-transition.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-affix.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-button.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-carousel.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-collapse.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-scrollspy.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap-typeahead.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/bootstrap.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="/assets/select2.js?body=1" type="text/javascript"></script> From application.rb: config.assets.initialize_on_precompile = false # Enable the asset pipeline config.assets.enabled = true config.action_controller.assets_dir = "#{File.dirname(File.dirname(__FILE__))}/public" # Version of your assets, change this if you want to expire all your assets config.assets.version = '1.0' I'm sorry, I'm not sure what else to include to help with this puzzle, but any advise would be appreciated. I was having no problems before I started trying to upload to heroku and now everything's gone haywire. EDIT: In the console at the moment I'm seeing Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'Constructor' of undefined bootstrap-popover.js:33 Uncaught ReferenceError: google is not defined jquery.ui.addresspicker.js:25 Uncaught TypeError: Object [object Object] has no method 'popover' overall:476

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  • XSL using apply templates and match instead of call template

    - by AdRock
    I am trying to make the transition from using call-template to using applay templates and match but i'm not getting any data displayed only what is between the volunteer tags. When i use call template it works fine but it was suggested that i use applay-templates and match and not it doesn't work Any ideas how to make this work? I can then applay it to all my stylesheets. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:key name="volunteers-by-region" match="volunteer" use="region" /> <xsl:template name="hoo" match="/"> <html> <head> <title>Registered Volunteers</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="volunteer.css" /> </head> <body> <h1>Registered Volunteers</h1> <h3>Ordered by the username ascending</h3> <h3>Grouped by the region</h3> <xsl:for-each select="folktask/member[user/account/userlevel='2']"> <xsl:for-each select="volunteer[count(. | key('volunteers-by-region', region)[1]) = 1]"> <xsl:sort select="region" /> <xsl:for-each select="key('volunteers-by-region', region)"> <xsl:sort select="folktask/member/user/personal/name" /> <div class="userdiv"> <xsl:apply-templates/> <!--<xsl:call-template name="member_userid"> <xsl:with-param name="myid" select="../user/@id" /> </xsl:call-template> <xsl:call-template name="member_name"> <xsl:with-param name="myname" select="../user/personal/name" /> </xsl:call-template>--> </div> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:for-each> <xsl:if test="position()=last()"> <div class="count"><h2>Total number of volunteers: <xsl:value-of select="count(/folktask/member/user/account/userlevel[text()=2])"/></h2></div> </xsl:if> </body> </html> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="folktask/member"> <xsl:apply-templates select="user/@id"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="user/personal/name"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="user/@id"> <div class="heading bold"><h2>USER ID: <xsl:value-of select="." /></h2></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="user/personal/name"> <div class="small bold">NAME:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="." /></div> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> and my xml file <folktask xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xs:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="folktask.xsd"> <member> <user id="1"> <personal> <name>Abbie Hunt</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>108 Access Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Wells</city> <county>Somerset</county> <postcode>BA5 8GH</postcode> <telephone>01528927616</telephone> <mobile>07085252492</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>AdRock</username> <password>269eb625e2f0cf6fae9a29434c12a89f</password> <userlevel>4</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="1"> <roles></roles> <region>South West</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="2"> <personal> <name>Aidan Harris</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>103 Aiken Street</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Chichester</city> <county>Sussex</county> <postcode>PO19 4DS</postcode> <telephone>01905149894</telephone> <mobile>07784467941</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>AmbientExpert</username> <password>8e64214160e9dd14ae2a6d9f700004a6</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="2"> <roles>Van Driver</roles> <region>South Central</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="3"> <personal> <name>Skye Saunders</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>31 Anns Court</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Cirencester</city> <county>Gloucestershire</county> <postcode>GL7 1JG</postcode> <telephone>01958303514</telephone> <mobile>07260491667</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>BigUndecided</username> <password>ea297847f80e046ca24a8621f4068594</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="3"> <roles>Scaffold Erector</roles> <region>South West</region> </volunteer> </member> </folktask>

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  • SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

    - by pinaldave
    TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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  • SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

    - by pinaldave
    TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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  • SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn

