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• Spacewalk 2.0 provided to manage Oracle Linux systems

  - by wcoekaer

  Oracle Linux customers have a few options to manage and provision their servers. We provide a license to use Oracle Enterprise Manager's Linux OS management, monitoring and provisioning features without additional cost for every server that has an Oracle Linux support subscription. So there is no additional pack to license and no additional per server cost, it's all included in our Basic, Premier and Systems support subscriptions. The nice thing with Oracle Enterprise Manager is that you end up with a single management product that can manage all aspects of your software stack. You have complete insight into the applications running, you have roles and responsibilities, you have third party connectors for storage or other products and it makes it very easy and convenient to correlate data and events when something happens. If you use Oracle VM as well, you end up with a complete cloud portal with selfservice, chargeback, etc... Another, much simpler option, is just using yum. It is very easy to take a server and create directories and expose these through apache as repositories. You can have a simple yum config on each server pointing to a few specific repositories. It requires some manual effort in terms of creating directories, downloading packages and creating local repo files but it's easy to do and for many people a preferred solution. There are also a good number of customers that just connect their servers directly to ULN or to our free update server public-yum. Just to re-iterate, our public-yum servers have all the errata and updates available for free. Now we added another option. Many of our customers have switched from a competing Linux vendor and they had familiarity with their management tools. Switching to Oracle for support is very easy since we don't require changes to the installed servers but we also want to make sure there is a very easy and almost transparent switch for the management tools as well. While Oracle Enterprise Manager is our preferred way of managing systems, we now are offering Spacewalk 2.0 to our customers. The community project can be found here. We have made a few changes to ensure easy and complete support for Oracle Linux, tested it with public-yum, etc.. You can find the rpms in our public-yum repos at http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/. There are repositories for spacewalk server and then for each version (OL5,OL6) and architecture (x86 and x86-64) we have the client repositories as well. Spacewalk itself is only made available for OL6 x86-64. Documentation can be found here. I set it up myself and here are some quick steps on how you can get going in just a matter of minutes: Spacewalk Server Installation : 1) Installing an Oracle Database Use an existing Oracle Database or install a new Oracle Database (Standard or Enterprise Edition) [at this time use 11g, we will add support for 12c in the near future]. This database can be installed on the spacewalk server or on a separate remote server. While Oracle XE might work to create a small sample POC, we do not support the use of Oracle XE, spacewalk repositories can become large and create a significant database workload. Customers can use their existing database licenses, they can download the database with a trial licence from http://edelivery.oracle.com or Oracle Linux subscribers (customers) will be allowed to use the Oracle Database as a spacewalk repository as part of their Oracle Linux subscription at no additional cost. |NOTE : spacewalk requires the database to be configured with the UTF8 characterset. |Installation will fail if your database does not use UTF8. |To verify if your database is configured correctly, run the following command in sqlplus: | |select value from nls_database_parameters where parameter='NLS_CHARACTERSET'; |This should return 'AL32UTF8' 2) Configure the database schema for spacewalk Ideally, create a tablespace in the database to hold the spacewalk schema tables/data; create tablespace spacewalk datafile '/u01/app/oracle/oradata/orcl/spacewalk.dbf' size 10G autoextend on; Create the database user spacewalk (or use some other schema name) in sqlplus. example : create user spacewalk identified by spacewalk; grant connect, resource to spacewalk; grant create table, create trigger, create synonym, create view, alter session to spacewalk; grant unlimited tablespace to spacewalk; alter user spacewalk default tablespace spacewalk; 4) Spacewalk installation and configuration Spacewalk server requires an Oracle Linux 6 x86-64 system. Clients can be Oracle Linux 5 or 6, both 32- and 64bit. The server is only supported on OL6/64bit. The easiest way to get started is to do a 'Minimal' install of Oracle Linux on a server and configure the yum repository to include the spacewalk repo from public-yum. Once you have a system with a minimal install, modify your yum repo to include the spacewalk repo. Example : edit /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol.repo and add the following lines at the end of the file : [spacewalk] name=spacewalk baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/spacewalk20/server/$basearch/ gpgkey=http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 Install the following pre-requisite packages on your spacewalk server : oracle-instantclient11.2-basic-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64 oracle-instantclient11.2-sqlplus-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64 rpm -ivh oracle-instantclient11.2-basic-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64 rpm -ivh oracle-instantclient11.2-sqlplus-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64 The above RPMs can be found on the Oracle Technology Network website : http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/linuxx86-64soft-092277.html As the root user, configure the library path to include the Oracle Instant Client libraries : cd /etc/ld.so.conf.d echo /usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/lib oracle-instantclient11.2.conf ldconfig Install spacewalk : # yum install spacewalk-oracle The above yum command should download and install all required packages to run spacewalk on your local server. | NOTE : if you did a full, desktop or workstation installation, | you have to remove the JTA package | BEFORE installing spacewalk-oracle (rpm -e --nodeps jta) Once the installation completes, simply run the spacewalk configuration tool and you are all set. (make sure to run the command with the 2 arguments) spacewalk-setup --disconnected --external-db Answer the questions during the setup, ensure you provide the current database user (example : spacewalk) and password (example : spacewalk) and database server hostname (the standard hostname of the server on which you have deployed the Oracle database) At the end of the setup script, your spacewalk server should be fully configured and you can log into the web portal. Use your favorite browser to connect to the website : http://[spacewalkserverhostname] The very first action will be to create the main admin account.

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• The True Cost of a Solution

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  I had a Twitter chat recently with someone suggesting Oracle and SQL Server were losing out to OSS (Open Source Software) in the enterprise due to their issues with scaling or being too generic (one size fits all). I challenged that a bit, as my experience with enterprise sized clients has been different – adverse to OSS but receptive to an established vendor. The response I got was: Found it easier to influence change by showing how X can’t solve our problems or X is extremely costly to scale. Money talks. I think this is definitely the right approach for anyone pitching an alternate or alien technology as part of a solution: identify the issue, identify the solution, then present pros and cons including a cost/benefit analysis. What can happen though is we get tunnel vision and don’t present a full view of the costs associated with a solution. An “Acura”te Example (I’m so clever…) This is my dream vehicle, a Crystal Black Pearl coloured Acura MDX with the SH-AWD package! We’re a family of 4 (5 if my daughters ever get their wish of adding a dog), and I’ve always wanted a luxury type of vehicle, so this is a perfect replacement in a few years when our Rav 4 has hit the 8 – 10 year mark. MSRP – $62,890 But as we all know, that’s not *really* the cost of the vehicle. There’s taxes and fees added on, there’s the extended warranty if I choose to purchase it, there’s the finance rate that needs to be factored in… MSRP –   $62,890 Taxes –      $7,546 Warranty - $2,500 SubTotal – $72,936 Finance Charge – $ 1094.04 Grand Total – $74,030 Well! Glad we did that exercise – we discovered an extra $11k added on to the MSRP! Well now we have our true price…or do we? Lifetime of the Vehicle I’m expecting to have this vehicle for 7 – 10 years. While the hard cost of the vehicle is known and dealt with, the costs to run and maintain the vehicle are on top of this. I did some research, and here’s what I’ve found: Fuel and Mileage Gas prices are high as it is for regular fuel, but getting into an MDX will require that I *only* purchase premium fuel, which comes at a premium price. I need to expect my bill at the pump to be higher. Comparing the MDX to my 2007 Rav4 also shows I’ll be gassing up more often. The Rav4 has a city MPG of 21, while the MDX plummets to 16! The MDX does have a bigger fuel tank though, so all in all the number of times I hit the pumps might even out. Still, I estimate I’ll be spending approximately $8000 – $10000 more on gas over a 10 year period than my current Rav4. Service Options Limited Although I have options with my Toyota here in Winnipeg (we have 4 Toyota dealerships), I do go to my original dealer for any service work. Still, I like the fact that I have options. However, there’s only one Acura dealership in all of Winnipeg! So if, for whatever reason, I’m not satisfied with the level of service I’m stuck. Non Warranty Service Work Also let’s not forget that there’s a bulk of work required every year that is *not* covered under warranty – oil changes, tire rotations, brake pads, etc. I expect I’ll need to get new tires at the 5 years mark as well, which can easily be $1200 – $1500 (I just paid $1000 for new tires for the Rav4 and we’re at the 5 year mark). Now these aren’t going to be *new* costs that I’m not used to from our existing vehicles, but they should still be factored in. I’d budget $500/year, or $5000 over the 10 years I’ll own the vehicle. Final Assessment So let’s re-assess the true cost of my dream MDX: MSRP                    $62,890 Taxes                       $7,546 Warranty                 $2,500 Finance Charge         $1094 Gas                        $10,000 Service Work            $5000 Grand Total           $89,030 So now I have a better idea of 10 year cost overall, and I’ve identified some concerns with local service availability. And there’s now much more to consider over the original $62,890 price tag. Tying This Back to Technology Solutions The process that we just went through is no different than what organizations do when considering implementing a new system, technology, or technology based solution, within their environments. It’s easy to tout the short term cost savings of particular product/platform/technology in a vacuum. But its when you consider the wider impact that the true cost comes into play. Let’s create a scenario: A company is not happy with its current data reporting suite. An employee suggests moving to an open source solution. The selling points are: - Because its open source its free - The organization would have access to the source code so they could alter it however they wished - It provided features not available with the current reporting suite At first this sounds great to the management and executive, but then they start asking some questions and uncover more information: - The OSS product is built on a technology not used anywhere within the organization - There are no vendors offering product support for the OSS product - The OSS product requires a specific server platform to operate on, one that’s not standard in the organization All of a sudden, the true cost of implementing this solution is starting to become clearer. The company might save money on licensing costs, but their training costs would increase significantly – developers would need to learn how to develop in the technology the OSS solution was built on, IT staff must learn how to set up and maintain a new server platform within their existing infrastructure, and if a problem was found there was no vendor to contact for support. The true cost of implementing a “free” OSS solution is actually spinning up a project to implement it within the organization – no small cost. And that’s just the short-term cost. Now the organization must ensure they maintain trained staff who can make changes to the OSS reporting solution and IT staff that will stay knowledgeable in the new server platform. If those skills are very niche, then higher labour costs could be incurred if those people are hard to find or if trained employees use that knowledge as leverage for higher pay. Maybe a vendor exists that will contract out support, but then there are those costs to consider as well. And let’s not forget end-user training – in our example, anyone that runs reports will need to be trained on how to use the new system. Here’s the Point We still tend to look at software in an “off the shelf” kind of way. It’s very easy to say “oh, this product is better than vendor x’s product – and its free because its OSS!” but the reality is that implementing any new technology within an organization has a cost regardless of the retail price of the product. Training, integration, support – these are real costs that impact an organization and span multiple departments. Whether you’re pitching an improved business process, a new system, or a new technology, you need to consider the bigger picture costs of implementation. What you define as success (in our example, having better reporting functionality) might not be what others define as success if implementing your solution causes them issues. A true enterprise solution needs to consider the entire enterprise.

