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• Running Solaris 11 as a control domain on a T2000

  - by jsavit

  There is increased adoption of Oracle Solaris 11, and many customers are deploying it on systems that previously ran Solaris 10. That includes older T1-processor based systems like T1000 and T2000. Even though they are old (from 2005) and don't have the performance of current SPARC servers, they are still functional, stable servers that customers continue to operate. One reason to install Solaris 11 on them is that older machines are attractive for testing OS upgrades before updating current, production systems. Normally this does not present a challenge, because Solaris 11 runs on any T-series or M-series SPARC server. One scenario adds a complication: running Solaris 11 in a control domain on a T1000 or T2000 hosting logical domains. Solaris 11 pre-installed Oracle VM Server for SPARC incompatible with T1 Unlike Solaris 10, Solaris 11 comes with Oracle VM Server for SPARC preinstalled. The ldomsmanager package contains the logical domains manager for Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.2, which requires a SPARC T2, T2+, T3, or T4 server. It does not work with T1-processor systems, which are only supported by LDoms Manager 1.2 and earlier. The following screenshot shows what happens (bold font) if you try to use Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.x commands in a Solaris 11 control domain. The commands were issued in a control domain on a T2000 that previously ran Solaris 10. We also display the version of the logical domains manager installed in Solaris 11: root@t2000 psrinfo -vp The physical processor has 4 virtual processors (0-3) UltraSPARC-T1 (chipid 0, clock 1200 MHz) # prtconf|grep T SUNW,Sun-Fire-T200 # ldm -V Failed to connect to logical domain manager: Connection refused # pkg info ldomsmanager Name: system/ldoms/ldomsmanager Summary: Logical Domains Manager Description: LDoms Manager - Virtualization for SPARC T-Series Category: System/Virtualization State: Installed Publisher: solaris Version: 2.2.0.0 Build Release: 5.11 Branch: 0.175.0.8.0.3.0 Packaging Date: May 25, 2012 10:20:48 PM Size: 2.86 MB FMRI: pkg://solaris/system/ldoms/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.8.0.3.0:20120525T222048Z The 2.2 version of the logical domains manager will have to be removed, and 1.2 installed, in order to use this as a control domain. Preparing to change - create a new boot environment Before doing anything else, lets create a new boot environment: # beadm list BE Active Mountpoint Space Policy Created -- ------ ---------- ----- ------ ------- solaris NR / 2.14G static 2012-09-25 10:32 # beadm create solaris-1 # beadm activate solaris-1 # beadm list BE Active Mountpoint Space Policy Created -- ------ ---------- ----- ------ ------- solaris N / 4.82M static 2012-09-25 10:32 solaris-1 R - 2.14G static 2012-09-29 11:40 # init 0 Normally an init 6 to reboot would have been sufficient, but in the next step I reset the system anyway in order to put the system in factory default mode for a "clean" domain configuration. Preparing to change - reset to factory default There was a leftover domain configuration on the T2000, so I reset it to the factory install state. Since the ldm command is't working yet, it can't be done from the control domain, so I did it by logging onto to the service processor: $ ssh -X admin@t2000-sc Copyright (c) 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle Advanced Lights Out Manager CMT v1.7.9 Please login: admin Please Enter password: ******** sc> showhost Sun-Fire-T2000 System Firmware 6.7.10 2010/07/14 16:35 Host flash versions: OBP 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 13:48 Hypervisor 1.7.3.c 2010/07/09 15:14 POST 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 14:24 sc> bootmode config="factory-default" sc> poweroff Are you sure you want to power off the system [y/n]? y SC Alert: SC Request to Power Off Host. SC Alert: Host system has shut down. sc> poweron SC Alert: Host System has Reset At this point I rebooted into the new Solaris 11 boot environment, and Solaris commands showed it was running on the factory default configuration of a single domain owning all 32 CPUs and 32GB of RAM (that's what it looked like in 2005.) # psrinfo -vp The physical processor has 8 cores and 32 virtual processors (0-31) The core has 4 virtual processors (0-3) The core has 4 virtual processors (4-7) The core has 4 virtual processors (8-11) The core has 4 virtual processors (12-15) The core has 4 virtual processors (16-19) The core has 4 virtual processors (20-23) The core has 4 virtual processors (24-27) The core has 4 virtual processors (28-31) UltraSPARC-T1 (chipid 0, clock 1200 MHz) # prtconf|grep Mem Memory size: 32640 Megabytes Note that the older processor has 4 virtual CPUs per core, while current processors have 8 per core. Remove ldomsmanager 2.2 and install the 1.2 version The Solaris 11 pkg command is now used to remove the 2.2 version that shipped with Solaris 11: # pkg uninstall ldomsmanager Packages to remove: 1 Create boot environment: No Create backup boot environment: No Services to change: 2 PHASE ACTIONS Removal Phase 130/130 PHASE ITEMS Package State Update Phase 1/1 Package Cache Update Phase 1/1 Image State Update Phase 2/2 Finally, LDoms 1.2 installed via its install script, the same way it was done years ago: # unzip LDoms-1_2-Integration-10.zip # cd LDoms-1_2-Integration-10/Install/ # ./install-ldm Welcome to the LDoms installer. You are about to install the Logical Domains Manager package that will enable you to create, destroy and control other domains on your system. Given the capabilities of the LDoms domain manager, you can now change the security configuration of this Solaris instance using the Solaris Security Toolkit. ... ... normal install messages omitted ... The Solaris Security Toolkit applies to Solaris 10, and cannot be used in Solaris 11 (in which several things hardened by the Toolkit are already hardened by default), so answer b in the choice below: You are about to install the Logical Domains Manager package that will enable you to create, destroy and control other domains on your system. Given the capabilities of the LDoms domain manager, you can now change the security configuration of this Solaris instance using the Solaris Security Toolkit. Select a security profile from this list: a) Hardened Solaris configuration for LDoms (recommended) b) Standard Solaris configuration c) Your custom-defined Solaris security configuration profile Enter a, b, or c [a]: b ... other install messages omitted for brevity... After install I ensure that the necessary services are enabled, and verify the version of the installed LDoms Manager: # svcs ldmd STATE STIME FMRI online 22:00:36 svc:/ldoms/ldmd:default # svcs vntsd STATE STIME FMRI disabled Aug_19 svc:/ldoms/vntsd:default # ldm -V Logical Domain Manager (v 1.2-debug) Hypervisor control protocol v 1.3 Using Hypervisor MD v 1.1 System PROM: Hypervisor v. 1.7.3. @(#)Hypervisor 1.7.3.c 2010/07/09 15:14\015 OpenBoot v. 4.30.4. @(#)OBP 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 13:48 Set up control domain and domain services At this point we have a functioning LDoms 1.2 environment that can be configured in the usual fashion. One difference is that LDoms 1.2 behavior had 'delayed configuration mode (as expected) during initial configuration before rebooting the control domain. Another minor difference with a Solaris 11 control domain is that you define virtual switches using the 'vanity name' of the network interface, rather than the hardware driver name as in Solaris 10. # ldm list ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Notice: the LDom Manager is running in configuration mode. Configuration and resource information is displayed for the configuration under construction; not the current active configuration. The configuration being constructed will only take effect after it is downloaded to the system controller and the host is reset. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-c-- SP 32 32640M 3.2% 4d 2h 50m # ldm add-vdiskserver primary-vds0 primary # ldm add-vconscon port-range=5000-5100 primary-vcc0 primary # ldm add-vswitch net-dev=net0 primary-vsw0 primary # ldm set-mau 2 primary # ldm set-vcpu 8 primary # ldm set-memory 4g primary # ldm add-config initial # ldm list-spconfig factory-default initial [current] That's it, really. After reboot, we are ready to install guest domains. Summary - new wine in old bottles This example shows that (new) Solaris 11 can be installed on (old) T2000 servers and used as a control domain. The main activity is to remove the preinstalled Oracle VM Server for 2.2 and install Logical Domains 1.2 - the last version of LDoms to support T1-processor systems. I tested Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 guest domains running on this server and they worked without any surprises. This is a viable way to get further into Solaris 11 adoption, even on older T-series equipment.

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• Can Microsoft Build Appliances?