    - by Claus Jandausch
    Ich war nicht nur irritiert, ich war sogar regelrecht schockiert - und für einen kurzen Moment sprachlos (was nur selten der Fall ist). Gerade eben hatte mich jemand gefragt "Wann Oracle denn etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde - und ob überhaupt?" War ich hier im falschen Film gelandet? Ich konnte nicht anders, als meinen Unmut kundzutun und zu erklären, dass die Fragestellung normalerweise anders herum läuft. Zugegeben - es mag vielleicht strittige Punkte geben im Vergleich zwischen Oracle und SQL Server - bei denen nicht unbedingt immer Oracle die Nase vorn haben muss - aber das Thema Clustering für Hochverfügbarkeit (HA), Disaster Recovery (DR) und Skalierbarkeit gehört mit Sicherheit nicht dazu. Dieses Erlebnis hakte ich am Nachgang als Einzelfall ab, der so nie wieder vorkommen würde. Bis ich kurz darauf eines Besseren belehrt wurde und genau die selbe Frage erneut zu hören bekam. Diesmal sogar im Exadata-Umfeld und einem Oracle Stretch Cluster. Einmal ist keinmal, doch zweimal ist einmal zu viel... Getreu diesem alten Motto war mir klar, dass man das so nicht länger stehen lassen konnte. Ich habe keine Ahnung, wie die Microsoft Marketing Abteilung es geschafft hat, unter dem AlwaysOn Brading eine innovative Technologie vermuten zu lassen - aber sie hat ihren Job scheinbar gut gemacht. Doch abgesehen von einem guten Marketing, stellt sich natürlich die Frage, was wirklich dahinter steckt und wie sich das Ganze mit Oracle vergleichen lässt - und ob überhaupt? Damit wären wir wieder bei der ursprünglichen Frage angelangt.  So viel zum Hintergrund dieses Blogbeitrags - von meiner Antwort handelt der restliche Blog. "Windows was the God ..." Um den wahren Unterschied zwischen Oracle und Microsoft verstehen zu können, muss man zunächst das bedeutendste Microsoft Dogma kennen. Es lässt sich schlicht und einfach auf den Punkt bringen: "Alles muss auf Windows basieren." Die Überschrift dieses Absatzes ist kein von mir erfundener Ausspruch, sondern ein Zitat. Konkret stammt es aus einem längeren Artikel von Kurt Eichenwald in der Vanity Fair aus dem August 2012. Er lautet Microsoft's Lost Decade und sei jedem ans Herz gelegt, der die "Microsoft-Maschinerie" unter Steve Ballmer und einige ihrer Kuriositäten besser verstehen möchte. "YOU TALKING TO ME?" Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer bei seiner Keynote auf der 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas am 9. Januar   Manche Dinge in diesem Artikel mögen überspitzt dargestellt erscheinen - sind sie aber nicht. Vieles davon kannte ich bereits aus eigener Erfahrung und kann es nur bestätigen. Anderes hat sich mir erst so richtig erschlossen. Insbesondere die folgenden Passagen führten zum Aha-Erlebnis: “Windows was the god—everything had to work with Windows,” said Stone... “Every little thing you want to write has to build off of Windows (or other existing roducts),” one software engineer said. “It can be very confusing, …” Ich habe immer schon darauf hingewiesen, dass in einem SQL Server Failover Cluster die Microsoft Datenbank eigentlich nichts Nenneswertes zum Geschehen beiträgt, sondern sich voll und ganz auf das Windows Betriebssystem verlässt. Deshalb muss man auch die Windows Server Enterprise Edition installieren, soll ein Failover Cluster für den SQL Server eingerichtet werden. Denn hier werden die Cluster Services geliefert - nicht mit dem SQL Server. Er ist nur lediglich ein weiteres Server Produkt, für das Windows in Ausfallszenarien genutzt werden kann - so wie Microsoft Exchange beispielsweise, oder Microsoft SharePoint, oder irgendein anderes Server Produkt das auf Windows gehostet wird. Auch Oracle kann damit genutzt werden. Das Stichwort lautet hier: Oracle Failsafe. Nur - warum sollte man das tun, wenn gleichzeitig eine überlegene Technologie wie die Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) zur Verfügung steht, die dann auch keine Windows Enterprise Edition voraussetzen, da Oracle die eigene Clusterware liefert. Welche darüber hinaus für kürzere Failover-Zeiten sorgt, da diese Cluster-Technologie Datenbank-integriert ist und sich nicht auf "Dritte" verlässt. Wenn man sich also schon keine technischen Vorteile mit einem SQL Server Failover Cluster erkauft, sondern zusätzlich noch versteckte Lizenzkosten durch die Lizenzierung der Windows Server Enterprise Edition einhandelt, warum hat Microsoft dann in den vergangenen Jahren seit SQL Server 2000 nicht ebenfalls an einer neuen und innovativen Lösung gearbeitet, die mit Oracle RAC mithalten kann? Entwickler hat Microsoft genügend? Am Geld kann es auch nicht liegen? Lesen Sie einfach noch einmal die beiden obenstehenden Zitate und sie werden den Grund verstehen. Anders lässt es sich ja auch gar nicht mehr erklären, dass AlwaysOn aus zwei unterschiedlichen Technologien besteht, die beide jedoch wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) basieren. Denn daraus ergeben sich klare Nachteile - aber dazu später mehr. Um AlwaysOn zu verstehen, sollte man sich zunächst kurz in Erinnerung rufen, was Microsoft bisher an HA/DR (High Availability/Desaster Recovery) Lösungen für SQL Server zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Replikation Basiert auf logischer Replikation und Pubisher/Subscriber Architektur Transactional Replication Merge Replication Snapshot Replication Microsoft's Replikation ist vergleichbar mit Oracle GoldenGate. Oracle GoldenGate stellt jedoch die umfassendere Technologie dar und bietet High Performance. Log Shipping Microsoft's Log Shipping stellt eine einfache Technologie dar, die vergleichbar ist mit Oracle Managed Recovery in Oracle Version 7. Das Log Shipping besitzt folgende Merkmale: Transaction Log Backups werden von Primary nach Secondary/ies geschickt Einarbeitung (z.B. Restore) auf jedem Secondary individuell Optionale dritte Server Instanz (Monitor Server) für Überwachung und Alarm Log Restore Unterbrechung möglich für Read-Only Modus (Secondary) Keine Unterstützung von Automatic Failover Database Mirroring Microsoft's Database Mirroring wurde verfügbar mit SQL Server 2005, sah aus wie Oracle Data Guard in Oracle 9i, war funktional jedoch nicht so umfassend. Für ein HA/DR Paar besteht eine 1:1 Beziehung, um die produktive Datenbank (Principle DB) abzusichern. Auf der Standby Datenbank (Mirrored DB) werden alle Insert-, Update- und Delete-Operationen nachgezogen. Modi Synchron (High-Safety Modus) Asynchron (High-Performance Modus) Automatic Failover Unterstützt im High-Safety Modus (synchron) Witness Server vorausgesetzt     Zur Frage der Kontinuität Es stellt sich die Frage, wie es um diesen Technologien nun im Zusammenhang mit SQL Server 2012 bestellt ist. Unter Fanfaren seinerzeit eingeführt, war Database Mirroring das erklärte Mittel der Wahl. Ich bin kein Produkt Manager bei Microsoft und kann hierzu nur meine Meinung äußern, aber zieht man den SQL AlwaysOn Team Blog heran, so sieht es nicht gut aus für das Database Mirroring - zumindest nicht langfristig. "Does AlwaysOn Availability Group replace Database Mirroring going forward?” “The short answer is we recommend that you migrate from the mirroring configuration or even mirroring and log shipping configuration to using Availability Group. Database Mirroring will still be available in the Denali release but will be phased out over subsequent releases. Log Shipping will continue to be available in future releases.” Damit wären wir endlich beim eigentlichen Thema angelangt. Was ist eine sogenannte Availability Group und was genau hat es mit der vielversprechend klingenden Bezeichnung AlwaysOn auf sich?   SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn Zwei HA-Features verstekcne sich hinter dem “AlwaysOn”-Branding. Einmal das AlwaysOn Failover Clustering aka SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) - zum Anderen die AlwaysOn Availability Groups. Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Entspricht ungefähr dem Stretch Cluster Konzept von Oracle Setzt auf Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) auf Bietet HA auf Instanz-Ebene AlwaysOn Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Ähnlich der Idee von Consistency Groups, wie in Storage-Level Replikations-Software von z.B. EMC SRDF Abhängigkeiten zu Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Bietet HA auf Datenbank-Ebene   Hinweis: Verwechseln Sie nicht eine SQL Server Datenbank mit einer Oracle Datenbank. Und auch nicht eine Oracle Instanz mit einer SQL Server Instanz. Die gleichen Begriffe haben hier eine andere Bedeutung - nicht selten ein Grund, weshalb Oracle- und Microsoft DBAs schnell aneinander vorbei reden. Denken Sie bei einer SQL Server Datenbank eher an ein Oracle Schema, das kommt der Sache näher. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema. Wenn Sie die genauen Unterschiede kennen möchten, finden Sie eine detaillierte Beschreibung in meinem Buch "Oracle10g Release 2 für Windows und .NET", erhältich bei Lehmanns, Amazon, etc.   Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Wie man sieht, basieren beide AlwaysOn Technologien wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC), um einerseits Hochverfügbarkeit auf Ebene der Instanz zu gewährleisten und andererseits auf der Datenbank-Ebene. Deshalb nun eine kurze Beschreibung der WSFC. Die WSFC sind ein mit dem Windows Betriebssystem geliefertes Infrastruktur-Feature, um HA für Server Anwendungen, wie Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, etc. zu bieten. So wie jeder andere Cluster, besteht ein WSFC Cluster aus einer Gruppe unabhängiger Server, die zusammenarbeiten, um die Verfügbarkeit einer Applikation oder eines Service zu erhöhen. Falls ein Cluster-Knoten oder -Service ausfällt, kann der auf diesem Knoten bisher gehostete Service automatisch oder manuell auf einen anderen im Cluster verfügbaren Knoten transferriert werden - was allgemein als Failover bekannt ist. Unter SQL Server 2012 verwenden sowohl die AlwaysOn Avalability Groups, als auch die AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances die WSFC als Plattformtechnologie, um Komponenten als WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen zu registrieren. Verwandte Ressourcen werden in eine Ressource Group zusammengefasst, die in Abhängigkeit zu anderen WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen gebracht werden kann. Der WSFC Cluster Service kann jetzt die Notwendigkeit zum Neustart der SQL Server Instanz erfassen oder einen automatischen Failover zu einem anderen Server-Knoten im WSFC Cluster auslösen.   Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Eine SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanz (FCI) ist eine einzelne SQL Server Instanz, die in einem Failover Cluster betrieben wird, der aus mehreren Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Knoten besteht und so HA (High Availability) auf Ebene der Instanz bietet. Unter Verwendung von Multi-Subnet FCI kann auch Remote DR (Disaster Recovery) unterstützt werden. Eine weitere Option für Remote DR besteht darin, eine unter FCI gehostete Datenbank in einer Availability Group zu betreiben. Hierzu später mehr. FCI und WSFC Basis FCI, das für lokale Hochverfügbarkeit der Instanzen genutzt wird, ähnelt der veralteten Architektur eines kalten Cluster (Aktiv-Passiv). Unter SQL Server 2008 wurde diese Technologie SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering genannt. Sie nutzte den Windows Server Failover Cluster. In SQL Server 2012 hat Microsoft diese Basistechnologie unter der Bezeichnung AlwaysOn zusammengefasst. Es handelt sich aber nach wie vor um die klassische Aktiv-Passiv-Konfiguration. Der Ablauf im Failover-Fall ist wie folgt: Solange kein Hardware-oder System-Fehler auftritt, werden alle Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache auf Platte geschrieben Alle entsprechenden SQL Server Services (Dienste) in der Ressource Gruppe werden auf dem aktiven Knoten gestoppt Die Ownership der Ressource Gruppe wird auf einen anderen Knoten der FCI transferriert Der neue Owner (Besitzer) der Ressource Gruppe startet seine SQL Server Services (Dienste) Die Connection-Anforderungen einer Client-Applikation werden automatisch auf den neuen aktiven Knoten mit dem selben Virtuellen Network Namen (VNN) umgeleitet Abhängig vom Zeitpunkt des letzten Checkpoints, kann die Anzahl der Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache, die noch auf Platte geschrieben werden müssen, zu unvorhersehbar langen Failover-Zeiten führen. Um diese Anzahl zu drosseln, besitzt der SQL Server 2012 eine neue Fähigkeit, die Indirect Checkpoints genannt wird. Indirect Checkpoints ähnelt dem Fast-Start MTTR Target Feature der Oracle Datenbank, das bereits mit Oracle9i verfügbar war.   SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Ein SQL Server Multi-Subnet Failover Cluster entspricht vom Konzept her einem Oracle RAC Stretch Cluster. Doch dies ist nur auf den ersten Blick der Fall. Im Gegensatz zu RAC ist in einem lokalen SQL Server Failover Cluster jeweils nur ein Knoten aktiv für eine Datenbank. Für die Datenreplikation zwischen geografisch entfernten Sites verlässt sich Microsoft auf 3rd Party Lösungen für das Storage Mirroring.     Die Verbesserung dieses Szenario mit einer SQL Server 2012 Implementierung besteht schlicht darin, dass eine VLAN-Konfiguration (Virtual Local Area Network) nun nicht mehr benötigt wird, so wie dies bisher der Fall war. Das folgende Diagramm stellt dar, wie der Ablauf mit SQL Server 2012 gehandhabt wird. In Site A und Site B wird HA jeweils durch einen lokalen Aktiv-Passiv-Cluster sichergestellt.     Besondere Aufmerksamkeit muss hier der Konfiguration und dem Tuning geschenkt werden, da ansonsten völlig inakzeptable Failover-Zeiten resultieren. Dies liegt darin begründet, weil die Downtime auf Client-Seite nun nicht mehr nur von der reinen Failover-Zeit abhängt, sondern zusätzlich von der Dauer der DNS Replikation zwischen den DNS Servern. (Rufen Sie sich in Erinnerung, dass wir gerade von Multi-Subnet Clustering sprechen). Außerdem ist zu berücksichtigen, wie schnell die Clients die aktualisierten DNS Informationen abfragen. Spezielle Konfigurationen für Node Heartbeat, HostRecordTTL (Host Record Time-to-Live) und Intersite Replication Frequeny für Active Directory Sites und Services werden notwendig. Default TTL für Windows Server 2008 R2: 20 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 1 Minute DNS Update Replication Frequency in Windows Umgebung: 180 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 15 Minuten (minimaler Wert)   Betrachtet man diese Werte, muss man feststellen, dass selbst eine optimale Konfiguration die rigiden SLAs (Service Level Agreements) heutiger geschäftskritischer Anwendungen für HA und DR nicht erfüllen kann. Denn dies impliziert eine auf der Client-Seite erlebte Failover-Zeit von insgesamt 16 Minuten. Hierzu ein Auszug aus der SQL Server 2012 Online Dokumentation: Cons: If a cross-subnet failover occurs, the client recovery time could be 15 minutes or longer, depending on your HostRecordTTL setting and the setting of your cross-site DNS/AD replication schedule.    Wir sind hier an einem Punkt unserer Überlegungen angelangt, an dem sich erklärt, weshalb ich zuvor das "Windows was the God ..." Zitat verwendet habe. Die unbedingte Abhängigkeit zu Windows wird zunehmend zum Problem, da sie die Komplexität einer Microsoft-basierenden Lösung erhöht, anstelle sie zu reduzieren. Und Komplexität ist das Letzte, was sich CIOs heutzutage wünschen.  Zur Ehrenrettung des SQL Server 2012 und AlwaysOn muss man sagen, dass derart lange Failover-Zeiten kein unbedingtes "Muss" darstellen, sondern ein "Kann". Doch auch ein "Kann" kann im unpassenden Moment unvorhersehbare und kostspielige Folgen haben. Die Unabsehbarkeit ist wiederum Ursache vieler an der Implementierung beteiligten Komponenten und deren Abhängigkeiten, wie beispielsweise drei Cluster-Lösungen (zwei von Microsoft, eine 3rd Party Lösung). Wie man die Sache auch dreht und wendet, kommt man an diesem Fakt also nicht vorbei - ganz unabhängig von der Dauer einer Downtime oder Failover-Zeiten. Im Gegensatz zu AlwaysOn und der hier vorgestellten Version eines Stretch-Clusters, vermeidet eine entsprechende Oracle Implementierung eine derartige Komplexität, hervorgerufen duch multiple Abhängigkeiten. Den Unterschied machen Datenbank-integrierte Mechanismen, wie Fast Application Notification (FAN) und Fast Connection Failover (FCF). Für Oracle MAA Konfigurationen (Maximum Availability Architecture) sind Inter-Site Failover-Zeiten im Bereich von Sekunden keine Seltenheit. Wenn Sie dem Link zur Oracle MAA folgen, finden Sie außerdem eine Reihe an Customer Case Studies. Auch dies ist ein wichtiges Unterscheidungsmerkmal zu AlwaysOn, denn die Oracle Technologie hat sich bereits zigfach in höchst kritischen Umgebungen bewährt.   Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Die sogenannten Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) sind - neben FCI - der weitere Baustein von AlwaysOn.   Hinweis: Bevor wir uns näher damit beschäftigen, sollten Sie sich noch einmal ins Gedächtnis rufen, dass eine SQL Server Datenbank nicht die gleiche Bedeutung besitzt, wie eine Oracle Datenbank, sondern eher einem Oracle Schema entspricht. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema.   Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe setzt sich zusammen aus einem Set mehrerer Benutzer-Datenbanken, die im Falle eines Failover gemeinsam als Gruppe behandelt werden. Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe unterstützt ein Set an primären Datenbanken (primäres Replikat) und einem bis vier Sets von entsprechenden sekundären Datenbanken (sekundäre Replikate).       