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• Improved Performance on PeopleSoft Combined Benchmark using SPARC T4-4

  - by Brian

  Oracle's SPARC T4-4 server running Oracle's PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 combined online and batch benchmark achieved a world record 18,000 concurrent users experiencing subsecond response time while executing a PeopleSoft Payroll batch job of 500,000 employees in 32.4 minutes. This result was obtained with a SPARC T4-4 server running Oracle Database 11g Release 2, a SPARC T4-4 server running PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 application server and a SPARC T4-2 server running Oracle WebLogic Server in the web tier. The SPARC T4-4 server running the application tier used Oracle Solaris Zones which provide a flexible, scalable and manageable virtualization environment. The average CPU utilization on the SPARC T4-2 server in the web tier was 17%, on the SPARC T4-4 server in the application tier it was 59%, and on the SPARC T4-4 server in the database tier was 47% (online and batch) leaving significant headroom for additional processing across the three tiers. The SPARC T4-4 server used for the database tier hosted Oracle Database 11g Release 2 using Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) for database files management with I/O performance equivalent to raw devices. Performance Landscape Results are presented for the PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service and Payroll combined benchmark. The new result with 128 streams shows significant improvement in the payroll batch processing time with little impact on the self-service component response time. PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service and Payroll Benchmark Systems Users Ave Response Search (sec) Ave Response Save (sec) Batch Time (min) Streams SPARC T4-2 (web) SPARC T4-4 (app) SPARC T4-4 (db) 18,000 0.988 0.539 32.4 128 SPARC T4-2 (web) SPARC T4-4 (app) SPARC T4-4 (db) 18,000 0.944 0.503 43.3 64 The following results are for the PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service benchmark that was previous run. The results are not directly comparable with the combined results because they do not include the payroll component. PeopleSoft HRMS Self-Service 9.1 Benchmark Systems Users Ave Response Search (sec) Ave Response Save (sec) Batch Time (min) Streams SPARC T4-2 (web) SPARC T4-4 (app) 2x SPARC T4-2 (db) 18,000 1.048 0.742 N/A N/A The following results are for the PeopleSoft Payroll benchmark that was previous run. The results are not directly comparable with the combined results because they do not include the self-service component. PeopleSoft Payroll (N.A.) 9.1 - 500K Employees (7 Million SQL PayCalc, Unicode) Systems Users Ave Response Search (sec) Ave Response Save (sec) Batch Time (min) Streams SPARC T4-4 (db) N/A N/A N/A 30.84 96 Configuration Summary Application Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-4 server with 4 x SPARC T4 processors, 3.0 GHz 512 GB memory Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 PeopleTools 8.52 PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 Oracle Tuxedo, Version 10.3.0.0, 64-bit, Patch Level 031 Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit 6 Update 32 Database Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-4 server with 4 x SPARC T4 processors, 3.0 GHz 256 GB memory Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 PeopleTools 8.52 Oracle Tuxedo, Version 10.3.0.0, 64-bit, Patch Level 031 Micro Focus Server Express (COBOL v 5.1.00) Web Tier Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 server with 2 x SPARC T4 processors, 2.85 GHz 256 GB memory Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 PeopleTools 8.52 Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.4 Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit 6 Update 32 Storage Configuration: 1 x Sun Server X2-4 as a COMSTAR head for data 4 x Intel Xeon X7550, 2.0 GHz 128 GB memory 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (80 flash modules) 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (40 flash modules) 1 x Sun Fire X4275 as a COMSTAR head for redo logs 12 x 2 TB SAS disks with Niwot Raid controller Benchmark Description This benchmark combines PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 HR Self Service online and PeopleSoft Payroll batch workloads to run on a unified database deployed on Oracle Database 11g Release 2. The PeopleSoft HRSS benchmark kit is a Oracle standard benchmark kit run by all platform vendors to measure the performance. It's an OLTP benchmark where DB SQLs are moderately complex. The results are certified by Oracle and a white paper is published. PeopleSoft HR SS defines a business transaction as a series of HTML pages that guide a user through a particular scenario. Users are defined as corporate Employees, Managers and HR administrators. The benchmark consist of 14 scenarios which emulate users performing typical HCM transactions such as viewing paycheck, promoting and hiring employees, updating employee profile and other typical HCM application transactions. All these transactions are well-defined in the PeopleSoft HR Self-Service 9.1 benchmark kit. This benchmark metric is the weighted average response search/save time for all the transactions. The PeopleSoft 9.1 Payroll (North America) benchmark demonstrates system performance for a range of processing volumes in a specific configuration. This workload represents large batch runs typical of a ERP environment during a mass update. The benchmark measures five application business process run times for a database representing large organization. They are Paysheet Creation, Payroll Calculation, Payroll Confirmation, Print Advice forms, and Create Direct Deposit File. The benchmark metric is the cumulative elapsed time taken to complete the Paysheet Creation, Payroll Calculation and Payroll Confirmation business application processes. The benchmark metrics are taken for each respective benchmark while running simultaneously on the same database back-end. Specifically, the payroll batch processes are started when the online workload reaches steady state (the maximum number of online users) and overlap with online transactions for the duration of the steady state. Key Points and Best Practices Two PeopleSoft Domain sets with 200 application servers each on a SPARC T4-4 server were hosted in 2 separate Oracle Solaris Zones to demonstrate consolidation of multiple application servers, ease of administration and performance tuning. Each Oracle Solaris Zone was bound to a separate processor set, each containing 15 cores (total 120 threads). The default set (1 core from first and third processor socket, total 16 threads) was used for network and disk interrupt handling. This was done to improve performance by reducing memory access latency by using the physical memory closest to the processors and offload I/O interrupt handling to default set threads, freeing up cpu resources for Application Servers threads and balancing application workload across 240 threads. A total of 128 PeopleSoft streams server processes where used on the database node to complete payroll batch job of 500,000 employees in 32.4 minutes. See Also Oracle PeopleSoft Benchmark White Papers oracle.com SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN SPARC T4-4 Server oracle.com OTN PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Managementoracle.com OTN PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management (Payroll) oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 8 November 2012.

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• Integration Patterns with Azure Service Bus Relay, Part 1: Exposing the on-premise service

  - by Elton Stoneman

  We're in the process of delivering an enabling project to expose on-premise WCF services securely to Internet consumers. The Azure Service Bus Relay is doing the clever stuff, we register our on-premise service with Azure, consumers call into our .servicebus.windows.net namespace, and their requests are relayed and serviced on-premise. In theory it's all wonderfully simple; by using the relay we get lots of protocol options, free HTTPS and load balancing, and by integrating to ACS we get plenty of security options. Part of our delivery is a suite of sample consumers for the service - .NET, jQuery, PHP - and this set of posts will cover setting up the service and the consumers. Part 1: Exposing the on-premise service In theory, this is ultra-straightforward. In practice, and on a dev laptop it is - but in a corporate network with firewalls and proxies, it isn't, so we'll walkthrough some of the pitfalls. Note that I'm using the "old" Azure portal which will soon be out of date, but the new shiny portal should have the same steps available and be easier to use. We start with a simple WCF service which takes a string as input, reverses the string and returns it. The Part 1 version of the code is on GitHub here: on GitHub here: IPASBR Part 1. Configuring Azure Service Bus Start by logging into the Azure portal and registering a Service Bus namespace which will be our endpoint in the cloud. Give it a globally unique name, set it up somewhere near you (if you’re in Europe, remember Europe (North) is Ireland, and Europe (West) is the Netherlands), and  enable ACS integration by ticking "Access Control" as a service: Authenticating and authorizing to ACS When we try to register our on-premise service as a listener for the Service Bus endpoint, we need to supply credentials, which means only trusted service providers can act as listeners. We can use the default "owner" credentials, but that has admin permissions so a dedicated service account is better (Neil Mackenzie has a good post On Not Using owner with the Azure AppFabric Service Bus with lots of permission details). Click on "Access Control Service" for the namespace, navigate to Service Identities and add a new one. Give the new account a sensible name and description: Let ACS generate a symmetric key for you (this will be the shared secret we use in the on-premise service to authenticate as a listener), but be sure to set the expiration date to something usable. The portal defaults to expiring new identities after 1 year - but when your year is up *your identity will expire without warning* and everything will stop working. In production, you'll need governance to manage identity expiration and a process to make sure you renew identities and roll new keys regularly. The new service identity needs to be authorized to listen on the service bus endpoint. This is done through claim mapping in ACS - we'll set up a rule that says if the nameidentifier in the input claims has the value serviceProvider, in the output we'll have an action claim with the value Listen. In the ACS portal you'll see that there is already a Relying Party Application set up for ServiceBus, which has a Default rule group. Edit the rule group and click Add to add this new rule: The values to use are: Issuer: Access Control Service Input claim type: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/nameidentifier Input claim value: serviceProvider Output claim type: net.windows.servicebus.action Output claim value: Listen When your service namespace and identity are set up, open the Part 1 solution and put your own namespace, service identity name and secret key into the file AzureConnectionDetails.xml in Solution Items, e.g: <azure namespace="sixeyed-ipasbr">    <!-- ACS credentials for the listening service (Part1):-->   <service identityName="serviceProvider"            symmetricKey="nuR2tHhlrTCqf4YwjT2RA2BZ/+xa23euaRJNLh1a/V4="/>  </azure> Build the solution, and the T4 template will generate the Web.config for the service project with your Azure details in the transportClientEndpointBehavior:           <behavior name="SharedSecret">             <transportClientEndpointBehavior credentialType="SharedSecret">               <clientCredentials>                 <sharedSecret issuerName="serviceProvider"                               issuerSecret="nuR2tHhlrTCqf4YwjT2RA2BZ/+xa23euaRJNLh1a/V4="/>               </clientCredentials>             </transportClientEndpointBehavior>           </behavior> , and your service namespace in the Azure endpoint:         <!-- Azure Service Bus endpoints -->          <endpoint address="sb://sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net/net"                   binding="netTcpRelayBinding"                   contract="Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services.IFormatService"                   behaviorConfiguration="SharedSecret">         </endpoint> The sample project is hosted in IIS, but it won't register with Azure until the service is activated. Typically you'd install AppFabric 1.1 for Widnows Server and set the service to auto-start in IIS, but for dev just navigate to the local REST URL, which will activate the service and register it with Azure. Testing the service locally As well as an Azure endpoint, the service has a WebHttpBinding for local REST access:         <!-- local REST endpoint for internal use -->         <endpoint address="rest"                   binding="webHttpBinding"                   behaviorConfiguration="RESTBehavior"                   contract="Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services.IFormatService" /> Build the service, then navigate to: http://localhost/Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services/FormatService.svc/rest/reverse?string=abc123 - and you should see the reversed string response: If your network allows it, you'll get the expected response as before, but in the background your service will also be listening in the cloud. Good stuff! Who needs network security? Onto the next post for consuming the service with the netTcpRelayBinding.  Setting up network access to Azure But, if you get an error, it's because your network is secured and it's doing something to stop the relay working. The Service Bus relay bindings try to use direct TCP connections to Azure, so if ports 9350-9354 are available *outbound*, then the relay will run through them. If not, the binding steps down to standard HTTP, and issues a CONNECT across port 443 or 80 to set up a tunnel for the relay. If your network security guys are doing their job, the first option will be blocked by the firewall, and the second option will be blocked by the proxy, so you'll get this error: System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: Unable to reach sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net via TCP (9351, 9352) or HTTP (80, 443) - and that will probably be the start of lots of discussions. Network guys don't really like giving servers special permissions for the web proxy, and they really don't like opening ports, so they'll need to be convinced about this. The resolution in our case was to put up a dedicated box in a DMZ, tinker with the firewall and the proxy until we got a relay connection working, then run some traffic which the the network guys monitored to do a security assessment afterwards. Along the way we hit a few more issues, diagnosed mainly with Fiddler and Wireshark: System.Net.ProtocolViolationException: Chunked encoding upload is not supported on the HTTP/1.0 protocol - this means the TCP ports are not available, so Azure tries to relay messaging traffic across HTTP. The service can access the endpoint, but the proxy is downgrading traffic to HTTP 1.0, which does not support tunneling, so Azure can’t make its connection. We were using the Squid proxy, version 2.6. The Squid project is incrementally adding HTTP 1.1 support, but there's no definitive list of what's supported in what version (here are some hints). System.ServiceModel.Security.SecurityNegotiationException: The X.509 certificate CN=servicebus.windows.net chain building failed. The certificate that was used has a trust chain that cannot be verified. Replace the certificate or change the certificateValidationMode. The evocation function was unable to check revocation because the revocation server was offline. - by this point we'd given up on the HTTP proxy and opened the TCP ports. We got this error when the relay binding does it's authentication hop to ACS. The messaging traffic is TCP, but the control traffic still goes over HTTP, and as part of the ACS authentication the process checks with a revocation server to see if Microsoft’s ACS cert is still valid, so the proxy still needs some clearance. The service account (the IIS app pool identity) needs access to: www.public-trust.com mscrl.microsoft.com We still got this error periodically with different accounts running the app pool. We fixed that by ensuring the machine-wide proxy settings are set up, so every account uses the correct proxy: netsh winhttp set proxy proxy-server="http://proxy.x.y.z" - and you might need to run this to clear out your credential cache: certutil -urlcache * delete If your network guys end up grudgingly opening ports, they can restrict connections to the IP address range for your chosen Azure datacentre, which might make them happier - see Windows Azure Datacenter IP Ranges. After all that you've hopefully got an on-premise service listening in the cloud, which you can consume from pretty much any technology.