  - by andrewbrust

  Billy Hollis, my Visual Studio Live! colleague and fellow Microsoft Regional Director said recently, and I am paraphrasing, that the computing world, especially on the consumer side, has shifted from one of building hardware and software that makes things possible to do, to building products and technologies that make things easy to do.  Billy crystalized things perfectly, as he often does. In this new world of “easy to do,” Apple has done very well and Microsoft has struggled.  In the old world, customers wanted a Swiss Army Knife, with the most gimmicks and gadgets possible.  In the new world, people want elegantly cutlery.  They may want cake cutters and utility knives too, but they don’t want one device that works for all three tasks.  People don’t want tools, they want utensils.  People don’t want machines.  They want appliances. Microsoft Appliances: They Do Exist Microsoft has built a few appliance-like devices.  I would say XBox 360 is an appliance,  It’s versatile, mind you, but it’s the kind of thing you plug in, turn on and use, as opposed to set-up, tune, and open up to upgrade the internals.  Windows Phone 7 is an appliance too.  It’s a true smartphone, unlike Windows Mobile which was a handheld computer with a radio stack.  Zune is an appliance too, and a nice one.  It hasn’t attained much traction in the market, but that’s probably because the seminal consumer computing appliance -- the iPod – got there so much more quickly. In the embedded world, Mediaroom, Microsoft’s set-top product for the cable industry (used by AT&T U-Verse and others) is an appliance.  So is Microsoft’s Sync technology, used in Ford automobiles.  Even on the enterprise side, Microsoft has an appliance: SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse Edition (PDW) combines Microsoft software with select OEMs’ server, networking and storage hardware.  You buy the appliance units from the OEMs, plug them in, connect them and go. I would even say that Bing is an appliance.  Not in the hardware sense, mind you.  But from the software perspective, it’s a single-purpose product that you visit or run, use and then move on.  You don’t have to install it (except the iOS and Android native apps where it’s pretty straightforward), you don’t have to customize it, you don’t have to program it.  Basically, you just use it. Microsoft Appliances that Should Exist But Microsoft builds a bunch of things that are not appliances.  Media Center is not an appliance, and it most certainly should be.  Instead, it’s an app that runs on Windows 7.  It runs full-screen and you can use this configuration to conceal the fact that Windows is under it, but eventually something will cause you to abandon that masquerade (like Patch Tuesday). The next version of Windows Home Server won’t, in my opinion, be an appliance either.  Now that the Drive Extender technology is gone, and users can’t just add and remove drives into and from a single storage pool, the product is much more like a IT server and less like an appliance-premised one.  Much has been written about this decision by Microsoft.  I’ll just sum it up in one word: pity. Microsoft doesn’t have anything remotely appliance-like in the tablet category, either.  Until it does, it likely won’t have much market share in that space either.  And of course, the bulk of Microsoft’s product catalog on the business side is geared to enterprise machines and not personal appliances. Appliance DNA: They Gotta Have It. The consumerization of IT is real, because businesspeople are consumers too.  They appreciate the fit and finish of appliances at home, and they increasingly feel entitled to have it at work too.  Secure and reliable push email in a smartphone is necessary, but it isn’t enough.  People want great apps and a pleasurable user experience too.  The full Microsoft Office product is needed at work, but a PC with a keyboard and mouse, or maybe a touch screen that uses a stylus (or requires really small fingers), to run Office isn’t enough either.  People want a flawless touch experience available for the times they want to read and take quick notes.  Until Microsoft realizes this fully and internalizes it, it will suffer defeats in the consumer market and even setbacks in the business market.  Think about how slow the Office upgrade cycle is…now imagine if the next version of Office had a first-class alternate touch UI and consider the possible acceleration in adoption rates. Can Microsoft make the appliance switch?  Can the appliance mentality become pervasive at the company?  Can Microsoft hasten its release cycles dramatically and shed the “some assembly required” paradigm upon which many of its products are based?  Let’s face it, the chances that Microsoft won’t make this transition are significant. But there are also encouraging signs, and they should not be ignored.  The appliances we have already discussed, especially Xbox, Zune and Windows Phone 7, are the most obvious in this regard.  The fact that SQL Server has an appliance SKU now is a more subtle but perhaps also more significant outcome, because that product sits so smack in the middle of Microsoft’s enterprise stack.  Bing is encouraging too, especially given its integrated travel, maps and augmented reality capabilities.  As Bing gains market share, Microsoft has tangible proof that it can transform and win, even when everyone outside the company, and many within it, would bet otherwise. That Great Big Appliance in the Sky Perhaps the most promising (and evolving) proof points toward the appliance mentality, though, are Microsoft’s cloud offerings -- Azure and BPOS/Office 365.  While the cloud does not represent a physical appliance (quite the opposite in fact) its ability to make acquisition, deployment and use of technology simple for the user is absolutely an embodiment of the appliance mentality and spirit.  Azure is primarily a platform as a service offering; it doesn’t just provide infrastructure.  SQL Azure does likewise for databases.  And Office 365 does likewise for SharePoint, Exchange and Lync. You don’t administer, tune and manage servers; instead, you create databases or site collections or mailboxes and start using them. Upgrades come automatically, and it seems like releases will come more frequently.  Fault tolerance and content distribution is just there.  No muss.  No fuss.  You use these services; you don’t have to set them up and think about them.  That’s how appliances work.  To me, these signs point out that Microsoft has the full capability of transforming itself.  But there’s a lot of work ahead.  Microsoft may say they’re “all in” on the cloud, but the majority of the company is still oriented around its old products and models.  There needs to be a wholesale cultural transformation in Redmond.  It can happen, but product management, program management, the field and executive ranks must unify in the effort. So must partners, and even customers.  New leaders must rise up and Microsoft must be able to see itself as a winner.  If Microsoft does this, it could lock-in decades of new success, and be a standard business school case study for doing so.  If not, the company will have missed an opportunity, and may see its undoing.