Es können jedoch nicht alle SQL Server Datenbanken einer AlwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zugeordnet werden. Der SQL Server Spezialist Michael Otey zählt in seinem SQL Server Pro Artikel folgende Anforderungen auf: Verfügbarkeitsgruppen müssen mit Benutzer-Datenbanken erstellt werden. System-Datenbanken können nicht verwendet werden Die Datenbanken müssen sich im Read-Write Modus befinden. Read-Only Datenbanken werden nicht unterstützt Die Datenbanken in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe müssen Multiuser Datenbanken sein Sie dürfen nicht das AUTO_CLOSE Feature verwenden Sie müssen das Full Recovery Modell nutzen und es muss ein vollständiges Backup vorhanden sein Eine gegebene Datenbank kann sich nur in einer einzigen Verfügbarkeitsgruppe befinden und diese Datenbank düerfen nicht für Database Mirroring konfiguriert sein Microsoft empfiehl außerdem, dass der Verzeichnispfad einer Datenbank auf dem primären und sekundären Server identisch sein sollte Wie man sieht, eignen sich Verfügbarkeitsgruppen nicht, um HA und DR vollständig abzubilden. Die Unterscheidung zwischen der Instanzen-Ebene (FCI) und Datenbank-Ebene (Availability Groups) ist von hoher Bedeutung. Vor kurzem wurde mir gesagt, dass man mit den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen auf Shared Storage verzichten könne und dadurch Kosten spart. So weit so gut ... Man kann natürlich eine Installation rein mit Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und ohne FCI durchführen - aber man sollte sich dann darüber bewusst sein, was man dadurch alles nicht abgesichert hat - und dies wiederum für Desaster Recovery (DR) und SLAs (Service Level Agreements) bedeutet. Kurzum, um die Kombination aus beiden AlwaysOn Produkten und der damit verbundene Komplexität kommt man wohl in der Praxis nicht herum.    Availability Groups und WSFC AlwaysOn hängt von Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) ab, um die aktuellen Rollen der Verfügbarkeitsreplikate einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zu überwachen und zu verwalten, und darüber zu entscheiden, wie ein Failover-Ereignis die Verfügbarkeitsreplikate betrifft. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt de Beziehung zwischen Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und WSFC:   Der Verfügbarkeitsmodus ist eine Eigenschaft jedes Verfügbarkeitsreplikats. Synychron und Asynchron können also gemischt werden: Availability Modus (Verfügbarkeitsmodus) Asynchroner Commit-Modus Primäres replikat schließt Transaktionen ohne Warten auf Sekundäres Synchroner Commit-Modus Primäres Replikat wartet auf Commit von sekundärem Replikat Failover Typen Automatic Manual Forced (mit möglichem Datenverlust) Synchroner Commit-Modus Geplanter, manueller Failover ohne Datenverlust Automatischer Failover ohne Datenverlust Asynchroner Commit-Modus Nur Forced, manueller Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust   Der SQL Server kennt keinen separaten Switchover Begriff wie in Oracle Data Guard. Für SQL Server werden alle Role Transitions als Failover bezeichnet. Tatsächlich unterstützt der SQL Server keinen Switchover für asynchrone Verbindungen. Es gibt nur die Form des Forced Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust. Eine ähnliche Fähigkeit wie der Switchover unter Oracle Data Guard ist so nicht gegeben.   SQL Sever FCI mit Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Neben den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen kann eine zweite Failover-Ebene eingerichtet werden, indem SQL Server FCI (auf Shared Storage) mit WSFC implementiert wird. Ein Verfügbarkeitesreplikat kann dann auf einer Standalone Instanz gehostet werden, oder einer FCI Instanz. Zum Verständnis: Die Verfügbarkeitsgruppen selbst benötigen kein Shared Storage. Diese Kombination kann verwendet werden für lokale HA auf Ebene der Instanz und DR auf Datenbank-Ebene durch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt dieses Szenario:   Achtung! Hier handelt es sich nicht um ein Pendant zu Oracle RAC plus Data Guard, auch wenn das Bild diesen Eindruck vielleicht vermitteln mag - denn alle sekundären Knoten im FCI sind rein passiv. Es existiert außerdem eine weitere und ernsthafte Einschränkung: SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanzen (FCI) unterstützen nicht das automatische AlwaysOn Failover für Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Jedes unter FCI gehostete Verfügbarkeitsreplikat kann nur für manuelles Failover konfiguriert werden.   Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate Ein oder mehrere Verfügbarkeitsreplikate in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe können für den lesenden Zugriff konfiguriert werden, wenn sie als sekundäres Replikat laufen. Dies ähnelt Oracle Active Data Guard, jedoch gibt es Einschränkungen. Alle Abfragen gegen die sekundäre Datenbank werden automatisch auf das Snapshot Isolation Level abgebildet. Es handelt sich dabei um eine Versionierung der Rows. Microsoft versuchte hiermit die Oracle MVRC (Multi Version Read Consistency) nachzustellen. Tatsächlich muss man die SQL Server Snapshot Isolation eher mit Oracle Flashback vergleichen. Bei der Implementierung des Snapshot Isolation Levels handelt sich um ein nachträglich aufgesetztes Feature und nicht um einen inhärenten Teil des Datenbank-Kernels, wie im Falle Oracle. (Ich werde hierzu in Kürze einen weiteren Blogbeitrag verfassen, wenn ich mich mit der neuen SQL Server 2012 Core Lizenzierung beschäftige.) Für die Praxis entstehen aus der Abbildung auf das Snapshot Isolation Level ernsthafte Restriktionen, derer man sich für den Betrieb in der Praxis bereits vorab bewusst sein sollte: Sollte auf der primären Datenbank eine aktive Transaktion zu dem Zeitpunkt existieren, wenn ein lesbares sekundäres Replikat in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen wird, werden die Row-Versionen auf der korrespondierenden sekundären Datenbank nicht sofort vollständig verfügbar sein. Eine aktive Transaktion auf dem primären Replikat muss zuerst abgeschlossen (Commit oder Rollback) und dieser Transaktions-Record auf dem sekundären Replikat verarbeitet werden. Bis dahin ist das Isolation Level Mapping auf der sekundären Datenbank unvollständig und Abfragen sind temporär geblockt. Microsoft sagt dazu: "This is needed to guarantee that row versions are available on the secondary replica before executing the query under snapshot isolation as all isolation levels are implicitly mapped to snapshot isolation." (SQL Storage Engine Blog: AlwaysOn: I just enabled Readable Secondary but my query is blocked?)  Grundlegend bedeutet dies, dass ein aktives lesbares Replikat nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden kann, ohne das primäre Replikat vorübergehend stillzulegen. Da Leseoperationen auf das Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level abgebildet werden, kann die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf dem primären Replikat durch Transaktionen auf einem oder mehreren sekundären Replikaten geblockt werden - z.B. durch eine lang laufende Abfrage auf dem sekundären Replikat. Diese Bereinigung wird auch blockiert, wenn die Verbindung zum sekundären Replikat abbricht oder der Datenaustausch unterbrochen wird. Auch die Log Truncation wird in diesem Zustant verhindert. Wenn dieser Zustand längere Zeit anhält, empfiehlt Microsoft das sekundäre Replikat aus der Verfügbarkeitsgruppe herauszunehmen - was ein ernsthaftes Downtime-Problem darstellt. Die Read-Only Workload auf den sekundären Replikaten kann eingehende DDL Änderungen blockieren. Obwohl die Leseoperationen aufgrund der Row-Versionierung keine Shared Locks halten, führen diese Operatioen zu Sch-S Locks (Schemastabilitätssperren). DDL-Änderungen durch Redo-Operationen können dadurch blockiert werden. Falls DDL aufgrund konkurrierender Lese-Workload blockiert wird und der Schwellenwert für 'Recovery Interval' (eine SQL Server Konfigurationsoption) überschritten wird, generiert der SQL Server das Ereignis sqlserver.lock_redo_blocked, welches Microsoft zum Kill der blockierenden Leser empfiehlt. Auf die Verfügbarkeit der Anwendung wird hierbei keinerlei Rücksicht genommen.   Keine dieser Einschränkungen existiert mit Oracle Active Data Guard.   Backups auf sekundären Replikaten  Über die sekundären Replikate können Backups (BACKUP DATABASE via Transact-SQL) nur als copy-only Backups einer vollständigen Datenbank, Dateien und Dateigruppen erstellt werden. Das Erstellen inkrementeller Backups ist nicht unterstützt, was ein ernsthafter Rückstand ist gegenüber der Backup-Unterstützung physikalischer Standbys unter Oracle Data Guard. Hinweis: Ein möglicher Workaround via Snapshots, bleibt ein Workaround. Eine weitere Einschränkung dieses Features gegenüber Oracle Data Guard besteht darin, dass das Backup eines sekundären Replikats nicht ausgeführt werden kann, wenn es nicht mit dem primären Replikat kommunizieren kann. Darüber hinaus muss das sekundäre Replikat synchronisiert sein oder sich in der Synchronisation befinden, um das Beackup auf dem sekundären Replikat erstellen zu können.   Vergleich von Microsoft AlwaysOn mit der Oracle MAA Ich komme wieder zurück auf die Eingangs erwähnte, mehrfach an mich gestellte Frage "Wann denn - und ob überhaupt - Oracle etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde?" und meine damit verbundene (kurze) Irritation. Wenn Sie diesen Blogbeitrag bis hierher gelesen haben, dann kennen Sie jetzt meine darauf gegebene Antwort. Der eine oder andere Punkt traf dabei nicht immer auf Jeden zu, was auch nicht der tiefere Sinn und Zweck meiner Antwort war. Wenn beispielsweise kein Multi-Subnet mit im Spiel ist, sind alle diesbezüglichen Kritikpunkte zunächst obsolet. Was aber nicht bedeutet, dass sie nicht bereits morgen schon wieder zum Thema werden könnten (Sag niemals "Nie"). In manch anderes Fettnäpfchen tritt man wiederum nicht unbedingt in einer Testumgebung, sondern erst im laufenden Betrieb. Erst recht nicht dann, wenn man sich potenzieller Probleme nicht bewusst ist und keine dedizierten Tests startet. Und wer AlwaysOn erfolgreich positionieren möchte, wird auch gar kein Interesse daran haben, auf mögliche Schwachstellen und den besagten Teufel im Detail aufmerksam zu machen. Das ist keine Unterstellung - es ist nur menschlich. Außerdem ist es verständlich, dass man sich in erster Linie darauf konzentriert "was geht" und "was gut läuft", anstelle auf das "was zu Problemen führen kann" oder "nicht funktioniert". Wer will schon der Miesepeter sein? Für mich selbst gesprochen, kann ich nur sagen, dass ich lieber vorab von allen möglichen Einschränkungen wissen möchte, anstelle sie dann nach einer kurzen Zeit der heilen Welt schmerzhaft am eigenen Leib erfahren zu müssen. Ich bin davon überzeugt, dass es Ihnen nicht anders geht. Nachfolgend deshalb eine Zusammenfassung all jener Punkte, die ich im Vergleich zur Oracle MAA (Maximum Availability Architecture) als unbedingt Erwähnenswert betrachte, falls man eine Evaluierung von Microsoft AlwaysOn in Betracht zieht. 1. AlwaysOn ist eine komplexe Technologie Der SQL Server AlwaysOn Stack ist zusammengesetzt aus drei verschiedenen Technlogien: Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) SQL Server Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Man kann eine derartige Lösung nicht als nahtlos bezeichnen, wofür auch die vielen von Microsoft dargestellten Einschränkungen sprechen. Während sich frühere SQL Server Versionen in Richtung eigener HA/DR Technologien entwickelten (wie Database Mirroring), empfiehlt Microsoft nun die Migration. Doch weshalb dieser Schwenk? Er führt nicht zu einem konsisten und robusten Angebot an HA/DR Technologie für geschäftskritische Umgebungen.  Liegt die Antwort in meiner These begründet, nach der "Windows was the God ..." noch immer gilt und man die Nachteile der allzu engen Kopplung mit Windows nicht sehen möchte? Entscheiden Sie selbst ... 2. Failover Cluster Instanzen - Kein RAC-Pendant Die SQL Server und Windows Server Clustering Technologie basiert noch immer auf dem veralteten Aktiv-Passiv Modell und führt zu einer Verschwendung von Systemressourcen. In einer Betrachtung von lediglich zwei Knoten erschließt sich auf Anhieb noch nicht der volle Mehrwert eines Aktiv-Aktiv Clusters (wie den Real Application Clusters), wie er von Oracle bereits vor zehn Jahren entwickelt wurde. Doch kennt man die Vorzüge der Skalierbarkeit durch einfaches Hinzufügen weiterer Cluster-Knoten, die dann alle gemeinsam als ein einziges logisches System zusammenarbeiten, versteht man was hinter dem Motto "Pay-as-you-Grow" steckt. In einem Aktiv-Aktiv Cluster geht es zwar auch um Hochverfügbarkeit - und ein Failover erfolgt zudem schneller, als in einem Aktiv-Passiv Modell - aber es geht eben nicht nur darum. An dieser Stelle sei darauf hingewiesen, dass die Oracle 11g Standard Edition bereits die Nutzung von Oracle RAC bis zu vier Sockets kostenfrei beinhaltet. Möchten Sie dazu Windows nutzen, benötigen Sie keine Windows Server Enterprise Edition, da Oracle 11g die eigene Clusterware liefert. Sie kommen in den Genuss von Hochverfügbarkeit und Skalierbarkeit und können dazu die günstigere Windows Server Standard Edition nutzen. 3. SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering - Abhängigkeit zu 3rd Party Storage Mirroring  Die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur unterstützt den Aufbau eines Stretch Clusters, basiert dabei aber auf dem Aktiv-Passiv Modell. Das eigentlich Problematische ist jedoch, dass man sich zur Absicherung der Datenbank auf 3rd Party Storage Mirroring Technologie verlässt, ohne Integration zwischen dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) und der darunterliegenden Mirroring Technologie. Wenn nun im Cluster ein Failover auf Instanzen-Ebene erfolgt, existiert keine Koordination mit einem möglichen Failover auf Ebene des Storage-Array. 4. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - Vier, oder doch nur Zwei? Ein primäres Replikat erlaubt bis zu vier sekundäre Replikate innerhalb einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe, jedoch nur zwei im Synchronen Commit Modus. Während dies zwar einen Vorteil gegenüber dem stringenten 1:1 Modell unter Database Mirroring darstellt, fällt der SQL Server 2012 damit immer noch weiter zurück hinter Oracle Data Guard mit bis zu 30 direkten Stanbdy Zielen - und vielen weiteren durch kaskadierende Ziele möglichen. Damit eignet sich Oracle Active Data Guard auch für die Bereitstellung einer Reader-Farm Skalierbarkeit für Internet-basierende Unternehmen. Mit AwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppen ist dies nicht möglich. 5. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - kein asynchrones Switchover  Die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen wird auch als geeignetes Mittel für administrative Aufgaben positioniert - wie Upgrades oder Wartungsarbeiten. Man muss sich jedoch einem gravierendem Defizit bewusst sein: Im asynchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus besteht die einzige Möglichkeit für Role Transition im Forced Failover mit Datenverlust! Um den Verlust von Daten durch geplante Wartungsarbeiten zu vermeiden, muss man den synchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus konfigurieren, was jedoch ernstzunehmende Auswirkungen auf WAN Deployments nach sich zieht. Spinnt man diesen Gedanken zu Ende, kommt man zu dem Schluss, dass die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen für geplante Wartungsarbeiten in einem derartigen Umfeld nicht effektiv genutzt werden kann. 6. Automatisches Failover - Nicht immer möglich Sowohl die SQL Server FCI, als auch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen unterstützen automatisches Failover. Möchte man diese jedoch kombinieren, wird das Ergebnis kein automatisches Failover sein. Denn ihr Zusammentreffen im Failover-Fall führt zu Race Conditions (Wettlaufsituationen), weshalb diese Konfiguration nicht länger das automatische Failover zu einem Replikat in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe erlaubt. Auch hier bestätigt sich wieder die tiefere Problematik von AlwaysOn, mit einer Zusammensetzung aus unterschiedlichen Technologien und der Abhängigkeit zu Windows. 7. Problematische RTO (Recovery Time Objective) Microsoft postioniert die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur als brauchbare HA/DR Architektur. Bedenkt man jedoch die Problematik im Zusammenhang mit DNS Replikation und den möglichen langen Wartezeiten auf Client-Seite von bis zu 16 Minuten, sind strenge RTO Anforderungen (Recovery Time Objectives) nicht erfüllbar. Im Gegensatz zu Oracle besitzt der SQL Server keine Datenbank-integrierten Technologien, wie Oracle Fast Application Notification (FAN) oder Oracle Fast Connection Failover (FCF). 8. Problematische RPO (Recovery Point Objective) SQL Server ermöglicht Forced Failover (erzwungenes Failover), bietet jedoch keine Möglichkeit zur automatischen Übertragung der letzten Datenbits von einem alten zu einem neuen primären Replikat, wenn der Verfügbarkeitsmodus asynchron war. Oracle Data Guard hingegen bietet diese Unterstützung durch das Flush Redo Feature. Dies sichert "Zero Data Loss" und beste RPO auch in erzwungenen Failover-Situationen. 9. Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate mit Einschränkungen Aufgrund des Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level für lesbare sekundäre Replikate, besitzen diese Einschränkungen mit Auswirkung auf die primäre Datenbank. Die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf der primären Datenbank, wird beeinflusst von lang laufenden Abfragen auf der lesabaren sekundären Datenbank. Die lesbare sekundäre Datenbank kann nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden, wenn es aktive Transaktionen auf der primären Datenbank gibt. Zusätzlich können DLL Änderungen auf der primären Datenbank durch Abfragen auf der sekundären blockiert werden. Und imkrementelle Backups werden hier nicht unterstützt.   Keine dieser Restriktionen existiert unter Oracle Data Guard.