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• Oracle Database 12 c New Partition Maintenance Features by Gwen Lazenby

  - by hamsun

  One of my favourite new features in Oracle Database 12c is the ability to perform partition maintenance operations on multiple partitions. This means we can now add, drop, truncate and merge multiple partitions in one operation, and can split a single partition into more than two partitions also in just one command. This would certainly have made my life slightly easier had it been available when I administered a data warehouse at Oracle 9i. To demonstrate this new functionality and syntax, I am going to create two tables, ORDERS and ORDERS_ITEMS which have a parent-child relationship. ORDERS is to be partitioned using range partitioning on the ORDER_DATE column, and ORDER_ITEMS is going to partitioned using reference partitioning and its foreign key relationship with the ORDERS table. This form of partitioning was a new feature in 11g and means that any partition maintenance operations performed on the ORDERS table will also take place on the ORDER_ITEMS table as well. First create the ORDERS table - SQL CREATE TABLE orders ( order_id NUMBER(12), order_date TIMESTAMP, order_mode VARCHAR2(8), customer_id NUMBER(6), order_status NUMBER(2), order_total NUMBER(8,2), sales_rep_id NUMBER(6), promotion_id NUMBER(6), CONSTRAINT orders_pk PRIMARY KEY(order_id) ) PARTITION BY RANGE(order_date) (PARTITION Q1_2007 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-APR-2007','DD-MON-YYYY')), PARTITION Q2_2007 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JUL-2007','DD-MON-YYYY')), PARTITION Q3_2007 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-OCT-2007','DD-MON-YYYY')), PARTITION Q4_2007 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2008','DD-MON-YYYY')) ); Table created. Now the ORDER_ITEMS table SQL CREATE TABLE order_items ( order_id NUMBER(12) NOT NULL, line_item_id NUMBER(3) NOT NULL, product_id NUMBER(6) NOT NULL, unit_price NUMBER(8,2), quantity NUMBER(8), CONSTRAINT order_items_fk FOREIGN KEY(order_id) REFERENCES orders(order_id) on delete cascade) PARTITION BY REFERENCE(order_items_fk) tablespace example; Table created. Now look at DBA_TAB_PARTITIONS to get details of what partitions we have in the two tables – SQL select table_name,partition_name, partition_position position, high_value from dba_tab_partitions where table_owner='SH' and table_name like 'ORDER_%' order by partition_position, table_name; TABLE_NAME PARTITION_NAME POSITION HIGH_VALUE -------------- --------------- -------- ------------------------- ORDERS Q1_2007 1 TIMESTAMP' 2007-04-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q1_2007 1 ORDERS Q2_2007 2 TIMESTAMP' 2007-07-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q2_2007 2 ORDERS Q3_2007 3 TIMESTAMP' 2007-10-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q3_2007 3 ORDERS Q4_2007 4 TIMESTAMP' 2008-01-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q4_2007 4 Just as an aside it is also now possible in 12c to use interval partitioning on reference partitioned tables. In 11g it was not possible to combine these two new partitioning features. For our first example of the new 12cfunctionality, let us add all the partitions necessary for 2008 to the tables using one command. Notice that the partition specification part of the add command is identical in format to the partition specification part of the create command as shown above - SQL alter table orders add PARTITION Q1_2008 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-APR-2008','DD-MON-YYYY')), PARTITION Q2_2008 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JUL-2008','DD-MON-YYYY')), PARTITION Q3_2008 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-OCT-2008','DD-MON-YYYY')), PARTITION Q4_2008 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2009','DD-MON-YYYY')); Table altered. Now look at DBA_TAB_PARTITIONS and we can see that the 4 new partitions have been added to both tables – SQL select table_name,partition_name, partition_position position, high_value from dba_tab_partitions where table_owner='SH' and table_name like 'ORDER_%' order by partition_position, table_name; TABLE_NAME PARTITION_NAME POSITION HIGH_VALUE -------------- --------------- -------- ------------------------- ORDERS Q1_2007 1 TIMESTAMP' 2007-04-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q1_2007 1 ORDERS Q2_2007 2 TIMESTAMP' 2007-07-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q2_2007 2 ORDERS Q3_2007 3 TIMESTAMP' 2007-10-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q3_2007 3 ORDERS Q4_2007 4 TIMESTAMP' 2008-01-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q4_2007 4 ORDERS Q1_2008 5 TIMESTAMP' 2008-04-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q1_2008 5 ORDERS Q2_2008 6 TIMESTAMP' 2008-07-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEM Q2_2008 6 ORDERS Q3_2008 7 TIMESTAMP' 2008-10-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q3_2008 7 ORDERS Q4_2008 8 TIMESTAMP' 2009-01-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q4_2008 8 Next, we can drop or truncate multiple partitions by giving a comma separated list in the alter table command. Note the use of the plural ‘partitions’ in the command as opposed to the singular ‘partition’ prior to 12c– SQL alter table orders drop partitions Q3_2008,Q2_2008,Q1_2008; Table altered. Now look at DBA_TAB_PARTITIONS and we can see that the 3 partitions have been dropped in both the two tables – TABLE_NAME PARTITION_NAME POSITION HIGH_VALUE -------------- --------------- -------- ------------------------- ORDERS Q1_2007 1 TIMESTAMP' 2007-04-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q1_2007 1 ORDERS Q2_2007 2 TIMESTAMP' 2007-07-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q2_2007 2 ORDERS Q3_2007 3 TIMESTAMP' 2007-10-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q3_2007 3 ORDERS Q4_2007 4 TIMESTAMP' 2008-01-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q4_2007 4 ORDERS Q4_2008 5 TIMESTAMP' 2009-01-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q4_2008 5 Now let us merge all the 2007 partitions together to form one single partition – SQL alter table orders merge partitions Q1_2005, Q2_2005, Q3_2005, Q4_2005 into partition Y_2007; Table altered. TABLE_NAME PARTITION_NAME POSITION HIGH_VALUE -------------- --------------- -------- ------------------------- ORDERS Y_2007 1 TIMESTAMP' 2008-01-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Y_2007 1 ORDERS Q4_2008 2 TIMESTAMP' 2009-01-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q4_2008 2 Splitting partitions is a slightly more involved. In the case of range partitioning one of the new partitions must have no high value defined, and in list partitioning one of the new partitions must have no list of values defined. I call these partitions the ‘everything else’ partitions, and will contain any rows contained in the original partition that are not contained in the any of the other new partitions. For example, let us split the Y_2007 partition back into 4 quarterly partitions – SQL alter table orders split partition Y_2007 into (PARTITION Q1_2007 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-APR-2007','DD-MON-YYYY')), PARTITION Q2_2007 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JUL-2007','DD-MON-YYYY')), PARTITION Q3_2007 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-OCT-2007','DD-MON-YYYY')), PARTITION Q4_2007); Now look at DBA_TAB_PARTITIONS to get details of the new partitions – TABLE_NAME PARTITION_NAME POSITION HIGH_VALUE -------------- --------------- -------- ------------------------- ORDERS Q1_2007 1 TIMESTAMP' 2007-04-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q1_2007 1 ORDERS Q2_2007 2 TIMESTAMP' 2007-07-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q2_2007 2 ORDERS Q3_2007 3 TIMESTAMP' 2007-10-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q3_2007 3 ORDERS Q4_2007 4 TIMESTAMP' 2008-01-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q4_2007 4 ORDERS Q4_2008 5 TIMESTAMP' 2009-01-01 00:00:00' ORDER_ITEMS Q4_2008 5 Partition Q4_2007 has a high value equal to the high value of the original Y_2007 partition, and so has inherited its upper boundary from the partition that was split. As for a list partitioning example let look at the following another table, SALES_PAR_LIST, which has 2 partitions, Americas and Europe and a partitioning key of country_name. SQL select table_name,partition_name, high_value from dba_tab_partitions where table_owner='SH' and table_name = 'SALES_PAR_LIST'; TABLE_NAME PARTITION_NAME HIGH_VALUE -------------- --------------- ----------------------------- SALES_PAR_LIST AMERICAS 'Argentina', 'Canada', 'Peru', 'USA', 'Honduras', 'Brazil', 'Nicaragua' SALES_PAR_LIST EUROPE 'France', 'Spain', 'Ireland', 'Germany', 'Belgium', 'Portugal', 'Denmark' Now split the Americas partition into 3 partitions – SQL alter table sales_par_list split partition americas into (partition south_america values ('Argentina','Peru','Brazil'), partition north_america values('Canada','USA'), partition central_america); Table altered. Note that no list of values was given for the ‘Central America’ partition. However it should have inherited any values in the original ‘Americas’ partition that were not assigned to either the ‘North America’ or ‘South America’ partitions. We can confirm this by looking at the DBA_TAB_PARTITIONS view. SQL select table_name,partition_name, high_value from dba_tab_partitions where table_owner='SH' and table_name = 'SALES_PAR_LIST'; TABLE_NAME PARTITION_NAME HIGH_VALUE --------------- --------------- -------------------------------- SALES_PAR_LIST SOUTH_AMERICA 'Argentina', 'Peru', 'Brazil' SALES_PAR_LIST NORTH_AMERICA 'Canada', 'USA' SALES_PAR_LIST CENTRAL_AMERICA 'Honduras', 'Nicaragua' SALES_PAR_LIST EUROPE 'France', 'Spain', 'Ireland', 'Germany', 'Belgium', 'Portugal', 'Denmark' In conclusion, I hope that DBA’s whose work involves maintaining partitions will find the operations a bit more straight forward to carry out once they have upgraded to Oracle Database 12c. Gwen Lazenby is a Principal Training Consultant at Oracle. She is part of Oracle University's Core Technology delivery team based in the UK, teaching Database Administration and Linux courses. Her specialist topics include using Oracle Partitioning and Parallelism in Data Warehouse environments, as well as Oracle Spatial and RMAN.

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• More Great Improvements to the Windows Azure Management Portal

  - by ScottGu

  Over the last 3 weeks we’ve released a number of enhancements to the new Windows Azure Management Portal.  These new capabilities include: Localization Support for 6 languages Operation Log Support Support for SQL Database Metrics Virtual Machine Enhancements (quick create Windows + Linux VMs) Web Site Enhancements (support for creating sites in all regions, private github repo deployment) Cloud Service Improvements (deploy from storage account, configuration support of dedicated cache) Media Service Enhancements (upload, encode, publish, stream all from within the portal) Virtual Networking Usability Enhancements Custom CNAME support with Storage Accounts All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately.  Below are more details on them: Localization Support The Windows Azure Portal now supports 6 languages – English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese. You can easily switch between languages by clicking on the Avatar bar on the top right corner of the Portal: Selecting a different language will automatically refresh the UI within the portal in the selected language: Operation Log Support The Windows Azure Portal now supports the ability for administrators to review the “operation logs” of the services they manage – making it easy to see exactly what management operations were performed on them.  You can query for these by selecting the “Settings” tab within the Portal and then choosing the “Operation Logs” tab within it.  This displays a filter UI that enables you to query for operations by date and time: As of the most recent release we now show logs for all operations performed on Cloud Services and Storage Accounts.  You can click on any operation in the list and click the “Details” button in the command bar to retrieve detailed status about it.  This now makes it possible to retrieve details about every management operation performed. In future updates you’ll see us extend the operation log capability to apply to all Windows Azure Services – which will enable great post-mortem and audit support. Support for SQL Database Metrics You can now monitor the number of successful connections, failed connections and deadlocks in your SQL databases using the new “Dashboard” view provided on each SQL Database resource: Additionally, if the database is added as a “linked resource” to a Web Site or Cloud Service, monitoring metrics for the linked SQL database are shown along with the Web Site or Cloud Service metrics in the dashboard. This helps with viewing and managing aggregated information across both resources in your application. Enhancements to Virtual Machines The most recent Windows Azure Portal release brings with it some nice usability improvements to Virtual Machines: Integrated Quick Create experience for Windows and Linux VMs Creating a new Windows or Linux VM is now easy using the new “Quick Create” experience in the Portal: In addition to Windows VM templates you can also now select Linux image templates in the quick create UI: This makes it incredibly easy to create a new Virtual Machine in only a few seconds. Enhancements to Web Sites Prior to this past month’s release, users were forced to choose a single geographical region when creating their first site.  After that, subsequent sites could only be created in that same region.  This restriction has now been removed, and you can now create sites in any region at any time and have up to 10 free sites in each supported region: One of the new regions we’ve recently opened up is the “East Asia” region.  This allows you to now deploy sites to North America, Europe and Asia simultaneously.  Private GitHub Repository Support This past week we also enabled Git based continuous deployment support for Web Sites from private GitHub and BitBucket repositories (previous to this you could only enable this with public repositories).  Enhancements to Cloud Services Experience The most recent Windows Azure Portal release brings with it some nice usability improvements to Cloud Services: Deploy a Cloud Service from a Windows Azure Storage Account The Windows Azure Portal now supports deploying an application package and configuration file stored in a blob container in Windows Azure Storage. The ability to upload an application package from storage is available when you custom create, or upload to, or update a cloud service deployment. To upload an application package and configuration, create a Cloud Service, then select the file upload dialog, and choose to upload from a Windows Azure Storage Account: To upload an application package from storage, click the “FROM STORAGE” button and select the application package and configuration file to use from the new blob storage explorer in the portal. Configure Windows Azure Caching in a caching enabled cloud service If you have deployed the new dedicated cache within a cloud service role, you can also now configure the cache settings in the portal by navigating to the configuration tab of for your Cloud Service deployment. The configuration experience is similar to the one in Visual Studio when you create a cloud service and add a caching role.  The portal now allows you to add or remove named caches and change the settings for the named caches – all from within the Portal and without needing to redeploy your application. Enhancements to Media Services You can now upload, encode, publish, and play your video content directly from within the Windows Azure Portal.  This makes it incredibly easy to get started with Windows Azure Media Services and perform common tasks without having to write any code. Simply navigate to your media service and then click on the “Content” tab.  All of the media content within your media service account will be listed here: Clicking the “upload” button within the portal now allows you to upload a media file directly from your computer: This will cause the video file you chose from your local file-system to be uploaded into Windows Azure.  Once uploaded, you can select the file within the content tab of the Portal and click the “Encode” button to transcode it into different streaming formats: The portal includes a number of pre-set encoding formats that you can easily convert media content into: Once you select an encoding and click the ok button, Windows Azure Media Services will kick off an encoding job that will happen in the cloud (no need for you to stand-up or configure a custom encoding server).  When it’s finished, you can select the video in the “Content” tab and then click PUBLISH in the command bar to setup an origin streaming end-point to it: Once the media file is published you can point apps against the public URL and play the content using Windows Azure Media Services – no need to setup or run your own streaming server.  You can also now select the file and click the “Play” button in the command bar to play it using the streaming endpoint directly within the Portal: This makes it incredibly easy to try out and use Windows Azure Media Services and test out an end-to-end workflow without having to write any code.  Once you test things out you can of course automate it using script or code – providing you with an incredibly powerful Cloud Media platform that you can use. Enhancements to Virtual Network Experience Over the last few months, we have received feedback on the complexity of the Virtual Network creation experience. With these most recent Portal updates, we have added a Quick Create experience that makes the creation experience very simple. All that an administrator now needs to do is to provide a VNET name, choose an address space and the size of the VNET address space. They no longer need to understand the intricacies of the CIDR format or walk through a 4-page wizard or create a VNET / subnet. This makes creating virtual networks really simple: The portal also now has a “Register DNS Server” task that makes it easy to register DNS servers and associate them with a virtual network. Enhancements to Storage Experience The portal now lets you register custom domain names for your Windows Azure Storage Accounts.  To enable this, select a storage resource and then go to the CONFIGURE tab for a storage account, and then click MANAGE DOMAIN on the command bar: Clicking “Manage Domain” will bring up a dialog that allows you to register any CNAME you want: Summary The above features are all now live in production and available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using them today.  Visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. One of the other cool features that is now live within the portal is our new Windows Azure Store – which makes it incredibly easy to try and purchase developer services from a variety of partners.  It is an incredibly awesome new capability – and something I’ll be doing a dedicated post about shortly. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Evaluating Solutions to Manage Product Compliance? Don't Wait Much Longer