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• Getting Started With Tailoring Business Processes

  - by Richard Bingham

  In this article, and for the sake of simplicity, we will use the term “On-Premise” to mean a deployment where you have design-time development access to the instance, including administration of the technology components, the applications filesystem, and the database. In reality this might be a local development instance that is then supported by a team who can deploy your customizations to the restricted production instance equivalents. Tools Overview Firstly let’s look at the Design-Time tools within JDeveloper for customizing and extending the artifacts of a Business Process. In essence this falls into two buckets; SOA Composite Editor for working with BPEL processes, and the BPM Studio. The SOA Composite Editor As a standard extension to JDeveloper, this graphical design tool should be familiar to anyone previously worked with Oracle SOA Server. With easy-to-use modeling capability, backed-up by full XML source-view (for read-only), it provides everything that is needed to implement the technical design. In simple terms, once deployed to the remote SOA Server the composite components (like Mediator) leverage the Event Delivery Network (EDN) for interaction with the application logic. If you are customizing an existing Fusion Applications BPEL process then be aware that it does support MDS-based customization layers just like Page Composer where different customizations are used based on the run-time context, like for a specific Product or Business Unit. This also makes them safe from patching and upgrades, although only a single active version of the composite is available at run-time. This is defined by a field on the composite record, available in Enterprise Manager. Obviously if you wish to fire different activities and tasks based on the user context then you can should include switches to fork the flows in your custom BPEL process. Figure 1 – A BPEL process in Composite Editor The following describes the simplified steps for making customizations to BPEL processes. This is the most common method of changing the business processes of Fusion Applications, as over 400 BPEL-based composite applications are provided out-of-the-box. Setup your local Fusion Applications JDeveloper environment. The SOA Composite Editor should be installed as part of the Fusion Applications extension. If there are problems you can also find it under the ‘Check for Updates’ help menu option. Since SOA Server is not part of the JDeveloper integrated WebLogic Server, setup a standalone WebLogic environment for deploying and testing. Obviously you might use a Fusion Applications development instance also. Package the existing standard Fusion Applications SOA Composite using Enterprise Manager and export it as a complete SOA Archive (SAR) file, resulting in a local .jar file. You may need to ask your system administrator for this. Import the exported SAR .jar file into JDeveloper using the File menu, under the option ‘SOA Archive into SOA Project’. In JDeveloper set the appropriate customization layer values, and then change from the default role to the Fusion Applications Customization Developer role. Make the customizations and save the application project. Finally redeploy the composite application, either to a direct Application Server connection, or as a fresh SAR (jar) file that can then be re-imported and deployed via Enterprise Manager. The Business Process Management (BPM) Suite In addition to the relatively low-level development environment associated with BPEL process creation, Oracle provides a suite of products that allow business process adjustments to be made without the need for some of the programming skills.  The aim is to abstract much of the technical implementation and to provide a Business Analyst tools for immediately implementing organization changes. Obviously there are some limitations on what they can do, however the BPM Suite functionality increases with each release and for the majority of the cases the tools remains as applicable as its developer-orientated sister. At the current time business processes must be explicitly coded to support just one of these use-cases, either BPEL for developer use or BPM for business analyst use. That said, they both run on the same SOA Server in much the same way. The components bundled in each SOA Composite Application can be verified by inspection through Enterprise Manager. Figure 2 – A BPM Process in JDeveloper BPM Suite. BPM processes are written in a standard notation (BPMN) and the modeling tools are very similar to that of BPEL. The steps to deploy a custom BPM process are also essentially much the same, since the BPM process is bundled into a SOA Composite just like a BPEL process. As such the SOA Composite Editor  actually has support for both artifacts and even allows use of them together, such as a calling a BPM process as a partnerlink from a BPEL process. For more details see the references below. Business Analyst Tooling In addition to using JDeveloper extensions for BPM development, there are run-time tools that Business Analysts can use to make adjustments, so that without high costs of an IT project the system can be tuned to match changes to the business operation. The first tool to consider is the BPM Composer, deployed with the middleware SOA Server and accessible online, and for Fusion Applications it is under the Business Process icon on the homepage of the Application Composer. Figure 3 – Business Process Composer showing a CRM process flow. The key difference between this and using JDeveloper is that the BPM Composer has a Business Catalog prepopulated with features and functions that can be used, mostly through registered WebServices. This means no coding or complex interface development is required, simply drag-drop-configure. The items in the business catalog are seeded by either Oracle (as a BPM Template) or added to by your own custom development. You cannot create or generate catalog content from BPM Composer directly. As per the screenshot you can see the Business Catalog content in the BPM Project browser region. In addition, other online tools for use by Business Analysts include the BPM Worklist application for editing business rules and approval management configuration, plus the SOA Composer which focuses on non-approval business rules and domain value maps. At the current time there are only a handful of BPM processes shipped with Fusion Applications HCM and CRM, including on-boarding workers and processing customer registrations.  This also means a limited number of associated BPM Templates provided out-of-the-box, therefore a limited Business Catalog. That said, BPM-based extension is a powerful capability to leverage and will most likely develop going forwards, especially for use in SaaS deployments where full design-time JDeveloper access is not available. Further Reading For BPEL – Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide – Section 12 For BPM – Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide – Section 7 The product-specific documentation and implementation guides for Fusion Applications Fusion Middleware Developers Guide for SOA Suite Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management User’s Guide for Oracle Business Process Composer Oracle University courses on BPM Suite and SOA Development

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• Nokia Delivers Qt SDK Beta

  Tool promises to make cross-platform application development easier.

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• Nokia Delivers Qt SDK Beta

  Tool promises to make cross-platform application development easier.