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• The SPARC SuperCluster

  - by Karoly Vegh

  Oracle has been providing a lead in the Engineered Systems business for quite a while now, in accordance with the motto "Hardware and Software Engineered to Work Together." Indeed it is hard to find a better definition of these systems.  Allow me to summarize the idea. It is:  Build a compute platform optimized to run your technologies Develop application aware, intelligently caching storage components Take an impressively fast network technology interconnecting it with the compute nodes Tune the application to scale with the nodes to yet unseen performance Reduce the amount of data moving via compression Provide this all in a pre-integrated single product with a single-pane management interface All these ideas have been around in IT for quite some time now. The real Oracle advantage is adding the last one to put these all together. Oracle has built quite a portfolio of Engineered Systems, to run its technologies - and run those like they never ran before. In this post I'll focus on one of them that serves as a consolidation demigod, a multi-purpose engineered system.  As you probably have guessed, I am talking about the SPARC SuperCluster. It has many great features inherited from its predecessors, and it adds several new ones. Allow me to pick out and elaborate about some of the most interesting ones from a technological point of view.  I. It is the SPARC SuperCluster T4-4. That is, as compute nodes, it includes SPARC T4-4 servers that we learned to appreciate and respect for their features: The SPARC T4 CPUs: Each CPU has 8 cores, each core runs 8 threads. The SPARC T4-4 servers have 4 sockets. That is, a single compute node can in parallel, simultaneously  execute 256 threads. Now, a full-rack SPARC SuperCluster has 4 of these servers on board. Remember the keyword demigod.  While retaining the forerunner SPARC T3's exceptional throughput, the SPARC T4 CPUs raise the bar with single performance too - a humble 5x better one than their ancestors.  actually, the SPARC T4 CPU cores run in both single-threaded and multi-threaded mode, and switch between these two on-the-fly, fulfilling not only single-threaded OR multi-threaded applications' needs, but even mixed requirements (like in database workloads!). Data security, anyone? Every SPARC T4 CPU core has a built-in encryption engine, that is, encryption algorithms cast into silicon.  A PCI controller right on the chip for customers who need I/O performance.  Built-in, no-cost Virtualization:  Oracle VM for SPARC (the former LDoms or Logical Domains) is not a server-emulation virtualization technology but rather a serverpartitioning one, the hypervisor runs in the server firmware, and all the VMs' HW resources (I/O, CPU, memory) are accessed natively, without performance overhead.  This enables customers to run a number of Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 VMs separated, independent of each other within a physical server II. For Database performance, it includes Exadata Storage Cells - one of the main reasons why the Exadata Database Machine performs at diabolic speed. What makes them important? They provide DB backend storage for your Oracle Databases to run on the SPARC SuperCluster, that is what they are built and tuned for DB performance.  These storage cells are SQL-aware.  That is, if a SPARC T4 database compute node executes a query, it doesn't simply request tons of raw datablocks from the storage, filters the received data, and throws away most of it where the statement doesn't apply, but provides the SQL query to the storage node too. The storage cell software speaks SQL, that is, it is able to prefilter and through that transfer only the relevant data. With this, the traffic between database nodes and storage cells is reduced immensely. Less I/O is a good thing - as they say, all the CPUs of the world do one thing just as fast as any other - and that is waiting for I/O.  They don't only pre-filter, but also provide data preprocessing features - e.g. if a DB-node requests an aggregate of data, they can calculate it, and handover only the results, not the whole set. Again, less data to transfer.  They support the magical HCC, (Hybrid Columnar Compression). That is, data can be stored in a precompressed form on the storage. Less data to transfer.  Of course one can't simply rely on disks for performance, there is Flash Storage included there for caching.  III. The low latency, high-speed backbone network: InfiniBand, that interconnects all the members with: Real High Speed: 40 Gbit/s. Full Duplex, of course. Oh, and a really low latency.  RDMA. Remote Direct Memory Access. This technology allows the DB nodes to do exactly that. Remotely, directly placing SQL commands into the Memory of the storage cells. Dodging all the network-stack bottlenecks, avoiding overhead, placing requests directly into the process queue.  You can also run IP over InfiniBand if you please - that's the way the compute nodes can communicate with each other.  IV. Including a general-purpose storage too: the ZFSSA, which is a unified storage, providing NAS and SAN access too, with the following features:  NFS over RDMA over InfiniBand. Nothing is faster network-filesystem-wise.  All the ZFS features onboard, hybrid storage pools, compression, deduplication, snapshot, replication, NFS and CIFS shares Storageheads in a HA-Cluster configuration providing availability of the data  DTrace Live Analytics in a web-based Administration UI Being a general purpose application data storage for your non-database applications running on the SPARC SuperCluster over whichever protocol they prefer, easily replicating, snapshotting, cloning data for them.  There's a lot of great technology included in Oracle's SPARC SuperCluster, we have talked its interior through. As for external scalability: you can start with a half- of full- rack SPARC SuperCluster, and scale out to several racks - that is, stacking not separate full-rack SPARC SuperClusters, but extending always one large instance of the size of several full-racks. Yes, over InfiniBand network. Add racks as you grow.  What technologies shall run on it? SPARC SuperCluster is a general purpose scaleout consolidation/cloud environment. You can run Oracle Databases with RAC scaling, or Oracle Weblogic (end enjoy the SPARC T4's advantages to run Java). Remember, Oracle technologies have been integrated with the Oracle Engineered Systems - this is the Oracle on Oracle advantage. But you can run other software environments such as SAP if you please too. Run any application that runs on Oracle Solaris 10 or Solaris 11. Separate them in Virtual Machines, or even Oracle Solaris Zones, monitor and manage those from a central UI. Here the key takeaways once again: The SPARC SuperCluster: Is a pre-integrated Engineered System Contains SPARC T4-4 servers with built-in virtualization, cryptography, dynamic threading Contains the Exadata storage cells that intelligently offload the burden of the DB-nodes  Contains a highly available ZFS Storage Appliance, that provides SAN/NAS storage in a unified way Combines all these elements over a high-speed, low-latency backbone network implemented with InfiniBand Can grow from a single half-rack to several full-rack size Supports the consolidation of hundreds of applications To summarize: All these technologies are great by themselves, but the real value is like in every other Oracle Engineered System: Integration. All these technologies are tuned to perform together. Together they are way more than the sum of all - and a careful and actually very time consuming integration process is necessary to orchestrate all these for performance. The SPARC SuperCluster's goal is to enable infrastructure operations and offer a pre-integrated solution that can be architected and delivered in hours instead of months of evaluations and tests. The tedious and most importantly time and resource consuming part of the work - testing and evaluating - has been done.  Now go, provide services.   -- charlie  

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• Master Data

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Let's take a deeper look at what we mean when we talk about 'Master' data. In its most general sense, master data is data that exists in more than one operational application. These are the applications that automate business processes. These applications require significant amounts of data to function correctly.  This includes data about the objects that are involved in transactions, as well as the transaction data itself.  For example, when a customer buys a product, the transaction is managed by a sales application.  The objects of the transaction are the Customer and the Product.  The transactional data is the time, place, price, discount, payment methods, etc. used at the point of sale. Many thousands of transactional data attributes are needed within the application. These important data elements are local to the applications and have no bearing on other applications. Harmonization and synchronization across applications is not necessary. The Customer and Product objects of the transaction also have a large number of attributes. Customer for example, includes hierarchies, hierarchical and matrixed relationships, contacts, classifications, preferences, accounts, identifiers, profiles, and addresses galore for 'ship to', 'mail to'; 'service at'; etc. Dozens of attributes exist for individuals, hundreds for organizations, and thousands for products. This data has meaning beyond any particular application. It exists in many applications and drives the vital cross application enterprise business processes. These are the processes that define and differentiate the organization. At every decision point, information about the objects of the process determines the direction of the process flow. This is the nature of the data that exists in more than one application, and this is why we call it 'master data'. Let me elaborate. Parties Oracle has developed a party schema to model all participants in your daily business operations. It models people, organizations, groups, customers, contacts, employees, and suppliers. It models their accounts, locations, classifications, and preferences.  And most importantly, it models the vast array of hierarchical and matrixed relationships that exist between all the participants in your real world operations.  The model logically separates people and organizations from their relationships and accounts.  This separation creates flexibility unmatched in the industry and accounts for the fact that the Oracle schema for Customers, Suppliers, and Accounts is a true superset of the wide variety of commercial and homegrown customer models in existence. Sites Sites are places where business is conducted. They can be addresses, clusters such as retail malls, locations within a cluster, floors within a building, places where meters are located, rooms on floors, etc.  Fully understanding all attributes of a site is key to many business processes. Attributes such as 'noise abatement policy' at a point of delivery, or the size of an oven in a business kitchen drive day-to-day activities such as delivery schedules or food promotions. Typically this kind of data is siloed in departments and scattered across applications and spreadsheets.  This leads to conflicting information and poor operational efficiencies. Oracle's Global Single Schema can hold all site attributes in one place and enables a single version of authoritative site information across the enterprise. Products and Services The Oracle Global Single Schema also includes a number of entities that define the products and services a company creates and offers for sale. Key entities include Items organized into Catalogs and Price Lists. The Catalog structures provide for the ability to capture different views of a product such as engineering, manufacturing, and service which are based on a unified product model. As a result, designers, manufacturing engineers, purchasers and partners can work simultaneously on a common product definition. The Catalog schema allows for unlimited attributes, combines them into meaningful groups, and maps them to catalog categories to track these different types of information. The model also maps an unlimited number of functional structures for each item. For example, multiple Bills of Material (BOMs) can be constructed representing requirements BOM, features BOM, and packaging BOM for an item. The Catalog model also supports hierarchical information about each item and all standard Global Data Synchronization attributes. Business Processes Utilizing Linked Data Entities Each business entity codified into a centralized master data environment significantly improves the efficiency of the automated business processes that use the consolidated data.  When all the key business entities used by an organization's process are so consolidated, the advantages are multiplied.  The primary reason for business process breakdowns (i.e. data errors across application boundaries) is eliminated. All processes are positively impacted and business process automation is itself automated.  I like to use the "Call to Resolution" business process as an example to help illustrate this important point. It involves call center applications, service applications, RMA applications, transportation applications, inventory applications, etc. Customer, Site, Product and Supplier master data must all be correct and consistent across these applications.  What's more, the data relationships between customer and product, and product and suppliers must be right. This is the minimum quality needed to insure the business process flows without error. But that is not the end of the story. Critical master data attributes such as customer loyalty, profitability, credit worthiness, and propensity to buy can optimize the call center point of contact component of the process. Critical product information such as alternative parts or equivalent products can optimize the resolution selected by the process. A comprehensive understanding of the 'service at' location can help insure multiple trips are avoided in the process. Full supplier information on reliability, delivery delays, and potential alternates can prevent supplier exceptions and play a significant role in optimizing the process.  In other words, these master data attributes enable the optimization of the "Call to Resolution" enterprise business process. Master data supports and guides business process flows. Thus the phrase 'Master Data' is indeed appropriate. MDM is the software that houses, manages, and governs the master data that resides in all applications and controls the enterprise business processes. A complete master data solution takes a data model that holds fully attributed master data entities and their inter-relationships. Oracle has this model. Oracle, with its deep understanding of application data is the logical choice for managing all your master data within the enterprise whether or not your organization actually runs any Oracle Applications.