  - by Kerrie Foy

  Depending on severity, product compliance issues can cause all sorts of problems from run-away budgets to business closures. But effective policies and safeguards can create a strong foundation for innovation, productivity, market penetration and competitive advantage. If you’ve been putting off a systematic approach to product compliance, it is time to reconsider that decision, or indecision. Why now?  No matter what industry, companies face a litany of worldwide and regional regulations that require proof of product compliance and environmental friendliness for market access.  For example, Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) is a regulation that restricts the use of six dangerous materials used in the manufacture of electronic and electrical equipment.  ROHS was originally adopted by the European Union in 2003 for implementation in 2006, and it has evolved over time through various regional versions for North America, China, Japan, Korea, Norway and Turkey.  In addition, the RoHS directive allowed for material exemptions used in Medical Devices, but that exemption ends in 2014.   Additional regulations worth watching are the Battery Directive, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) directives.  Additional evolving regulations are coming from governing bodies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Corporate sustainability initiatives are also gaining urgency and influencing product design. In a survey of 405 corporations in the Global 500 by Carbon Disclosure Project, co-written by PwC (CDP Global 500 Climate Change Report 2012 entitled Business Resilience in an Uncertain, Resource-Constrained World), 48% of the respondents indicated they saw potential to create new products and business services as a response to climate change. Just 21% reported a dedicated budget for the research. However, the report goes on to explain that those few companies are winning over new customers and driving additional profits by exploiting their abilities to adapt to environmental needs. The article cites Dell as an example – Dell has invested in research to develop new products designed to reduce its customers’ emissions by more than 10 million metric tons of CO2e per year. This reduction in emissions should save Dell’s customers over $1billion per year as a result! Over time we expect to see many additional companies prove that eco-design provides marketplace benefits through differentiation and direct customer value. How do you meet compliance requirements and also successfully invest in eco-friendly designs? No doubt companies struggle to answer this question. After all, the journey to get there may involve transforming business models, go-to-market strategies, supply networks, quality assurance policies and compliance processes per the rapidly evolving global and regional directives. There may be limited executive focus on the initiative, inability to quantify noncompliance, or not enough resources to justify investment. To make things even more difficult to address, compliance responsibility can be a passionate topic within an organization, making the prospect of change on an enterprise scale problematic and time-consuming. Without a single source of truth for product data and without proper processes in place, ensuring product compliance burgeons into a crushing task that is cost-prohibitive and overwhelming to an organization. With all the overhead, certain markets or demographics become simply inaccessible. Therefore, the risk to consumer goodwill and satisfaction, revenue, business continuity, and market potential is too great not to solve the compliance challenge. Companies are beginning to adapt and even thrive in today’s highly regulated and transparent environment by implementing systematic approaches to product compliance that are more than functional bandages but revenue-generating engines. Consider partnering with Oracle to help you address your compliance needs. Many of the world’s most innovative leaders and pioneers are leveraging Oracle’s Agile Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) portfolio of enterprise applications to manage the product value chain, centralize product data, automate processes, and launch more eco-friendly products to market faster.   Particularly, the Agile Product Governance & Compliance (PG&C) solution provides out-of-the-box functionality to integrate actionable regulatory information into the enterprise product record from the ideation to the disposal/recycling phase. Agile PG&C makes it possible to efficiently manage compliance per corporate green initiatives as well as regional and global directives. Options are critical, but so is ease-of-use. Anyone who’s grappled with compliance policy knows legal interpretation plays a major role in determining how an organization responds to regulation. Agile PG&C gives you the freedom to configure product compliance per your needs, while maintaining rigorous control over the product record in an easy-to-use interface that facilitates adoption efforts. It allows you to assign regulations as specifications for a part or BOM roll-up. Each specification has a threshold value that alerts you to a non-compliance issue if the threshold value is exceeded. Set however many regulations as specifications you need to make sure a product can be sold in your target countries. Another option is to implement like one of our leading consumer electronics customers and define your own “catch-all” specification to ensure compliance in all markets. You can give your suppliers secure access to enter their component data or integrate a third party’s data. With Agile PG&C you are able to design compliance earlier into your products to reduce cost and improve quality downstream when stakes are higher. Agile PG&C is a comprehensive solution that makes product compliance more reliable and efficient. Throughout product lifecycles, use the solution to support full material disclosures, efficiently manage declarations with your suppliers, feed compliance data into a corrective action if a product must be changed, and swiftly satisfy audits by showing all due diligence tracked in one solution. Given the compounding regulation and consumer focus on urgent environmental issues, now is the time to act. Implementing an enterprise, systematic approach to product compliance is a competitive investment. From the start, Agile Product Governance & Compliance enables companies to confidently design for compliance and sustainability, reduce the cost of compliance, minimize the risk of business interruption, deliver responsible products, and inspire new innovation.  Don’t wait any longer! To find out more about Agile Product Governance & Compliance download the data sheet, contact your sales representative, or call Oracle at 1-800-633-0738. Many thanks to Shane Goodwin, Senior Manager, Oracle Agile PLM Product Management, for contributions to this article. 

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• External File Upload Optimizations for Windows Azure

  - by rgillen

  [Cross posted from here: http://rob.gillenfamily.net/post/External-File-Upload-Optimizations-for-Windows-Azure.aspx] I’m wrapping up a bit of the work we’ve been doing on data movement optimizations for cloud computing and the latest set of data yielded some interesting points I thought I’d share. The work done here is not really rocket science but may, in some ways, be slightly counter-intuitive and therefore seemed worthy of posting. Summary: for those who don’t like to read detailed posts or don’t have time, the synopsis is that if you are uploading data to Azure, block your data (even down to 1MB) and upload in parallel. Set your block size based on your source file size, but if you must choose a fixed value, use 1MB. Following the above will result in significant performance gains… upwards of 10x-24x and a reduction in overall file transfer time of upwards of 90% (eg, uploading a 1GB file averaged 46.37 minutes prior to optimizations and averaged 1.86 minutes afterwards). Detail: For those of you who want more detail, or think that the claims at the end of the preceding paragraph are over-reaching, what follows is information and code supporting these claims. As the title would indicate, these tests were run from our research facility pointing to the Azure cloud (specifically US North Central as it is physically closest to us) and do not represent intra-cloud results… we have performed intra-cloud tests and the overall results are similar in notion but the data rates are significantly different as well as the tipping points for the various block sizes… this will be detailed separately). We started by building a very simple console application that would loop through a directory and upload each file to Azure storage. This application used the shipping storage client library from the 1.1 version of the azure tools. The only real variation from the client library is that we added code to collect and record the duration (in ms) and size (in bytes) for each file transferred. The code is available here. We then created a directory that had a collection of files for the following sizes: 2KB, 32KB, 64KB, 128KB, 512KB, 1MB, 5MB, 10MB, 25MB, 50MB, 100MB, 250MB, 500MB, 750MB, and 1GB (50 files for each size listed). These files contained randomly-generated binary data and do not benefit from compression (a separate discussion topic). Our file generation tool is available here. The baseline was established by running the application described above against the directory containing all of the data files. This application uploads the files in a random order so as to avoid transferring all of the files of a given size sequentially and thereby spreading the affects of periodic Internet delays across the collection of results.  We then ran some scripts to split the resulting data and generate some reports. The raw data collected for our non-optimized tests is available via the links in the Related Resources section at the bottom of this post. For each file size, we calculated the average upload time (and standard deviation) and the average transfer rate (and standard deviation). As you likely are aware, transferring data across the Internet is susceptible to many transient delays which can cause anomalies in the resulting data. It is for this reason that we randomized the order of source file processing as well as executed the tests 50x for each file size. We expect that these steps will yield a sufficiently balanced set of results. Once the baseline was collected and analyzed, we updated the test harness application with some methods to split the source file into user-defined block sizes and then to upload those blocks in parallel (using the PutBlock() method of Azure storage). The parallelization was handled by simply relying on the Parallel Extensions to .NET to provide a Parallel.For loop (see linked source for specific implementation details in Program.cs, line 173 and following… less than 100 lines total). Once all of the blocks were uploaded, we called PutBlockList() to assemble/commit the file in Azure storage. For each block transferred, the MD5 was calculated and sent ensuring that the bits that arrived matched was was intended. The timer for the blocked/parallelized transfer method wraps the entire process (source file splitting, block transfer, MD5 validation, file committal). A diagram of the process is as follows: We then tested the affects of blocking & parallelizing the transfers by running the updated application against the same source set and did a parameter sweep on the block size including 256KB, 512KB, 1MB, 2MB, and 4MB (our assumption was that anything lower than 256KB wasn’t worth the trouble and 4MB is the maximum size of a block supported by Azure). The raw data for the parallel tests is available via the links in the Related Resources section at the bottom of this post. This data was processed and then compared against the single-threaded / non-optimized transfer numbers and the results were encouraging. The Excel version of the results is available here. Two semi-obvious points need to be made prior to reviewing the data. The first is that if the block size is larger than the source file size you will end up with a “negative optimization” due to the overhead of attempting to block and parallelize. The second is that as the files get smaller, the clock-time cost of blocking and parallelizing (overhead) is more apparent and can tend towards negative optimizations. For this reason (and is supported in the raw data provided in the linked worksheet) the charts and dialog below ignore source file sizes less than 1MB. (click chart for full size image) The chart above illustrates some interesting points about the results: When the block size is smaller than the source file, performance increases but as the block size approaches and then passes the source file size, you see decreasing benefit to the point of negative gains (see the values for the 1MB file size) For some of the moderately-sized source files, small blocks (256KB) are best As the size of the source file gets larger (see values for 50MB and up), the smallest block size is not the most efficient (presumably due, at least in part, to the increased number of blocks, increased number of individual transfer requests, and reassembly/committal costs). Once you pass the 250MB source file size, the difference in rate for 1MB to 4MB blocks is more-or-less constant The 1MB block size gives the best average improvement (~16x) but the optimal approach would be to vary the block size based on the size of the source file.    (click chart for full size image) The above is another view of the same data as the prior chart just with the axis changed (x-axis represents file size and plotted data shows improvement by block size). It again highlights the fact that the 1MB block size is probably the best overall size but highlights the benefits of some of the other block sizes at different source file sizes. This last chart shows the change in total duration of the file uploads based on different block sizes for the source file sizes. Nothing really new here other than this view of the data highlights the negative affects of poorly choosing a block size for smaller files.   Summary What we have found so far is that blocking your file uploads and uploading them in parallel results in significant performance improvements. Further, utilizing extension methods and the Task Parallel Library (.NET 4.0) make short work of altering the shipping client library to provide this functionality while minimizing the amount of change to existing applications that might be using the client library for other interactions.   Related Resources Source code for upload test application Source code for random file generator ODatas feed of raw data from non-optimized transfer tests Experiment Metadata Experiment Datasets 2KB Uploads 32KB Uploads 64KB Uploads 128KB Uploads 256KB Uploads 512KB Uploads 1MB Uploads 5MB Uploads 10MB Uploads 25MB Uploads 50MB Uploads 100MB Uploads 250MB Uploads 500MB Uploads 750MB Uploads 1GB Uploads Raw Data OData feeds of raw data from blocked/parallelized transfer tests Experiment Metadata Experiment Datasets Raw Data 256KB Blocks 512KB Blocks 1MB Blocks 2MB Blocks 4MB Blocks Excel worksheet showing summarizations and comparisons

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• Big data: An evening in the life of an actual buyer