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• ASP.NET Universal Providers (System.Web.Providers)

  - by shiju

  Microsoft Web Platform and Tools (WPT)  team has announced the release of ASP.NET Universal Providers that allows you to use Session, Membership, Roles and Profile providers along with all editions of SQL Server 2005 and later. This support includes Sql Server Express, Sql Server CE and Sql Azure.ASP.NET Universal Providers is available as a NuGet package and the following command will install the package via NuGet. PM> Install-Package System.Web.Providers The support for Sql Azure will help the Azure developers to easily migrate their ASP.NET applications to Azure platform. System.Web.Providers.DefaultMembershipProvider is the equivalent name for the current SqlMembershipProvider and you can put right connectionstring name in the configuration and it will work with any version of Sql Server based on the copnnection string. System.Web.Providers.DefaultProfileProvider is the equivalent provider name for existing System.Web.Profile.SqlProfileProvider and  System.Web.Providers.DefaultRoleProvider is the equivalent provider name for the existing System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider.

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• Announcing the new Oracle Retail Workspace, A Configuration of Oracle WebCenter Spaces 11.1.1.5 for Oracle Retail

  - by Oracle Retail Documentation Team

  For the Oracle Retail 13.2.x enterprise, Oracle Retail Workspace 13.2.4 replaces previous versions of Oracle Retail Workspace. Oracle Retail Workspace 13.2.4 is a supported configuration of Oracle WebCenter Spaces 11.1.1.5 for Oracle Retail. Supported Product Overview In order to provide a next-generation Oracle user engagement platform for the retail industry, Oracle Retail Workspace leverages WebCenter Spaces. Oracle Retail Workspace is not a licensed retail application with any code. Instead, retailers purchase the underlying technology and then leverage the Oracle Retail Workspace Implementation Guide to configure a portal utilizing Oracle WebCenter Spaces. Oracle Retail Workspace has been repositioned as a configuration of Oracle WebCenter Spaces for the following reasons: The Oracle Retail Workspace configuration utilizes the external application functionality and the application navigator taskflow of the Oracle WebCenter Framework to configure Oracle Retail applications in Oracle WebCenter Spaces. The Oracle WebCenter Framework improves IT development cycle times by blending Web 2.0 services, processes, business intelligence, and transactions in an integrated JSF framework. The Oracle WebCenter Spaces 11g offers features provided by the previous versions of Oracle Retail Workspace that enable retailers to leverage a productive portal-based environment. List of Documents The following are included in Workspace 13.2.4, A Configuration of WebCenter Spaces 11.1.1.5 for Oracle Retail Oracle Retail Workspace Release Notes Oracle Retail Workspace Implementation Guide Workspace Retail Library—Unsupported The Oracle Retail Workspace Retail Library is comprised of previously-published accelerator documents and sample code downloads hosted on My Oracle Support. They are not supported, nor are they associated with the support lifecycle of the Workspace application. Doc ID: 1461281.1: Oracle Retail Workspace Retail Library Oracle Retail Workspace Retail Library Reference GuideA set of Micro-Applications that can be used to perform some of the operations of Oracle Retail Merchandising System (RMS) from outside the application. This document describes the functional and technical design details of the Micro-Applications available in this release, including the following and more: Create Regular Item Create Purchase Order Item Transfer Update Vendor Oracle Retail Fashion Planning Bundle Reports documentationThe Oracle Retail Fashion Planning Bundle Reports package includes role-based Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Enterprise Edition (EE) reports and dashboards that provide an illustrative overview highlighting the Fashion Planning Bundle solutions. These dashboards can be leveraged out-of-the-box or can be used along with the other dashboards and reports that may have already been created to support a specific solution or organizational needs. This package includes dashboards for the Assortment Planning, Item Planning, Item Planning Configured for COE, Merchandise Financial Planning Retail Accounting, and Merchandise Financial Planning Cost Accounting applications. Oracle Retail Accelerators for WebLogic Server 11g Micro-Applications Development TutorialThis tutorial describes how you can create a Micro-Application for the Create a Regular Item task in the Retail Merchandising System (RMS) application using Oracle JDeveloper and ADF. Retail Accelerators: Developing ADF Reports for RPASThis document illustrates how you can use the Oracle Application Development Framework 11g (ADF) to generate reports that provide insights from the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server (RPAS) based applications. Oracle Retail Accelerators Guide for WebCenter 11gOracle Retail Accelerators Guide for WebCenter 11g describes how you can integrate Oracle Retail applications with Oracle WebCenter Spaces and customize WebCenter Spaces to include custom-developed content. Oracle Retail Accelerators, Developing Oracle BI EE reports on RPAS Domain DataThis document illustrates how you can set up the integration between BI EE and RPAS domains to generate BI EE reports and dashboards for RPAS. Oracle Retail Accelerators, Developing Oracle BI EE Reports on RPAS WorkbooksThis document outlines a process to create real-time Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Enterprise Edition reports against RPAS workbooks dynamically, as opposed to directly going against the RPAS domain for the data. 

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• Oracle Virtualization at Oracle OpenWorld 2012

  - by Chris Kawalek

  Mini-Series Entry 1 of 3: Hands-On Virtualization This is the first entry of a 3 part mini-series aimed at highlighting server and desktop virtualization at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld.  Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is fast approaching! If you are as excited as we are about the fascinating new Oracle virtualization content featured at Oracle OpenWorld 2012, you won’t want to miss this blog mini-series. We will be highlighting sessions that cover advances and innovations in our products, our product strategy and roadmap, and hands on labs for step-by-step instructions from our field and product experts. In the blog mini-series you will learn about: The Oracle Virtualization general keynote session Hands-on labs  Key Oracle server and desktop virtualization sessions In this entry, we will cover the Oracle Virtualization keynote session and the hands-on labs you won't want to miss. General Session: Oracle Virtualization Strategy and Roadmap Session ID: GEN8725 Oracle offers the industry’s most complete and integrated virtualization portfolio enabling organizations to realize benefits beyond simple consolidation as they transform their data centers into flexible cloud-based infrastructures. Join Oracle executives and experts to learn about Oracle’s desktop-to-data-center virtualization solutions, such as the OS, with built-in management integration at all layers that can help you virtualize and manage the complete computing environment, from physical servers to virtual servers and applications. This “don’t-miss” session offers details of the latest product updates and strategy; product roadmaps; integration with enterprise applications; and real-world examples of how Oracle server, desktop, and storage virtualization is benefiting customers. Here are our top picks for Hands-On Labs for Oracle OpenWorld 2012: Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Performance and Tablet Mobility Session ID: HOL9907 This hands-on lab demonstrates the performance (using an industry-standard load tester) and roaming capabilities of Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure with Oracle’s Sun Ray Clients, Apple iPad and other clients. Deploying an IaaS Environment with Oracle VM: Hands-On Lab  Session ID: HOL9558 This hands-on lab takes you through the planning and deployment of an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) environment with Oracle VM as the foundation. It covers a range of topics, from planning storage capacity, LUN creation, network bandwidth planning, and best practices to designing and streamlining the environment for ease of management. Learn from deeply experienced field engineers and product experts. Virtualize and Deploy Oracle Applications in Minutes with Oracle VM: Hands-On Lab Session ID: HOL9559 This hands-on lab is for application architects or system administrators who will need to deploy and manage Oracle Applications. You’ll learn how Oracle VM Templates can turn you into a power user who can virtualize and deploy complex Oracle Applications in minutes. Longtime field-experienced engineers and product experts will show you, step by step, how to download and import templates and deploy the applications. x86 Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure with Oracle VM 3.x and Sun ZFS Storage Appliance Session ID: HOL9870 The purpose of this hands-on lab is to demonstrate the functionality and usage of Oracle’s enterprise cloud infrastructure for x86 with Oracle VM 3.x. It covers:  Creation of VMs Migration of VMs  Quick and easy deployment of Oracle applications with Oracle VM Templates  Usage of the Storage Connect plug-in for the Sun ZFS Storage Appliance You can find these and other great sessions on the Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Content Catalogue. Start checking now to better plan and organize your week at the conference. Then you’ll be ready to sign up for all of your sessions in mid-July when the scheduling tool goes live. While the hands-on labs allow you to directly interact with Oracle virtualization products, the conference sessions allow you to hear from a wide variety of industry experts on how they're using they technology in real world deployments, solving specific challenges, and more. In tomorrow's entry, we'll start talking about the many conference sessions related to Oracle server and desktop virtualization you can attend during the show. See you then! - The Oracle Virtualization marketing team

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• Letter to Ballmer: Making Better Consumer Devices