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• Azure Diagnostics: The Bad, The Ugly, and a Better Way

  - by jasont

  If you’re a .Net web developer today, no doubt you’ve enjoyed watching Windows Azure grow up over the past couple of years. The platform has scaled, stabilized (mostly), and added on a slew of great (and sometimes overdue) features. What was once just an endpoint to host a solution, developers today have tremendous flexibility and options in the platform. Organizations are building new solutions and offerings on the platform, and others have, or are in the process of, migrating existing applications out of their own data centers into the Azure cloud. Whether new application development or migrating legacy, every development shop and IT organization needs to monitor their applications in the cloud, the same as they do on premises. Azure Diagnostics has some capabilities, but what I constantly hear from users is that it’s either (a) not enough, or (b) too cumbersome to set up. Today, Stackify is happy to announce that we fully support Azure deployments, just the same as your on-premises deployments. Let’s take a look below and compare and contrast the options. Azure Diagnostics Let’s crack open the Windows Azure documentation on Azure Diagnostics and see just how easy it is to use. The high level steps are:   Step 1: Import the Diagnostics Oh, I’ve already deployed my app without the diagnostics module. Guess I can’t do anything until I do this and re-deploy. Step 2: Configure the Diagnostics (and multiple sub-steps) Do I want it all? Or just pieces of it? Whoops, forgot to include a specific performance counter, I guess I’ll have to deploy again. Wait a minute… I have to specifically code these performance counters into my role’s OnStart() method, compile and deploy again? And query and consume it myself? Step 3: (Optional) Permanently store diagnostic data Lucky for me, Azure storage has gotten pretty cheap. But how often should I move the data into storage? I want to see real-time data, so I guess that’s out now as well. Step 4: (Optional) View stored diagnostic data Optional? Of course I want to see it. Conveniently, Microsoft recommends 3 tools to do this with. Un-conveniently, none of these are web based and they all just give you access to raw data, and very little charting or real-time intelligence. Just….. data. Nevermind that one product seems to have gotten stale since a recent acquisition, and doesn’t even have screenshots!   So, let’s summarize: lots of diagnostics data is available, but think realistically. Think Dev Ops. What happens when you are in the middle of a major production performance issue and you don’t have the diagnostics you need? You are redeploying an application (and thankfully you have a great branching strategy, so you feel perfectly safe just willy-nilly launching code into prod, don’t you?) to get data, then shipping it to storage, and then digging through that data to find a needle in a haystack. Would you like to be able to troubleshoot a performance issue in the middle of the night, or on a weekend, from your iPad or home computer’s web browser? Forget it: the best you get is this spark line in the Azure portal. If it’s real pointy, you probably have an issue; but since there is no alert based on a threshold your customers have likely already let you know. And high CPU, Memory, I/O, or Network doesn’t tell you anything about where the problem is. The Better Way – Stackify Stackify supports application and server monitoring in real time, all through a great web interface. All of the things that Azure Diagnostics provides, Stackify provides for your on-premises deployments, and you don’t need to know ahead of time that you’ll need it. It’s always there, it’s always on. Azure deployments are essentially no different than on-premises. It’s a Windows Server (or Linux) in the cloud. It’s behind a different firewall than your corporate servers. That’s it. Stackify can provide the same powerful tools to your Azure deployments in two simple steps. Step 1 Add a startup task to your web or worker role and deploy. If you can’t deploy and need it right now, no worries! Remote Desktop to the Azure instance and you can execute a Powershell script to download / install Stackify.   Step 2 Log in to your account at www.stackify.com and begin monitoring as much as you want, as often as you want and see the results instantly. WMI? It’s there Event Viewer? You’ve got it. File System Access? Yes, please! Would love to make sure my web.config is correct.   IIS / App Pool Info? Yep. You can even restart it. Running Services? All of them. Start and Stop them to your heart’s content. SQL Database access? You bet’cha. Alerts and Notification? Of course! You should know before your customers let you know. … and so much more.   Conclusion Microsoft has shown, consistently, that they love developers, developers, developers. What every developer needs to realize from this is that they’ve given you a canvas, which is exactly what Azure is. It’s great infrastructure that is readily available, easy to manage, and fairly cost effective. However, the tooling is your responsibility. What you get, at best, is bare bones. App and server diagnostics should be available when you need them. While we, as developers, try to plan for and think of everything ahead of time, there will come times where we need to get data that just isn’t available. And having to go through a lot of cumbersome steps to get that data, and then have to find a friendlier way to consume it…. well, that just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’d rather spend my time writing and developing features and completing bug fixes for my applications, than to be writing code to monitor and diagnose.

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• Thou shalt not put code on a piedestal - Code is a tool, no more, no less

  - by Ralf Westphal

  “Write great code and everything else becomes easier” is what Paul Pagel believes in. That´s his version of an adage by Brian Marick he cites: “treat code as an end, not just a means.” And he concludes: “My post-Agile world is software craftsmanship.” I wonder, if that´s really the way to go. Will “simply” writing great code lead the software industry into the light? He´s alluding to the philosopher Kant who proposed, a human beings should never be treated as a means, but always as an end. But should we transfer this ethical statement into the world of software? I doubt it.   Reason #1: Human beings are categorially different from code. They are autonomous entities who need to find a way of living happily together. To Kant it seemed this goal could only be reached if nobody (ab)used a human being for his/her purposes. Because using a human being, i.e. treating it as a means, would contradict the fundamental autonomy and freedom of human beings. People should hold up a symmetric view of their relationships: Since nobody wants to be (ab)used, nobody should (ab)use anybody else. If you want to be treated decently, with respect, in accordance with your own free will - which means as an end - then do the same to other people. Code is dead, it´s a product, it´s a tool for people to reach their goals. No company spends any money on code other than to save money or earn money in the long run. Code is not a puppy. Enterprises do not commission software development to just feel good in its company. Code is not a buddy. Code is a slave, if you will. A mechanical slave, a non-tangible robot. Code is a tool, is a tool. And if we start to treat it differently, if we elevate its status unduely… I guess that will contort our relationship in a contraproductive way. Please get me right: Just because something is “just a tool”, “just a product” does not mean we should not be careful while designing, building, using it. Right to the contrary. We should be very careful when writing code – but not for the code´s sake! We should be careful because we respect our customers who are fellow human beings who should be treated as an end. If we are careless, neglectful, ignorant when producing code on their behalf, then we´re using them. Being sloppy means you´re caring more for yourself that for your customer. You´re then treating the customer as a means to fulfill some of your own needs. That´s plain unethical behavior.   Reason #2: The focus should always be on your purpose, not on any tool. But if code is treated as an end, then the focus is on the code. That might sound right, because where else should be your focus as a software developer? But, well, I´d say, your focus should be on delivering value to your customer. Because in the end your customer does not care if you write a single line of code. She just wants her problem to be solved. Solving problems is the purpose of any contractor. Code must be treated just as a means, a tool we know how to handle very well. But if we´re really trying to be craftsmen then we should be conscious about exactly that and act ethically. That means we must never be so focused on our tool as to be unable to suggest better solutions to the problems of our customers than code.   I´m all with Paul when he urges us to “Write great code”. Sure, if you need to write code, then by all means do so. Write the best code you can think of – and then try to improve it. Paul has all the best intentions when he signs Brians “treat code as an end” - but as we all know: “The road to hell is paved with best intentions” ;-) Yes, I can imagine a “hell of code focus”. In fact, I don´t need to imagine it, I´m seeing it quite often. Because code hell is whereever two developers stand together and are so immersed in talking about all sorts of coding tricks, design patterns, code smells, technologies, platforms, tools that they lose sight of the big picture. Talking about TDD or SOLID or refactoring is a sign of consciousness – relative to the “cowboy coders” view of the world. But from yet another point of view TDD, SOLID, and refactoring are just cures for ailments within a system. And I fear, if “Writing great code” is the only focus or the main focus of software development, then we as an industry lose the ability to see that. Focus draws a line around something, it defines a horizon for perceptions and thinking. So if we focus on code our horizon ends where “the land of code” ends. I don´t think that should be our professional attitude.   So what about Software Craftsmanship as the next big thing after Agility? I think Software Craftsmanship has an important message for all software developers and beyond. But to make it the successor of the Agility movement seems to miss a point. Agility never claimed to solve all software development problems, I´d say. So to blame it for having missed out on certain aspects of it is wrong. If I had to summarize Agility in one word I´d say “Value”. Agility put value for the customer back in software development. Focus on delivering value early and often – that´s Agility´s mantra. All else follows from that. And I ask you: Is that obsolete? Is delivering value not hip anymore? No, sure not. That´s our very purpose as software developers. So how can Agility become obsolete and need to be replaced? We need to do away with this “either/or”-thinking. It´s either Agility or Lean or Software Craftsmanship or whatnot. Instead we should start integrating concepts and movements. Think “both/and”. Think Agility plus Software Craftsmanship plus Lean plus whatnot. We don´t neet to tear down anything from a piedestal and replace it with a new idol. Instead we should do away with piedestals and arrange whatever is helpful is a circle. Then we can turn to concepts, movements for whatever they are best. After 10 years of Agility we should be able to identify what it was good at – and keep that. Keep Agility around and add whatever Agility was lacking or never concerned with. Add whatever is at the core of Software Craftsmanship. Add whatever is at the core of Lean etc. But don´t call out the age of Post-Agility. Because it better never will end. Because once we start to lose Agility´s core we´re losing focus of the customer.