  - by Jean-Pierre Dijcks

  Here I am, and this is an actual story of one of my evenings, trying to spend money with a company and ultimately failing. I just gave up and bought a service from another vendor, not the incumbent. Here is that story and how I think big data could actually fix this (and potentially prevent some of this from happening). In the end this story should illustrate how big data can benefit me (get me what I want without causing grief) and the company I am trying to buy something from. Note: Lots of details left out, I have no intention of being the annoyed blogger moaning about a specific company. What did I want to get? We watch TV, we have internet and we do have a land line. The land line is from a different vendor then the TV and the internet. I have decided that this makes no sense and I was going to get a bundle (no need to infer who this is, I just picked the generic bundle word as this is what I want to get) of all three services as this seems to save me money. I also want to not talk to people, I just want to click on a website when I feel like it and get it all sorted. I do think that is reality. I want to just do my shopping at 9.30pm while watching silly reruns on TV. Problem 1 - Bad links So, I'm an existing customer of the company I want to buy my bundle from. I go to the website, I click on offers. Turns out they are offers for new customers. After grumbling about how good they are, I click on offers for existing customers. Bummer, it goes to offers for new customers, so I click again on the link for offers for existing customers. No cigar... it just does not work. Big data solutions: 1) Do not show an existing customer the offers for new customers unless they are the same => This is only partially doable without login, but if a customer logs in the application should always know that this is an existing customer. But in general, imagine I do this from my home going through the internet service of this vendor to their domain... an instant filter should move me into the "existing customer route". 2) Flag dead or incorrect links => I've clicked the link for "existing customer offers" at least 3 times in under 5 seconds... Identifying patterns like this is easy in Hadoop and can very quickly make a list of potentially incorrect links. No need for realtime fixing, just the fact that this link can be pro-actively fixed across my entire web domain is a good thing. Preventative maintenance! Problem 2 - Purchase cannot be completed Apart from the fact that the browsing pattern to actually get to what I want is poorly designed, my purchase never gets past a specific point. In other words, I put something into my shopping cart and when I want to move on the application either crashes (with me going to an error page) or hangs or goes into something like chat. So I try again, and again and again. I think I tried this entire path (while being logged in!!) at least 10 times over the course of 20 minutes. I also clicked on the feedback button and, frustrated as I was, tried to explain this did not work... Big Data Solutions: 1) This web site does shopping cart analysis. I got an email next day stating I have things in my shopping cart, just click here to complete my purchase. After the above experience, this just added insult to my pain... 2) What should have happened, is a Hadoop job going over all logged in customers that are on the buy flow. It should flag anyone who is trying (multiple attempts from the same user to do the same thing), analyze the shopping card, the clicks to identify what the customers wants, his feedback provided (note: always own your own website feedback, never just farm this out!!) and in a short turn around time (30 minutes to 2 hours or so) email me with a link to complete my purchase. Not with a link to my shopping cart 12 hours later, but a link to actually achieve what I wanted... Why should this company go through the big data effort? I do believe this is relatively easy to do using our Oracle Event Processing and Big Data Appliance solutions combined. It is almost so simple (to my mind) that it makes no sense that this is not in place? But, now I am ranting... Why is this interesting? It is because of $$$$. After trying really hard, I mean I did this all in the evening, and again in the morning before going to work. I kept on failing, But I really wanted this to work... so an email that said, sorry, we noticed you tried to get a bundle (the log knows what I wanted, where I failed, so easy to generate), here is the link to click and complete your purchase. And here is 2 movies on us as an apology would have kept me as a customer, and got the additional $$$$ per month for the next couple of years. It would also lead to upsell on my phone package etc. Instead, I went to a completely different company, bought service from them. Lost money for company A, negative sentiment for company A and me telling this story at the water cooler so I'm influencing more people to think negatively about company A. All in all, a loss of easy money, a ding in sentiment and image where a relatively simple solution exists and can be in place on the software I describe routinely in this blog... For those who are coming to Openworld and maybe see value in solving the above, or are thinking of how to solve this, come visit us in Moscone North - Oracle Red Lounge or in the Engineered Systems Showcase.

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• Make @JsonTypeInfo property optional

  - by Mark Peters

  I'm using @JsonTypeInfo to instruct Jackson to look in the @class property for concrete type information. However, sometimes I don't want to have to specify @class, particularly when the subtype can be inferred given the context. What's the best way to do that? Here's an example of the JSON: { "owner": {"name":"Dave"}, "residents":[ {"@class":"jacksonquestion.Dog","breed":"Greyhound"}, {"@class":"jacksonquestion.Human","name":"Cheryl"}, {"@class":"jacksonquestion.Human","name":"Timothy"} ] } and I'm trying to deserialize them into these classes (all in jacksonquestion.*): public class Household { private Human owner; private List<Animal> residents; public Human getOwner() { return owner; } public void setOwner(Human owner) { this.owner = owner; } public List<Animal> getResidents() { return residents; } public void setResidents(List<Animal> residents) { this.residents = residents; } } public class Animal {} public class Dog extends Animal { private String breed; public String getBreed() { return breed; } public void setBreed(String breed) { this.breed = breed; } } public class Human extends Animal { private String name; public String getName() { return name; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } } using this config: @JsonTypeInfo(use = JsonTypeInfo.Id.CLASS, include = JsonTypeInfo.As.PROPERTY, property = "@class") private static class AnimalMixin { } //... ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper(); objectMapper.getDeserializationConfig().addMixInAnnotations(Animal.class, AnimalMixin.class); Household household = objectMapper.readValue(json, Household.class); System.out.println(household); As you can see, the owner is declared as a Human, not an Animal, so I want to be able to omit @class and have Jackson infer the type as it normally would. When I run this though, I get org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonMappingException: Unexpected token (END_OBJECT), expected FIELD_NAME: missing property '@class' that is to contain type id (for class jacksonquestion.Human) Since "owner" doesn't specify @class. Any ideas? One initial thought I had was to use @JsonTypeInfo on the property rather than the type. However, this cannot be leveraged to annotate the element type of a list.

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• How do you Send More that 20 Parameters to a Stored Procedure Using ODP.Net?

  - by discwiz

  Switching from Microsofts Oracle Driver to ODP.NET version 10.2.0.100. After changing the data types to OracleDBTypes in a procedure, that worked perficetly using System.Data.OracleClient, the procedure fails if we try and pass in more that 20 parameters. The error returned is: ORA-06550: line 1, column 7: PLS-00306: wrong number or types of arguments in call to 'ADD_TARP_EVENT' ORA-06550: line 1, column 7: PL/SQL: Statement ignorede If we reduce the number of parameters to less than 20 it works. Is this a known issue? Thanks, Dave Here the code for creating the parameters: Shared Function CreateTarpEventCommand(ByVal aTarpEvent As TARPEventType) As OracleCommand Dim cmd As New OracleCommand With aTarpEvent cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_facID_C", OracleDbType.Char)).Value = .FacilityShortName cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_facName_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .FacilityLongName cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_client_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .ComputerNameTarpIsRunningOn cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_TARP_Version_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .TarpVersionNumber cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_NAS_Type_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .FacilityNASSystemType cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Aircraft1_Callsign_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .Aircraft1Callsign If .Aircraft1Type Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Aircraft1_Type_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .Aircraft1Type End If If .Aircraft1Category Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Aircraft1_Cat_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .Aircraft1Category End If cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Aircraft2_Callsign_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .Aircraft2Callsign If .Aircraft2Type Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Aircraft2_Type_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .Aircraft2Type End If If .Aircraft2Category Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Aircraft2_Cat_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .Aircraft2Category End If If .SensorShortName Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Sensor_Name_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .SensorShortName End If If .TarpConfigurationName Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_TARP_Config_Name_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .TarpConfigurationName End If If .EntryCreatorID Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Create_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .EntryCreatorID End If If .LogAction Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Log_Action_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .LogAction End If cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_TARP_Mode_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .TarpOperatingMode cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Min_Loss_N", OracleDbType.Decimal)).Value = .ClosestMeasureOfLoSS If .MapName Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_MAP_NAME_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .MapName End If If .TarpConfigurationFileHash Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_CONFIG_HASH_VC", OracleDbType.Varchar2)).Value = .TarpConfigurationFileHash End If Dim aDate As OracleDate = CType(.LossEventsMessages(0).LossEventTime, System.DateTime) cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_FIRST_LOSS_EVENT_DATE", OracleDbType.Date)).Value = aDate cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_FIRST_LOSS_EVENT_MS_N", OracleDbType.Int32)).Value = .LossEventsMessages(0).LossEventMilliSeconds If .ZippedMapFiles Is Nothing Then cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_Map_File_BL", OracleDbType.Blob)).Value = .ZippedMapFiles End If cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("I_TARP_Package_BL", OracleDbType.Blob)).Value = .ZippedTarpPackageWithoutMaps cmd.Parameters.Add(New OracleParameter("rs_RESULTS", OracleDbType.RefCursor)).Direction = ParameterDirection.Output End With Return cmd End Function And here is the code for executing the procedure: Dim workingDataSet As New DataSet Dim oracleConnection As New OracleConnection Dim cmd As New OracleCommand Dim oracleDataAdapter As New OracleDataAdapter Try Using oracleConnection oracleConnection.ConnectionString = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("MasterConnectionODT") cmd = HelperDB.CreateTarpEventCommand(TarpEvent) cmd.Connection = oracleConnection cmd.CommandText = "LOADER.ADD_TARP_EVENT" cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure Using oracleConnection oracleConnection.Open() Dim aTransation As OracleTransaction = oracleConnection.BeginTransaction(IsolationLevel.ReadCommitted) Try Using oracleDataAdapter oracleDataAdapter = New OracleDataAdapter(cmd) oracleDataAdapter.TableMappings.Add("Results", "rs_Max") oracleDataAdapter.Fill(workingDataSet) ....

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• Get HDD (and NOT Volume) Serial Number on Vista Ultimate 64 bit

  - by TheAgent

  Hi all. I was once looking for getting the HDD serial number without using WMI, and I found it. The code I found and posted on StackOverFlow.com works very well on 32 bit Windows, both XP and Vista. The trouble only begins when I try to get the serail number on 64 bit OSs (Vista Ultimate 64, specifically). The code returns String.Empty, or a Space all the time. Anyone got an idea how to fix this? EDIT: I used the tools Dave Cluderay suggested, with interesting results: Here is the output from DiskId32, on Windows XP SP2 32-bit: To get all details use "diskid32 /d" Trying to read the drive IDs using physical access with admin rights Drive 0 - Primary Controller - - Master drive Drive Model Number________________: [MAXTOR STM3160215AS] Drive Serial Number_______________: [ 6RA26XK3] Drive Controller Revision Number__: [3.AAD] Controller Buffer Size on Drive___: 2097152 bytes Drive Type________________________: Fixed Drive Size________________________: 160041885696 bytes Trying to read the drive IDs using the SCSI back door Drive 4 - Tertiary Controller - - Master drive Drive Model Number________________: [MAXTOR STM3160215AS] Drive Serial Number_______________: [ 6RA26XK3] Drive Controller Revision Number__: [3.AAD] Controller Buffer Size on Drive___: 2097152 bytes Drive Type________________________: Fixed Drive Size________________________: 160041885696 bytes Trying to read the drive IDs using physical access with zero rights **** STORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR for drive 0 **** Vendor Id = [] Product Id = [MAXTOR STM3160215AS] Product Revision = [3.AAD] Serial Number = [] **** DISK_GEOMETRY_EX for drive 0 **** Disk is fixed DiskSize = 160041885696 Trying to read the drive IDs using Smart Drive 0 - Primary Controller - - Master drive Drive Model Number________________: [MAXTOR STM3160215AS] Drive Serial Number_______________: [ 6RA26XK3] Drive Controller Revision Number__: [3.AAD] Controller Buffer Size on Drive___: 2097152 bytes Drive Type________________________: Fixed Drive Size________________________: 160041885696 bytes Hard Drive Serial Number__________: 6RA26XK3 Hard Drive Model Number___________: MAXTOR STM3160215AS And DiskId32 run on Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit: To get all details use "diskid32 /d" Trying to read the drive IDs using physical access with admin rights Trying to read the drive IDs using the SCSI back door Trying to read the drive IDs using physical access with zero rights **** STORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR for drive 0 **** Vendor Id = [MAXTOR S] Product Id = [TM3160215AS] Product Revision = [3.AA] Serial Number = [] **** DISK_GEOMETRY_EX for drive 0 **** Disk is fixed DiskSize = 160041885696 Trying to read the drive IDs using Smart Hard Drive Serial Number__________: Hard Drive Model Number___________: Notice how much lesser the information is on Vista, and how the Serial Number is not returned. Also the other tool, EnumDisk, refers to my hard disks on Vista as "SCSI" as opposed to "ATA" on Windows XP. Any ideas? EDIT 2: I'm posting the results from EnumDisks: On Windows XP SP2 32-bit: Properties for Device 1 Device ID: IDE\DiskMAXTOR_STM3160215AS_____________________3.AAD___ Adapter Properties ------------------ Bus Type : ATA Max. Tr. Length: 0x20000 Max. Phy. Pages: 0xffffffff Alignment Mask : 0x1 Device Properties ----------------- Device Type : Direct Access Device (0x0) Removable Media : No Product ID : MAXTOR STM3160215AS Product Revision: 3.AAD Inquiry Data from Pass Through ------------------------------ Device Type: Direct Access Device (0x0) Vendor ID : MAXTOR S Product ID : TM3160215AS Product Rev: 3.AA Vendor Str : *** End of Device List

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• Java object to XML Elements?