  - by andrewbrust

  Last year, I wrote Steve Ballmer an email, and he was kind enough to write me back.  The email contained a scan of a column I wrote praising Microsoft’s BI strategy.  His reply contained three simple words: “Super nice  thanks.” Well, now I’d like to write to Steve again, in an open letter format, and this time the love may be a bit tougher.  But I’m still super earnest. The past two days have been eventful ones for Microsoft: The company announced the departure of company veterans Robbie Bach and J Allard and the market announced Apple is now besting Microsoft in market capitalization. Plus, announcements were made that make it plain that Ballmer will, in effect, be running Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division himself. With that in mind, I’d like to offer my list of a dozen things I think Microsoft’s CEO should do to improve that division’s offerings and, hopefully, its bottom line. So here goes:   1. On Windows Phone 7, Stay the Course The press is teeming with headlines and reader comments proclaiming the death-before-arrival of Windows Phone 7.  That’s plain silly.  You’ve got the makings of a great and unique SmartPhone platform, and you’re the only company (even considering RIM) that can offer full fidelity Exchange integration, not to mention implementing Office on the device.  Let the existing team finish this puppy and ship it. And then have them pump out a few updates, over-the-air, quickly.  Show them that Google Android’s not the only product that can do good, rapid dot releases. And another thing: make sure your OEMs’ devices have flawless touch screens.  If they don’t, then you shouldn’t certify them for delivery to customers.  Period. Oh, and kill the Kin, quietly.  It was DOA, and you know it.   2. Move Media Center to the Xbox Platform Media Center is, at its core, a good product.  But delivering a media distribution and DVR platform on a sophisticated PC operating system like Windows 7 just creates too many moving parts.  Xbox already functions as the best Media Center extender device – it should actually be the hub as well. Media Center is mostly based on .NET code – and XNA is a .NET environment for Xbox – find a way to bridge that small gap and make Media Center a joy to work with instead of a frustration.  Beating Apple TV out of this sub-market is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree (goofy pun, but it’s true).   3. Integrate Media Center with Mediaroom, or Kill the Latter You have two media products with almost identical names.  One is for standalone DVRs and the other is for IPTV cable set tops with DVR capabilities.  Can we merge these please?  My previous request of putting Media Center on Xbox would seem to tie into this nicely, since you’ve announced plans to do that with Mediaroom already.   4. Fix the Red Ring of Death People love the Xbox, but they really don’t love sending their consoles back every 18-24 months, when they get a bunch of red lights flashing on power up.  You’ve handled this defect about as gracefully as possible, but it’s been around for a long time now and it doesn’t seem to be fixed yet.  You can do better.  In fact, you must do better, or you insult your customers.   5. Add Blu Ray to Xbox I know, streaming movies are the future; physical media is legacy technology.  So if that’s true, why did you back HD DVD so hard?  You know why: for now, the film studios won’t allow a large selection of new release, HD, surround sound content be distributed on any medium other than Blu Ray or cable pay per view/on-demand.  Don’t you want home theater buffs to see the Xbox as a fantastic device for their rigs?  Don’t you want to put PlayStation 3 out of its misery?  And if you follow my suggestions above (move Media Center to the Xbox and fix the Red Ring problem), you’d have it all sewn up.  Do I think Blu Ray functionality will move a lot of units?  No.  Do I think that it would move more units with desperately needed influential home theater consumers?  You bet.  And you might sell more ZunePass subscriptions in the process. But while you’re at it, make the fan quieter, please.   6. Make More of Windows Home Server Home Server is a fantastic product.  And for reasons unknown to me, it seems like you’re letting it languish.  Development of the add-in ecosystem seems underfunded.  WHS’ unparalleled ease of use and reliability for home PC backup (and emergency restores) goes unsung.  Product cycles are slow.  Support for your OEMs, who are doing great work, especially in the green space with Atom CPUs, seems lacking.  You’ve married a trophy girl and you keep her cloistered at home!  That’s cruel, unusual and, um, incredibly ill-advised.  Make use of this ace card, and while you’re at it, give it real integration with Media Center.  The integration thus far proof-of-concept quality.  You should go way past that – both products will benefit immeasurably.   7. Set Up a Partner Platform for Custom Installers There’s a whole sub-industry of companies that install, integrate and configure home theater, security and connected home products.  They have an industry group. They are influential in the high-end of the consumer electronics industry, and so are their customers.  They love Media Center and they love Windows Home Server.  But I have talked to several of them at the Consumer Electronics Show and they tell me you don’t love them.  They find it very difficult to do business with Microsoft, even though they want nothing more than to sell and evangelize your platform.  This is a travesty.  Please fix it.  Get Allison Watson and the Microsoft Partner Network on board and have her hire someone who knows how to run a channel program for consumer electronics companies.  Problem solved.  Markets expanded.   8. Make Your Own Hardware In other areas, I know you love your partners.  I help run one, so I appreciate that.  But when it came to Xbox and Zune you built them it yourself (albeit on a contract basis, which is fine).  Windows Phone 7 has a chance to work as an OEM play, but it would work better if you produced the devices.  At least consider building a reference device that sells alongside your OEMs’ offerings.  That’s what Google did with the Nexxus One.  And while that phone was not itself a big seller, it catalyzed two wonderful things : (1) a quality bar was set and (2) partners exceeded it.  Before the Nexxus One, the best Android handset out there was the Motorola Droid. The Nexxus One was better, and the HTC Droid Incredible and Evo 4G are now even better than Google’s phone, which is why Verizon and Sprint decided not to carry it.  Imagine if all Windows Phone 6.x devices were on par with the HTC HD2.  I tend to believe you’d have a lot bigger market share than you do now.   9. Continue with Your Retail Initiative From what I hear, it sounds like it’s going well.  And this goes right along with making your own hardware.  When you build it, they will come.  And then it makes the likes of Best Buy and Staples do better.   10. Make an Acquisition (or Two) TiVo and/or Moxi look ripe for the picking.  With their ability to build stuff people love and your ability to run a business, you might just have something.  But do a better job than you did when you bought Danger.  Buy the ideas, not just the customers, eh?   11. Make Beautiful Stuff You’ve heard this one before, I know.  But I have some head-shrinking advice on this one.  You know that Apple obsesses over its industrial design.  You know that appeals to consumers.  But it seems you think doing so is Apple’s game exclusively and so you shouldn’t even try.  Bull dinky.  Come to New York and visit the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design gallery.  You’ll see that lots of companies and product categories have had very high design value well before Apple existed.  You can do this, and the Zune HD was a great start.  Now run with that.  Find those negative voices in your head that are telling you that you can’t and shut them up.  For good.   12. Burst the Bubble Some of the products you’ve built seem like they were conceived in a bizarro world.  That would appear to be the result of groupthink.  You must do better.  And there’s lots of people willing to advise you.  This includes just about everyone in the Regional Director program, and probably a bunch of MVPs.  Heck, I bet the guys at Engadget could help out too.  Imagine if you let them see the Kin before it shipped.  Talk to high-end gear consumers.  Talk to Best Buy and CostCo customers too.   Signing Off I hope this was of value to you.  As I wrote this I kept telling myself how obvious, even trite, some of these pieces of advice were and then, because of that, doubting they’d really help.  But I decided that they must not be obvious to Microsoft.  Sometimes when you get wrapped up in stuff, it’s hard to clear your head.  I think my head’s pretty clear here though (I’m wrapped up in other stuff), so maybe my perspective can help.  If not, well, then, I guess they all can’t be super nice.

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• CoApp: An Open-Source Package-Management System For Windows

  Microsoft courts open-source developers with a new package-management platform.

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• CoApp: An Open-Source Package-Management System For Windows

  Microsoft courts open-source developers with a new package-management platform.

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• Exam 70-448 - TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance

  - by DigiMortal

  The another exam I passed was 70-448 - TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance. This exam covers Business Intelligence (BI) solutions development and maintenance on SQL Server 2008 platform. It was not easy exam, but if you study then you can do it. To get prepared for 70-488 it is strongly recommended to read self-paced training kit and also make through all examples it contains. If you don’t have strong experiences on Microsoft BI platform and SQL Server then this exam is hard to pass when you just go there and hope to pass somehow. Self-paced training kit is interesting reading and you learn a lot of new stuff for sure when preparing for exam. Questions in exam are divided into topics as follows: SSIS – 32% SSAS – 38% SSRS – 30% Exam 70-448 gives you Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist certificate.