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• Finding nuggets in ARC discussions

  - by alanc

  A bit over twenty years ago, Sun formed an Architecture Review Committee (ARC) that evaluates proposals to change interfaces between components in Sun software products. During the OpenSolaris days, we opened many of these discussions to the community. While they’re back behind closed doors, and at a different company now, we still continue to hold these reviews for the software from what’s now the Sun Systems Group division of Oracle. Recently one of these reviews was held (via e-mail discussion) to review a proposal to update our GNU findutils package to the latest upstream release. One of the upstream changes discussed was the addition of an “oldfind” program. In findutils 4.3, find was modified to use the fts() function to walk the directory tree, and oldfind was created to provide the old mechanism in case there were bugs in the new implementation that users needed to workaround. In Solaris 11 though, we still ship the find descended from SVR4 as /usr/bin/find and the GNU find is available as either /usr/bin/gfind or /usr/gnu/bin/find. This raised the discussion of if we should add oldfind, and if so what should we call it. Normally our policy is to only add the g* names for GNU commands that conflict with an existing Solaris command – for instance, we ship /usr/bin/emacs, not /usr/bin/gemacs. In this case however, that seemed like it would be more confusing to have /usr/bin/oldfind be the older version of /usr/bin/gfind not of /usr/bin/find. Thus if we shipped it, it would make more sense to call it /usr/bin/goldfind, which several ARC members noted read more naturally as “gold find” than as “g old find”. One of the concerns we often discuss in ARC is if a change is likely to be understood by users or if it will result in more calls to support. As we hit this part of the discussion on a Friday at the end of a long week, I couldn’t resist putting forth a hypothetical support call for this command: “Hello, Oracle Solaris Support, how may I help you?” “My admin is out sick, but he sent an email that he put the findutils package on our server, and I can run goldfind now. I tried it, but goldfind didn’t find gold.” “Did he get the binutils package too?” “No he just said findutils, do we need binutils?” “Well, gold comes in the binutils package, so goldfind would be able to find gold if you got that package.” “How much does Oracle charge for that package?” “It’s free for Solaris users.” “You mean Oracle ships packages of gold to customers for free?” “Yes, if you get the binutils package, it includes GNU gold.” “New gold? Is that some sort of alchemy, turning stuff into gold?” “Not new gold, gold from the GNU project.” “Oracle’s taking gold from the GNU project and shipping it to me?” “Yes, if you get binutils, that package includes gold along with the other tools from the GNU project.” “And GNU doesn’t mind Oracle taking their gold and giving it to customers?” “No, GNU is a non-profit whose goal is to share their software.” “Sharing software sure, but gold? Where does a non-profit like GNU get gold anyway?” “Oh, Google donated it to them.” “Ah! So Oracle will give me the gold that GNU got from Google!” “Yes, if you get the package from us.” “How do I get the package with the gold?” “Just run pkg install binutils and it will put it on your disk.” “We’ve got multiple disks here - which one will it put it on?” “The one with the system image - do you know which one that is? “Well the note from the admin says the system is on the first disk and the users are on the second disk.” “Okay, so it should go on the first disk then.” “And where will I find the gold?” “It will be in the /usr/bin directory.” “In the user’s bin? So thats on the second disk?” “No, it would be on the system disk, with the other development tools, like make, as, and what.” “So what’s on the first disk?” “Well if the system image is there the commands should all be there.” “All the commands? Not just what?” “Right, all the commands that come with the OS, like the shell, ps, and who.” “So who’s on the first disk too?” “Yes. Did your admin say when he’d be back?” “No, just that he had a massive headache and was going home after I tried to get him to explain this stuff to me.” “I can’t imagine why.” “Oh, is why a command too?” “No, _why was a Ruby programmer.” “Ruby? Do you give those away with the gold too?” “Yes, but it comes in the ruby package, not binutils.” “Oh, I’ll have to have my admin get that package too! Thanks!” Needless to say, we decided this might not be the best idea. Since the GNU package hasn’t had to release a serious bug fix in the new find in the past few years, the new GNU find seems pretty stable, and we always have the SVR4 find to use as a fallback in Solaris, so it didn’t seem that adding oldfind was really necessary, so we passed on including it when we update to the new findutils release. [Apologies to Abbott, Costello, their fans, and everyone who read this far. The Gold (linker) page on Wikipedia may explain some of the above, but can’t explain why goldfind is the old GNU find, but gold is the new GNU ld.]

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• Beyond Cloud Technology, Enabling A More Agile and Responsive Organization

  - by sxkumar

  This is the second part of the blog “Clouds, Clouds Everywhere But not a Drop of Rain”. In the first part,  I was sharing with you how a broad-based transformation makes cloud more than a technology initiative, I will describe in this section how it requires people (organizational) and process changes as well, and these changes are as critical as is the choice of right tools and technology. People: Most IT organizations have a fairly complex organizational structure. There are different groups, managing different pieces of the puzzle, and yet, they don't always work together. Provisioning a new application therefore may require a request to float endlessly through system administrators, DBAs and middleware admin worlds – resulting in long delays and constant finger pointing.  Cloud users expect end-to-end automation - which requires these silos to be greatly simplified, if not completely eliminated.  Most customers I talk to acknowledge this problem but are quick to admit that such a transformation is hard. As hard as it may be, I am afraid that the status quo is no longer an option. Sticking to an organizational structure that was created ages back will not only impede cloud adoption,  it also risks making the IT skills increasingly irrelevant in a world that is rapidly moving towards converged applications and infrastructure.   Process: Most IT organizations today operate with a mindset that they must fully "control" access to any and all types of IT services. This in turn leads to people clinging on to outdated manual approval processes .  While requiring approvals for scarce resources makes sense, insisting that every single request must be manually approved defeats the very purpose of cloud. Not only this causes delays, thereby at least partially negating the agility benefits, it also results in gross inefficiency. In a cloud environment, self-service access should be governed by policies, quotas that the administrators can define upfront . For a cloud initiative to be successful, IT organizations MUST be ready to empower users by giving them real control rather than insisting on brokering every single interaction between users and the cloud resources. Technology: From a technology perspective, cloud is about consolidation, standardization and automation. A consolidated and standardized infrastructure helps increase utilization and reduces cost. Additionally, it  enables a much higher degree of automation - thereby providing users the required agility while minimizing operational costs.  Obviously, automation is the key to cloud. Unfortunately it hasn’t received as much attention within enterprises as it should have.  Many organizations are just now waking up to the criticality of automation and it still often gets relegated to back burner in favor of other "high priority" projects. However, it is important to understand that without the right type and level of automation, cloud will remain a distant dream for most enterprises. This in turn makes the choice of the cloud management software extremely critical.  For a cloud management software to be effective in an enterprise environment, it must meet the following qualifications: Broad and Deep Solution It should offer a broad and deep solution to enable the kind of broad-based transformation we are talking about.  Its footprint must cover physical and virtual systems, as well as infrastructure, database and application tiers. Too many enterprises choose to equate cloud with virtualization. While virtualization is a critical component of a cloud solution, it is just a component and not the whole solution. Similarly, too many people tend to equate cloud with Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). While it is perfectly reasonable to treat IaaS as a starting point, it is important to realize that it is just the first stepping stone - and on its own it can only provide limited business benefits. It is actually the higher level services, such as (application) platform and business applications, that will bring about a more meaningful transformation to your enterprise. Run and Manage Efficiently Your Mission Critical Applications It should not only be able to run your mission critical applications, it should do so better than before.  For enterprises, applications and data are the critical business assets  As such, if you are building a cloud platform that cannot run your ERP application, it isn't truly a "enterprise cloud".  Also, be wary of  vendors who try to sell you the idea that your applications must be written in a certain way to be able to run on the cloud. That is nothing but a bogus, self-serving argument. For the cloud to be meaningful to enterprises, it should adopt to your applications - and not the other way around.  Automated, Integrated Set of Cloud Management Capabilities At the root of many of the problems plaguing enterprise IT today is complexity. A complex maze of tools and technology, coupled with archaic  processes, results in an environment which is inflexible, inefficient and simply too hard to manage. Management tool consolidation, therefore, is key to the success of your cloud as tool proliferation adds to complexity, encourages compartmentalization and defeats the very purpose that you are building the cloud for. Decision makers ought to be extra cautious about vendors trying to sell them a "suite" of disparate and loosely integrated products as a cloud solution.  An effective enterprise cloud management solution needs to provide a tightly integrated set of capabilities for all aspects of cloud lifecycle management. A simple question to ask: will your environment be more or less complex after you implement your cloud? More often than not, the answer will surprise you.  At Oracle, we have understood these challenges and have been working hard to create cloud solutions that are relevant and meaningful for enterprises.  And we have been doing it for much longer than you may think. Oracle was one of the very first enterprise software companies to make our products available on the Amazon Cloud. As far back as in 2007, we created new cloud solutions such as Cloud Database Backup that are helping customers like Amazon save millions every year.  Our cloud solution portfolio is also the broadest and most deep in the industry  - covering public, private, hybrid, Infrastructure, platform and applications clouds. It is no coincidence therefore that the Oracle Cloud today offers the most comprehensive set of public cloud services in the industry.  And to a large part, this has been made possible thanks to our years on investment in creating cloud enabling technologies. I will dedicated the third and final part of the blog “Clouds, Clouds Everywhere But not a Drop of Rain” to Oracle Cloud Technologies Building Blocks and how they mapped into our vision of Enterprise Cloud. Stay Tuned.