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  • Why should you choose Oracle WebLogic 12c instead of JBoss EAP 6?

    - by Ricardo Ferreira
    In this post, I will cover some technical differences between Oracle WebLogic 12c and JBoss EAP 6, which was released a couple days ago from Red Hat. This article claims to help you in the evaluation of key points that you should consider when choosing for an Java EE application server. In the following sections, I will present to you some important aspects that most customers ask us when they are seriously evaluating for an middleware infrastructure, specially if you are considering JBoss for some reason. I would suggest that you keep the following question in mind while you are reading the points: "Why should I choose JBoss instead of WebLogic?" 1) Multi Datacenter Deployment and Clustering - D/R ("Disaster & Recovery") architecture support is embedded on the WebLogic Server 12c product. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct D/R support included, Red Hat relies on third-part tools with higher prices. When you consider a middleware solution to host your business critical application, you should worry with every architectural aspect that are related with the solution. Fail-over support is one little aspect of a truly reliable solution. If you do not worry about D/R, your solution will not be reliable. Having said that, with Red Hat and JBoss EAP 6, you have this extra cost that will increase considerably the total cost of ownership of the solution. As we commonly hear from analysts, open-source are not so cheaper when you start seeing the big picture. - WebLogic Server 12c supports advanced LAN clustering, detection of death servers and have a common alert framework. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has limited LAN clustering support with no server death detection. They do not generate any alerts when servers goes down (only if you buy JBoss ON which is a separated technology, but until now does not support JBoss EAP 6) and manual intervention are required when servers goes down. In most cases, admin people must rely on "kill -9", "tail -f someFile.log" and "ps ax | grep java" commands to manage failures and clustering anomalies. - WebLogic Server 12c supports the concept of Node Manager, which is a separated process that runs on the physical | virtual servers that allows extend the administration of the cluster to WebLogic managed servers that are often distributed across multiple machines and geographic locations. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no equivalent technology. Whole server instances must be managed individually. - WebLogic Server 12c Node Manager supports Coherence to boost performance when managing servers. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no similar technology. There is no way to coordinate JBoss and infiniband instances provided by JBoss using high throughput and low latency protocols like InfiniBand. The Node Manager feature also allows another very important feature that JBoss EAP lacks: secure the administration. When using WebLogic Node Manager, all the administration tasks are sent to the managed servers in a secure tunel protected by a certificate, which means that the transport layer that separates the WebLogic administration console from the managed servers are secured by SSL. - WebLogic Server 12c are now integrated with OTD ("Oracle Traffic Director") which is a web server technology derived from the former Sun iPlanet Web Server. This software complements the web server support offered by OHS ("Oracle HTTP Server"). Using OTD, WebLogic instances are load-balanced by a high powerful software that knows how to handle SDP ("Socket Direct Protocol") over InfiniBand, which boost performance when used with engineered systems technologies like Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand only offers support to Apache Web Server with custom modules created to deal with JBoss clusters, but only across standard TCP/IP networks.  2) Application and Runtime Diagnostics - WebLogic Server 12c have diagnostics capabilities embedded on the server called WLDF ("WebLogic Diagnostic Framework") so there is no need to rely on third-part tools. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no diagnostics capabilities. Their only diagnostics tool is the log generated by the application server. Admin people are encouraged to analyse thousands of log lines to find out what is going on. - WebLogic Server 12c complement WLDF with JRockit MC ("Mission Control"), which provides to administrators and developers a complete insight about the JVM performance, behavior and possible bottlenecks. WebLogic Server 12c also have an classloader analysis tool embedded, and even a log analyzer tool that enables administrators and developers to view logs of multiple servers at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand relies on third-part tools to do something similar. Again, only log searching are offered to find out whats going on. - WebLogic Server 12c offers end-to-end traceability and monitoring available through Oracle EM ("Enterprise Manager"), including monitoring of business transactions that flows through web servers, ESBs, application servers and database servers, all of this with high deep JVM analysis and diagnostics. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand, even using JBoss ON ("Operations Network"), which is a separated technology, does not support those features. Red Hat relies on third-part tools to provide direct Oracle database traceability across JVMs. One of those tools are Oracle EM for non-Oracle middleware that manage JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere and IIS transparently. - WebLogic Server 12c with their JRockit support offers a tool called JRockit Flight Recorder, which can give developers a complete visibility of a certain period of application production monitoring with zero extra overhead. This automatic recording allows you to deep analyse threads latency, memory leaks, thread contention, resource utilization, stack overflow damages and GC ("Garbage Collection") cycles, to observe in real time stop-the-world phenomenons, generational, reference count and parallel collects and mutator threads analysis. JBoss EAP 6 don't even dream to support something similar, even because they don't have their own JVM. 3) Application Server Administration - WebLogic Server 12c offers a complete administration console complemented with scripting and macro-like recording capabilities. A single WebLogic console can managed up to hundreds of WebLogic servers belonging to the same domain. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited console and provides a XML centric administration. JBoss, after ten years, started the development of a rudimentary centralized administration that still leave a lot of administration tasks aside, so admin people and developers must touch scripts and XML configuration files for most advanced and even simple administration tasks. This lead applications to error prone and risky deployments. Even using JBoss ON, JBoss EAP are not able to offer decent administration features for admin people which must be high skilled in JBoss internal architecture and its managing capabilities. - Oracle EM is available to manage multiple domains, databases, application servers, operating systems and virtualization, with a complete end-to-end visibility. JBoss ON does not provide management capabilities across the complete architecture, only basic monitoring. Even deployment must be done aside JBoss ON which does no integrate well with others softwares than JBoss. Until now, JBoss ON does not supports JBoss EAP 6, so even their minimal support for JBoss are not available for JBoss EAP 6 leaving customers uncovered and subject to high skilled JBoss admin people. - WebLogic Server 12c has the same administration model whatever is the topology selected by the customer. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand differentiates between two operational models: standalone-mode and domain-mode, that are not consistent with each other. Depending on the mode used, the administration skill is different. - WebLogic Server 12c has no point-of-failures processes, and it does not need to define any specialized server. Domain model in WebLogic is available for years (at least ten years or more) and is production proven. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand needs special processes to garantee JBoss integrity, the PC ("Process-Controller") and the HC ("Host-Controller"). Different from WebLogic, the domain model in JBoss is quite new (one year at tops) of maturity, and need to mature considerably until start doing things like WebLogic domain model does. - WebLogic Server 12c supports parallel deployment model which enables some artifacts being deployed at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have any similar feature. Every deployment are done atomically in the containers. This means that if you have a huge EAR (an EAR of 120 MB of size for instance) and deploy onto JBoss EAP 6, this EAR will take some minutes in order to starting accept thread requests. The same EAR deployed onto WebLogic Server 12c will reduce the deployment time at least in 2X compared to JBoss. 4) Support and Upgrades - WebLogic Server 12c has patch management available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no patch management available, each JBoss EAP instance should be patched manually. To achieve such feature, you need to buy a separated technology called JBoss ON ("Operations Network") that manage this type of stuff. But until now, JBoss ON does not support JBoss EAP 6 so, in practice, JBoss EAP 6 does not have this feature. - WebLogic Server 12c supports previuous WebLogic domains without any reconfiguration since its kernel is robust and mature since its creation in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a proven lack of supportability between JBoss AS 4, 5, 6 and 7. Different kernels and messaging engines were implemented in JBoss stack in the last five years reveling their incapacity to create a well architected and proven middleware technology. - WebLogic Server 12c has patch prescription based on customer configuration. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such capability. People need to create ticket supports and have their installations revised by Red Hat support guys to gain some patch prescription from them. - Oracle WebLogic Server independent of the version has 8 years of support of new patches and has lifetime release of existing patches beyond that. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand provides patches for a specific application server version up to 5 years after the release date. JBoss EAP 4 and previous versions had only 4 years. A good question that Red Hat will argue to answer is: "what happens when you find issues after year 5"?  5) RAC ("Real Application Clusters") Support - WebLogic Server 12c ships with a specific JDBC driver to leverage Oracle RAC clustering capabilities (Fast-Application-Notification, Transaction Affinity, Fast-Connection-Failover, etc). Oracle JDBC thin driver are also available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand ships only the standard Oracle JDBC thin driver. Load balancing with Oracle RAC are not supported. Manual intervention in case of planned or unplanned RAC downtime are necessary. In JBoss EAP 6, situation does not reestablish automatically after downtime. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called Active GridLink for Oracle RAC which provides up to 3X performance on OLTP applications. This seamless integration between WebLogic and Oracle database enable more value added to critical business applications leveraging their investments in Oracle database technology and Oracle middleware. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no performance gains at all, even when admin people implement some kind of connection-pooling tuning. - WebLogic Server 12c also supports transaction and web session affinity to the Oracle RAC, which provides aditional gains of performance. This is particularly interesting if you are creating a reliable solution that are distributed not only in an LAN cluster, but into a different data center. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. 6) Standards and Technology Support - WebLogic Server 12c is fully Java EE 6 compatible and production ready since december of 2011. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand became fully compatible with Java EE 6 only in the community version after three months, and production ready only in a few days considering that this article was written in June of 2012. Red Hat says that they are the masters of innovation and technology proliferation, but compared with Oracle and even other proprietary vendors like IBM, they historically speaking are lazy to deliver the most newest technologies and standards adherence. - Oracle is the steward of Java, driving innovation into the platform from commercial and open-source vendors. Red Hat on the other hand does not have its own JVM and relies on third-part JVMs to complete their application server offer. 95% of Red Hat customers are using Oracle HotSpot as JVM, which means that without Oracle involvement, their support are limited exclusively to the application server layer and we all know that most problems are happens in the JVM layer. - WebLogic Server 12c supports natively JDK 7, which empower developers to explore the maximum of the Java platform productivity when writing code. This feature differentiate WebLogic from others application servers (except GlassFish that are also managed by Oracle) because the usage of JDK 7 introduce such remarkable productivity features like the "try-with-resources" enhancement, catching multiple exceptions with one try block, Strings in the switch statements, JVM improvements in terms of JDBC, I/O, networking, security, concurrency and of course, the most important feature of Java 7: native support for multiple non-Java languages. More features regarding JDK 7 can be found here. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not support JDK 7 officially, they comment in their community version that "Java SE 7 can be used with JBoss 7" which does not gives you any guarantees of enterprise support for JDK 7. - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c supports integration with Spring framework allowing Spring applications to use WebLogic special transaction manager, exposing bean interfaces to WebLogic MBeans to take advantage of all WebLogic monitoring and administration advantages. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no special integration with Spring. In fact, Red Hat offers a suspicious package called "JBoss Web Platform" that in theory supports Spring, but in practice this package does not offers any special integration. It is just a facility for Red Hat customers to have support from both JBoss and Spring technology using the same customer support. 7) Lightweight Development - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c and Oracle GlassFish are completely integrated and can share applications without any modifications. Starting with the 12c version, WebLogic now understands natively GlassFish deployment descriptors and specific configurations in order to offer you a truly and reliable migration path from a community Java EE application server to a enterprise middleware product like WebLogic. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no support to natively reuse an existing (or still in development) application from JBoss AS community server. Users of JBoss suffer of critical issues during deployment time that includes: changing the libraries and dependencies of the application, patching the DTD or XSD deployment descriptors, refactoring of the application layers due classloading issues and anomalies, rebuilding of persistence, business and web layers due issues with "usage of the certified version of an certain dependency" or "frameworks that Red Hat potentially does not recommend" etc. If you have the culture or enterprise IT directive of developing Java EE applications using community middleware to in a certain future, transition to enterprise (supported by a vendor) middleware, Oracle WebLogic plus Oracle GlassFish offers you a more sustainable solution. - WebLogic Server 12c has a very light ZIP distribution (less than 165 MB). JBoss EAP 6 ZIP size is around 130 MB, together with JBoss ON you have more 100 MB resulting in a higher download footprint. This is particularly interesting if you plan to use automated setup of application server instances (for example, to rapidly setup a development or staging environment) using Maven or Hudson. - WebLogic Server 12c has a complete integration with Maven allowing developers to setup WebLogic domains with few commands. Tasks like downloading WebLogic, installation, domain creation, data sources deployment are completely integrated. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited offer integration with those tools.  - WebLogic Server 12c has a startup mode called WLX that turns-off EJB, JMS and JCA containers leaving enabled only the web container with Java EE 6 web profile. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such feature, you need to disable manually the containers that you do not want to use. - WebLogic Server 12c supports fastswap, which enables you to change classes without redeployment. This is particularly interesting if you are developing patches for the application that is already deployed and you do not want to redeploy the entire application. This is the same behavior that most application servers offers to JSP pages, but with WebLogic Server 12c, you have the same feature for Java classes in general. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. Even JBoss EAP 5 does not support this until now. 8) JMS and Messaging - WebLogic Server 12c has a proven and high scalable JMS implementation since its initial release in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a still immature technology called HornetQ, which was introduced in JBoss EAP 5 replacing everything that was implemented in the previous versions. Red Hat loves to introduce new technologies across JBoss versions, playing around with customers and their investments. And when they are asked about why they have changed the implementation and caused such a mess, their answer is always: "the previous implementation was inadequate and not aligned with the community strategy so we are creating a new a improved one". This Red Hat practice leads to uncomfortable investments that in a near future (sometimes less than a year) will be affected in someway. - WebLogic Server 12c has troubleshooting and monitoring features included on the WebLogic console and WLDF. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct monitoring on the console, activity is reflected only on the logs, no debug logs available in case of JMS issues. - WebLogic Server 12c has extremely good performance and scalability. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a JMS storage mechanism relying on Oracle database or MySQL. This means that if an issue in production happens and Red Hat affirms that an performance issue is happening due to database problems, they will not support you on the performance issue. They will orient you to call Oracle instead. - WebLogic Server 12c supports messaging enterprise features like SAF ("Store and Forward"), Distributed Queues/Topics and Foreign JMS providers support that leverage JMS implementations without compromise developer code making things completely transparent. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand do not even dream to support such features. 9) Caching and Grid - Coherence, which is the leading and most mature data grid technology from Oracle, is available since early 2000 and was integrated with WebLogic in 2009. Coherence and WebLogic clusters can be both managed from WebLogic administrative console. Even Node Manager supports Coherence. JBoss on the other hand discontinued JBoss Cache, which was their caching implementation just like they did with the messaging implementation (JBossMQ) which was a issue for long term customers. JBoss EAP 6 ships InfiniSpan version 1.0 which is immature and lack a proven record of successful cases and reliability. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called ActiveCache which uses Coherence to, without any code changes, replicate HTTP sessions from both WebLogic and other application servers like JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere, GlassFish and even Microsoft IIS. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does have such support and even when they do in the future, they probably will support only their own application server. - Coherence can be used to manage both L1 and L2 cache levels, providing support to Oracle TopLink and others JPA compliant implementations, even Hibernate. JBoss EAP 6 and Infinispan on the other hand supports only Hibernate. And most important of all: Infinispan does not have any successful case of L1 or L2 caching level support using Hibernate, which lead us to reflect about its viability. 10) Performance - WebLogic Server 12c is certified with Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and can run unchanged applications at this engineered system. This approach can benefit customers from Exalogic optimization's of both kernel and JVM layers to boost performance in terms of 10X for web, OLTP, JMS and grid applications. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no investment on engineered systems: customers do not have the choice to deploy on a Java ultra fast system if their project becomes relevant and performance issues are detected. - WebLogic Server 12c maintains a performance gain across each new release: starting on WebLogic 5.1, the overall performance gain has been close to 4X, which close to a 20% gain release by release. JBoss on the other hand does not provide SPECJAppServer or SPECJEnterprise performance benchmarks. Their so called "performance gains" remains hidden in their customer environments, which lead us to think if it is true or not since we will never get access to those environments. - WebLogic Server 12c has industry performance benchmarks with submissions across platforms and configurations leading SPECJ. Oracle WebLogic leads SPECJAppServer performance in multiple categories, fitting all customer topologies like: dual-node, single-node, multi-node and multi-node with RAC. JBoss... again, does not provide any SPECJAppServer performance benchmarks. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called work manager which allows your application to embrace new performance levels based on critical resource utilization of the CPUs usage. Work managers prioritizes work and allocates threads based on an execution model that takes into account administrator-defined parameters and actual run-time performance and throughput. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no compared feature and probably they never will. Not supporting such feature like work managers, JBoss EAP 6 forces admin people and specially developers to uncover performance gains in a intrusive way, rewriting the code and doing performance refactorings. 11) Professional Services Support - WebLogic Server 12c and any other technology sold by Oracle give customers the possibility of hire OCS ("Oracle Consulting Services") to manage critical scenarios, deployment assistance of new applications, high skilled consultancy of architecture, best practices and people allocation together with customer teams. All OCS services are available without any restrictions, having the customer bought software from Oracle or just starting their implementation before any acquisition. JBoss EAP 6 or Red Hat to be more specifically, only offers professional services if you buy subscriptions from them. If you are developing a new critical application for your business and need the help of Red Hat for a serious issue or architecture decision, they will probably say: "OK... I can help you but after you buy subscriptions from me". Red Hat also does not allows their professional services consultants to manage environments that uses community based software. They will probably force you to first buy a subscription, download their "enterprise" version and them, optionally hire their consultants. - Oracle provides you our university to educate your team into our technologies, including of course specialized trainings of WebLogic application server. At any time and location, you can hire Oracle to train your team so you get trustful knowledge according to your specific needs. Certifications for the products are also available if your technical people desire to differentiate themselves as professionals. Red Hat on the other hand have a limited pool of resources to train your team in their technologies. Basically they are selling training and certification for RHEL ("Red Hat Enterprise Linux") but if you demand more specialized training in JBoss middleware, they will probably connect you to some "certified" partner localized training since they are apparently discontinuing their education center, at least here in Brazil. They were not able to reproduce their success with RHEL education to their middleware division since they need first sell the subscriptions to after gives you specialized training. And again, they only offer you specialized training based on their enterprise version (EAP in the case of JBoss) which means that the courses will be a quite outdated. There are reports of developers that took official training's from Red Hat at this year (2012) and in a certain JBoss advanced course, Red Hat supposedly covered JBossMQ as the messaging subsystem, and even the printed material provided was based on JBossMQ since the training was created for JBoss EAP 4.3. 12) Encouraging Transparency without Ulterior Motives - WebLogic Server 12c like any other software from Oracle can be downloaded any time from anywhere, you should only possess an OTN ("Oracle Technology Network") credential and you can download any enterprise software how many times you want. And is not some kind of "trial" version. It is the official binaries that will be running for ever in your data center. Oracle does not encourages the usage of "specific versions" of our software. The binaries you buy from Oracle are the same binaries anyone in the world could download and use for testing and personal education. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand are not available for download unless you buy a subscription and get access to the Red Hat enterprise repositories. If you need to test, learn or just start creating your application using Red Hat's middleware software, you should download it from the community website. You are not allowed to download the enterprise version that, according to Red Hat are more secure, reliable and robust. But no one of us want to start the development of a software with an unsecured, unreliable and not scalable middleware right? So what you do? You are "invited" by Red Hat to buy subscriptions from them to get access to the "cool" version of the software. - WebLogic Server 12c prices are publicly available in the Oracle website. If you want to know right now how much WebLogic will cost to your organization, just click here and get access to our price list. In the case of WebLogic, check out the "US Oracle Technology Commercial Price List". Oracle also encourages you to get in touch with a sales representative to discuss discounts that would make possible the investment into our technology. But you are not required to do this, only if you are interested in buying our technology or maybe you want to discuss some discount scenarios. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have its cost publicly available in Red Hat's website or in any other media, at least is not so easy to get such information. The only link you will possibly find in their website is a "Contact a Sales Representative" link. This is not a very good relationship between an customer and an vendor. This is not an example of transparency, mainly when the software are sold as open. In this situations, customers expects to see the software prices publicly available, so they can have the chance to decide, based on the existing features of the software, if the cost is fair or not. Conclusion Oracle WebLogic is the most mature, secure, reliable and scalable Java EE application server of the market, and have a proven record of success around the globe to prove it's majority. Don't lose the chance to discover today how WebLogic could fit your needs and sustain your global IT middleware strategy, no matter if your strategy are completely based on the Cloud or not.