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• Python and Ruby in Tuxedo

  - by Maurice Gamanho

  With the release of SALT 11gR1, you can now develop Python/Ruby services/applications on Oracle Tuxedo platform. Python functions or Ruby classes can be invoked as Tuxedo services by other Tuxedo services or clients and, in addition, Python/Ruby applications can invoke existing Tuxedo services. SALT 11gR1 combines the proven scalability, reliability and performance of the Tuxedo runtime infrastructure with the agility provided by these dynamic scripting languages, providing a highly available and almost linearly scalable platform for Python and Ruby application development. Another benefit of developing Python and Ruby applications with Tuxedo is that services are SOA enabled from inception by virtue of Tuxedo's comprehensive integration options with J2EE app servers, mainframe applications, Web services, etc. Other interesting features are dynamic re-loading of scripts, where script changes are picked up automatically or when the administrator decides, and server-side typing, where Python functions and Ruby classes are given interfaces by way of the Tuxedo Metadata Repository. More information can be found on the Oracle SALT 11gR1 documentation page. See also SCA Python and Ruby Programming and Python and Ruby Data Type Mapping.

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• Master Note for Generic Data Warehousing

  - by lajos.varady(at)oracle.com

  ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The complete and the most recent version of this article can be viewed from My Oracle Support Knowledge Section. Master Note for Generic Data Warehousing [ID 1269175.1] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++In this Document   Purpose   Master Note for Generic Data Warehousing      Components covered      Oracle Database Data Warehousing specific documents for recent versions      Technology Network Product Homes      Master Notes available in My Oracle Support      White Papers      Technical Presentations Platforms: 1-914CU; This document is being delivered to you via Oracle Support's Rapid Visibility (RaV) process and therefore has not been subject to an independent technical review. Applies to: Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version: 9.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.2 - Release: 9.2 to 11.2Information in this document applies to any platform. Purpose Provide navigation path Master Note for Generic Data Warehousing Components covered Read Only Materialized ViewsQuery RewriteDatabase Object PartitioningParallel Execution and Parallel QueryDatabase CompressionTransportable TablespacesOracle Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)Oracle Data MiningOracle Database Data Warehousing specific documents for recent versions 11g Release 2 (11.2)11g Release 1 (11.1)10g Release 2 (10.2)10g Release 1 (10.1)9i Release 2 (9.2)9i Release 1 (9.0)Technology Network Product HomesOracle Partitioning Advanced CompressionOracle Data MiningOracle OLAPMaster Notes available in My Oracle SupportThese technical articles have been written by Oracle Support Engineers to provide proactive and top level information and knowledge about the components of thedatabase we handle under the "Database Datawarehousing".Note 1166564.1 Master Note: Transportable Tablespaces (TTS) -- Common Questions and IssuesNote 1087507.1 Master Note for MVIEW 'ORA-' error diagnosis. For Materialized View CREATE or REFRESHNote 1102801.1 Master Note: How to Get a 10046 trace for a Parallel QueryNote 1097154.1 Master Note Parallel Execution Wait Events Note 1107593.1 Master Note for the Oracle OLAP OptionNote 1087643.1 Master Note for Oracle Data MiningNote 1215173.1 Master Note for Query RewriteNote 1223705.1 Master Note for OLTP Compression Note 1269175.1 Master Note for Generic Data WarehousingWhite Papers Transportable Tablespaces white papers Database Upgrade Using Transportable Tablespaces:Oracle Database 11g Release 1 (February 2009) Platform Migration Using Transportable Database Oracle Database 11g and 10g Release 2 (August 2008) Database Upgrade using Transportable Tablespaces: Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (April 2007) Platform Migration using Transportable Tablespaces: Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (April 2007)Parallel Execution and Parallel Query white papers Best Practices for Workload Management of a Data Warehouse on the Sun Oracle Database Machine (June 2010) Effective resource utilization by In-Memory Parallel Execution in Oracle Real Application Clusters 11g Release 2 (Feb 2010) Parallel Execution Fundamentals in Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (November 2009) Parallel Execution with Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (June 2005)Oracle Data Mining white paper Oracle Data Mining 11g Release 2 (March 2010)Partitioning white papers Partitioning with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (September 2009) Partitioning in Oracle Database 11g (June 2007)Materialized Views and Query Rewrite white papers Oracle Materialized Views  and Query Rewrite (May 2005) Improving Performance using Query Rewrite in Oracle Database 10g (December 2003)Database Compression white papers Advanced Compression with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (September 2009) Table Compression in Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (May 2005)Oracle OLAP white papers On-line Analytic Processing with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (September 2009) Using Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition with the OLAP Option to Oracle Database 11g (July 2008)Generic white papers Enabling Pervasive BI through a Practical Data Warehouse Reference Architecture (February 2010) Optimizing and Protecting Storage with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (November 2009) Oracle Database 11g for Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence (August 2009) Best practices for a Data Warehouse on Oracle Database 11g (September 2008)Technical PresentationsA selection of ObE - Oracle by Examples documents: Generic Using Basic Database Functionality for Data Warehousing (10g) Partitioning Manipulating Partitions in Oracle Database (11g Release 1) Using High-Speed Data Loading and Rolling Window Operations with Partitioning (11g Release 1) Using Partitioned Outer Join to Fill Gaps in Sparse Data (10g) Materialized View and Query Rewrite Using Materialized Views and Query Rewrite Capabilities (10g) Using the SQLAccess Advisor to Recommend Materialized Views and Indexes (10g) Oracle OLAP Using Microsoft Excel With Oracle 11g Cubes (how to analyze data in Oracle OLAP Cubes using Excel's native capabilities) Using Oracle OLAP 11g With Oracle BI Enterprise Edition (Creating OBIEE Metadata for OLAP 11g Cubes and querying those in BI Answers) Building OLAP 11g Cubes Querying OLAP 11g Cubes Creating Interactive APEX Reports Over OLAP 11g CubesSelection of presentations from the BIWA website:Extreme Data Warehousing With Exadata  by Hermann Baer (July 2010) (slides 2.5MB, recording 54MB)Data Mining Made Easy! Introducing Oracle Data Miner 11g Release 2 New "Work flow" GUI   by Charlie Berger (May 2010) (slides 4.8MB, recording 85MB )Best Practices for Deploying a Data Warehouse on Oracle Database 11g  by Maria Colgan (December 2009)  (slides 3MB, recording 18MB, white paper 3MB )

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• What’s New for Oracle Commerce? Executive QA with John Andrews, VP Product Management, Oracle Commerce