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• How to implement EntityDataSource Where IN entity sql clause

  - by TonyS

  I want to pass a number of values into a parameter of the EntityDataSource, e.g.: Where="it.ORDER_ID IN {@OrderIdList}" (this is a property on the EntityDataSource) <WhereParameters> <asp:ControlParameter Name="OrderIdList" Type="Int16" ControlID="OrderFilterControl" PropertyName="OrderIdList" /> </WhereParameters> This doesn't work as ORDER_ID is of type int32 and I need to pass in multiple values, e.g. {1,2,3} etc The next thing I tried was setting the Where clause in code-behind and this all works except I can't get data binding on DropDownLists to work. By this I mean no value is returned from the bound dropdownlists in the EntityDataSource Updating Event. My ideal solution would be to use a WhereParameter on the EntityDataSource but any help is appreciated. Thanks, Tony. A complete code example follows using the AdventureWorks db: Public Class EntityDataSourceWhereInClause Inherits System.Web.UI.Page Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load CustomersEntityDataSource.Where = WhereClause ''# reset after each postback as its lost otherwise End Sub Private Sub cmdFilterCustomers_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdFilterCustomers.Click Dim CustomerIdList As New Generic.List(Of Int32) For Each item As ListItem In CustomerIdCheckBoxList.Items If item.Selected Then CustomerIdList.Add(item.Value) End If Next Dim CustomerCsvList As String = String.Join(", ", CustomerIdList.Select(Function(o) o.ToString()).ToArray()) WhereClause = "it.CustomerID IN {" & CustomerCsvList & "}" CustomersEntityDataSource.Where = WhereClause FormView1.PageIndex = 0 End Sub ''# save between postbacks the custom Where IN clause Public Property WhereClause() As String Get Return ViewState("WhereClause") End Get Set(ByVal value As String) ViewState.Add("WhereClause", value) End Set End Property Private Sub CustomersEntityDataSource_Updating(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.EntityDataSourceChangingEventArgs) Handles CustomersEntityDataSource.Updating Dim c = CType(e.Entity, EntityFrameworkTest.Customer) If c.Title.Length = 0 Then Response.Write("Title is empty string, so will save like this!") End If End Sub End Class <%@ Page Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeBehind="EntityDataSourceWhereInClause.aspx.vb" Inherits="EntityFrameworkTest.EntityDataSourceWhereInClause" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head runat="server"> <title></title> </head> <body> <form id="form1" runat="server"> <%''# filter control %> <div> <asp:EntityDataSource ID="CustomerIdListEntityDataSource" runat="server" ConnectionString="name=AdventureWorksLT2008Entities" DefaultContainerName="AdventureWorksLT2008Entities" EnableFlattening="False" EntitySetName="Customers" Select="it.[CustomerID]" OrderBy="it.[CustomerID]"> </asp:EntityDataSource> <asp:CheckBoxList ID="CustomerIdCheckBoxList" runat="server" DataSourceID="CustomerIdListEntityDataSource" DataTextField="CustomerID" DataValueField="CustomerID" RepeatDirection="Horizontal"> </asp:CheckBoxList> <asp:Button ID="cmdFilterCustomers" runat="server" Text="Apply Filter" /> </div> <% ''# you get this error passing in CSV in the where clause ''# The element type 'Edm.Int32' and the CollectionType 'Transient.collection[Edm.String(Nullable=True,DefaultValue=,MaxLength=,Unicode=,FixedLength=)]' are not compatible. The IN expression only supports entity, primitive, and reference types. Near WHERE predicate, line 6, column 15. ''# so have coded it manually in code-behind Where="it.CustomerID IN {@OrderIdList}" %> <asp:EntityDataSource ID="CustomersEntityDataSource" runat="server" ConnectionString="name=AdventureWorksLT2008Entities" DefaultContainerName="AdventureWorksLT2008Entities" EnableFlattening="False" EnableUpdate="True" EntitySetName="Customers" AutoGenerateOrderByClause="false"> </asp:EntityDataSource> <%''# updating works with DropDownLists until the Where clause is set in code %> <asp:FormView ID="FormView1" runat="server" AllowPaging="True" CellPadding="4" DataKeyNames="CustomerID" DataSourceID="CustomersEntityDataSource" ForeColor="#333333"> <EditItemTemplate> CustomerID: <asp:Label ID="CustomerIDLabel1" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("CustomerID") %>' /> <br /> NameStyle: <asp:CheckBox ID="NameStyleCheckBox" runat="server" Checked='<%# Bind("NameStyle") %>' /> <br /> Title: <%''# the SelectedValue is not Bound to the EF object if the Where clause is updated in code-behind %> <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlTitleBound" runat="server" DataSourceID="TitleEntityDataSource" DataTextField="Title" DataValueField="Title" AutoPostBack="false" AppendDataBoundItems="true" SelectedValue='<%# Bind("Title") %>'> </asp:DropDownList> <asp:EntityDataSource ID="TitleEntityDataSource" runat="server" ConnectionString="name=AdventureWorksLT2008Entities" DefaultContainerName="AdventureWorksLT2008Entities" EnableFlattening="False" EntitySetName="Customers" Select="it.[Title]" GroupBy="it.[Title]" ViewStateMode="Enabled"> </asp:EntityDataSource> <br /> FirstName: <asp:TextBox ID="FirstNameTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("FirstName") %>' /> <br /> MiddleName: <asp:TextBox ID="MiddleNameTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("MiddleName") %>' /> <br /> LastName: <asp:TextBox ID="LastNameTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("LastName") %>' /> <br /> Suffix: <asp:TextBox ID="SuffixTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Suffix") %>' /> <br /> CompanyName: <asp:TextBox ID="CompanyNameTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("CompanyName") %>' /> <br /> SalesPerson: <asp:TextBox ID="SalesPersonTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("SalesPerson") %>' /> <br /> EmailAddress: <asp:TextBox ID="EmailAddressTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("EmailAddress") %>' /> <br /> Phone: <asp:TextBox ID="PhoneTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Phone") %>' /> <br /> PasswordHash: <asp:TextBox ID="PasswordHashTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("PasswordHash") %>' /> <br /> PasswordSalt: <asp:TextBox ID="PasswordSaltTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("PasswordSalt") %>' /> <br /> rowguid: <asp:TextBox ID="rowguidTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("rowguid") %>' /> <br /> ModifiedDate: <asp:TextBox ID="ModifiedDateTextBox" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("ModifiedDate") %>' /> <br /> <asp:LinkButton ID="UpdateButton" runat="server" CausesValidation="True" CommandName="Update" Text="Update" /> &nbsp;<asp:LinkButton ID="UpdateCancelButton" runat="server" CausesValidation="False" CommandName="Cancel" Text="Cancel" /> </EditItemTemplate> <EditRowStyle BackColor="#999999" /> <FooterStyle BackColor="#5D7B9D" Font-Bold="True" ForeColor="White" /> <HeaderStyle BackColor="#5D7B9D" Font-Bold="True" ForeColor="White" /> <ItemTemplate> CustomerID: <asp:Label ID="CustomerIDLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("CustomerID") %>' /> <br /> NameStyle: <asp:CheckBox ID="NameStyleCheckBox" runat="server" Checked='<%# Bind("NameStyle") %>' Enabled="false" /> <br /> Title: <asp:Label ID="TitleLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Title") %>' /> <br /> FirstName: <asp:Label ID="FirstNameLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("FirstName") %>' /> <br /> MiddleName: <asp:Label ID="MiddleNameLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("MiddleName") %>' /> <br /> LastName: <asp:Label ID="LastNameLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("LastName") %>' /> <br /> Suffix: <asp:Label ID="SuffixLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Suffix") %>' /> <br /> CompanyName: <asp:Label ID="CompanyNameLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("CompanyName") %>' /> <br /> SalesPerson: <asp:Label ID="SalesPersonLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("SalesPerson") %>' /> <br /> EmailAddress: <asp:Label ID="EmailAddressLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("EmailAddress") %>' /> <br /> Phone: <asp:Label ID="PhoneLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Phone") %>' /> <br /> PasswordHash: <asp:Label ID="PasswordHashLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("PasswordHash") %>' /> <br /> PasswordSalt: <asp:Label ID="PasswordSaltLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("PasswordSalt") %>' /> <br /> rowguid: <asp:Label ID="rowguidLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("rowguid") %>' /> <br /> ModifiedDate: <asp:Label ID="ModifiedDateLabel" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("ModifiedDate") %>' /> <br /> <asp:LinkButton ID="EditButton" runat="server" CausesValidation="False" CommandName="Edit" Text="Edit" /> </ItemTemplate> <PagerSettings Position="Top" /> <PagerStyle BackColor="#284775" ForeColor="White" HorizontalAlign="Center" /> <RowStyle BackColor="#F7F6F3" ForeColor="#333333" /> </asp:FormView> </form>