  - by DaveKub

  I'm working on a webservices client app and I have it mostly working. I can retrieve and read data from the third-party webservice fine. Now I need to submit some data and I'm stuck. The classes for the objects I'm retrieving/submitting were generated from XSD files via the xjc tool. The part I'm stuck on is turning one of those objects into an XML tree to submit to the webservice. When I retrieve/send a request from/to the ws, it contains a 'payload' object. This is defined in java code as (partial listing): @XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD) @XmlType(name = "PayloadType", propOrder = { "compressed", "document", "any", "format" }) public class PayloadType { @XmlElement(name = "Compressed") protected String compressed; @XmlElement(name = "Document") protected List<String> document; @XmlAnyElement protected List<Element> any; protected String format; public List<Element> getAny() { if (any == null) { any = new ArrayList<Element>(); } return this.any; } } The only field I'm concerned with is the 'any' field which contains an XML tree. When I retrieve data from the ws, I read that field with something like this: ('root' is of org.w3c.dom.Element type and is the result of calling 'getAny().get(0)' on the payload object) NodeList nl = root.getElementsByTagName("ns1:Process"); // "ns1:Process" is an XML node to do something with if (nl != null && nl.getLength() > 0) { for (int i = 0; i < nl.getLength(); i++) { Element proc = (Element) nl.item(i); try { // do something with the 'proc' Element here... } catch (Exception ex) { // handle problems here... } } } Submitting data is where I'm stuck. How do I take a java object created from one of the classes generated from XSD and turn it into an Element object that I can add to the 'any' List of the payload object?? For instance, if I have a DailyData class and I create and populate it with data: DailyData dData = new DailyData(); dData.setID = 34; dData.setValues = "3,5,76,23"; How do I add that 'dData' object to the 'any' List of the payload object? It has to be an Element. Do I do something with a JAXBContext marshaller? I've used that to dump the 'dData' object to the screen to check the XML structure. I'm sure the answer is staring me in the face but I just can't see it! Dave

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• How to fire server-side methods with jQuery

  - by Nasser Hajloo

  I have a large application and I'm going to enabling short-cut key for it. I'd find 2 JQuery plug-ins (demo plug-in 1 - Demo plug-in 2) that do this for me. you can find both of them in this post in StackOverFlow My application is a completed one and I'm goining to add some functionality to it so I don't want towrite code again. So as a short-cut is just catching a key combination, I'm wonder how can I call the server methods which a short-cut key should fire? So How to use either of these plug-ins, by just calling the methods I'd written before? Actually How to fire Server methods with Jquery? You can also find a good article here, by Dave Ward Update: here is the scenario. When User press CTRL+Del the GridView1_OnDeleteCommand so I have this protected void grdDocumentRows_DeleteCommand(object source, System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataGridCommandEventArgs e) { try { DeleteRow(grdDocumentRows.DataKeys[e.Item.ItemIndex].ToString()); clearControls(); cmdSaveTrans.Text = Hajloo.Portal.Common.Constants.Accounting.Documents.InsertClickText; btnDelete.Visible = false; grdDocumentRows.EditItemIndex = -1; BindGrid(); } catch (Exception ex) { Page.AddMessage(GetLocalResourceObject("AProblemAccuredTryAgain").ToString(), MessageControl.TypeEnum.Error); } } private void BindGrid() { RefreshPage(); grdDocumentRows.DataSource = ((DataSet)Session[Hajloo.Portal.Common.Constants.Accounting.Session.AccDocument]).Tables[AccDocument.TRANSACTIONS_TABLE]; grdDocumentRows.DataBind(); } private void RefreshPage() { Creditors = (decimal)((AccDocument)Session[Hajloo.Portal.Common.Constants.Accounting.Session.AccDocument]).Tables[AccDocument.ACCDOCUMENT_TABLE].Rows[0][AccDocument.ACCDOCUMENT_CREDITORS_SUM_FIELD]; Debtors = (decimal)((AccDocument)Session[Hajloo.Portal.Common.Constants.Accounting.Session.AccDocument]).Tables[AccDocument.ACCDOCUMENT_TABLE].Rows[0][AccDocument.ACCDOCUMENT_DEBTORS_SUM_FIELD]; if ((Creditors - Debtors) != 0) labBalance.InnerText = GetLocalResourceObject("Differentiate").ToString() + "?" + (Creditors - Debtors).ToString(Hajloo.Portal.Common.Constants.Common.Documents.CF) + "?"; else labBalance.InnerText = GetLocalResourceObject("Balance").ToString(); lblSumDebit.Text = Debtors.ToString(Hajloo.Portal.Common.Constants.Common.Documents.CF); lblSumCredit.Text = Creditors.ToString(Hajloo.Portal.Common.Constants.Common.Documents.CF); if (grdDocumentRows.EditItemIndex == -1) clearControls(); } Th other scenario are the same. How to enable short-cut for these kind of code (using session , NHibernate, etc)

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• Can you pass by reference in Java?

  - by dbones

  Hi. Sorry if this sounds like a newbie question, but the other day a Java developer mentioned about passing a paramter by reference (by which it was ment just pass a Reference object) From a C# perspective I can pass a reference type by value or by reference, this is also true to value types I have written a noddie console application to show what i mean.. can i do this in Java? namespace ByRefByVal { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { //Creating of the object Person p1 = new Person(); p1.Name = "Dave"; PrintIfObjectIsNull(p1); //should not be null //A copy of the Reference is made and sent to the method PrintUserNameByValue(p1); PrintIfObjectIsNull(p1); //the actual reference is passed to the method PrintUserNameByRef(ref p1); //<-- I know im passing the Reference PrintIfObjectIsNull(p1); Console.ReadLine(); } private static void PrintIfObjectIsNull(Object o) { if (o == null) { Console.WriteLine("object is null"); } else { Console.WriteLine("object still references something"); } } /// <summary> /// this takes in a Reference type of Person, by value /// </summary> /// <param name="person"></param> private static void PrintUserNameByValue(Person person) { Console.WriteLine(person.Name); person = null; //<- this cannot affect the orginal reference, as it was passed in by value. } /// <summary> /// this takes in a Reference type of Person, by reference /// </summary> /// <param name="person"></param> private static void PrintUserNameByRef(ref Person person) { Console.WriteLine(person.Name); person = null; //this has access to the orginonal reference, allowing us to alter it, either make it point to a different object or to nothing. } } class Person { public string Name { get; set; } } } If it java cannot do this, then its just passing a reference type by value? (is that fair to say) Many thanks Bones

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• CoGetClassObject gives many First-chance exceptions in ATL project. Should I worry?

  - by Andrew

  Hello, I have written a COM object that in turn uses a thrid party ActiveX control. In my FinalConstruct() for my COM object, I instantiate the ActiveX control with the follow code: HRESULT hRes; LPCLASSFACTORY2 pClassFactory; hRes = CoInitializeEx(NULL,COINIT_APARTMENTTHREADED); bool bTest = SUCCEEDED(hRes); if (!bTest) return E_FAIL; if (SUCCEEDED(CoGetClassObject(__uuidof(SerialPortSniffer), CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER, NULL, IID_IClassFactory2, (LPVOID *)(&pClassFactory)))) { ... more set up code When I step over the line if (SUCCEEDED(CoGetClassObject(__uuidof(SerialPortSniffer), ..., I get 20+ lines in the Output window stating: First-chance exception at 0x0523f82e in SillyComDriver.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x00000000. I also get the lines: First-chance exception at 0x051e3f3d in SillyComDriver.exe: 0xC0000096: Privileged instruction. First-chance exception at 0x100ab9e6 in SillyComDriver.exe: 0xC000001D: Illegal Instruction. Notice these are first-chance exceptions. The program runs as expected I can access the third party methods/properties. Still, I'm left wondering why they are occurring. Perhaps my way of instantiating the ActiveX control (for which I want use of it's methods/properties and not it's GUI stuff) is incorrect? Besides the code I'm showing, I also put the line import "spsax.dll" no_namespace in the stdafx.h That's all the code necessary for my simple demo project. I noticed this problem because I had (inadvertently) set the "break on exceptions" options in my "real" project and it was breaking on this line. Once I removed it, it also works. If you're read this far thank you, and perhaps I can ask one other minor question. In my demo project, if I right click on SerialPortSniffer and "go to definition", it takes me to the file C:....\AppData\Local\Temp\spsax.tlh. Can someone explain that? Finally, in my "real" project, right clicking on SerialPortSniffer and going to difinition leads to "The symbol 'SerialPortSniffer' is not defined". It doesn't seem to affect the program though. Is there some setting I've messed up? By the way, all my code is written w/ VS2008. Thanks, Dave

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• Animating a pulsing UILabel?

  - by fuzzygoat

  I am trying to animate the color the the text on a UILabel to pulse from: [Black] to [White] to [Black] and repeat. - (void)timerFlash:(NSTimer *)timer { [[self navTitle] setTextColor:[[UIColor whiteColor] colorWithAlphaComponent:0.0]]; [UIView animateWithDuration:1 delay:0 options:UIViewAnimationOptionAllowUserInteraction animations:^{[[self navTitle] setTextColor:[[UIColor whiteColor] colorWithAlphaComponent:1.0]];} completion:nil]; } . [self setFadeTimer:[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:1 target:self selector:@selector(timerFlash:) userInfo:nil repeats:YES]]; Firstly I am not sure of my method, my plan (as you can see above) was to set up a animation block and call it using a repeating NSTimer until canceled. My second problem (as you can see above) is that I am animating from black (alpha 0) to white (alpha 1) but I don't know how to animate back to black again so the animation loops seamlessly Essentially what I want is the text color to pulse on a UILabel until the user presses a button to continue. EDIT_001: I was getting into trouble because you can't animate [UILabel setColor:] you can however animated [UILabel setAlpha:] so I am going to give that a go. EDIT_002: - (void)timerFlash:(NSTimer *)timer { [[self navTitle] setAlpha:0.5]; [UIView animateWithDuration:2 delay:0 options:UIViewAnimationOptionAllowUserInteraction animations:^{[[self navTitle] setAlpha:0.9];} completion:nil]; } This works (BTW: I do want it to stop which is why I hooked it up to a NSTimer so I can cancel that) the only thing is that this animates from midGray to nearWhite and then pops back. Does anyone know how I would animate back from nearWhite to midGray so I get a nice smooth cycle? EDIT_003: (Solution) The code suggested by dave DeLong (see below) does indeed work when modified to use the CALayer opacity style attribute: UILabel *navTitle; @property(nonatomic, retain) UILabel *navTitle; . // ADD ANIMATION CABasicAnimation *anim = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"opacity"]; [anim setTimingFunction:[CAMediaTimingFunction functionWithName:kCAMediaTimingFunctionEaseInEaseOut]]; [anim setFromValue:[NSNumber numberWithFloat:0.5]]; [anim setToValue:[NSNumber numberWithFloat:1.0]]; [anim setAutoreverses:YES]; [anim setDuration:0.5]; [[[self navTitle] layer] addAnimation:anim forKey:@"flash"]; . // REMOVE ANIMATION [[[self navTitle] layer] removeAnimationForKey:@"flash__"];

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• App losing db connection

  - by DaveKub

  I'm having a weird issue with an old Delphi app losing it's database connection. Actually, I think it's losing something else that then makes the connection either drop or be unusable. The app is written in Delphi 6 and uses the Direct Oracle Access component (v4.0.7.1) to connect to an Oracle 9i database. The app runs as a service and periodically queries the db using a TOracleQuery object (qryAlarmList). The method that is called to do this looks like this: procedure TdmMain.RefreshAlarmList; begin try qryAlarmList.Execute; except on E: Exception do begin FStatus := ssError; EventLog.LogError(-1, 'TdmMain.RefreshAlarmList', 'Message: ' + E.Message); end; end; end; It had been running fine for years, until a couple of Perl scripts were added to this machine. These scripts run every 15 minutes and look for datafiles to import into the db, and then they do a some calculations and a bunch of reads/writes to/from the db. For some reason, when they are processing large amounts of data, and then the Delphi app tries to query the db, the Delphi app throws an exception at the "qryAlarmList.Execute" line in the above code listing. The exception is always: Access violation at address 00000000. read of address 00000000 HOW can something that the Perl scripts are doing cause this?? There are other Perl scripts on this machine that load data using the same modules and method calls and we didn't have problems. To make it even weirder, there are two other apps that will also suddenly lose their ability to talk to the database at the same time as the Perl stuff is running. Neither of those apps run on this machine, but both are Delphi 6 apps that use the same DOA component to connect to the same database. We have other apps that connect to the same db, written in Java or C# and they don't seem to have any problems. I've tried adding code before the '.Execute' method is called to: check the session's connection (session.CheckConnection(true); always comes back as 'ccOK'). see whether I can access a field of the qryAlarmList object to see if maybe it's become null; can access it fine. check the state of the qryAlarmList; always says it's qsIdle. Does anyone have any suggestions of something to try? This is driving me nuts! Dave

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• SQL SERVER – Developer Training Resources and Summary Roundup

  - by pinaldave

  It is always pleasure for any author when other renowned authors in the industry write about you. Earlier I wrote a five part blog series on Developer Training and I have received a phenomenal response to the series. I have received plenty of comments, questions and feedback. I thought it would be nice to sum up the whole series as well answer a few of the questions received. Quick Recap Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 In this part we discussed the importance of training in the real world. The most important and valuable resource any company is its employee. Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product.  An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects. I have a very high opinion about training employees and it is the most important task. Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 In this part we discussed the most crucial components of training. Often employees are expecting the company to pay for their training and the company expresses no interest in training the employee. Quite often training expenses are the real issue for both the employee and employer. There are companies that pay for 100% of the expenses and there are employees who opt for training on their own expense during their personal time. Training is often looked at as vacation by employee and employers and we need to change this mind-set. One of the ways is to report back the learning to your manager and implement newly learned knowledge in day-to-day work. Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 This part was the most difficult to write as I tried to address a few difficult questions and answers. Training is such a sensitive issue that many developers when not receiving chance for training think about leaving the organization. The manager often feels pressure to accommodate every single employee for training even though his training budget is limited. It is indeed the responsibility of the developer to get maximum advantage from the training. Training immediately helps organizations but stays as a part of an employee’s knowledge forever. Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 In this part I tried to explore a few methods and options for training. The generic feedback I received on this blog post was short and I should have explored each of the subject of the training in details. I believe there are two big buckets of training 1) Instructor Lead Training and 2) Self Lead Training. The common element between both the methods is “learning material”. Learning material can be of any format – videos, books, paper notes or just a plain black board. Instructor-led training is a very effective mode but not possible every single time. During the course of the developer’s career, one has to learn lots of new technology and it is almost impossible to have a quality trainer available on that subject at that time. Books are most effective and proven methods, however, it always helps if someone explains the concepts of the book with a demonstration. In recent times I have started to believe in online trainings which leads to a hybrid experience. Online trainings take the best part of the books and the best part of the instructor-led training and gives effective training in a matter of hours. Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 In this part, I shared what I was continuously thinking about developer training. There is no better teacher than oneself. There is no better motivation than a personal desire to learn new technology. Honestly there is nothing more personal learning. That “change is the only constant” and “adapt & overcome” are the essential lessons of life. One cannot stop the learning and resist the change. In the IT industry “ego of knowing all” and the “resistance to change” are the most challenging issues. Once someone overcomes them, life is much easier. I believe that proper and appropriate high quality training can help to address the burning issues. Opinion of Friends I invited a few of my friends to express their opinion about developer training and here are their opinions. I am listing them here in the order of the blog post publishing date. Nakul Vachhrajani - Developer Trainings-Importance, Benefits, Tips and follow-up Nakul’s sums of many of the concepts which are complementary to my blog posts. Nakul addresses the burning question of developer training with different angles. I am personally very impressed by his following statement - “Being skilled does not mean having just a stack of certifications, but it also means having an understanding about the internals of the products that you are working on – and using that knowledge to improve the efficiency & productivity at the workplace in turn resulting in better products, better consulting abilities and a happier self.” Nakul also suggests the online training options of Pluralsight. Vinod Kumar - Training–a necessity or bonus Vinod Kumar comes up with excellent follow up on developer training. Vinod is known for his inspirational writing about SQL Server. Vinod starts with a story of a student who is extremely eager to learn the wisdom of life from a monk but the monk does not accept him as a disciple for a long time. The conversation between student and monk is indeed an essence of all learning. We all want to learn quickly and be successful but the most important thing in life is to have the right attitude towards learning and more so towards life. The blog post end with a very important thought about how to avoid the famous excuse – “I don’t have enough time.” Ritesh Shah - Training – useful or useless? Ritesh brings up very important concept related to training. Ritesh in his meticulous style explains why training is an important and lifelong process. Training must not stop at any age but should continue forever. The moment training stops, progress stops along with. Paras Doshi - Professional Development Resource Paras is known for his to–the-point writing, and has summarized the five part series very precisely. He read the five part series and created a digest summary of the blog post. If you are in a rush and have no time to read my five series – I suggest you read his blog post. Training Resources I am often asked what the best resources for learning new technology are. This is the most difficult question EVER. There are plenty of good training resources available. When it is about training our needs are different, our preference of learning is different and we all have an opinion. Additionally, we all are located in different geographic locations worldwide and there is no way one solution will fit all. However, let me list a few of the training resources which I have built so far and you can consume them if you find it relevant to your need. SQL Server Books SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers SQL Wait Stats SQL Programming Joes 2 Pros SQL Server Video Tutorials SQL Server Questions and Answers SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics SQL Server Performance: Introduction to Query Tuning SQL in Sixty Seconds Series of Sixty Seconds Learning Video on YouTube Trust me worldwide web is very big and there are plenty of high quality learning materials available worldwide – trainer-led as well online. I suggest you explore various options and make the best choice for yourself. Remember, training is your personal journey and it should never stop. Are you ready? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services - The Word is But a Stage (T-SQL Tuesday #006)