  - by Katrina Gosek

  Oracle Commerce was for the fifth time positioned as a leader by Gartner in the Magic Quadrant for E-Commerce. This inspired me to sit down with Oracle Commerce VP of Product Management, John Andrews to get his perspective on what continues to make Oracle a leader in the industry and what’s new for Oracle Commerce in 2013. Q: Why do you believe Oracle Commerce continues to be a leader in the industry? John: Oracle has a great acquisition strategy – it brings best-of-breed technologies into the product fold and then continues to grow and innovate them. This is particularly true with products unified into the Oracle Commerce brand. Oracle acquired ATG in late 2010 – and then Endeca in late 2011. This means that under the hood of Oracle Commerce you have market-leading technologies for cross-channel commerce and customer experience, both designed and developed in direct response to the unique challenges online businesses face. And we continue to innovate on capabilities core to what our customers need to be successful – contextual and personalized experience delivery, merchant-inspired tools, and architecture for performance and scalability. Q: It’s not a slow moving industry. What are you doing to keep the pace of innovation at Oracle Commerce? John: Oracle owes our customers the most innovative commerce capabilities. By unifying the core components of ATG and Endeca we are delivering on this promise. Oracle Commerce is continuing to innovate and redefine how commerce is done and in a way that drive business results and keeps customers coming back for experiences tailored just for them. Our January and May 2013 releases not only marked the seventh significant releases for the solution since the acquisitions of ATG and Endeca, we also continue to demonstrate rapid and significant progress on the unification of commerce and customer experience capabilities of the two commerce technologies. Q: Can you tell us what was notable about these latest releases under the Oracle Commerce umbrella? John: Specifically, our latest product innovations give businesses selling online the ability to get to market faster with more personalized commerce experiences in the following ways: Mobile: the latest Commerce Reference Application in this release offers a wider range of examples for online businesses to leverage for iOS development and specifically new iPad reference capabilities. This release marks the first release of the iOS Universal application that serves both the iPhone and iPad devices from a single download or binary. Business users can now drive page content management and layout of search results and category pages, as well as create additional storefront elements such as categories, facets / dimensions, and breadcrumbs through Experience Manager tools. Cross-Channel Commerce: key commerce platform capabilities have been added to support cross-channel commerce, including an expanded inventory model to maintain inventory for stores, pickup in stores and Web-based returns. Online businesses with in-store operations can now offer advanced shipping options on the web and make returns and exchange logic easily available on the web. Multi-Site Capabilities: significant enhancements to the Commerce Platform multi-site architecture that allows business users to quickly launch and manage multiple sites on the same cluster and share data, carts, and other components. First introduced in 2010, with this latest release business users can now partition or share customer profiles, control users’ site-based access, and manage personalization assets using site groups. Internationalization: continued language support and enhancements for business user tools as well and search and navigation. Guided Search now supports 35 total languages with 11 new languages (including Danish, Arabic, Norwegian, Serbian Cyrillic) added in this release. Commerce Platform tools now include localized support for 17 locales with 4 new languages (Danish, Portuguese (European), Finnish, and Thai). No development or customization is required in order for business users to use the applications in any of these supported languages. Business Tool Experience: valuable new Commerce Merchandising features include a new workflow for making emergency changes quickly and increased visibility into promotions rules and qualifications in preview mode. Oracle Commerce business tools continue to become more and more feature rich to provide intuitive, easy- to-use (yet powerful) capabilities to allow business users to manage content and the shopping experience. Commerce & Experience Unification: demonstrable unification of commerce and customer experience capabilities include – productized cartridges that provide supported integration between the Commerce Platform and Experience Management tools, cross-channel returns, Oracle Service Cloud integration, and integrated iPad application. The mission guiding our product development is to deliver differentiated, personalized user experiences across any device in a contextual manner – and to give the business the best tools to tune and optimize those user experiences to meet their business objectives. We also need to do this in a way that makes it operationally efficient for the business, keeping the overall total cost of ownership low – yet also allows the business to expand, whether it be to new business models, geographies or brands. To learn more about the latest Oracle Commerce releases and mission, visit the links below: • Hear more from John about the Oracle Commerce mission • Hear from Oracle Commerce customers • Documentation on the new releases • Listen to the Oracle ATG Commerce 10.2 Webcast • Listen to the Oracle Endeca Commerce 3.1.2 Webcast

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• BUILD 2013 - Microsoft Set to Unveil It&rsquo;s Reinvention

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2013/06/24/153211.aspxSome thoughts as we head into BUILD this week… This week in San Francisco Microsoft will be hosting the BUILD conference. They’ll be talking up Windows 8.1 (Windows Blue), more Azure, some Windows Phone, XBox, Office 365… actually, they told us on the original BUILD announcement site what we’d be seeing:           While looking at this, consider a recent article from The Verge that talks about the speculation of a huge shake up at Microsoft . From the article: All Things D quotes one insider as saying they're "titanic" changes, noting they might be attached to Ballmer's legacy at the company. "It’s the first time in a long time that it feels like that there will be some major shifts, including some departures," says the alleged insider. Considering Ballmer let Sinofsky go right after the Windows 8 launch, the idea of Microsoft cutting loose some executives doesn’t seem to be big news. But the next piece of the article frames things more interestingly: Ballmer is reportedly considering a new structure that would create four separate divisions: enterprise business, hardware, applications and services, and an operating systems group. This statement got me thinking…what would this new structure look like? Below is one possibility: At a recent (this year or last year, I can’t recall which) Microsoft shareholder’s meeting, Ballmer made the statement that Microsoft is now a products and services company. At the time I don’t think I really let that statement sink in. Partially because I really liked the Microsoft of my professional youth – the one that was a software and platform company. In Canada, Microsoft has been pushing three platform areas: Lync, Azure, and SQL Server. I would expect those to change moving forward as Microsoft continues to look for Partners that will help them increase their Services revenue through solutions that incorporate/are based on Azure, Office 365, Lync, and Dynamics. I also wonder if we’re not seeing a culling of partners through changes to the Microsoft Partner Program. In addition to the changing certification requirements that align more to Microsoft’s goals (i.e. There is no desktop development based MCSD, only Windows 8 Store Apps), competencies that partners can qualify for are being merged, requirements changed, and licenses provided reduced. Ballmer warned as much at the last WPC though that they were looking for partners who were “all in” with Microsoft, and these programs seem to support that sentiment. Heading into BUILD this week, I’ll be looking to answer one question – what does it mean to be a Microsoft developer here in the 2010’s? What is the future of the Microsoft development platform? Sure, Visual Studio is still alive and well and Microsoft realizes that there’s a huge install base of .NET developers actively working on solutions. But they’ve ratcheted down the messaging around their development stack and instead focussed on promoting development for their platforms and services. Last year at BUILD with the release of Windows 8, Microsoft just breached the walls of its cocoon. After this BUILD and the organizational change announcements in July, we’ll see what Microsoft looks like fully emerged from its metamorphosis.

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• The Low Down Dirty Azure Blues

  - by SGWellens

  Remember the SETI screen savers that used to be on everyone's computer? As far I as know, it was the first bona-fide use of "Cloud" computing…albeit an ad hoc cloud. I still think it was a brilliant leveraging of computing power. My interest in clouds was re-piqued when I went to a technical seminar at the local .Net User Group. The speaker was Mike Benkovitch and he expounded magnificently on the virtues of the Azure platform. Mike always does a good job. One killer reason he gave for cloud computing is instant scalability. Not applicable for most applications, but it is there if needed. I have a bunch of files stored on Microsoft's SkyDrive platform which is cloud storage. It is painfully slow. Accessing a file means going through layers and layers of software, redirections and security. Am I complaining? Hell no! It's free! So my opinions of Cloud Computing are both skeptical and appreciative. What intrigued me at the seminar, in addition to its other features, is that Azure can serve as a web hosting platform. I have a client with an Asp.Net web site I developed who is not happy with the performance of their current hosting service. I checked the cost of Azure and since the site has low bandwidth/space requirements the cost would be competitive with the existing host provider: Azure Pricing Calculator. And, Azure has a three month free trial. Perfect! I could try moving the website and see how it works for free. I went through the signup process. Everything was proceeding fine until I went to the MS SQL database management screen. A popup window informed me that I needed to install Silverlight on my machine. Silverlight? No thanks. Buh-Bye. I half-heartedly found the Azure support button and logged a ticket telling them I didn't want Silverlight on my machine. Within 4 to 6 hours (and a myriad (5) of automated support emails) they sent me a link to a database management page that did not require Silverlight. Thanks! I was able to create a database immediately. One really nice feature was that after creating the database, I was given a list of connection strings. I went to the current host provider, made a backup of the database and saved it to my machine. I attached to the remote database using SQL Server Studio 2012 and looked for the Restore menu item. It was missing. So I tried using the SQL command: RESTORE DATABASE MyDatabase FROM DISK ='C:\temp\MyBackup.bak' Msg 40510, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Statement 'RESTORE DATABASE' is not supported in this version of SQL Server. Are you kidding me? Why on earth…? This can't be happening! I opened both the source database and destination database in SQL Management Studio. I right clicked the source database, selected "Tasks" and noticed a menu selection called "Deploy Database to SQL Azure" Are you kidding me? Could it be? Oh yes, it be! There was a small problem because the database already existed on the Azure machine, I deployed to a new name, deleted the existing database and renamed the deployed database to what I needed. It was ridiculously easy. Being able to attach SQL Management Studio to remote databases is an awesome but scary feature. You can limit the IP addresses that can access the database which enhances security but when you give people, any people, me included, that much power, one errant mouse click could bring a live system down. My Advice: Tread softly and carry a large backup thumb-drive. Then I created a web site, the URL it returned look something like this: http://MyWebSite.azurewebsites.net/ Azure supports FTP, but I couldn't figure out the settings until I downloaded the publishing profile. It was an XML file that contained the needed information. I still couldn't connect with my FTP client (FileZilla). After about an hour of messing around, I deleted the port number from the FileZilla setup page….and voila, I was in like Flynn.   There are other options of deploying directly from Visual Studio, TFS, etc. but I do not like integrated tools that do things without my asking: It's usually hard to figure out what they did and how to undo it. I uploaded the aspx , cs , webconfig, etc. files. Bu it didn't run. The site I ported was in .NET 3.5. The Azure website configuration page gave me a choice between .NET 2.0 and 4.0. So, I switched to Visual Studio 2010, chose .NET 4.0 and upgraded the site. Of course I have the original version completely backed up and stored in a granite cave beneath the Nevada desert. And I have a backup CD under my pillow. The site uses ReportViewer to generate PDF documents. Of course it was the wrong version. I removed the old references to version 9 and added new references to version 10 (*see note below). Since the DLLs were not on the Azure Server, I uploaded them to the bin directory, crossed my fingers, burned some incense and gave it a try. After some fiddling around it ran. I don't know if I did anything particular to make it work or it just needed time to sort things out. However, one critical feature didn't work: ReportViewer could not programmatically generate PDF documents. I was getting this exception: "An error occurred during local report processing. Parameter is not valid." Rats. I did some searching and found other people were having the same problem, so I added a post saying I was having the same problem: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazurewebsitespreview/thread/b4a6eb43-0013-435f-9d11-00ee26a8d017 Currently they are looking into this problem and I am waiting for the results. Hence I had the time to write this BLOG entry. How lucky you are. This was the last message I got from the Microsoft person: Hi Steve, Windows Azure Web Sites is a multi-tenant environment. For security issue, we limited some API calls. Unfortunately, some GDI APIS required by the PDF converting function are in this list. We have noticed this issue, and still investigation the best way to go. At this moment, there is no news to share. Sorry about this. Will keep you posted. If I had to guess, I would say they are concerned with people uploading images and doing intensive graphics programming which would hog CPU time.  But that is just a guess. Another problem. While trying to resolve the ReportViewer problem, I tried to write a file to the PDF directory to see if there was a permissions problem with some test code: String MyPath = MapPath(@"~\PDFs\Test.txt"); File.WriteAllText(MyPath, "Hello Azure");     I got this message: Access to the path <my path> is denied. After some research, I understood that since Azure is a cloud based platform, it can't allow web applications to save files to local directories. The application could be moved or replicated as scaling occurs and trying to manage local files would be problematic to say the least. There are other options: Use the Azure APIs to get a path. That way the location of the storage is separated from the application. However, the web site is then tied Azure and can't be moved to another hosting platform. Use the ApplicationData folder (not recommended). Write to BLOB storage. Or, I could try and stream the PDF output directly to the email and not save a file. I'm not going to work on a final solution until the ReportViewer is fixed. I am just sharing some of the things you need to be aware of if you decide to use Azure. I got this information from here. (Note the author of the BLOG added a comment saying he has updated his entry). Is my memory faulty? While getting this BLOG ready, I tried to write the test file again. And it worked. My memory is incorrect, or much more likely, something changed on the server…perhaps while they are trying to get ReportViewer to work. (Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it). *Note: Since Visual Studio 2010 Express doesn't include a Report Editor, I downloaded and installed SQL Server Report Builder 2.0. It is a standalone Report Editor to replace the one not in Visual Studio 2010 Express. I hope someone finds this useful. Steve Wellens CodeProject