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  • XNA Xbox 360 Content Manager Thread freezing Draw Thread

    - by Alikar
    I currently have a game that takes in large images, easily bigger than 1MB, to serve as backgrounds. I know exactly when this transition is supposed to take place, so I made a loader class to handle loading these large images in the background, but when I load the images it still freezes the main thread where the drawing takes place. Since this code runs on the 360 I move the thread to the 4th hardware thread, but that doesn't seem to help. Below is the class I am using. Any thoughts as to why my new content manager which should be in its own thread is interrupting the draw in my main thread would be appreciated. namespace FileSystem { /// <summary> /// This is used to reference how many objects reference this texture. /// Everytime someone references a texture we increase the iNumberOfReferences. /// When a class calls remove on a specific texture we check to see if anything /// else is referencing the class, if it is we don't remove it. If there isn't /// anything referencing the texture its safe to dispose of. /// </summary> class TextureContainer { public uint uiNumberOfReferences = 0; public Texture2D texture; } /// <summary> /// This class loads all the files from the Content. /// </summary> static class FileManager { static Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager Content; static EventWaitHandle wh = new AutoResetEvent(false); static Dictionary<string, TextureContainer> Texture2DResourceDictionary; static List<Texture2D> TexturesToDispose; static List<String> TexturesToLoad; static int iProcessor = 4; private static object threadMutex = new object(); private static object Texture2DMutex = new object(); private static object loadingMutex = new object(); private static bool bLoadingTextures = false; /// <summary> /// Returns if we are loading textures or not. /// </summary> public static bool LoadingTexture { get { lock (loadingMutex) { return bLoadingTextures; } } } /// <summary> /// Since this is an static class. This is the constructor for the file loadeder. This is the version /// for the Xbox 360. /// </summary> /// <param name="_Content"></param> public static void Initalize(IServiceProvider serviceProvider, string rootDirectory, int _iProcessor ) { Content = new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager(serviceProvider, rootDirectory); Texture2DResourceDictionary = new Dictionary<string, TextureContainer>(); TexturesToDispose = new List<Texture2D>(); iProcessor = _iProcessor; CreateThread(); } /// <summary> /// Since this is an static class. This is the constructor for the file loadeder. /// </summary> /// <param name="_Content"></param> public static void Initalize(IServiceProvider serviceProvider, string rootDirectory) { Content = new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager(serviceProvider, rootDirectory); Texture2DResourceDictionary = new Dictionary<string, TextureContainer>(); TexturesToDispose = new List<Texture2D>(); CreateThread(); } /// <summary> /// Creates the thread incase we wanted to set up some parameters /// Outside of the constructor. /// </summary> static public void CreateThread() { Thread t = new Thread(new ThreadStart(StartThread)); t.Start(); } // This is the function that we thread. static public void StartThread() { //BBSThreadClass BBSTC = (BBSThreadClass)_oData; FileManager.Execute(); } /// <summary> /// This thread shouldn't be called by the outside world. /// It allows the File Manager to loop. /// </summary> static private void Execute() { // Make sure our thread is on the correct processor on the XBox 360. #if WINDOWS #else Thread.CurrentThread.SetProcessorAffinity(new int[] { iProcessor }); Thread.CurrentThread.IsBackground = true; #endif // This loop will load textures into ram for us away from the main thread. while (true) { wh.WaitOne(); // Locking down our data while we process it. lock (threadMutex) { lock (loadingMutex) { bLoadingTextures = true; } bool bContainsKey = false; for (int con = 0; con < TexturesToLoad.Count; con++) { // If we have already loaded the texture into memory reference // the one in the dictionary. lock (Texture2DMutex) { bContainsKey = Texture2DResourceDictionary.ContainsKey(TexturesToLoad[con]); } if (bContainsKey) { // Do nothing } // Otherwise load it into the dictionary and then reference the // copy in the dictionary else { TextureContainer TC = new TextureContainer(); TC.uiNumberOfReferences = 1; // We start out with 1 referece. // Loading the texture into memory. try { TC.texture = Content.Load<Texture2D>(TexturesToLoad[con]); // This is passed into the dictionary, thus there is only one copy of // the texture in memory. // There is an issue with Sprite Batch and disposing textures. // This will have to wait until its figured out. lock (Texture2DMutex) { bContainsKey = Texture2DResourceDictionary.ContainsKey(TexturesToLoad[con]); Texture2DResourceDictionary.Add(TexturesToLoad[con], TC); } // We don't have the find the reference to the container since we // already have it. } // Occasionally our texture will already by loaded by another thread while // this thread is operating. This mainly happens on the first level. catch (Exception e) { // If this happens we don't worry about it since this thread only loads // texture data and if its already there we don't need to load it. } } Thread.Sleep(100); } } lock (loadingMutex) { bLoadingTextures = false; } } } static public void LoadTextureList(List<string> _textureList) { // Ensuring that we can't creating threading problems. lock (threadMutex) { TexturesToLoad = _textureList; } wh.Set(); } /// <summary> /// This loads a 2D texture which represents a 2D grid of Texels. /// </summary> /// <param name="_textureName">The name of the picture you wish to load.</param> /// <returns>Holds the image data.</returns> public static Texture2D LoadTexture2D( string _textureName ) { TextureContainer temp; lock (Texture2DMutex) { bool bContainsKey = false; // If we have already loaded the texture into memory reference // the one in the dictionary. lock (Texture2DMutex) { bContainsKey = Texture2DResourceDictionary.ContainsKey(_textureName); if (bContainsKey) { temp = Texture2DResourceDictionary[_textureName]; temp.uiNumberOfReferences++; // Incrementing the number of references } // Otherwise load it into the dictionary and then reference the // copy in the dictionary else { TextureContainer TC = new TextureContainer(); TC.uiNumberOfReferences = 1; // We start out with 1 referece. // Loading the texture into memory. try { TC.texture = Content.Load<Texture2D>(_textureName); // This is passed into the dictionary, thus there is only one copy of // the texture in memory. } // Occasionally our texture will already by loaded by another thread while // this thread is operating. This mainly happens on the first level. catch(Exception e) { temp = Texture2DResourceDictionary[_textureName]; temp.uiNumberOfReferences++; // Incrementing the number of references } // There is an issue with Sprite Batch and disposing textures. // This will have to wait until its figured out. Texture2DResourceDictionary.Add(_textureName, TC); // We don't have the find the reference to the container since we // already have it. temp = TC; } } } // Return a reference to the texture return temp.texture; } /// <summary> /// Go through our dictionary and remove any references to the /// texture passed in. /// </summary> /// <param name="texture">Texture to remove from texture dictionary.</param> public static void RemoveTexture2D(Texture2D texture) { foreach (KeyValuePair<string, TextureContainer> pair in Texture2DResourceDictionary) { // Do our references match? if (pair.Value.texture == texture) { // Only one object or less holds a reference to the // texture. Logically it should be safe to remove. if (pair.Value.uiNumberOfReferences <= 1) { // Grabing referenc to texture TexturesToDispose.Add(pair.Value.texture); // We are about to release the memory of the texture, // thus we make sure no one else can call this member // in the dictionary. Texture2DResourceDictionary.Remove(pair.Key); // Once we have removed the texture we don't want to create an exception. // So we will stop looking in the list since it has changed. break; } // More than one Object has a reference to this texture. // So we will not be removing it from memory and instead // simply marking down the number of references by 1. else { pair.Value.uiNumberOfReferences--; } } } } /*public static void DisposeTextures() { int Count = TexturesToDispose.Count; // If there are any textures to dispose of. if (Count > 0) { for (int con = 0; con < TexturesToDispose.Count; con++) { // =!THIS REMOVES THE TEXTURE FROM MEMORY!= // This is not like a normal dispose. This will actually // remove the object from memory. Texture2D is inherited // from GraphicsResource which removes it self from // memory on dispose. Very nice for game efficency, // but "dangerous" in managed land. Texture2D Temp = TexturesToDispose[con]; Temp.Dispose(); } // Remove textures we've already disposed of. TexturesToDispose.Clear(); } }*/ /// <summary> /// This loads a 2D texture which represnets a font. /// </summary> /// <param name="_textureName">The name of the font you wish to load.</param> /// <returns>Holds the font data.</returns> public static SpriteFont LoadFont( string _fontName ) { SpriteFont temp = Content.Load<SpriteFont>( _fontName ); return temp; } /// <summary> /// This loads an XML document. /// </summary> /// <param name="_textureName">The name of the XML document you wish to load.</param> /// <returns>Holds the XML data.</returns> public static XmlDocument LoadXML( string _fileName ) { XmlDocument temp = Content.Load<XmlDocument>( _fileName ); return temp; } /// <summary> /// This loads a sound file. /// </summary> /// <param name="_fileName"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static SoundEffect LoadSound( string _fileName ) { SoundEffect temp = Content.Load<SoundEffect>(_fileName); return temp; } } }

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  • symbolicatecrash - space in bundle name preventing method names to be show in the crash report