  - by smisner

  Host Michael Coles (blog|twitter) has selected LOB data as the topic for this month's T-SQL Tuesday, so I'll take this opportunity to post an overview of reporting with spatial data types. As part of my work with SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services, I've been exploring the use of spatial data types in the new map data region. You can create a map using any of the following data sources: Map Gallery - a set of Shapefiles for the United States only that ships with Reporting Services ESRI Shapefile - a .shp file conforming to the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) shapefile spatial data format SQL Server spatial data - a query that includes SQLGeography or SQLGeometry data types Rob Farley (blog|twitter) points out today in his T-SQL Tuesday post that using the SQL geography field is a preferable alternative to ESRI shapefiles for storing spatial data in SQL Server. So how do you get spatial data? If you don't already have a GIS application in-house, you can find a variety of sources. Here are a few to get you started: US Census Bureau Website, http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/ Global Administrative Areas Spatial Database, http://biogeo.berkeley.edu/gadm/ Digital Chart of the World Data Server, http://www.maproom.psu.edu/dcw/ In a recent post by Pinal Dave (blog|twitter), you can find a link to free shapefiles for download and a tutorial for using Shape2SQL, a free tool to convert shapefiles into SQL Server data. In my post today, I'll show you how to use combine spatial data that describes boundaries with spatial data in AdventureWorks2008R2 that identifies stores locations to embed a map in a report. Preparing the spatial data First, I downloaded Shapefile data for the administrative boundaries in France and unzipped the data to a local folder. Then I used Shape2SQL to upload the data into a SQL Server database called Spatial. I'm not sure of the reason why, but I had to uncheck the option to create a spatial index to upload the data. Otherwise, the upload appeared to run successfully, but no table appeared in my database. The zip file that I downloaded contained three files, but I didn't know what was in them until I used Shape2SQL to upload the data into tables. Then I found that FRA_adm0 contains spatial data for the country of France, FRA_adm1 contains spatial data for each region, and FRA_adm2 contains spatial data for each department (a subdivision of region). Next I prepared my SQL query containing sales data for fictional stores selling Adventure Works products in France. The Person.Address table in the AdventureWorks2008R2 database (which you can download from Codeplex) contains a SpatialLocation column which I joined - along with several other tables - to the Sales.Customer and Sales.Store tables. I'll be able to superimpose this data on a map to see where these stores are located. I included the SQL script for this query (as well as the spatial data for France) in the downloadable project that I created for this post. Step 1: Using the Map Wizard to Create a Map of France You can build a map without using the wizard, but I find it's rather useful in this case. Whether you use Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) or Report Builder 3.0, the map wizard is the same. I used BIDS so that I could create a project that includes all the files related to this post. To get started, I added an empty report template to the project and named it France Stores. Then I opened the Toolbox window and dragged the Map item to the report body which starts the wizard. Here are the steps to perform to create a map of France: On the Choose a source of spatial data page of the wizard, select SQL Server spatial query, and click Next. On the Choose a dataset with SQL Server spatial data page, select Add a new dataset with SQL Server spatial data. On the Choose a connection to a SQL Server spatial data source page, select New. In the Data Source Properties dialog box, on the General page, add a connecton string like this (changing your server name if necessary): Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=Spatial Click OK and then click Next. On the Design a query page, add a query for the country shape, like this: select * from fra_adm1 Click Next. The map wizard reads the spatial data and renders it for you on the Choose spatial data and map view options page, as shown below. You have the option to add a Bing Maps layer which shows surrounding countries. Depending on the type of Bing Maps layer that you choose to add (from Road, Aerial, or Hybrid) and the zoom percentage you select, you can view city names and roads and various boundaries. To keep from cluttering my map, I'm going to omit the Bing Maps layer in this example, but I do recommend that you experiment with this feature. It's a nice integration feature. Use the + or - button to rexize the map as needed. (I used the + button to increase the size of the map until its edges were just inside the boundaries of the visible map area (which is called the viewport). You can eliminate the color scale and distance scale boxes that appear in the map area later. Select the Embed map data in this report for faster rendering. The spatial data won't be changing, so there's no need to leave it in the database. However, it does increase the size of the RDL. Click Next. On the Choose map visualization page, select Basic Map. We'll add data for visualization later. For now, we have just the outline of France to serve as the foundation layer for our map. Click Next, and then click Finish. Now click the color scale box in the lower left corner of the map, and press the Delete key to remove it. Then repeat to remove the distance scale box in the lower right corner of the map. Step 2: Add a Map Layer to an Existing Map The map data region allows you to add multiple layers. Each layer is associated with a different data set. Thus far, we have the spatial data that defines the regional boundaries in the first map layer. Now I'll add in another layer for the store locations by following these steps: If the Map Layers windows is not visible, click the report body, and then click twice anywhere on the map data region to display it. Click on the New Layer Wizard button in the Map layers window. And then we start over again with the process by choosing a spatial data source. Select SQL Server spatial query, and click Next. Select Add a new dataset with SQL Server spatial data, and click Next. Click New, add a connection string to the AdventureWorks2008R2 database, and click Next. Add a query with spatial data (like the one I included in the downloadable project), and click Next. The location data now appears as another layer on top of the regional map created earlier. Use the + button to resize the map again to fill as much of the viewport as possible without cutting off edges of the map. You might need to drag the map within the viewport to center it properly. Select Embed map data in this report, and click Next. On the Choose map visualization page, select Basic Marker Map, and click Next. On the Choose color theme and data visualization page, in the Marker drop-down list, change the marker to diamond. There's no particular reason for a diamond; I think it stands out a little better than a circle on this map. Clear the Single color map checkbox as another way to distinguish the markers from the map. You can of course create an analytical map instead, which would change the size and/or color of the markers according to criteria that you specify, such as sales volume of each store, but I'll save that exploration for another post on another day. Click Finish and then click Preview to see the rendered report. Et voilà...c'est fini. Yes, it's a very simple map at this point, but there are many other things you can do to enhance the map. I'll create a series of posts to explore the possibilities. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• SQLAuthority News – Pluralsight Course Review – Practices for Software Startups – Part 1 of 2

  - by pinaldave

  This is first part of the two part series of Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. The course is written by Stephen Forte (Blog | Twitter). Stephen Forte is the Chief Strategy Officer of the venture backed company, Telerik, a leading vendor of developer and team productivity tools. Stephen is also a Certified Scrum Master, Certified Scrum Professional, PMP, and also speaks regularly at industry conferences around the world. He has written several books on application and database development.  Stephen is also a board member of the Scrum Alliance. Startups – Everybodies Dream Start-up companies are an important topic right now – everyone wants to start their own business.  It is also important to remember that all companies were a start up at one point – from your corner store to the giants like Microsoft and Apple.  Research proves that not every start-up succeeds, in fact, most will fail before their first year.  There are many reasons for this, and this could be due to the fact that there are many stages to a start-up company, and stumbling at any of these stages can lead to failure.  It is important to understand what makes a start-up company succeed at all its hurdles to become successful.  It is even important to define success.  For most start-ups this would mean becoming their own independently functioning company or to be bought out for a hefty profit by a larger company.  The idea of making a hefty profit by living your dream is extremely important, and you can even think of start-ups as the new craze.  That’s why studying them is so important – they are very popular, but things have changed a lot since their inception. Starting the Startups Beginning a start-up company used to be difficult, but now facilities and information is widely available, and it is much easier.  But that means it is much easier to fail, also.  Previously to start your own company, everything was planned and organized, resources were ensured and backed up before beginning; even the idea of starting your own business was a big thing.  Now anybody can do it, and the steps are simple and outlines everywhere – you can get online software and easily outsource , cloud source, or crowdsource a lot of your material.  But without the type of planning previously required, things can often go badly. New Products – New Ideas – New World There are so many fantastic new products, but they don’t reach success all the time.  I find start-up companies very interesting, and whenever I meet someone who is interested in the subject or already starting their own company, I always ask what they are doing, their plans, goals, market, etc.  I am sorry to say that in most cases, they cannot answer my questions.  It is true that many fantastic ideas fail because of bad decisions.  These bad decisions were not made intentionally, but people were simply unaware of what they should be doing.  This will always lead to failure.  But I am happy to say that all these issues can be gone because Pluralsight is now offering a course all about start-ups by Stephen Forte.  Stephen is a start up leader.  He has successfully started many companies and most are still going strong, or have gone on to even bigger and better things. Beginning Course on Startup I have always thought start-ups are a fascinating subject, and decided to take his course, but it is three hours long.  This would be hard to fit into my busy work day all at once, so I decided to do half of his course before my daughter wakes up, and the other half after she goes to sleep.  The course is divided into six modules, so this would be easy to do.  I began the first chapter early in the morning, at 5 am.  Stephen jumped right into the middle of the subject in the very first module – designing your business plan.  The first question you will have to answer to yourself, to others, and to investors is: What is your product and when will we be able to see it?  So a very important concept is a “minimal viable product.”  This means setting goals for yourself and your product.  We all have large dreams, but your minimal viable product doesn’t have to be your final vision at the very first.  For example: Apple is a giant company, but it is still evolving.  Steve Jobs didn’t envision the iPhone 6 at the very beginning.  He had to start at the first iPhone and do his market research, and the idea evolved into the technology you see now.  So for yourself, you should decide a beginning and stop point.  Do your market research.  Determine who you want to reach, what audience you want for your product.  You can have a great idea that simply will not work in the market, do need, bottlenecks, lack of resources, or competition.  There is a lot of research that needs to be done before you even write a business plan, and Stephen covers it in the very first chapter. The Team – Unique Key to Success After jumping right into the subject in the very first module, I wondered what Stephen could have in store for me for the rest of the course.  Chapter number two is building a team.  Having a team is important regardless of what your startup is.  You can be a true visionary with endless ideas and energy, but one person can still not do everything.  It is important to decide from the very beginning if you will have cofounders, team leaders, and how many employees you’ll need.  Even more important, you’ll need to decide what kind of team you want – what personalities, skills, and type of energy you want each of your employees to bring.  Do you want to have an A+ team with a B- idea, or do you have a B- idea that needs an A+ team to sell it?  Stephen asks all the hard questions!  I was especially impressed by his insight on developing.  You have to decide if you need developers, how many, and what their skills should be. I found this insight extremely useful for everyday usage, not just for start-up companies.  I would apply this kind of information in management at any position.  An amazing team will build an amazing product – and that doesn’t matter if you’re a start-up company or a small team working for a much larger business. Customer Development – The Ultimate Obective Chapter three was about customer development. According to Stephen, there are four different steps to develop a customer base.  The first question to ask yourself is if you are envisioning a large customer base buying a few products each, or a small, dedicated base that buys a lot of your product – quantity vs. Quality.  He also discusses how to earn, retain, and get more customers.  He also says that each customer should be placed in a different role – some will be like investors, who regularly spend with you and invest their money in your business.  It is then your job to take that investment and turn it into a better product in the future.  You need to deal with their money properly – think of it is as theirs as investors, not yours as profit.  At the end of this module I felt that only Stephen could provide this kind of insight, and then he listed all the resources he took his information from.  I have never seen a group of people so passionate about their customers. It was indeed a long day for me. In tomorrow’s part 2 we will discuss rest of the three module and also will see a quick video of the Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Memories at Anniversary of SQL Wait Stats Book