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• Best of "The Moth" 2010

  - by Daniel Moth

  It is the time again (like in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) to look back at my blog for the past year and identify areas of interest that seem to be more prominent than others. After doing so, representative posts follow in my top 5 list (in random order). 1. This was the year where I had to move for the first time since 2004 my blog engine (blogger.com –> dasBlog), host provider (zen –> godaddy), web server technology and OS (apache on Linux –> IIS on Windows Server). My goal was not to break any permalinks or the look and feel of this website. A series of posts covered how I achieved that goal, culminating in a tool for others to use if they wanted to do the same: Tool to convert blogger.com content to dasBlog. Going forward I aim to be sharing more small code utilities like that one… 2. At work I am known for being fairly responsive on email, and more importantly never dropping email balls on the floor. This is due to my email processing system, which I shared here: Processing Email in Outlook. I will be sharing more tips with regards to making the best of the Office products. 3. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the year people will remember as the one where Microsoft finally fights back in the mobile space. Even though the new platform means my Windows Mobile book sales will dwindle :-), I am ecstatic about Windows Phone 7 both as a consumer and as a developer. On the release day, to get you started I shared the top 10 Windows Phone 7 developer resources. I will be sharing my tips from my experience in writing code for and consuming this new platform… 4. For my HPC developer friends using Visual Studio, I shared Slides and code for MPI Cluster Debugger and also gave you all the links you need for getting started with Dryad and DryadLINQ from MSR. Expect more from me on cluster development in the coming year… 5. Still in the HPC space, but actually also in the game and even mainstream development, the big disruption and opportunity comes in the form of GPGPU and, on the Microsoft platform, (currently) DirectCompute. Expect more from me on gpgpu development in the coming year… Subscribe via the link on the left to stay tuned for 2011… I wish you a very Happy New Year (with whatever definition of happiness works for you)! Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• SQL SERVER – List of All the Samples Database Available to Download for FREE

  - by Pinal Dave

  It is pretty much very common to have a sample database for any database product. Different companies keep on improving their product and keep on coming up with innovation in their product. To demonstrate the capability of their new enhancements they need the sample database. Microsoft have various sample database available for free download for their SQL Server Product. I have collected them here in a single blog post. Download an AdventureWorks Database The AdventureWorks OLTP database supports standard online transaction processing scenarios for a fictitious bicycle manufacturer (Adventure Works Cycles). Scenarios include Manufacturing, Sales, Purchasing, Product Management, Contact Management, and Human Resources. Coconut Dal Coconut Dal is a lightweight data access layer, for use in projects where the Entity Framework cannot be used or Microsoft’s Enterprise Library Data Block is unsuitable. Anyone who is handwriting ADO.NET should use a library instead and Coconut Dal might be the answer.  DataBooster – Extension to ADO.NET Data Provider The dbParallel DataBooster library is a high-performance extension to ADO.NET Data Provider, includes two aspects: 1) A slimmed down API encapsulation which simplified the most common data access operations (DbConnection -> DbCommand -> DbParameter -> DbDataReader) into a single class DbAccess, to help application with a clean DAL, avoid over-packing and redundant-copy of data transfer. 2) A booster for writing mass data onto database. Base on a rational utilization of database concurrency and a effective utilization of network bandwidth. Tabular AMO 2012 The sample is made of two project parts. The first part is a library of functions to manage tabular models -AMO2Tabular V2-. The second part is a sample to build a tabular model -AdventureWorks Tabular AMO 2012- using the AMO2Tabular library; the created model is similar to the ‘AdventureWorks Tabular Model 2012. SQL Server Analysis Services Product Samples SQL Server Analysis Services provides, a unified and integrated view of all your business data as the foundation for all of your traditional reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP) analysis, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) scorecards, and data mining. Analysis Services Samples for SQL Server 2008 R2 This release is dedicated to the samples that ship for Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2. For many of these samples you will also need to download the AdventureWorks family of databases. SQL Server Reporting Services Product Samples This project contains Reporting Services samples released with Microsoft SQL Server product. These samples are in the following five categories: Application Samples, Extension Samples, Model Samples, Report Samples, and Script Samples. If you are interested in contributing Reporting Services samples, please let us know by posting in the developers’ forum. Reporting Services Samples for SQL Server 2008 R2 This release is dedicated to the samples that ship for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 PCU1. For many of these samples you will also need to download the AdventureWorks family of databases. SQL Server Integration Services Product Samples This project contains Integration Services samples released with Microsoft SQL Server product. These samples are in the following two categories: Package Samples and Programming Samples. If you are interested in contributing Integration Services samples, please let us know by posting in the developers’ forum. Integration Services Samples for SQL Server 2008 R2 This release is dedicated to the samples that ship for Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2. For many of these samples you will also need to download the AdventureWorks family of databases. Windows Azure SQL Reporting Admin Sample The SQLReportingAdmin sample for Windows Azure SQL Reporting demonstrates the usage of SQL Reporting APIs, and manages (add/update/delete) permissions of SQL Reporting users. Windows Azure SQL Reporting ReportViewer-SOAP API usage sample These sample projects demonstrate how to embed a Microsoft ReportViewer control that points to reports hosted on SQL Reporting report servers and how to use SQL Reporting SOAP APIs in your Windows Azure Web application. Enterprise Library 5.0 – Integration Pack for Windows Azure This NuGet package contains a zip file with the source code for the Enterprise Library Integration Pack for Windows Azure.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Sample Database

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• Tech Article: Accelerating Multimedia Application Development with JSR 309 Media Server Control API

  - by OracleTechnologyNetwork

  Learn how to build a SIP Servlet conferencing application using the JSR 309 Reference Implementation Driver running in Oracle Communications Converged Application Server and accessing the HP OpenCall Media Platform