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• AD DS or AD LDS

  - by rajeevrautela

  Hi all, Greeetings !!! I need a suggestion about having AD DS or AD LDS for my infrastructure. So lets begin, Ex. I am having a website which as of now do not have any log in facility for the visitors, now we are developing a new application so that the visitors can create account on the website. the best example you can think of is of any telecom service provider, they have their webiste and now is creating a login facility for it's customers so the users can create an account and can subscribe for ebill sort of facilties. Hope the situation is clear now. for this particular application, i intend to have a web server, an application server, a DB server, one SMTP server and one AD server(for authentication of users and for saving the profiles also). My question here starts on AD front, here do i need AD DS or AD LDS here, what i need from AD is 1) provide user authentication, 2) provide role based access. this is my query. hope i'll get the answer very soon.

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• Create files on C:\ root gives error 0x80070522

  - by Bryan

  One of our customers has just found a problem when trying to create a file on the root of the C:\ Drive, on a Windows 7 Professional PC. I know they shouln't be keeping files here, but there is a valid reason in this case, so I've relaxed the security on the root of C:\ by giving the group 'users' modify permission. Before I relaxed the security, the user was receiving 'access denied', but now they are receiving the message: An unexpected error is keeping you from creating the file. If you continue to recieve this error, you can use the error code to search for help with this problem. Error 0x80070522: A required priviledge is not held by the client. Googling for this suggests that it is caused by UAC, but how can I get round this when the user doesn't have admin rights on their PC?

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• Change DPI of one user using W2K3 Remote Desktop / Terminal Server

  - by GvS

  In short: How do I increase the DPI of some (not all) of our customers connected to our RDP server? We are running a W2K3 Terminal Server that our clients connect to to run our application. One of our clients complains that all fonts / icons etc are too small. This user has a high DPI monitor. The DPI of the client OS (XP in this case) is not transferred to the server. To make things worse (or more interesting) the Display properties dialog disables the Advanced button that you can use to change the DPI on normal clients.

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• 2 Templates to one SharePoint Library, Default templates

  - by Anarkie

  Ok, I'm not a script writer, otherwise I'd have this automated already. I need a quick assist in the most basic steps possible. I have a SharePoint form library using InfoPath based forms. I have a "Public" template for my customers which submits to a "Private" library, through very granulated permissions so they cannot view the library. The Private library has it's own template based on the original Public template. This way I can transition one form's information seamlessly to the new template. The new Private template would have all of the internal details that we do not want the customer to see, but also all information fron the customer-filled Public form. Is there any way to default all items opened from the Private library to use the Private Template, even though they were submitted form the Public template?

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• Drools flow architecture, Drools flow events with AND join nodes

  - by Shoukry K

  I have been evaluating a number of frameworks including jBPM and Drools flow for my application requirements. Lots of the opinions seem to be inclined towards Drools flow as its more flexible, knowledge oriented, easier to integrate with business rules, etc.. The application is some sort of an Email Campaign manager , where different customers can sign in, prepare (design) and launch email campaigns. The application should be able to do the following : 1- Receive a list of email addresses, send emails to each of these addresses starting from a certain date and during a certain time interval of the day , do some custom actions, and then wait for reply emails. 2- If a reply email is received and depending on the response text of the email , and depending on the time the email was received certain actions need to happen, web service calls need to take place, and error handling for these calls. 3- The application will manage and run many and different campaigns (different customers and different flows for each customer) at any point of time. The first question is : Is Drools flow the way to go about this? My main concerns are scalability, suspending, resuming flows, and long wait, and flows management. As you see from the requirements : There is a scheduling part : Certain flows need to be run at a certain point in time, they need to get suspended and then resumed. For example start sending emails starting on Dec 1st 2010 and send emails only in the time interval between 08:00 and 17:00 GMT. By then it might be that all subscribers have been sent emails, but it might not be the case, the process needs to (resume) on Dec 2nd and send a second batch, however certain (users) already received emails and they should be able to (continue at different stages of the flow) There are long wait states : Days or even weeks , i need to persist, suspend / resume and terminate flows (manage flows) External Events : This is where i got stuck first, i tried to put together a simple flow (see attached screenshot) See image http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9620/workflowwithevents.png , there is a start node , connected to an action node, connected to a join. An event node is connected to a second action node, which is connected to the join. The join is an AND join , after the join there is an action and the end node. Here is the sample code i am using to launch the flow : KnowledgeBuilder builder = KnowledgeBuilderFactory .newKnowledgeBuilder(); builder.add(ResourceFactory.newClassPathResource("campaign.rf", CampaignsDroolsPoc.class), ResourceType.DRF); if (builder.hasErrors()) { KnowledgeBuilderErrors errors = builder.getErrors(); Iterator<KnowledgeBuilderError> iterator = errors.iterator(); while (iterator.hasNext()) { System.out.println(iterator.next().toString()); } } KnowledgeBase base = KnowledgeBaseFactory.newKnowledgeBase(); base.addKnowledgePackages(builder.getKnowledgePackages()); final StatefulKnowledgeSession ksession = base .newStatefulKnowledgeSession(); // KnowledgeRuntimeLoggerFactory.newConsoleLogger(ksession); ksession.getWorkItemManager().registerWorkItemHandler("Log", new SendSMSWorkItemHandler()); ProcessInstance startProcess = ksession.startProcess("flow"); System.out.println("Signaling event"); startProcess.signalEvent("ev1", "ev1"); System.out.println("Signaled"); ksession.fireUntilHalt(); I am noticing that the event get triggered, the action node connected to the event gets triggered, however things seem to get stuck at the join. The flow does not continue past the AND join and the flow seems to get stuck. The action following the node does not get triggered. I also went through the drools flow documentation , and all the example codes, however i didn't find anything there. In addition any hints about the way to go about architecting the solution, and implementing it would be great.

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• Is there a way to add AD LDS users to an AD Domain Group or allow them domain security rights?

  - by Tom

  I have a web application in which our outside customers need access to run transactions (stored procs on Sql Server) on our domain. We have looked into LDS to keep these users separate from our domain. The problem we are having is allowing the LDS users the AD security rights to access these stored procs. For administration purposes we would like to use an AD group for each transaction (stored proc) which has access to execute. Is there a way to add LDS users to this AD group or allow them the security rights to do this? We have setup LDS and can authenicate an AD user thru to runs these transactions. LDS is running on Server 08 R2. AD is also Server 08 R2. Thanks.