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Wait Stats About a year ago, I had very proud moment. I had published my second book SQL Server Wait Stats with me as a primary author. It has been a long journey since then. The book got great response and it was widely accepted in the community. It was first of its kind of book written specifically on Wait Stats and Performance. The book was based on my earlier month long series written on the same subject SQL Server Wait Stats. Today, on the anniversary of the book, lots of things come to my mind let me share a few here. Idea behind Blog Series A very common question I often receive is why I wrote a 30 day series on Wait Stats. There were two reasons for it. 1) I have been working with SQL Server for a long time and have troubleshoot more than hundreds of SQL Server which are related to performance tuning. It was a great experience and it taught me a lot of new things. I always documented my experience. After a while I found that I was able to completely rely on my own notes when I was troubleshooting any servers. It is right then I decided to document my experience for the community. 2) While working with wait stats there were a few things, which I thought I knew it well as they were working. However, there was always a fear in the back of mind that what happens if what I believed was incorrect and I was on the wrong path all the time. There was only one way to get it validated. Put it out in front community with my understanding and request further help to improve my understanding. It worked, it worked beautifully. I received plenty of conversations, emails and comments. I refined my content based on various conversations and make it more relevant and near accurate. I guess above two are the major reasons for beginning my journey on writing Wait Stats blog series. Idea behind Book After writing a blog series there was a good amount of request I keep on receiving that I should convert it to eBook or proper book as reading blog posts is great but it goes not give a comprehensive understanding of the subject. The very common feedback from users who were beginning the subject that they will prefer to read it in a structured method. After hearing the feedback for more than 4 months, I decided to write a book based on the blog posts. When I envisioned book, I wanted to make sure this book addresses the wait stats concepts from the fundamentals and fill the gaps of blogs I wrote earlier. Rick Morelan and Joes 2 Pros Team I must acknowledge my co-author Rick Morelan for his unconditional support in writing this book. I had already authored one book before I published this book. The experience to write the book was out of the world. Writing blog posts are much much easier than writing books. The efforts it takes to write a book is 100 times more even though the content is ready. I could have not done it myself if there was not tremendous support of my co-author and editor’s team. We spend days and days researching and discussing various concepts covered in the book. When we were in doubt we reached out to experts as well did a practical reproduction of the scenarios to validate the concepts and claims. After continuous 3 months of hard work we were able to get this book out in the community. September 1st – the lucky day Well, we had to select any day to publish the books. When book was completed in August last week we felt very glad. We all had worked hard and having a sample draft book in hand was feeling like having a newborn baby in our hand. Every time my books are published I feel the same joy which I had when my daughter was born. The feeling of holding a new book in hand is the (almost) same feeling as holding newborn baby. I am excited. For me September 1st has been the luckiest day in mind life. My daughter Shaivi was born on September 1st. Since then every September first has been excellent day and have taken me to the next step in life. I believe anything and everything I do on September 1st it is turning out to be successful and blessed. Rick and I had finished a book in the last week of August. We sent it to the publisher (printer) and asked him to take the book live as soon as possible. We did not decide on any date as we wanted the book to get out as fast as it can. Interesting enough, the publisher/printer selected September 1st for publishing the book. He published the book on 1st September and I knew it at the same time that this book will go next level. Book Model – The Most Beautiful Girl We were done with book. We had no budget left for marketing. Rick and I had a long conversation regarding how to spread the words for the book so it can reach to many people. While we were talking about marketing Rick come up with the idea that we should hire a most beautiful girl around who acknowledge our book and genuinely care for book. It was a difficult task and Rick asked me to find a more beautiful girl. I am a father and the most beautiful girl for me my daughter. This was not a difficult task for me. Rick had given me task to find the most beautiful girl and I just could not think of anyone else than my own daughter. I still do not know what Rick thought about this idea but I had already made up my mind. You can see the detailed blog post here. The Fun Experiments Book Signing Event We had lots of fun moments along this book. We have given away more books to people for free than we have sold them actually. We had done book signing events, contests, and just plain give away when we found people can be benefited from this book. There was never an intention to make money and get rich. We just wanted that more and more people know about this new concept and learn from it. Today when I look back to the earnings there is nothing much we have earned if you talk about dollars. However the best reward which we have received is the satisfaction and love of community. The amount of emails, conversations we have so far received for this book is over thousands. We had fun writing this book, it was indeed a very satisfying journey. I have earned lots of friends while learning and exploring. Availability The book is one year old but still very relevant when it is about performance tuning. It is available at various online book stores. If you have read the book, do let me know what you think of it. Amazon | Kindle | Flipkart | Indiaplaza Reference:  Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority, SQLAuthority Book Review, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Pluralsight Course Review – Practices for Software Startups – Part 2 of 2

  - by pinaldave

  This is the second part of the two part series of Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Please read the first part of this series over here. The course is written by Stephen Forte (Blog | Twitter). Stephen Forte is the Chief Strategy Officer of the venture backed company, Telerik. Personal Learning Schedule After these three sessions it was 6:30 am and time to do my own blog.  But for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about the course, and wanted to go back and finish.  I was wishing that I had woken up at 3 am so I could finish all at one go.  All day long I was digesting what I had learned.  At 10 pm, after my daughter had gone to bed, I sighed on again.  I was not disappointed by the long wait.  As I mentioned before, Stephen has started four to six companies, and all of them are very successful today. Here is the video I promised yesterday – it discusses the importance of Right Sizing Your Startup. The Heartbeat of Startup – Technology Stephen has combined all technology knowledge into one 30 minute session.  He discussed  how to start your project, how to deal with opinions, and how to deal with multiple ideas – every start up has multiple directions it can go. He spent a lot of time emphasized deciding which direction to go and how to decide which will be the best for you.  He called it a continuous development cycle. One of the biggest hazards for a start-up company is one person deciding the direction the company will go, until down the road another team member announces that there is a glitch in their part of the work and that everyone will have to start over.  Even though a team of two or five people can move quickly, often the decision has gone too long and cannot be easily fixed.   Stephen used an example from his own life:  he was biased for one type of technology, and his teammate for another.  In the end they opted for his teammate’s  choice , and in the end it was a good decision, even though he was unfamiliar with that particular program.  He argues that technology should not be a barrier to progress, that you cannot rely on your experience only.  This really spoke to me because I am a big fan of SQL, but I know there is more out there, and I should be more open to it.  I give my thanks to Stephen, I learned something in this module besides startups. Money, Success and Epic Win! The longest, but most interesting, the module was funding your start-up.  You need to fund the start-up right at the very beginning, if not done right you will run into trouble.  The good news is that a few years ago start-ups required a lot more money – think millions of dollars – but now start-ups can get off the ground for thousands.  Stephen used an example of a company that years ago would have needed a million dollars, but today could be started for $600.  It is true that things have changed, but you still need money.  For $600 you can start small and add dynamically, as needed.  But the truth is that if you have $600, $6000, or $6 million, it will be spent.  Don’t think of it as trying to save money, think of it as investing in your future.   You will need money, and you will need to (quickly) decide what you do with the money: shares, stakeholders, investing in a team, hiring a CEO.  This is so important because once you have money and start the company, the company IS your money.  It is your biggest currency – having a percentage of ownership in the company.  Investors will want percentages as repayment for their investment, and they will want a say in the business as well.  You will have to decide how far you will dilute your shares, and how the company will be divided, if at all.  If you don’t plan in advance, you will find that after gaining three or four investors, suddenly you are the minority owner in your own dream.  You need to understand funding carefully.  This single module is worth all the money you would have spent on the whole course alone.  I encourage everyone to listen to this single module even if they don’t watch any of the others.     Press End to Start the Game – Exists! The final module is exit strategies.  You did all this work, dealt with all political and legal issues.  What are you going to get out of it? The answer is simple: money.  Maybe you want your company to be bought out, for you talent to bring you a profit.  You can sell the company to someone and still head it.  Many options are available.  You could sell and still work as an employee but no longer own the company.  There are many exit strategies.  This is where all your hard work comes into play.  It is important not to feel fooled at any step.  There are so many good ideas that end up in the garbage because of poor planning, so that if you find yourself successful, you don’t want to blow it at this step!  The exit is important.  I thought that this aspect of the course was completely unique, and I loved Stephen’s point of view.  I was lost deep in thought after this module ended.  I actually took two hours worth of notes on this section alone – and it was only a three hour course.  I am planning on attending this course one more time next week, just to catch up on all the small bits of wisdom I’m sure I missed. Thank you Stephen for bringing your real world experience with us!  I recommend that everyone attends this course, even if they don’t want to begin their own start-up company. It was indeed a long day for me. Do not forget to read part 1 of this story and attend course Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Oracle at Gartner IAM Summit Next Week

  - by Tanu Sood

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Heading to Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit next week? As you know, one of the premier conferences for identity management specialists and security experts, the Gartner IAM Conference this year is in Las Vegas, Nevada from December 3 – 5. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} As you pack your bags and plan your itinerary, do note that Oracle executives including Amit Jasuja, Senior Vice President, Security and Identity Management and Dave Profozich, Group Vice President along with product management and implementation experts would be in attendance. You are invited to meet with the Oracle team and mingle with our customers. We recommend you bookmark the following times and activities: Breakfast Keynote: Trends in Identity Management Tuesday, December 4, 2012 7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m., Octavius 16 Amit Jasuja, SVP, Security and Identity Management, Oracle Ranjan Jain, Enterprise Architect, Cisco Don’t miss the opportunity to hear from Amit Jasuja, SVP, Security and Identity Management as he discusses how mobile and social behavior are changing how organizations function, manage their workforce, and interact with their customers. Learn how these new trends are shaping the innovations in Oracle Identity Management solutions. And get a customer’s take on the new trends and their impact on the organization. Visit the Oracle Booth Mingle with peers, customers, product and implementation experts at the Oracle booth. While there, catch live demonstrations of the very latest best-in-class technologies and learn how Oracle Identity Management solutions are enabling the Social, Mobile and Cloud (SoMoClo) environments. And arm yourself with industry resources from our Virtual Collateral Rack. And don’t forget to enter for a chance to win a JAWBONE JAMBOX Wireless Speaker System while at our booth. So, see you there? Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit December 3 -5, 2012 Caesars Palace 3570 Las Vegas Blvd South Las Vegas, NV 89109

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• XNA Notes 010

  - by George Clingerman

  With GDC 2011 wrapping up there were a LOT of great interviews and posts with and about XNA and XBLIG and some of our more notorious developers. Definitely worth spending many, many hours watching, listening and reading all those. Very inspiring! Also, don’t forget to get signed up for Dream Build Play! And just as an early warning reminder do NOT, I repeat do NOT wait to submit your game the last day. There are major issues submitting the last day every year and you do not want all your hard work to be hanging on whether your entry actually went through in that last day. Plan on submitting a few days if not a week before. I’m serious, you’ll thank yourself later! Now on to what’s happening in the XNA community! Time Critical XNA News: PAX East Meet Up (really wish I was going!) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71921/439262.aspx Want to stay panicked about the countdown to Dream Build Play? Mike McLaughlin shares his DBP countdown clock http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/44454458960252928 XNA Team: Nick Gravelyn Only needs less than 600 new users in his unique marketing plan for Pixel Man 2 http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/ And hares his ad revenue numbers with his XNA WP7 games http://theoneswiththelight.com/2011/my-results-with-ad-revenue-for-wp7-games/ XNA MVPs: Andy “The ZMan” Dunn posts his 15,000th App Hub forum post and shares a few thoughts on the MVP summit http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77625.aspx Chris Williams shares his thoughts on the MVP summit http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/03/07/144229.aspx XNA Developers: Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best games Wraps up GDC http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/gdc-2011-wrapped.html And shares the wonderful screenshots from Serious Sam. (I’m so jealous people at PAX East willl be playing a demo of this game!) http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/serious-sam-double-d.html James Silva of Ska Studios announces http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/09/vampire-smile-at-hotel-sierra/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/08/vengeance-begins-april-6th/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/04/good-morning-gato-52/ Michael McLaughlin writes an extremely useful set of tips for XNA WP7 developers http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/10/tips-for-xna-wp7-developers.aspx Robert Boyd “the one man XBLIG improving machine” posts his 9 tips for marketing an Xbox LIVE Indie Gam http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110309/7183/9_Tips_for_XBLIG_Marketing.php http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/77534/470586.aspx#470586 And shares his day by day experience at GDC this year http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7118/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_1.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7123/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_2.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110303/7129/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_3.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7133/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_4.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7160/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_5.php Phillipe Da Silva releases new IGF Pong Sample preview http://www.vimeo.com/20904070 Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): Gamergeddon posts XBox Indie Game Roundup for March 6th http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/03/06/xbox-indie-game-round-up-march-6th/ Dealspwn interviews FortressCraft developer Projector Games http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-minecraft-clones-venting-haters-part-1/ http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-part-2-trials-tribulations-indie-development/ Writings of Mass Destruction continues the Xbox LIVE Indie Game a day campaign, here’s his take on FishCraft (be sure to check out his other posts!) http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/03/05/day-116-fishcraft/ Tom Ogburn shares his GDC notes on the XBLIG panel jotted quickly while attending the panel http://twitter.com/#!/TOgburn/status/44454191028125696 http://www.starlitskygames.com/blogs/site_news/archive/2011/03/06/802.aspx Dave Voyles of Armless Octopus has crazy good coverage on XNA and Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers at GDC 2011. Interviews and articles all extremely well done! http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/06/gdc-2011-successful-indie-developers-share-insight-on-microsofts-self-publishing-service/ There’s honestly so many posts and interviews you should just hit his front page and scroll down through all of the latest ones. http://www.armlessoctopus.com/ GameMarx Episode 12 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/27/ep-12-march-4-2011.aspx B.U.T.T.O.N now on Steam! http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/03/button_party_game_now_on_steam.php German Xbox Dashboard gets review program from GamePro http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/07/gamepo-indie-review-show-debuts-on-german-xbox-dashboard/ XboxIndies.com (one of the best XNA sites out there at this point!) continues to add review sites to it’s main review feed. (And don’t forget to play with that awesome XBLIG pivot control!) http://xboxindies.com/ Kris Steele of FunInfused Games shares early footage of his game World of Chalk http://twitter.com/#!/kriswd40/status/45007114371989504 Raymond Matthews of Darkstarmatryx reviews FunInfused Games Abduction Action http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=264 TheVideoGamerRob reviews Zombie Football Carnage http://videogamerrob.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/xblig-review-zombie-football-carnage/ XBLIG Square Off Making the Jump to WP7 http://www.wp7connect.com/2011/03/08/xblig-square-off-will-make-the-jump-to-windows-phone/ Mommy’s Best Games making the news round with their Serious Sam announcement http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/09/serious-sam-gets-serious-indie-cred-with-new-indie-series/ Most quoted and linked XBLIG article of the week with the least amount of actual facts and reporting. Shared only because it makes me sad that this is the best coverage we get. (Hey reporters, there’s LOT and LOTS of XBLIG and XNA experts you can contact if you need to check up on facts or wonder why on questions like, Why can’t XBLIGs have Nazis? There’s actually a real answer for that..) http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/06/xblig-facts-nazi-killing-a-no-no-revenue-a-yes-yes/ XNA Development: Mort8088 has been in an XNA tutorial writing frenzy releasing 4 XNA 4.0 entry level tutorials this week! http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-0-intro/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-1-fonts/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-2-sprites/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-3-input-from-keyboard/ Interesting discussion on what it means to be a community (you do have to sign up to be a member of the XNA UK forums to read it...) http://twitter.com/#!/XNAUK/status/44705269254594560 Slyprid continues his incredible pace on Transmute and shares screens of his new Animation Builder http://twitter.com/#!/slyprid/status/45169271847911424 http://forgottenstarstudios.com/blog/ Philippe Da Silva wants to know who is using IGF for their games. If it’s you, drop him a note letting him know! http://twitter.com/#!/philippedasilva/status/44325893719588864 New Sunburn Video Tutorials released http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/03/07/new-documentation-video-tutorials.aspx Loading and rendering animated collada models using XNA 4.0 http://bunkernetz.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/loading-and-rendering-animated-collada-models-using-xna-4-0/ XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 6 Accelerometer Input http://buzzgamesnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/xna-for-silverlight-developers-part-6.html