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• Windows Azure Use Case: Fast Acquisitions

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: Many organizations absorb, take over or merge with other organizations. In these cases, one of the most difficult parts of the process is the merging or changing of the IT systems that the employees use to do their work, process payments, and even get paid. Normally this means that the two companies have disparate systems, and several approaches can be used to have the two organizations use technology between them. An organization may choose to retain both systems, and manage them separately. The advantage here is speed, and keeping the profit/loss sheets separate. Another choice is to slowly “sunset” or stop using one organization’s system, and cutting to the other system immediately or at a later date. Although a popular choice, one of the most difficult methods is to extract data and processes from one system and import it into the other. Employees at the transitioning system have to be trained on the new one, the data must be examined and cleansed, and there is inevitable disruption when this happens. Still another option is to integrate the systems. This may prove to be as much work as a transitional strategy, but may have less impact on the users or the balance sheet. Implementation: A distributed computing paradigm can be a good strategic solution to most of these strategies. Retaining both systems is made more simple by allowing the users at the second organization immediate access to the new system, because security accounts can be created quickly inside an application. There is no need to set up a VPN or any other connections than just to the Internet. Having the users stop using one system and start with the other is also simple in Windows Azure for the same reason. Extracting data to Azure holds the same limitations as an on-premise system, and may even be more problematic because of the large data transfers that might be required. In a distributed environment, you pay for the data transfer, so a mixed migration strategy is not recommended. However, if the data is slowly migrated over time with a defined cutover, this can be an effective strategy. If done properly, an integration strategy works very well for a distributed computing environment like Windows Azure. If the Azure code is architected as a series of services, then endpoints can expose the service into and out of not only the Azure platform, but internally as well. This is a form of the Hybrid Application use-case documented here. References: Designing for Cloud Optimized Architecture: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dachou/archive/2011/01/23/designing-for-cloud-optimized-architecture.aspx 5 Enterprise steps for adopting a Platform as a Service: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/davidmcg/archive/2010/12/02/5-enterprise-steps-for-adopting-a-platform-as-a-service.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

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• Sun Fire X4800 M2 Posts World Record x86 SPECjEnterprise2010 Result

  - by Brian

  Oracle's Sun Fire X4800 M2 using the Intel Xeon E7-8870 processor and Sun Fire X4470 M2 using the Intel Xeon E7-4870 processor, produced a world record single application server SPECjEnterprise2010 benchmark result of 27,150.05 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 server ran the application tier and the Sun Fire X4470 M2 server was used for the database tier. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 server demonstrated 63% better performance compared to IBM P780 server result of 16,646.34 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 server demonstrated 4% better performance than the Cisco UCS B440 M2 result, both results used the same number of processors. This result used Oracle WebLogic Server 12c, Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server 1.7.0_02, and Oracle Database 11g. This result was produced using Oracle Linux. Performance Landscape Complete benchmark results are at the SPEC website, SPECjEnterprise2010 Results. The table below compares against the best results from IBM and Cisco. SPECjEnterprise2010 Performance Chart as of 3/12/2012 Submitter EjOPS* Application Server Database Server Oracle 27,150.05 1x Sun Fire X4800 M2 8x 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon E7-8870 Oracle WebLogic 12c 1x Sun Fire X4470 M2 4x 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon E7-4870 Oracle Database 11g (11.2.0.2) Cisco 26,118.67 2x UCS B440 M2 Blade Server 4x 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon E7-4870 Oracle WebLogic 11g (10.3.5) 1x UCS C460 M2 Blade Server 4x 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon E7-4870 Oracle Database 11g (11.2.0.2) IBM 16,646.34 1x IBM Power 780 8x 3.86 GHz POWER 7 WebSphere Application Server V7 1x IBM Power 750 Express 4x 3.55 GHz POWER 7 IBM DB2 9.7 Workgroup Server Edition FP3a * SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS, bigger is better. Configuration Summary Application Server: 1 x Sun Fire X4800 M2 8 x 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon processor E7-8870 256 GB memory 4 x 10 GbE NIC 2 x FC HBA Oracle Linux 5 Update 6 Oracle WebLogic Server 11g Release 1 (10.3.5) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM on Linux, version 1.7.0_02 (Java SE 7 Update 2) Database Server: 1 x Sun Fire X4470 M2 4 x 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon E7-4870 512 GB memory 4 x 10 GbE NIC 2 x FC HBA 2 x Sun StorageTek 2540 M2 4 x Sun Fire X4270 M2 4 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array Oracle Linux 5 Update 6 Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.2 Benchmark Description SPECjEnterprise2010 is the third generation of the SPEC organization's J2EE end-to-end industry standard benchmark application. The SPECjEnterprise2010 benchmark has been designed and developed to cover the Java EE 5 specification's significantly expanded and simplified programming model, highlighting the major features used by developers in the industry today. This provides a real world workload driving the Application Server's implementation of the Java EE specification to its maximum potential and allowing maximum stressing of the underlying hardware and software systems. The workload consists of an end to end web based order processing domain, an RMI and Web Services driven manufacturing domain and a supply chain model utilizing document based Web Services. The application is a collection of Java classes, Java Servlets, Java Server Pages, Enterprise Java Beans, Java Persistence Entities (pojo's) and Message Driven Beans. The SPECjEnterprise2010 benchmark heavily exercises all parts of the underlying infrastructure that make up the application environment, including hardware, JVM software, database software, JDBC drivers, and the system network. The primary metric of the SPECjEnterprise2010 benchmark is jEnterprise Operations Per Second ("SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS"). This metric is calculated by adding the metrics of the Dealership Management Application in the Dealer Domain and the Manufacturing Application in the Manufacturing Domain. There is no price/performance metric in this benchmark. Key Points and Best Practices Sixteen Oracle WebLogic server instances were started using numactl, binding 2 instances per chip. Eight Oracle database listener processes were started, binding 2 instances per chip using taskset. Additional tuning information is in the report at http://spec.org. See Also Oracle Press Release -- SPECjEnterprise2010 Results Page Sun Fire X4800 M2 Server oracle.com OTN Sun Fire X4270 M2 Server oracle.com OTN Sun Storage 2540-M2 Array oracle.com OTN Oracle Linux oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN WebLogic Suite oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement SPEC and the benchmark name SPECjEnterprise are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Sun Fire X4800 M2, 27,150.05 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS; IBM Power 780, 16,646.34 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS; Cisco UCS B440 M2, 26,118.67 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS. Results from www.spec.org as of 3/27/2012.

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• Follow your friends on StackOverflow with FriendOverflow

  - by Mike Grace

  Screenshot About I created this app because I wanted to see what my friends and co-workers were doing on StackOverflow. I was previously going to their profiles to see what they were asking, answering, and commenting on because most of the time I found what they were doing was interesting or relevant to what I was doing. This app is for anyone who visits StackOverflow using their desktop browser and has 'friends' they would like to follow on StackOverflow. Cost Free Download Google Chrome extension http://goo.gl/ooE34 Mozilla Firefox extension http://goo.gl/3Pnqa Bookmarklet http://goo.gl/FkuQW Platform Desktop browsers via Google Chrome extension, Mozilla Firefox extension, and bookmarklet Contact @MikeGrace Code App was built on the Kynetx platform using KRL (Kynetx Rule Language)

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• Chalk Talk with John: Business Value of Identity and Access Management

  - by John Brunswick

  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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Conveying the business value of Identity and Access Management to non technologists can potentially be challenging, especially considering the breadth capability supplied by these technologies. In this episode of Chalk Talk with John, Bob at Codeaway Valley asks Jim from Middleware Fields how they are able to manage access to buildings and facilities throughout their community. Bob and his team struggle to keep up with the needs of their community members, while ensuring the community’s safety. Jim shares his creative solution to simplifying the management of access throughout their community in Middleware Fields. 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} About me: Hi, I am John Brunswick, an Oracle Enterprise Architect. As an Oracle Enterprise Architect, I focus on the alignment of technical capabilities in support of business vision and objectives, as well as the overall business value of technology.  Before coming to Oracle, I was a Practice Manager within BEA System's Business Interaction Division consulting organization, orchestrating enterprise systems in support of line of business goals. Follow me on Twitter and visit my site for Oracle Fusion Middleware related tips.

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• Tim Bray Throws His Hat into The Android Ring Because He Hates The iPhone

  The prominent blogger and software architect hopes to convert more developers to the Android platform.

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