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• Question about how to use strong typed dataset in N-tier application for .NET

  - by sb

  Hello All, I need some expert advice on strong typed data sets in ADO.NET that are generated by the Visual Studio. Here are the details. Thank you in advance. I want to write a N-tier application where Presentation layer is in C#/windows forms, Business Layer is a Web service and Data Access Layer is SQL db. So, I used Visual Studio 2005 for this and created 3 projects in a solution. project 1 is the Data access layer. In this I have used visual studio data set generator to create a strong typed data set and table adapter (to test I created this on the customers table in northwind). The data set is called NorthWindDataSet and the table inside is CustomersTable. project 2 has the web service which exposes only 1 method which is GetCustomersDataSet. This uses the project1 library's table adapter to fill the data set and return it to the caller. To be able to use the NorthWindDataSet and table adapter, I added a reference to the project 1. project 3 is a win forms app and this uses the web service as a reference and calls that service to get the data set. In the process of building this application, in the PL, I added a reference to the DataSet generated above in the project 1 and in form's load I call the web service and assign the received DataSet from the web service to this dataset. But I get the error: "Cannot implicitly convert type 'PL.WebServiceLayerReference.NorthwindDataSet' to 'BL.NorthwindDataSet' e:\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\DataSetWebServiceExample\PL\Form1.cs". Both the data sets are same but because I added references from different locations, I am getting the above error I think. So, what I did was I added a reference to project 1 (which defines the data set) to project 3 (the UI) and used the web service to get the DataSet and assing to the right type, now when the project 3 (which has the web form) runs, I get the below runtime exception. "System.InvalidOperationException: There is an error in XML document (1, 5058). --- System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaException: Multiple definition of element 'http://tempuri.org/NorthwindDataSet.xsd:Customers' causes the content model to become ambiguous. A content model must be formed such that during validation of an element information item sequence, the particle contained directly, indirectly or implicitly therein with which to attempt to validate each item in the sequence in turn can be uniquely determined without examining the content or attributes of that item, and without any information about the items in the remainder of the sequence." I think this might be because of some cross referenceing errors. My question is, is there a way to use the visual studio generated DataSets in such a way that I can use the same DataSet in all layers (for reuse) but separate the Table Adapter logic to the Data Access Layer so that the front end is abstracted from all this by the web service? If I have hand write the code I loose the goodness the data set generator gives and also if there are columns added later I need to add it by hand etc so I want to use the visual studio wizard as much as possible. thanks for any help on this. sb

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• windowsupdate troubles on windowsxp after april 2014, plus an explorer error message

  - by sigma4500

  I've spent the last couple of days trying to install windows xp from a cd onto my desktop. The installtion is successful, and I can activate windows, but cannot run windows update. The error I receive from windows update is: Error number: 0x80240036 I understand that after april 2014 microsoft is no longer developing new patches, but I have presumed that customers would continue to have access to all the patches that where made up to this date. How can I install these patches? Is this possible? As mentioned, I can install windows and activate, but cannot run windowsupdate (Error number: 0x80240036). Seperately, there is an error with a windows explorer pull down menu (item) that asks: Is this copy of windows legal? How can I get rid of this message? I am not running a pirated, or illegal copy of windows and this message should not be there. I want continue running windows xp without windows update, but I need to get rid of this windows explorer error message.

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• sqlcmd won't execute - Claims Native Client not installed properly

  - by nuit9

  I'm trying to use sqlcmd to execute some SQL scripts. Using a test command with a simple query like: sqlcmd -S HOSTNAME -d MYDATABASE -Q 'SELECT Names FROM Customers' sqlcmd does not appear to make any attempt to connect to the server as it displays this message: Sqlcmd: Error: Connection failure. SQL Native Client is not installed correctly. To correct this, run SQL Server Setup. The native client was presumably installed as part of the SQL Server setup and likely correctly. I actually get this message on any machine with SQL server installed trying to use sqlcmd so it's not a matter of the installation being corrupt. Unfortunately the message really tells me nothing about the problem so I don't know what the real issue is. I know the SQL Native client is working properly since a vbscript was able to execute SQL queries against the database. Is there some additional configuration needed to use sqlcmd?

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• Manage Upload Permissions, SFTP & Linux

  - by John R

  I'm new to Linux. I am working with a Redhat 5.5 server and am using a Java-based SFTP script that will allow multiple users to upload text files to a server. I am undecided if each user will have a separate directory or if I will use a naming convention that includes their customer ID. The files include some personal information about their LAN settings, so I prefer to use SFTP as apposed to FTP. It is my understanding that SFTP is encrypted (Also, I have a Java class configured to upload via SFTP, so I prefer not to switch protocols unless their is a very-good reason). The prototype is for a system that will support large numbers of customers and the thought of continually adding and removing clients through the command line seems highly impractical. (Again, I am new_to/learning Linux and Redhat). What are normal conventions for giving multiple users permission to SFTP upload files with a unique username and password for each.

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• Outlook folder structure Template

  - by Filip Ekberg

  Having a lot of different customers and a lot of different areas to work with makes it trivial to have your mail folders in order. Everytime I get a new Project / Customer I want to add a certain Folder Structure in my "Customer" / "Project" sub directory. It might look like this: Customer_name/ Bugs Documents Important Support/ Done And as it is today, I have to manually add these manually, which is harsh when you have a lot of it going on and each sub directory under the customer_name directory needs to have "display all items" since it's important to me to see all Items in Bugs / Support / Important. Makes my life easier. So, Is it possible to Automize the process somehow? Macro? Folder Templates? What are my options?

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• IIS7 rejecting POST requests with 400 error.

  - by Eli

  I have a web application that is supposed to handle post requests from SAP. This has been working fine at other customers with win2k3 systems (IIS6) and win2k8 (IIS7) systems. However, on this specific customer's site, IIS responds with a 400 response, without calling my aspx page. In fact, I don't even see it appear in the w3c log for the virtual directory. I do see the request using Network Monitor, so I know no firewalls and the like are eating the request, and as far as I can tell, all of the fields of the request are valid (there is "content-length", it looks correct (this is a sending of a 28K tiff file - which isn't MIME encoded, curiously enough now that I think of it...) Ideas?

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• Is there a way to unlock PDF documents?

  - by NoCatharsis

  I realize most PDF documents are locked for a reason, but I spend several hours a week editing datasheets provided directly from my vendors to be sent to customers. Obviously it's very annoying and somewhat of a show-stopper when I download a datasheet in PDF format, then I am not able to draw boxes, add comments, or draw arrows to the supplied product. One of our vendors told us the way around that was to print a physical copy, then scan it in as a PDF - not the most technological or aesthetically pleasing solution I have found. I at least would like to be able to print the PDF to another PDF so that the new copy is unlocked for editing. Is there any way around this?

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• Barracuda spam filter alternative - virtualization/appliance friendly?

  - by ewwhite

  I've sold and deployed Barracuda spam and web filters for years. I've always thought that the functionality was good (Barracuda Central, easy interface, effective filtering), but the hardware on the entry to midrange units is a weak point. They have single power supplies, no RAID and limited monitoring support. Personally, I think Barracuda would make a killing selling their software as a VMWare appliance, but I'm looking for something similar that I can deploy as a consultant, but will be easy for customers to manage. It should have support for server-grade hardware or the ability to be deployed as a virtual machine. Is there anything out there that's close?

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• Looking for Inneroffice Access Tool, Workstation to Workstation

  - by nicorellius

  This may be a simple question to answer, and I apologize if it's a duplicate. I looked through the suggestions and nothing jumped out at me as the right answer, so here goes: My office has several workstations, Macs and Windows boxes. We do have a firewall and a VPN solution, so getting in to the network from outside is easy. Likewise, we use GoToMeeting for demos and when we help our customers with their issues. But we have one workstation that has certain testing tools on it, and instead of walking across the office to this machine, I'd like to access it from my desk (and monitor it). I will need to open a command line and run commands. I could start a GoToMeeting and do it this way, but that seems overkill and clunky. Is there a simpler tool that allows pseudo-remote access within the same office/network for this kind of access?

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• Does the Windows "Sources" folder need copied to C: like the "i386" folder did?

  - by James Watt

  On all flavors of Windows prior to Windows Vista, the Windows install CD contained a folder called i386. After installing Windows, this folder is suppose to be copied to the C: drive. Once the folder has been copied, if user is ever installing a program or windows updates that require the Windows install CD, it will retrieve the files from the hard drive INSTEAD of prompting for the Windows CD. On new versions of Windows, including Windows Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2, the i386 folder has been renamed to "sources". Should this folder be copied to the hard drive? Or do the new versions of Windows work differently (i.e. by installing all features on the hard drive to eliminate the need for ever prompting the user to insert their disc.) It does not hurt to copy the sources folder, so I have been doing it. But if I could eliminate time wasted it would make installations faster which helps my customers' bottom line.

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