    - by Brett Hamlin
    I'm trying to debug a crash but when I run symbolicatecrash against my crash log I get every method call in the stack trace except for my method calls. Here is the crash report: Incident Identifier: C3A58923-5D49-4767-A3C2-3AFFEF00DFEF CrashReporter Key: 165f7337feeb98394ab7477fc0b7280d14a16e43 Hardware Model: iPad1,1 Process: Log Jam [2862] Path: /var/mobile/Applications/625E17A7-F0FF-4109-9E62-99FE8D6C6889/Log Jam.app/Log Jam Identifier: Log Jam Version: ??? (???) Code Type: ARM (Native) Parent Process: launchd [1] Date/Time: 2010-12-13 23:31:20.762 -0500 OS Version: iPhone OS 4.2.1 (8C148) Report Version: 104 Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT) Exception Codes: 0x00000000, 0x00000000 Crashed Thread: 0 Thread 0 Crashed: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7c2d4 __kill + 8 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7c2c4 kill + 4 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7c2b6 raise + 10 3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d90d72 abort + 50 4 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x34981a20 __gnu_cxx::__verbose_terminate_handler() + 376 5 libobjc.A.dylib 0x34a83594 _objc_terminate + 104 6 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x3497fdf2 __cxxabiv1::__terminate(void (*)()) + 46 7 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x3497fe46 std::terminate() + 10 8 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x3497ff16 __cxa_throw + 78 9 libobjc.A.dylib 0x34a824c4 objc_exception_throw + 64 10 CoreFoundation 0x3587a7c2 +[NSException raise:format:arguments:] + 62 11 CoreFoundation 0x3587a7fc +[NSException raise:format:] + 28 12 QuartzCore 0x31071222 CALayerSetPosition(CALayer*, CA::Vec2<double> const&, bool) + 134 13 QuartzCore 0x31071190 -[CALayer setPosition:] + 32 14 QuartzCore 0x310710dc -[CALayer setFrame:] + 384 15 UIKit 0x341aa0e2 -[UIView(Geometry) setFrame:] + 182 16 UIKit 0x341aad64 -[UILabel setFrame:] + 204 17 Log Jam 0x00052dec 0x1000 + 335340 18 Log Jam 0x0004934c 0x1000 + 295756 19 Log Jam 0x00048ffa 0x1000 + 294906 20 UIKit 0x341ef630 -[UINavigationController _startTransition:fromViewController:toViewController:] + 604 21 UIKit 0x341ef358 -[UINavigationController _startDeferredTransitionIfNeeded] + 176 22 UIKit 0x341e30be -[UINavigationController pushViewController:transition:forceImmediate:] + 634 23 UIKit 0x341e2e34 -[UINavigationController pushViewController:animated:] + 28 24 Log Jam 0x0002f792 0x1000 + 190354 25 UIKit 0x3420b834 -[UITableView _selectRowAtIndexPath:animated:scrollPosition:notifyDelegate:] + 656 26 UIKit 0x342cb60c -[UITableView _userSelectRowAtPendingSelectionIndexPath:] + 124 27 Foundation 0x31181df6 __NSFireDelayedPerform + 362 28 CoreFoundation 0x3583109c __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_TIMER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__ + 8 29 CoreFoundation 0x35830b54 __CFRunLoopDoTimer + 844 30 CoreFoundation 0x358021ae __CFRunLoopRun + 1082 31 CoreFoundation 0x35801c80 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 224 32 CoreFoundation 0x35801b88 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 52 33 GraphicsServices 0x320c84a4 GSEventRunModal + 108 34 GraphicsServices 0x320c8550 GSEventRun + 56 35 UIKit 0x341dc322 -[UIApplication _run] + 406 36 UIKit 0x341d9e8c UIApplicationMain + 664 37 Log Jam 0x00002172 0x1000 + 4466 38 Log Jam 0x0000213c 0x1000 + 4412 Thread 1: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d30974 kevent + 24 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30dda704 _dispatch_mgr_invoke + 88 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30dda174 _dispatch_queue_invoke + 96 3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30dd9b98 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 120 4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7e24a _pthread_wqthread + 258 5 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d76970 start_wqthread + 0 Thread 2: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7e9e0 __workq_kernreturn + 8 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7e364 _pthread_wqthread + 540 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d76970 start_wqthread + 0 Thread 3: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d04268 mach_msg_trap + 20 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d06354 mach_msg + 44 2 CoreFoundation 0x35802648 __CFRunLoopServiceMachPort + 88 3 CoreFoundation 0x35801ed2 __CFRunLoopRun + 350 4 CoreFoundation 0x35801c80 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 224 5 CoreFoundation 0x35801b88 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 52 6 WebCore 0x34bf6124 RunWebThread(void*) + 332 7 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7d886 _pthread_start + 242 8 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d72a88 thread_start + 0 Thread 4: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d04268 mach_msg_trap + 20 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d06354 mach_msg + 44 2 AudioToolbox 0x33c0eb96 AURemoteIO::IOThread::Entry(void*) + 54 3 AudioToolbox 0x33b4a1d2 CAPThread::Entry(CAPThread*) + 138 4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7d886 _pthread_start + 242 5 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d72a88 thread_start + 0 Thread 5: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d04268 mach_msg_trap + 20 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d06354 mach_msg + 44 2 CoreFoundation 0x35802648 __CFRunLoopServiceMachPort + 88 3 CoreFoundation 0x35801ed2 __CFRunLoopRun + 350 4 CoreFoundation 0x35801c80 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 224 5 CoreFoundation 0x35801b88 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 52 6 Foundation 0x3118e5f6 +[NSURLConnection(NSURLConnectionReallyInternal) _resourceLoadLoop:] + 206 7 Foundation 0x3116c192 -[NSThread main] + 38 8 Foundation 0x31165242 __NSThread__main__ + 966 9 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7d886 _pthread_start + 242 10 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d72a88 thread_start + 0 Thread 6: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d2868c select$DARWIN_EXTSN + 20 1 CoreFoundation 0x35839662 __CFSocketManager + 582 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d7d886 _pthread_start + 242 3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x30d72a88 thread_start + 0 Thread 0 crashed with ARM Thread State: r0: 0x00000000 r1: 0x00000000 r2: 0x00000001 r3: 0x3e3d52e8 r4: 0x00000006 r5: 0x3497f989 r6: 0x03b74ccc r7: 0x2fdfe3ac r8: 0x00000000 r9: 0x00000065 r10: 0x00236e70 r11: 0x344b5cd8 ip: 0x00000025 sp: 0x2fdfe3ac lr: 0x30d7c2cb pc: 0x30d7c2d4 cpsr: 0x000f0010 Binary Images: 0x1000 - 0xabfff +Log Jam armv7 <467edd9ddbc1a52a6bb7009036bc5360> /var/mobile/Applications/625E17A7-F0FF-4109-9E62-99FE8D6C6889/Log Jam.app/Log Jam 0x1ed000 - 0x1eefff dns.so armv7 <fcefecb2d5e095ba88127eec3af57ec0> /usr/lib/info/dns.so 0x2fe00000 - 0x2fe27fff dyld armv7 <06e6959cebb4a72e66c833e26ae64d26> /usr/lib/dyld 0x3001f000 - 0x30026fff libbz2.1.0.dylib armv7 <2989ea7a5cad2cfe91bd632b041d0ff4> /usr/lib/libbz2.1.0.dylib 0x30054000 - 0x3016afff libicucore.A.dylib armv7 <e7fbb2ac586567e574dc33d7bb5c4dc9> /usr/lib/libicucore.A.dylib 0x301cd000 - 0x302b6fff AudioCodecs armv7 <be315c1e4982718460819fb240042952> /System/Library/Frameworks/AudioToolbox.framework/AudioCodecs 0x302b7000 - 0x30366fff WebKit armv7 <644a1c6120578f896bed7121307aa2af> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/WebKit.framework/WebKit 0x30367000 - 0x3037dfff EAP8021X armv7 <36659ec2b9def7b5798a05327e369247> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/EAP8021X.framework/EAP8021X 0x303fc000 - 0x3051cfff CoreGraphics armv7 <2d7b40a7baca915ce78b1dd9a0d6433b> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/CoreGraphics 0x3056b000 - 0x3056bfff vecLib armv7 <e53d234e808c77d286161095f92c58cf> /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/vecLib 0x30641000 - 0x30700fff CFNetwork armv7 <02fe0e30e54fffdcbbbd02e8cb812c3a> /System/Library/Frameworks/CFNetwork.framework/CFNetwork 0x3075b000 - 0x3076efff libmis.dylib armv7 <855aefc263c6c20e6cf8723ea36125a2> /usr/lib/libmis.dylib 0x3076f000 - 0x307c4fff libvDSP.dylib armv7 <9365fc6cae1bff737257e74faf3b1f26> /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/libvDSP.dylib 0x307d8000 - 0x307defff StoreKit armv7 <f44ec361fe53962128632c6f3afd869b> /System/Library/Frameworks/StoreKit.framework/StoreKit 0x307e6000 - 0x307e8fff libgcc_s.1.dylib armv7 <e66758bcda6da5d7f9b54fa5c4de6da2> /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib 0x30811000 - 0x30813fff CrashReporterSupport armv7 <30a5f1edcdb9ffe868a620199a4cbe12> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CrashReporterSupport.framework/CrashReporterSupport 0x30821000 - 0x30853fff AppSupport armv7 <47c8055ac99f187174ca373b702ffa68> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppSupport.framework/AppSupport 0x30854000 - 0x30854fff Accelerate armv7 <29dd5f17440bbb6e8e42e11b6fceda9a> /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Accelerate 0x3091c000 - 0x30931fff libresolv.9.dylib armv7 <ea156820997ae9a2baf664d0f79f18d7> /usr/lib/libresolv.9.dylib 0x30b44000 - 0x30b46fff IOMobileFramebuffer armv7 <1040629f37795146c9dcac8ab1a868fc> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IOMobileFramebuffer.framework/IOMobileFramebuffer 0x30c45000 - 0x30c74fff SystemConfiguration armv7 <3f982c11b5526fc39a92d585c60d8a90> /System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/SystemConfiguration 0x30c78000 - 0x30c8dfff OpenAL armv7 <8ea22c729b71c6e7e19566b91a03afd2> /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenAL.framework/OpenAL 0x30c8e000 - 0x30c98fff AccountSettings armv7 <19c79f81d5d55fe2e6b618fcdc28258e> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AccountSettings.framework/AccountSettings 0x30d03000 - 0x30e14fff libSystem.B.dylib armv7 <138a43ab528bb428651e6aa7a2a7293c> /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib 0x30e16000 - 0x30e28fff PersistentConnection armv7 <cd2a699aa5036bdad0517603ba4db839> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PersistentConnection.framework/PersistentConnection 0x30e37000 - 0x30f1ffff libGLProgrammability.dylib armv7 <1f478a71783cd7eb4ae9ef6f2dcea803> /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGLES.framework/libGLProgrammability.dylib 0x30f20000 - 0x30f2bfff libz.1.dylib armv7 <fabaddbcbc8c02bab0261df9d78e0e25> /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib 0x30fc4000 - 0x31065fff Celestial armv7 <b411f4662383ec24dbfbcde8f4c23d67> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Celestial.framework/Celestial 0x31066000 - 0x31114fff QuartzCore armv7 <83a8e5f0033369e437069c1e758fed83> /System/Library/Frameworks/QuartzCore.framework/QuartzCore 0x31161000 - 0x31280fff Foundation armv7 <81d36041f04318cb51db5aafed9ce504> /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Foundation 0x312af000 - 0x312b4fff libMobileGestalt.dylib armv7 <5f73c7138ee1cb7103a98aec99f9ed88> /usr/lib/libMobileGestalt.dylib 0x312c3000 - 0x31306fff ManagedConfiguration armv7 <27ac7f05482a8aa9977150f34f9be6eb> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ManagedConfiguration.framework/ManagedConfiguration 0x31307000 - 0x31347fff CoreAudio armv7 <f32e03ee4c68f0db23f05afc9a3cc94c> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreAudio.framework/CoreAudio 0x31429000 - 0x3142cfff ApplePushService armv7 <9d1eb7b11f0f146c941efbab2c055606> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ApplePushService.framework/ApplePushService 0x318b5000 - 0x318d5fff PrintKit armv7 <02a9c6f4173a0673c4637a3b570345cd> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PrintKit.framework/PrintKit 0x31bd9000 - 0x31c02fff MobileCoreServices armv7 <54484a513761868149405df7fc29b5c0> /System/Library/Frameworks/MobileCoreServices.framework/MobileCoreServices 0x31c5e000 - 0x31c66fff MobileBluetooth armv7 <6d6c62f52219d27be50f1d7c39a68dc6> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileBluetooth.framework/MobileBluetooth 0x31c68000 - 0x31c6bfff CaptiveNetwork armv7 <a2af7147f5538d7669b14fa7b19b5a7c> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CaptiveNetwork.framework/CaptiveNetwork 0x31c6d000 - 0x31d16fff libxml2.2.dylib armv7 <b3d82f80a777cb1434052ea2d232e3df> /usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib 0x31d29000 - 0x31d2cfff IOSurface armv7 <deff02882166bf16d0765d68f0542cc8> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IOSurface.framework/IOSurface 0x31d2d000 - 0x31d2ffff MobileInstallation armv7 <8e6b0d9f642be06729ffdaaee97053b0> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileInstallation.framework/MobileInstallation 0x31d46000 - 0x31d4dfff AggregateDictionary armv7 <71372c95d4af7af787d0682a939e40ac> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AggregateDictionary.framework/AggregateDictionary 0x31e09000 - 0x31e4bfff CoreTelephony armv7 <96d3af505b9f2887e62c7e99c157733e> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreTelephony.framework/CoreTelephony 0x320c4000 - 0x320d0fff GraphicsServices armv7 <0099670dccd99466653956bf918d667a> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GraphicsServices.framework/GraphicsServices 0x33ae9000 - 0x33aebfff libAccessibility.dylib armv7 <3f0b58ea13d30f0cdb73f6ffe6d4e75c> /usr/lib/libAccessibility.dylib 0x33b49000 - 0x33c82fff AudioToolbox armv7 <657b327f2ceee9f22f9474f2f9bddbe6> /System/Library/Frameworks/AudioToolbox.framework/AudioToolbox 0x33cf8000 - 0x33d29fff VideoToolbox armv7 <bb7ff9014b1dabec2acce95d41f05b59> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/VideoToolbox.framework/VideoToolbox 0x33d2c000 - 0x33d2ffff libGFXShared.dylib armv7 <3a385ed495379116abbe50bc8cd5a612> /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGLES.framework/libGFXShared.dylib 0x33d30000 - 0x33d31fff CoreSurface armv7 <f7caaf43609cfe0e475dfe83790edb4d> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreSurface.framework/CoreSurface 0x33d61000 - 0x33d7afff libRIP.A.dylib armv7 <ee16b5cee12a8947c8e511ed51ae7fef> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Resources/libRIP.A.dylib 0x340dc000 - 0x34112fff CoreText armv7 <b9b5c21b2d2a28abc47842c78c026ddf> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreText.framework/CoreText 0x3415c000 - 0x3418ffff AddressBook armv7 <7c87e0175c8649d6832419da8a1cfac1> /System/Library/Frameworks/AddressBook.framework/AddressBook 0x341a5000 - 0x34526fff UIKit armv7 <de1cbd3219a74e4d41b30428f428e223> /System/Library/Frameworks/UIKit.framework/UIKit 0x34527000 - 0x345bafff ImageIO armv7 <5b5a294d4250eff866fdbf891b1e8b34> /System/Library/Frameworks/ImageIO.framework/ImageIO 0x345ca000 - 0x34607fff CoreMedia armv7 <4ea4d349e886206d1ecf5bae870f3f04> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreMedia.framework/CoreMedia 0x34632000 - 0x34636fff AssetsLibraryServices armv7 <e861a330d14702f148ca5133dcbe954c> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AssetsLibraryServices.framework/AssetsLibraryServices 0x34637000 - 0x34774fff MediaToolbox armv7 <a18bbcc41a38917fe0ae5e183d3f6b07> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MediaToolbox.framework/MediaToolbox 0x34775000 - 0x34822fff JavaScriptCore armv7 <3f2df600942dc72aad312b3cc98ec479> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/JavaScriptCore.framework/JavaScriptCore 0x34852000 - 0x3485bfff CoreVideo armv7 <2092d5deb6b234e04678b7c1878ccd81> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreVideo.framework/CoreVideo 0x3492e000 - 0x3493afff SpringBoardServices armv7 <137b75e19b2450c234dec88d538798ff> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SpringBoardServices.framework/SpringBoardServices 0x3493d000 - 0x34987fff libstdc++.6.dylib armv7 <53a6e7239c3908fa8c2915b65ff3b056> /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib 0x34a7d000 - 0x34b3efff libobjc.A.dylib armv7 <aaf5671a35f9ac20d5846703dafaf4c6> /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib 0x34b3f000 - 0x35127fff WebCore armv7 <d6bd9cf88ee82ab6b0e33e0ae1190772> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/WebCore.framework/WebCore 0x3520f000 - 0x352fcfff libiconv.2.dylib armv7 <c72b45f471df092dbd849081f7a3ef53> /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib 0x353e7000 - 0x353ecfff MobileKeyBag armv7 <cec3f3271fc267c32c169ed03e312d63> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileKeyBag.framework/MobileKeyBag 0x3549d000 - 0x354d5fff libCGFreetype.A.dylib armv7 <374bd566263e8929c10d50d6a6a48a46> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Resources/libCGFreetype.A.dylib 0x35553000 - 0x35560fff OpenGLES armv7 <a12565ffb5bb42e3019f1957cd4951d0> /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGLES.framework/OpenGLES 0x355b6000 - 0x355bcfff liblockdown.dylib armv7 <5bbd9b3f5cfece328f80c403a8805ce9> /usr/lib/liblockdown.dylib 0x357da000 - 0x358c0fff CoreFoundation armv7 <01441e01f5141a50ee723362e59ca400> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/CoreFoundation 0x35992000 - 0x3599ffff libbsm.0.dylib armv7 <0f4e595e6eb2170aceb729f32b5de8c2> /usr/lib/libbsm.0.dylib 0x35b60000 - 0x35babfff libBLAS.dylib armv7 <251c5ac7380802a16e30d827c027c637> /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/libBLAS.dylib 0x35bac000 - 0x35e46fff libLAPACK.dylib armv7 <2e77d87e96af938aacf0a6008e6fb89d> /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/libLAPACK.dylib 0x35fca000 - 0x35fd2fff MobileWiFi armv7 <b29d4c5e300ef81060e38f72bb583c02> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileWiFi.framework/MobileWiFi 0x3601b000 - 0x3603afff Bom armv7 <0f5fd6057bad5e1677869500d636821f> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Bom.framework/Bom 0x3603b000 - 0x3603cfff DataMigration armv7 <babbc72d4d48325de147d5103d7bc00d> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DataMigration.framework/DataMigration 0x3603d000 - 0x360acfff ProofReader armv7 <d2e62a8ab7e1460c7f6de8913c703e6d> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ProofReader.framework/ProofReader 0x360ad000 - 0x36129fff AVFoundation armv7 <4c7356c795e01bd5c21b00a409a07476> /System/Library/Frameworks/AVFoundation.framework/AVFoundation 0x3612f000 - 0x36137fff libkxld.dylib armv7 <854e82fe66feef01e54c7c8a209851ac> /usr/lib/system/libkxld.dylib 0x36138000 - 0x3616ffff Security armv7 <cd28e102950634ae7167ddee9c686d36> /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Security 0x36170000 - 0x361bdfff libsqlite3.dylib armv7 <55038e5c1d4d0dbdd94295e8cad7a9a4> /usr/lib/libsqlite3.dylib 0x361be000 - 0x361f8fff IOKit armv7 <eb932cc42d60e55d9a4d0691bcc3d9ad> /System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit 0x3623f000 - 0x3627efff libGLImage.dylib armv7 <a7c117c92607a512823d307b8fdd0151> /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGLES.framework/libGLImage.dylib As you can see, its not very helpful :-( Any help symbolicating this report would be much appreciated.

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  • How to deploy jBPM 3.2.2 console on Oracle 10g iAS

    - by Balint Pato
    Hi! Does anybody have experience regarding deployment of the jBPM Administration Console on Oracle 10g iAS? I successfully deployed it using an .ear, security mappings working, I can even login to the console, Hibernate finds the JNDI datasource but it cannot find the TransactionManager. I see no log, only the exception thrown in the jsf page: Can anybody help me? The hibernate.cfg.xml file now looks like this: <?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN" "http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd"> <hibernate-configuration> <session-factory> <!-- hibernate dialect --> <property name="hibernate.dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9Dialect</property> <!-- JDBC connection properties (begin) === <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class">org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver</property> <property name="hibernate.connection.url">jdbc:hsqldb:mem:jbpm</property> <property name="hibernate.connection.username">sa</property> <property name="hibernate.connection.password"></property> ==== JDBC connection properties (end) --> <property name="hibernate.cache.provider_class">org.hibernate.cache.HashtableCacheProvider</property> <!-- DataSource properties (begin) --> <property name="hibernate.connection.datasource">java:/JbpmDS</property> <!-- DataSource properties (end) --> <!-- JTA transaction properties (begin) --> <property name="hibernate.transaction.factory_class">org.hibernate.transaction.JTATransactionFactory</property> <!-- <property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class">org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup</property>--> <!-- JTA transaction properties (end) --> <!-- CMT transaction properties (begin) === <property name="hibernate.transaction.factory_class">org.hibernate.transaction.CMTTransactionFactory</property> <property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class">org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup</property> ==== CMT transaction properties (end) --> <!-- logging properties (begin) --> <property name="hibernate.show_sql">true</property> <property name="hibernate.format_sql">true</property> <property name="hibernate.use_sql_comments">true</property> <--==== logging properties (end) --> <!-- ############################################ --> <!-- # mapping files with external dependencies # --> <!-- ############################################ --> <!-- following mapping file has a dependendy on --> <!-- 'bsh-{version}.jar'. --> <!-- uncomment this if you don't have bsh on your --> <!-- classpath. you won't be able to use the --> <!-- script element in process definition files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/action/Script.hbm.xml"/> <!-- following mapping files have a dependendy on --> <!-- 'jbpm-identity.jar', mapping files --> <!-- of the pluggable jbpm identity component. --> <!-- Uncomment the following 3 lines if you --> <!-- want to use the jBPM identity mgmgt --> <!-- component. --> <!-- identity mappings (begin) --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/identity/User.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/identity/Group.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/identity/Membership.hbm.xml"/> <!-- identity mappings (end) --> <!-- following mapping files have a dependendy on --> <!-- the JCR API --> <!-- jcr mappings (begin) === <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/variableinstance/JcrNodeInstance.hbm.xml"/> ==== jcr mappings (end) --> <!-- ###################### --> <!-- # jbpm mapping files # --> <!-- ###################### --> <!-- hql queries and type defs --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/db/hibernate.queries.hbm.xml" /> <!-- graph.action mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/action/MailAction.hbm.xml"/> <!-- graph.def mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/def/ProcessDefinition.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/def/Node.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/def/Transition.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/def/Event.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/def/Action.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/def/SuperState.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/def/ExceptionHandler.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/instantiation/Delegation.hbm.xml"/> <!-- graph.node mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/node/StartState.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/node/EndState.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/node/ProcessState.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/node/Decision.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/node/Fork.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/node/Join.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/node/MailNode.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/node/State.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/node/TaskNode.hbm.xml"/> <!-- context.def mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/def/ContextDefinition.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/def/VariableAccess.hbm.xml"/> <!-- taskmgmt.def mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/def/TaskMgmtDefinition.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/def/Swimlane.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/def/Task.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/def/TaskController.hbm.xml"/> <!-- module.def mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/module/def/ModuleDefinition.hbm.xml"/> <!-- bytes mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/bytes/ByteArray.hbm.xml"/> <!-- file.def mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/file/def/FileDefinition.hbm.xml"/> <!-- scheduler.def mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/scheduler/def/CreateTimerAction.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/scheduler/def/CancelTimerAction.hbm.xml"/> <!-- graph.exe mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/exe/Comment.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/exe/ProcessInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/exe/Token.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/exe/RuntimeAction.hbm.xml"/> <!-- module.exe mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/module/exe/ModuleInstance.hbm.xml"/> <!-- context.exe mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/ContextInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/TokenVariableMap.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/VariableInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/variableinstance/ByteArrayInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/variableinstance/DateInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/variableinstance/DoubleInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/variableinstance/HibernateLongInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/variableinstance/HibernateStringInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/variableinstance/LongInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/variableinstance/NullInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/exe/variableinstance/StringInstance.hbm.xml"/> <!-- job mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/job/Job.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/job/Timer.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/job/ExecuteNodeJob.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/job/ExecuteActionJob.hbm.xml"/> <!-- taskmgmt.exe mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/exe/TaskMgmtInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/exe/TaskInstance.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/exe/PooledActor.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/exe/SwimlaneInstance.hbm.xml"/> <!-- logging mapping files --> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/logging/log/ProcessLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/logging/log/MessageLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/logging/log/CompositeLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/log/ActionLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/log/NodeLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/log/ProcessInstanceCreateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/log/ProcessInstanceEndLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/log/ProcessStateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/log/SignalLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/log/TokenCreateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/log/TokenEndLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/graph/log/TransitionLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/VariableLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/VariableCreateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/VariableDeleteLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/VariableUpdateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/variableinstance/ByteArrayUpdateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/variableinstance/DateUpdateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/variableinstance/DoubleUpdateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/variableinstance/HibernateLongUpdateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/variableinstance/HibernateStringUpdateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/variableinstance/LongUpdateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/context/log/variableinstance/StringUpdateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/log/TaskLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/log/TaskCreateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/log/TaskAssignLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/log/TaskEndLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/log/SwimlaneLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/log/SwimlaneCreateLog.hbm.xml"/> <mapping resource="org/jbpm/taskmgmt/log/SwimlaneAssignLog.hbm.xml"/> </session-factory> </hibernate-configuration> ---- edit --- I have already tried the hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class to set to the JBoss version (org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup) it did not work...well it's not that suprising...I'll try now: org.hibernate.transaction.OC4JTransactionManagerLookup I tried with CMT instead of JTA, but it didn't work also.