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• PASS Summit Feedback

  - by Rob Farley

  PASS Feedback came in last week. I also saw my dentist for some fillings... At the PASS Summit this year, I delivered a couple of regular sessions and a Lightning Talk. People told me they enjoyed it, but when the rankings came out, they showed that I didn’t score particularly well. Brent Ozar was keen to discuss it with me. Brent: PASS speaker feedback is out. You did two sessions and a Lightning Talk. How did you go? Rob: Not so well actually, thanks for asking. Brent: Ha! Sorry. Of course you know that's why I wanted to discuss this with you. I was in one of your sessions at SQLBits in the UK a month before PASS, and I thought you rocked. You've got a really good and distinctive delivery style.  Then I noticed your talks were ranked in the bottom quarter of the Summit ratings and wanted to discuss it. Rob: Yeah, I know. You did ask me if we could do this...  I should explain – my presentation style is not the stereotypical IT conference one. I throw in jokes, and try to engage the audience thoroughly. I find many talks amazingly dry, and I guess I try to buck that trend. I also run training courses, and find that I get a lot of feedback from people thanking me for keeping things interesting. That said, I also get feedback criticising me for my style, and that’s basically what’s happened here. For the rest of this discussion, let’s focus on my talk about the Incredible Shrinking Execution Plan, which I considered to be my main talk. Brent: I thought that session title was the very best one at the entire Summit, and I had it on my recommended sessions list.  In four words, you managed to sum up the topic and your sense of humor.  I read that and immediately thought, "People need to be in this session," and then it didn't score well.  Tell me about your scores. Rob: The questions on the feedback form covered the usefulness of the information, the speaker’s presentation skills, their knowledge of the subject, how well the session was described, the amount of time allocated, and the quality of the presentation materials. Brent: Presentation materials? But you don’t do slides.  Did they rate your thong? Rob: No-one saw my flip-flops in this talk, Brent. I created a script in Management Studio, and published that afterwards, but I think people will have scored that question based on the lack of slides. I wasn’t expecting to do particularly well on that one. That was the only section that didn’t have 5/5 as the most popular score. Brent: See, that sucks, because cookbook-style scripts are often some of my favorites.  Adam Machanic's Service Broker workbench series helped me immensely when I was prepping for the MCM.  As an attendee, I'd rather have a commented script than a slide deck.  So how did you rank so low? Rob: When I look at the scores that you got (based on your blog post), you got very few scores below 3 – people that felt strong enough about your talk to post a negative score. In my scores, between 5% and 10% were below 3 (except on the question about whether I knew my stuff – I guess I came as knowledgeable). Brent: Wow – so quite a few people really didn’t like your talk then? Rob: Yeah. Mind you, based on the comments, some people really loved it. I’d like to think that there would be a certain portion of the room who may have rated the talk as one of the best of the conference. Some of my comments included “amazing!”, “Best presentation so far!”, “Wow, best session yet”, “fantastic” and “Outstanding!”. I think lots of talks can be “Great”, but not so many talks can be “Outstanding” without the word losing its meaning. One wrote “Pretty amazing presentation, considering it was completely extemporaneous.” Brent: Extemporaneous, eh? Rob: Yeah. I guess they don’t realise how much preparation goes into coming across as unprepared. In many ways it’s much easier to give a written speech than to deliver a presentation without slides as a prompt. Brent: That delivery style, the really relaxed, casual, college-professor approach was one of the things I really liked about your presentation at SQLbits.  As somebody who presents a lot, I "get" it - I know how hard it is to come off as relaxed and comfortable with your own material.  It's like improv done by jazz players and comedians - if you've never tried it, you don't realize how hard it is.  People also don't realize how hard it is to make a tough subject fun. Rob: Yeah well... There will be people writing comments on this post that say I wasn't trying to make the subject fun, and that I was making it all about me. Sometimes the style works, sometimes it doesn't. Most of the comments mentioned the fact that I tell jokes, some in a nice way, but some not so much (and it wasn't just a PASS thing - that's the mix of feedback I generally get). One comment at PASS was: “great stand up comedian - not what I'm looking for at pass”, and there were certainly a few that said “too many jokes”. I’m not trying to do stand-up – jokes are my way of engaging with the audience while I demonstrate some of the amazing things that the Query Optimizer can do if you write your queries the right way. Some people didn’t think it was technical enough, but I’ve also had some people tell me that the concepts I’m explaining are deep and profound. Brent: To me, that's a hallmark of a great explanation - when someone says, "But of course it has to work that way - how could it work any other way?  It seems so simple and logical."  Well, sure it does when it's explained correctly, but now pick up any number of thick SQL Server books and try to understand the Redundant Joins concept.  I guarantee it'll take more than 45 minutes. Rob: Some people in my audiences realise that, but definitely not everyone. There's only so much you can tell someone that something is profound. Generally it's something that they either have an epiphany on or not. I like to lull my audience into knowing what's going on, and do something that surprises them. Gain their trust, build a rapport, and then show them the deeper truth of what just happened. Brent: So you've learned your lesson about presentation scores, right?  From here on out, you're going to be dry, humorless, and all your presentations will consist of you reading bullet points off the screen. Rob: No Brent, I’m not. I'm also not going to suggest that most presentations at PASS are like that. No-one tries to present like that. There's a big space to occupy between what "dry and humourless" and me. My difference is to focus on the relationship I have with the crowd, rather than focussing on delivering the perfect session. I want to see people smiling and know they're relaxed. I think most presenters focus on the material, which is completely reasonable and safe. I remember once hearing someone talking about product creation. They talked about mediocrity. They said that one of the worst things that people can ever say about your product is that it’s “good”. What you want is for 10% of the world to love it enough to want to buy it. If 10% the world gave me a dollar, I’d have more money than I could ever use (assuming it wasn’t the SAME dollar they were giving me I guess). Brent: It's the Raving Fans theory.  It's better to have a small number of raving customers than a large number of almost-but-not-really customers who don't care that much about your product or service.  I know exactly how you feel - when I got survey feedback from my Quest video presentation when I was dressed up in a Richard Simmons costume, some of the attendees said I was unprofessional and distracting.  Some of the attendees couldn't get enough and Photoshopped all kinds of stuff into the screen captures.  On a whole, I probably didn't score that well, and I'm fine with that.  It sucks to look at the scores though - do those lower scores bother you? Rob: Of course they do. It hurts deeply. I open myself up and give presentations in a very personal way. All presenters do that, and we all feel the pain of negative feedback. I hate coming 146th & 162nd out of 185, but have to acknowledge that many sessions did worse still. Plus, once I feel the wounds have healed, I’ll be able to remember that there are people in the world that rave about my presentation style, and figure that people will hopefully talk about me. One day maybe those people that don’t like my presentation style will stay away and I might be able to score better. You don’t pay to hear country music if you prefer western... Lots of people find chili too spicy, but it’s still a popular food. Brent: But don’t you want to appeal to everyone? Rob: I do, but I don’t want to be lukewarm as in Revelation 3:16. I’d rather disgust and be discussed. Well, maybe not ‘disgust’, but I don’t want to conform. Conformity just isn’t the same any more. I’m not sure I’ve ever been one to do that. I try not to offend, but definitely like to be different. Brent: Count me among your raving fans, sir.  Where can we see you next? Rob: Considering I live in Adelaide in Australia, I’m not about to appear at anyone’s local SQL Saturday. I’m still trying to plan which events I’ll get to in 2011. I’ve submitted abstracts for TechEd North America, but won’t hold my breath. I’m also considering the SQLBits conferences in the UK in April, PASS in October, and I’m sure I’ll do some LiveMeeting presentations for user groups. Online, people download some of my recent SQLBits presentations at http://bit.ly/RFSarg and http://bit.ly/Simplification though. And they can download a 5-minute MP3 of my Lightning Talk at http://www.lobsterpot.com.au/files/Collation.mp3, in which I try to explain the idea behind collation, using thongs as an example. Brent: I was in the audience for http://bit.ly/RFSarg. That was a great presentation. Rob: Thanks, Brent. Now where’s my dollar?

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• SQL SERVER – Step by Step Guide to Beginning Data Quality Services in SQL Server 2012 – Introduction to DQS

  - by pinaldave

  Data Quality Services is a very important concept of SQL Server. I have recently started to explore the same and I am really learning some good concepts. Here are two very important blog posts which one should go over before continuing this blog post. Installing Data Quality Services (DQS) on SQL Server 2012 Connecting Error to Data Quality Services (DQS) on SQL Server 2012 This article is introduction to Data Quality Services for beginners. We will be using an Excel file Click on the image to enlarge the it. In the first article we learned to install DQS. In this article we will see how we can learn about building Knowledge Base and using it to help us identify the quality of the data as well help correct the bad quality of the data. Here are the two very important steps we will be learning in this tutorial. Building a New Knowledge Base  Creating a New Data Quality Project Let us start the building the Knowledge Base. Click on New Knowledge Base. In our project we will be using the Excel as a knowledge base. Here is the Excel which we will be using. There are two columns. One is Colors and another is Shade. They are independent columns and not related to each other. The point which I am trying to show is that in Column A there are unique data and in Column B there are duplicate records. Clicking on New Knowledge Base will bring up the following screen. Enter the name of the new knowledge base. Clicking NEXT will bring up following screen where it will allow to select the EXCE file and it will also let users select the source column. I have selected Colors and Shade both as a source column. Creating a domain is very important. Here you can create a unique domain or domain which is compositely build from Colors and Shade. As this is the first example, I will create unique domain – for Colors I will create domain Colors and for Shade I will create domain Shade. Here is the screen which will demonstrate how the screen will look after creating domains. Clicking NEXT it will bring you to following screen where you can do the data discovery. Clicking on the START will start the processing of the source data provided. Pre-processed data will show various information related to the source data. In our case it shows that Colors column have unique data whereas Shade have non-unique data and unique data rows are only two. In the next screen you can actually add more rows as well see the frequency of the data as the values are listed unique. Clicking next will publish the knowledge base which is just created. Now the knowledge base is created. We will try to take any random data and attempt to do DQS implementation over it. I am using another excel sheet here for simplicity purpose. In reality you can easily use SQL Server table for the same. Click on New Data Quality Project to see start DQS Project. In the next screen it will ask which knowledge base to use. We will be using our Colors knowledge base which we have recently created. In the Colors knowledge base we had two columns – 1) Colors and 2) Shade. In our case we will be using both of the mappings here. User can select one or multiple column mapping over here. Now the most important phase of the complete project. Click on Start and it will make the cleaning process and shows various results. In our case there were two columns to be processed and it completed the task with necessary information. It demonstrated that in Colors columns it has not corrected any value by itself but in Shade value there is a suggestion it has. We can train the DQS to correct values but let us keep that subject for future blog posts. Now click next and keep the domain Colors selected left side. It will demonstrate that there are two incorrect columns which it needs to be corrected. Here is the place where once corrected value will be auto-corrected in future. I manually corrected the value here and clicked on Approve radio buttons. As soon as I click on Approve buttons the rows will be disappeared from this tab and will move to Corrected Tab. If I had rejected tab it would have moved the rows to Invalid tab as well. In this screen you can see how the corrected 2 rows are demonstrated. You can click on Correct tab and see previously validated 6 rows which passed the DQS process. Now let us click on the Shade domain on the left side of the screen. This domain shows very interesting details as there DQS system guessed the correct answer as Dark with the confidence level of 77%. It is quite a high confidence level and manual observation also demonstrate that Dark is the correct answer. I clicked on Approve and the row moved to corrected tab. On the next screen DQS shows the summary of all the activities. It also demonstrates how the correction of the quality of the data was performed. The user can explore their data to a SQL Server Table, CSV file or Excel. The user also has an option to either explore data and all the associated cleansing info or data only. I will select Data only for demonstration purpose. Clicking explore will generate the files. Let us open the generated file. It will look as following and it looks pretty complete and corrected. Well, we have successfully completed DQS Process. The process is indeed very easy. I suggest you try this out yourself and you will find it very easy to learn. In future we will go over advanced concepts. Are you using this feature on your production server? If yes, would you please leave a comment with your environment and business need. It will be indeed interesting to see where it is implemented. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Data Quality Services, DQS

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