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  • Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

    - by raul.goycoolea
    @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Abstract   Reference architecture provides needed architectural information that can be provided in advance to an enterprise to enable consistent architectural best practices. Enterprise Reference Architecture helps business owners to actualize their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. It evaluates the IT systems, based on Reference Architecture goals, principles, and standards. It helps to reduce IT costs by increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc. Telecom Reference Architecture provides customers with the flexibility to view bundled service bills online with the provision of multiple services. It provides real-time, flexible billing and charging systems, to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Enterprises. It lays the foundation for a Telecom Reference Architecture by articulating the requirements, drivers, and pitfalls for telecom service providers. It describes generic reference architecture for telecom enterprises and moves on to explain how to achieve Enterprise Reference Architecture by using SOA.   Introduction   A Reference Architecture provides a methodology, set of practices, template, and standards based on a set of successful solutions implemented earlier. These solutions have been generalized and structured for the depiction of both a logical and a physical architecture, based on the harvesting of a set of patterns that describe observations in a number of successful implementations. It helps as a reference for the various architectures that an enterprise can implement to solve various problems. It can be used as the starting point or the point of comparisons for various departments/business entities of a company, or for the various companies for an enterprise. It provides multiple views for multiple stakeholders.   Major artifacts of the Enterprise Reference Architecture are methodologies, standards, metadata, documents, design patterns, etc.   Purpose of Reference Architecture   In most cases, architects spend a lot of time researching, investigating, defining, and re-arguing architectural decisions. It is like reinventing the wheel as their peers in other organizations or even the same organization have already spent a lot of time and effort defining their own architectural practices. This prevents an organization from learning from its own experiences and applying that knowledge for increased effectiveness.   Reference architecture provides missing architectural information that can be provided in advance to project team members to enable consistent architectural best practices.   Enterprise Reference Architecture helps an enterprise to achieve the following at the abstract level:   ·       Reference architecture is more of a communication channel to an enterprise ·       Helps the business owners to accommodate to their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. ·       Evaluates the IT systems based on Reference Architecture Principles ·       Reduces IT spending through increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc ·       A Real-time Integration Model helps to reduce the latency of the data updates Is used to define a single source of Information ·       Provides a clear view on how to manage information and security ·       Defines the policy around the data ownership, product boundaries, etc. ·       Helps with cost optimization across project and solution portfolios by eliminating unused or duplicate investments and assets ·       Has a shorter implementation time and cost   Once the reference architecture is in place, the set of architectural principles, standards, reference models, and best practices ensure that the aligned investments have the greatest possible likelihood of success in both the near term and the long term (TCO).     Common pitfalls for Telecom Service Providers   Telecom Reference Architecture serves as the first step towards maturity for a telecom service provider. During the course of our assignments/experiences with telecom players, we have come across the following observations – Some of these indicate a lack of maturity of the telecom service provider:   ·       In markets that are growing and not so mature, it has been observed that telcos have a significant amount of in-house or home-grown applications. In some of these markets, the growth has been so rapid that IT has been unable to cope with business demands. Telcos have shown a tendency to come up with workarounds in their IT applications so as to meet business needs. ·       Even for core functions like provisioning or mediation, some telcos have tried to manage with home-grown applications. ·       Most of the applications do not have the required scalability or maintainability to sustain growth in volumes or functionality. ·       Applications face interoperability issues with other applications in the operator's landscape. Integrating a new application or network element requires considerable effort on the part of the other applications. ·       Application boundaries are not clear, and functionality that is not in the initial scope of that application gets pushed onto it. This results in the development of the multiple, small applications without proper boundaries. ·       Usage of Legacy OSS/BSS systems, poor Integration across Multiple COTS Products and Internal Systems. Most of the Integrations are developed on ad-hoc basis and Point-to-Point Integration. ·       Redundancy of the business functions in different applications • Fragmented data across the different applications and no integrated view of the strategic data • Lot of performance Issues due to the usage of the complex integration across OSS and BSS systems   However, this is where the maturity of the telecom industry as a whole can be of help. The collaborative efforts of telcos to overcome some of these problems have resulted in bodies like the TM Forum. They have come up with frameworks for business processes, data, applications, and technology for telecom service providers. These could be a good starting point for telcos to clean up their enterprise landscape.   Industry Trends in Telecom Reference Architecture   Telecom reference architectures are evolving rapidly because telcos are facing business and IT challenges.   “The reality is that there probably is no killer application, no silver bullet that the telcos can latch onto to carry them into a 21st Century.... Instead, there are probably hundreds – perhaps thousands – of niche applications.... And the only way to find which of these works for you is to try out lots of them, ramp up the ones that work, and discontinue the ones that fail.” – Martin Creaner President & CTO TM Forum.   The following trends have been observed in telecom reference architecture:   ·       Transformation of business structures to align with customer requirements ·       Adoption of more Internet-like technical architectures. The Web 2.0 concept is increasingly being used. ·       Virtualization of the traditional operations support system (OSS) ·       Adoption of SOA to support development of IP-based services ·       Adoption of frameworks like Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) and IP Multimedia Subsystem ·       (IMS) to enable seamless deployment of various services over fixed and mobile networks ·       Replacement of in-house, customized, and stove-piped OSS/BSS with standards-based COTS products ·       Compliance with industry standards and frameworks like eTOM, SID, and TAM to enable seamless integration with other standards-based products   Drivers of Reference Architecture   The drivers of the Reference Architecture are Reference Architecture Goals, Principles, and Enterprise Vision and Telecom Transformation. The details are depicted below diagram. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Figure 1. Drivers for Reference Architecture @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Today’s telecom reference architectures should seamlessly integrate traditional legacy-based applications and transition to next-generation network technologies (e.g., IP multimedia subsystems). This has resulted in new requirements for flexible, real-time billing and OSS/BSS systems and implications on the service provider’s organizational requirements and structure.   Telecom reference architectures are today expected to:   ·       Integrate voice, messaging, email and other VAS over fixed and mobile networks, back end systems ·       Be able to provision multiple services and service bundles • Deliver converged voice, video and data services ·       Leverage the existing Network Infrastructure ·       Provide real-time, flexible billing and charging systems to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. ·       Support charging of advanced data services such as VoIP, On-Demand, Services (e.g.  Video), IMS/SIP Services, Mobile Money, Content Services and IPTV. ·       Help in faster deployment of new services • Serve as an effective platform for collaboration between network IT and business organizations ·       Harness the potential of converging technology, networks, devices and content to develop multimedia services and solutions of ever-increasing sophistication on a single Internet Protocol (IP) ·       Ensure better service delivery and zero revenue leakage through real-time balance and credit management ·       Lower operating costs to drive profitability   Enterprise Reference Architecture   The Enterprise Reference Architecture (RA) fills the gap between the concepts and vocabulary defined by the reference model and the implementation. Reference architecture provides detailed architectural information in a common format such that solutions can be repeatedly designed and deployed in a consistent, high-quality, supportable fashion. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Application Usage and how to achieve the Enterprise Level Reference Architecture using SOA.   • Telecom Reference Architecture • Enterprise SOA based Reference Architecture   Telecom Reference Architecture   Tele Management Forum’s New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) is an architectural framework for organizing, integrating, and implementing telecom systems. NGOSS is a component-based framework consisting of the following elements:   ·       The enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) is a business process framework. ·       The Shared Information Data (SID) model provides a comprehensive information framework that may be specialized for the needs of a particular organization. ·       The Telecom Application Map (TAM) is an application framework to depict the functional footprint of applications, relative to the horizontal processes within eTOM. ·       The Technology Neutral Architecture (TNA) is an integrated framework. TNA is an architecture that is sustainable through technology changes.   NGOSS Architecture Standards are:   ·       Centralized data ·       Loosely coupled distributed systems ·       Application components/re-use  ·       A technology-neutral system framework with technology specific implementations ·       Interoperability to service provider data/processes ·       Allows more re-use of business components across multiple business scenarios ·       Workflow automation   The traditional operator systems architecture consists of four layers,   ·       Business Support System (BSS) layer, with focus toward customers and business partners. Manages order, subscriber, pricing, rating, and billing information. ·       Operations Support System (OSS) layer, built around product, service, and resource inventories. ·       Networks layer – consists of Network elements and 3rd Party Systems. ·       Integration Layer – to maximize application communication and overall solution flexibility.   Reference architecture for telecom enterprises is depicted below. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 2. Telecom Reference Architecture   The major building blocks of any Telecom Service Provider architecture are as follows:   1. Customer Relationship Management   CRM encompasses the end-to-end lifecycle of the customer: customer initiation/acquisition, sales, ordering, and service activation, customer care and support, proactive campaigns, cross sell/up sell, and retention/loyalty.   CRM also includes the collection of customer information and its application to personalize, customize, and integrate delivery of service to a customer, as well as to identify opportunities for increasing the value of the customer to the enterprise.   The key functionalities related to Customer Relationship Management are   ·       Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of a customer request for products. ·       Create and manage customer profiles. ·       Manage all interactions with customers – inquiries, requests, and responses. ·       Provide updates to Billing and other south bound systems on customer/account related updates such as customer/ account creation, deletion, modification, request bills, final bill, duplicate bills, credit limits through Middleware. ·       Work with Order Management System, Product, and Service Management components within CRM. ·       Manage customer preferences – Involve all the touch points and channels to the customer, including contact center, retail stores, dealers, self service, and field service, as well as via any media (phone, face to face, web, mobile device, chat, email, SMS, mail, the customer's bill, etc.). ·       Support single interface for customer contact details, preferences, account details, offers, customer premise equipment, bill details, bill cycle details, and customer interactions.   CRM applications interact with customers through customer touch points like portals, point-of-sale terminals, interactive voice response systems, etc. The requests by customers are sent via fulfillment/provisioning to billing system for ordering processing.   2. Billing and Revenue Management   Billing and Revenue Management handles the collection of appropriate usage records and production of timely and accurate bills – for providing pre-bill usage information and billing to customers; for processing their payments; and for performing payment collections. In addition, it handles customer inquiries about bills, provides billing inquiry status, and is responsible for resolving billing problems to the customer's satisfaction in a timely manner. This process grouping also supports prepayment for services.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       To ensure that enterprise revenue is billed and invoices delivered appropriately to customers. ·       To manage customers’ billing accounts, process their payments, perform payment collections, and monitor the status of the account balance. ·       To ensure the timely and effective fulfillment of all customer bill inquiries and complaints. ·       Collect the usage records from mediation and ensure appropriate rating and discounting of all usage and pricing. ·       Support revenue sharing; split charging where usage is guided to an account different from the service consumer. ·       Support prepaid and post-paid rating. ·       Send notification on approach / exceeding the usage thresholds as enforced by the subscribed offer, and / or as setup by the customer. ·       Support prepaid, post paid, and hybrid (where some services are prepaid and the rest of the services post paid) customers and conversion from post paid to prepaid, and vice versa. ·       Support different billing function requirements like charge prorating, promotion, discount, adjustment, waiver, write-off, account receivable, GL Interface, late payment fee, credit control, dunning, account or service suspension, re-activation, expiry, termination, contract violation penalty, etc. ·       Initiate direct debit to collect payment against an invoice outstanding. ·       Send notification to Middleware on different events; for example, payment receipt, pre-suspension, threshold exceed, etc.   Billing systems typically get usage data from mediation systems for rating and billing. They get provisioning requests from order management systems and inquiries from CRM systems. Convergent and real-time billing systems can directly get usage details from network elements.   3. Mediation   Mediation systems transform/translate the Raw or Native Usage Data Records into a general format that is acceptable to billing for their rating purposes.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Mediation system in the end-to-end solution.   ·       Collect Usage Data Records from different data sources – like network elements, routers, servers – via different protocol and interfaces. ·       Process Usage Data Records – Mediation will process Usage Data Records as per the source format. ·       Validate Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Segregates Usage Data Records coming from each source to multiple, based on the segregation requirement of end Application. ·       Aggregates Usage Data Records based on the aggregation rule if any from different sources. ·       Consolidates multiple Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Delivers formatted Usage Data Records to different end application like Billing, Interconnect, Fraud Management, etc. ·       Generates audit trail for incoming Usage Data Records and keeps track of all the Usage Data Records at various stages of mediation process. ·       Checks duplicate Usage Data Records across files for a given time window.   4. Fulfillment   This area is responsible for providing customers with their requested products in a timely and correct manner. It translates the customer's business or personal need into a solution that can be delivered using the specific products in the enterprise's portfolio. This process informs the customers of the status of their purchase order, and ensures completion on time, as well as ensuring a delighted customer. These processes are responsible for accepting and issuing orders. They deal with pre-order feasibility determination, credit authorization, order issuance, order status and tracking, customer update on customer order activities, and customer notification on order completion. Order management and provisioning applications fall into this category.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       Issuing new customer orders, modifying open customer orders, or canceling open customer orders; ·       Verifying whether specific non-standard offerings sought by customers are feasible and supportable; ·       Checking the credit worthiness of customers as part of the customer order process; ·       Testing the completed offering to ensure it is working correctly; ·       Updating of the Customer Inventory Database to reflect that the specific product offering has been allocated, modified, or cancelled; ·       Assigning and tracking customer provisioning activities; ·       Managing customer provisioning jeopardy conditions; and ·       Reporting progress on customer orders and other processes to customer.   These applications typically get orders from CRM systems. They interact with network elements and billing systems for fulfillment of orders.   5. Enterprise Management   This process area includes those processes that manage enterprise-wide activities and needs, or have application within the enterprise as a whole. They encompass all business management processes that   ·       Are necessary to support the whole of the enterprise, including processes for financial management, legal management, regulatory management, process, cost, and quality management, etc.;   ·       Are responsible for setting corporate policies, strategies, and directions, and for providing guidelines and targets for the whole of the business, including strategy development and planning for areas, such as Enterprise Architecture, that are integral to the direction and development of the business;   ·       Occur throughout the enterprise, including processes for project management, performance assessments, cost assessments, etc.     (i) Enterprise Risk Management:   Enterprise Risk Management focuses on assuring that risks and threats to the enterprise value and/or reputation are identified, and appropriate controls are in place to minimize or eliminate the identified risks. The identified risks may be physical or logical/virtual. Successful risk management ensures that the enterprise can support its mission critical operations, processes, applications, and communications in the face of serious incidents such as security threats/violations and fraud attempts. Two key areas covered in Risk Management by telecom operators are:   ·       Revenue Assurance: Revenue assurance system will be responsible for identifying revenue loss scenarios across components/systems, and will help in rectifying the problems. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Revenue Assurance system in the end-to-end solution. o   Identify all usage information dropped when networks are being upgraded. o   Interconnect bill verification. o   Identify where services are routinely provisioned but never billed. o   Identify poor sales policies that are intensifying collections problems. o   Find leakage where usage is sent to error bucket and never billed for. o   Find leakage where field service, CRM, and network build-out are not optimized.   ·       Fraud Management: Involves collecting data from different systems to identify abnormalities in traffic patterns, usage patterns, and subscription patterns to report suspicious activity that might suggest fraudulent usage of resources, resulting in revenue losses to the operator.   The key roles and responsibilities of the system component are as follows:   o   Fraud management system will capture and monitor high usage (over a certain threshold) in terms of duration, value, and number of calls for each subscriber. The threshold for each subscriber is decided by the system and fixed automatically. o   Fraud management will be able to detect the unauthorized access to services for certain subscribers. These subscribers may have been provided unauthorized services by employees. The component will raise the alert to the operator the very first time of such illegal calls or calls which are not billed. o   The solution will be to have an alarm management system that will deliver alarms to the operator/provider whenever it detects a fraud, thus minimizing fraud by catching it the first time it occurs. o   The Fraud Management system will be capable of interfacing with switches, mediation systems, and billing systems   (ii) Knowledge Management   This process focuses on knowledge management, technology research within the enterprise, and the evaluation of potential technology acquisitions.   Key responsibilities of knowledge base management are to   ·       Maintain knowledge base – Creation and updating of knowledge base on ongoing basis. ·       Search knowledge base – Search of knowledge base on keywords or category browse ·       Maintain metadata – Management of metadata on knowledge base to ensure effective management and search. ·       Run report generator. ·       Provide content – Add content to the knowledge base, e.g., user guides, operational manual, etc.   (iii) Document Management   It focuses on maintaining a repository of all electronic documents or images of paper documents relevant to the enterprise using a system.   (iv) Data Management   It manages data as a valuable resource for any enterprise. For telecom enterprises, the typical areas covered are Master Data Management, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence. It is also responsible for data governance, security, quality, and database management.   Key responsibilities of Data Management are   ·       Using ETL, extract the data from CRM, Billing, web content, ERP, campaign management, financial, network operations, asset management info, customer contact data, customer measures, benchmarks, process data, e.g., process inputs, outputs, and measures, into Enterprise Data Warehouse. ·       Management of data traceability with source, data related business rules/decisions, data quality, data cleansing data reconciliation, competitors data – storage for all the enterprise data (customer profiles, products, offers, revenues, etc.) ·       Get online update through night time replication or physical backup process at regular frequency. ·       Provide the data access to business intelligence and other systems for their analysis, report generation, and use.   (v) Business Intelligence   It uses the Enterprise Data to provide the various analysis and reports that contain prospects and analytics for customer retention, acquisition of new customers due to the offers, and SLAs. It will generate right and optimized plans – bolt-ons for the customers.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Business Intelligence system at the Enterprise Level:   ·       It will do Pattern analysis and reports problem. ·       It will do Data Analysis – Statistical analysis, data profiling, affinity analysis of data, customer segment wise usage patterns on offers, products, service and revenue generation against services and customer segments. ·       It will do Performance (business, system, and forecast) analysis, churn propensity, response time, and SLAs analysis. ·       It will support for online and offline analysis, and report drill down capability. ·       It will collect, store, and report various SLA data. ·       It will provide the necessary intelligence for marketing and working on campaigns, etc., with cost benefit analysis and predictions.   It will advise on customer promotions with additional services based on loyalty and credit history of customer   ·       It will Interface with Enterprise Data Management system for data to run reports and analysis tasks. It will interface with the campaign schedules, based on historical success evidence.   (vi) Stakeholder and External Relations Management   It manages the enterprise's relationship with stakeholders and outside entities. Stakeholders include shareholders, employee organizations, etc. Outside entities include regulators, local community, and unions. Some of the processes within this grouping are Shareholder Relations, External Affairs, Labor Relations, and Public Relations.   (vii) Enterprise Resource Planning   It is used to manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the enterprise and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise wide system environment.   The key roles and responsibilities for Enterprise System are given below:   ·        It will handle responsibilities such as core accounting, financial, and management reporting. ·       It will interface with CRM for capturing customer account and details. ·       It will interface with billing to capture the billing revenue and other financial data. ·       It will be responsible for executing the dunning process. Billing will send the required feed to ERP for execution of dunning. ·       It will interface with the CRM and Billing through batch interfaces. Enterprise management systems are like horizontals in the enterprise and typically interact with all major telecom systems. E.g., an ERP system interacts with CRM, Fulfillment, and Billing systems for different kinds of data exchanges.   6. External Interfaces/Touch Points   The typical external parties are customers, suppliers/partners, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders. External interactions from/to a Service Provider to other parties can be achieved by a variety of mechanisms, including:   ·       Exchange of emails or faxes ·       Call Centers ·       Web Portals ·       Business-to-Business (B2B) automated transactions   These applications provide an Internet technology driven interface to external parties to undertake a variety of business functions directly for themselves. These can provide fully or partially automated service to external parties through various touch points.   Typical characteristics of these touch points are   ·       Pre-integrated self-service system, including stand-alone web framework or integration front end with a portal engine ·       Self services layer exposing atomic web services/APIs for reuse by multiple systems across the architectural environment ·       Portlets driven connectivity exposing data and services interoperability through a portal engine or web application   These touch points mostly interact with the CRM systems for requests, inquiries, and responses.   7. Middleware   The component will be primarily responsible for integrating the different systems components under a common platform. It should provide a Standards-Based Platform for building Service Oriented Architecture and Composite Applications. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Middleware component in the end-to-end solution.   ·       As an integration framework, covering to and fro interfaces ·       Provide a web service framework with service registry. ·       Support SOA framework with SOA service registry. ·       Each of the interfaces from / to Middleware to other components would handle data transformation, translation, and mapping of data points. ·       Receive data from the caller / activate and/or forward the data to the recipient system in XML format. ·       Use standard XML for data exchange. ·       Provide the response back to the service/call initiator. ·       Provide a tracking until the response completion. ·       Keep a store transitional data against each call/transaction. ·       Interface through Middleware to get any information that is possible and allowed from the existing systems to enterprise systems; e.g., customer profile and customer history, etc. ·       Provide the data in a common unified format to the SOA calls across systems, and follow the Enterprise Architecture directive. ·       Provide an audit trail for all transactions being handled by the component.   8. Network Elements   The term Network Element means a facility or equipment used in the provision of a telecommunications service. Such terms also includes features, functions, and capabilities that are provided by means of such facility or equipment, including subscriber numbers, databases, signaling systems, and information sufficient for billing and collection or used in the transmission, routing, or other provision of a telecommunications service.   Typical network elements in a GSM network are Home Location Register (HLR), Intelligent Network (IN), Mobile Switching Center (MSC), SMS Center (SMSC), and network elements for other value added services like Push-to-talk (PTT), Ring Back Tone (RBT), etc.   Network elements are invoked when subscribers use their telecom devices for any kind of usage. These elements generate usage data and pass it on to downstream systems like mediation and billing system for rating and billing. They also integrate with provisioning systems for order/service fulfillment.   9. 3rd Party Applications   3rd Party systems are applications like content providers, payment gateways, point of sale terminals, and databases/applications maintained by the Government.   Depending on applicability and the type of functionality provided by 3rd party applications, the integration with different telecom systems like CRM, provisioning, and billing will be done.   10. Service Delivery Platform   A service delivery platform (SDP) provides the architecture for the rapid deployment, provisioning, execution, management, and billing of value added telecom services. SDPs are based on the concept of SOA and layered architecture. They support the delivery of voice, data services, and content in network and device-independent fashion. They allow application developers to aggregate network capabilities, services, and sources of content. SDPs typically contain layers for web services exposure, service application development, and network abstraction.   SOA Reference Architecture   SOA concept is based on the principle of developing reusable business service and building applications by composing those services, instead of building monolithic applications in silos. It’s about bridging the gap between business and IT through a set of business-aligned IT services, using a set of design principles, patterns, and techniques.   In an SOA, resources are made available to participants in a value net, enterprise, line of business (typically spanning multiple applications within an enterprise or across multiple enterprises). It consists of a set of business-aligned IT services that collectively fulfill an organization’s business processes and goals. We can choreograph these services into composite applications and invoke them through standard protocols. SOA, apart from agility and reusability, enables:   ·       The business to specify processes as orchestrations of reusable services ·       Technology agnostic business design, with technology hidden behind service interface ·       A contractual-like interaction between business and IT, based on service SLAs ·       Accountability and governance, better aligned to business services ·       Applications interconnections untangling by allowing access only through service interfaces, reducing the daunting side effects of change ·       Reduced pressure to replace legacy and extended lifetime for legacy applications, through encapsulation in services   ·       A Cloud Computing paradigm, using web services technologies, that makes possible service outsourcing on an on-demand, utility-like, pay-per-usage basis   The following section represents the Reference Architecture of logical view for the Telecom Solution. The new custom built application needs to align with this logical architecture in the long run to achieve EA benefits.   Packaged implementation applications, such as ERP billing applications, need to expose their functions as service providers (as other applications consume) and interact with other applications as service consumers.   COT applications need to expose services through wrappers such as adapters to utilize existing resources and at the same time achieve Enterprise Architecture goal and objectives.   The following are the various layers for Enterprise level deployment of SOA. This diagram captures the abstract view of Enterprise SOA layers and important components of each layer. Layered architecture means decomposition of services such that most interactions occur between adjacent layers. However, there is no strict rule that top layers should not directly communicate with bottom layers.   The diagram below represents the important logical pieces that would result from overall SOA transformation. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 3. Enterprise SOA Reference Architecture 1.          Operational System Layer: This layer consists of all packaged applications like CRM, ERP, custom built applications, COTS based applications like Billing, Revenue Management, Fulfilment, and the Enterprise databases that are essential and contribute directly or indirectly to the Enterprise OSS/BSS Transformation.   ERP holds the data of Asset Lifecycle Management, Supply Chain, and Advanced Procurement and Human Capital Management, etc.   CRM holds the data related to Order, Sales, and Marketing, Customer Care, Partner Relationship Management, Loyalty, etc.   Content Management handles Enterprise Search and Query. Billing application consists of the following components:   ·       Collections Management, Customer Billing Management, Invoices, Real-Time Rating, Discounting, and Applying of Charges ·       Enterprise databases will hold both the application and service data, whether structured or unstructured.   MDM - Master data majorly consists of Customer, Order, Product, and Service Data.     2.          Enterprise Component Layer:   This layer consists of the Application Services and Common Services that are responsible for realizing the functionality and maintaining the QoS of the exposed services. This layer uses container-based technologies such as application servers to implement the components, workload management, high availability, and load balancing.   Application Services: This Service Layer enables application, technology, and database abstraction so that the complex accessing logic is hidden from the other service layers. This is a basic service layer, which exposes application functionalities and data as reusable services. The three types of the Application access services are:   ·       Application Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application level functionalities as a reusable service between BSS to BSS and BSS to OSS integration. This layer is enabled using disparate technology such as Web Service, Integration Servers, and Adaptors, etc.   ·       Data Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application data services as a reusable reference data service. This is done via direct interaction with application data. and provides the federated query.   ·       Network Access Service: This Service Layer exposes provisioning layer as a reusable service from OSS to OSS integration. This integration service emphasizes the need for high performance, stateless process flows, and distributed design.   Common Services encompasses management of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data such as information services, portal services, interaction services, infrastructure services, and security services, etc.   3.          Integration Layer:   This consists of service infrastructure components like service bus, service gateway for partner integration, service registry, service repository, and BPEL processor. Service bus will carry the service invocation payloads/messages between consumers and providers. The other important functions expected from it are itinerary based routing, distributed caching of routing information, transformations, and all qualities of service for messaging-like reliability, scalability, and availability, etc. Service registry will hold all contracts (wsdl) of services, and it helps developers to locate or discover service during design time or runtime.   • BPEL processor would be useful in orchestrating the services to compose a complex business scenario or process. • Workflow and business rules management are also required to support manual triggering of certain activities within business process. based on the rules setup and also the state machine information. Application, data, and service mediation layer typically forms the overall composite application development framework or SOA Framework.   4.          Business Process Layer: These are typically the intermediate services layer and represent Shared Business Process Services. At Enterprise Level, these services are from Customer Management, Order Management, Billing, Finance, and Asset Management application domains.   5.          Access Layer: This layer consists of portals for Enterprise and provides a single view of Enterprise information management and dashboard services.   6.          Channel Layer: This consists of various devices; applications that form part of extended enterprise; browsers through which users access the applications.   7.          Client Layer: This designates the different types of users accessing the enterprise applications. The type of user typically would be an important factor in determining the level of access to applications.   8.          Vertical pieces like management, monitoring, security, and development cut across all horizontal layers Management and monitoring involves all aspects of SOA-like services, SLAs, and other QoS lifecycle processes for both applications and services surrounding SOA governance.     9.          EA Governance, Reference Architecture, Roadmap, Principles, and Best Practices:   EA Governance is important in terms of providing the overall direction to SOA implementation within the enterprise. This involves board-level involvement, in addition to business and IT executives. At a high level, this involves managing the SOA projects implementation, managing SOA infrastructure, and controlling the entire effort through all fine-tuned IT processes in accordance with COBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology).   Devising tools and techniques to promote reuse culture, and the SOA way of doing things needs competency centers to be established in addition to training the workforce to take up new roles that are suited to SOA journey.   Conclusions   Reference Architectures can serve as the basis for disparate architecture efforts throughout the organization, even if they use different tools and technologies. Reference architectures provide best practices and approaches in the independent way a vendor deals with technology and standards. Reference Architectures model the abstract architectural elements for an enterprise independent of the technologies, protocols, and products that are used to implement an SOA. Telecom enterprises today are facing significant business and technology challenges due to growing competition, a multitude of services, and convergence. Adopting architectural best practices could go a long way in meeting these challenges. The use of SOA-based architecture for communication to each of the external systems like Billing, CRM, etc., in OSS/BSS system has made the architecture very loosely coupled, with greater flexibility. Any change in the external systems would be absorbed at the Integration Layer without affecting the rest of the ecosystem. The use of a Business Process Management (BPM) tool makes the management and maintenance of the business processes easy, with better performance in terms of lead time, quality, and cost. Since the Architecture is based on standards, it will lower the cost of deploying and managing OSS/BSS applications over their lifecycles.

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