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  • Logging in with WebFinger and OpenID

    - by Ryan
    I would like to apologize in advance for the ugly formatting. In order to talk about the problem, I need to be posting a bunch of URLs, but the excessive URLs and my lack of reputation makes StackOverflow think I could be a spammer. Any instance of 'ht~tp' is supposed to be 'http'. '{dot}' is supposed to be '.' and '{colon}' is supposed to be ':'. Also, my lack of reputation has prevented me from tagging my question with 'webfinger' and 'google-profiles'. Onto my question: I am messing around with WebFinger and trying to create a small rails app that enables a user to log in using nothing but their WebFinger account. I can succesfully finger myself, and I get back an XRD file with the following snippet: Link rel="ht~tp://specs{dot}openid{dot}net/auth/2.0/provider" href="ht~tp://www{dot}google{dot}com/profiles/{redacted}"/ Which, to me, reads, "I have an OpenID 2.0 login at the url: ht~tp://www{dot}google{dot}com/profiles/{redacted}". But when I try to use that URL to log in, I get the following error OpenID::DiscoveryFailure (Failed to fetch identity URL ht~tp://www{dot}google{dot}com/profiles/{redacted} : Error encountered in redirect from ht~tp://www{dot}google{dot}com/profiles/{redacted}: Error fetching /profiles/{Redacted}: Connection refused - connect(2)): When I replace the profile URL with 'ht~tps://www{dot}google{dot}com/accounts/o8/id', the login works perfectly. here is the code that I am using (I'm using RedFinger as a plugin, and JanRain's ruby-openid, installed without the gem) require "openid" require 'openid/store/filesystem.rb' class SessionsController < ApplicationController def new @session = Session.new #render a textbox requesting a webfinger address, and a submit button end def create ####################### # # Pay Attention to this section right here # ####################### #use given webfinger address to retrieve openid login finger = Redfinger.finger(params[:session][:webfinger_address]) openid_url = finger.open_id.first.to_s #openid_url is now: ht~tp://www{dot}google{dot}com/profiles/{redacted} #Get needed info about the acquired OpenID login file_store = OpenID::Store::Filesystem.new("./noncedir/") consumer = OpenID::Consumer.new(session,file_store) response = consumer.begin(openid_url) #ERROR HAPPENS HERE #send user to OpenID login for verification redirect_to response.redirect_url('ht~tp://localhost{colon}3000/','ht~tp://localhost{colon}3000/sessions/complete') end def complete #interpret return parameters file_store = OpenID::Store::Filesystem.new("./noncedir/") consumer = OpenID::Consumer.new(session,file_store) response = consumer.complete params case response.status when OpenID::SUCCESS session[:openid] = response.identity_url #redirect somehwere here end end end Is it possible for me to use the URL I received from my WebFinger to log in with OpenID?

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  • How to initiate chatting between two clients and two clients only, using applets and servlets?

    - by mithun1538
    Hello everyone, I first need to apologize for my earlier questions. (You can check my profile for them)They seemed to ask more questions than give answers. Hence, I am laying down the actual question that started all them absurd questions. I am trying to design a chat applet. Till now, I have coded the applet, servlet and communication between the applet and the servlet. The code in the servlet side is such that I was able to establish chatting between clients using the applets, but the code was more like a broadcast all feature, i.e. all clients would be chatting with each other. That was my first objective when I started designing the chat applet. The second step is chatting between only two specific users, much like any other chat application we have. So this was my idea for it: I create an instance of the servlet that has the 'broadcast-all' code. I then pass the address of this instance to the respective clients. 2 client applets use the address to then chat. Technically the code is 'broadcast-all', but since only 2 clients are connected to it, it gives the chatting between two clients feature. Thus, groups of 2 clients have different instances of the same servlet, and each instance handles chatting between two clients at a max. However, as predicted, the idea didn't materialize! I tried to create an instance of the servlet but the only solution for that was using sessions on the servlet side, and I don't know how to use this session for later communications. I then tried to modify my broadcast-all code. In that code, I was using classes that implemented Observer and Observable interfaces. So the next idea that I got was: Create a new object of the Observable class(say class_1). This object be common to 2 clients. 2 clients that wish to chat will use same object of the class_1. 2 other clients will use a different object of class_1. But the problem here lies with the class that implements the Observer interface(say class_2). Since this has observers monitoring the same type of class, namely class_1, how do I establish an observer monitoring one object of class_1 and another observer monitoring another object of the same class class_1 (Because notifyObservers() would notify all the observers and I can't assign a particular observer to a particular object)? I first decided to ask individual problems, like how to create instances of servlets, using objects of observable and observer and so on in stackoverflow... but I got confused even more. Can anyone give me an idea how to establish chatting between two clients only?(I am using Http and not sockets or RMI). Regards, Mithun. P.S. Thanks to all who replied to my previous (absurd) queries. I should have stated the purpose earlier so that you guys could help me better.

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  • Web Services Primer for a WinForms Developer?

    - by Unicorns
    I've been writing client/server applications with Winforms for about six years now, but I have yet to venture into the web space (neither ASP.NET nor web services). Given the direction that the job market has been heading for some time and the fact that I have a basic curiosity, I'd like to get involved with writing web services, but I don't know where to start. I've read about various options (XML/SOAP vs. JSON, REST vs...well, actually I don't know what it's called, etc.), but I'm not sure what sort of criteria are in play when making the determination to use one or the other. Obviously, I'd like to leverage the tools that I have (Visual Studio, the .NET framework, etc.) without hamstringing myself into only targeting a particular audience (i.e. writing the service in such a way as to make it difficult to consume from a Windows Mobile/Android/iPhone client, for example). For the record, my plan--for now--is to use WCF for my web service development, but I'm open to using another .NET approach if that's advisable. I realize that this question is pretty open-ended so it may get closed, but here are some things I'm wondering: What are some things to consider when choosing the type of web service (REST, etc.) I intend to write? Is it possible (and, if so, feasible) to move from one approach to another? Can web services be written in an event-driven way? As I said I'm a Winforms developer, so I'm used to objects raising events for me to react to. For instance, if I have two clients connected to my service, is there a way for me to "push" information to one of them as a result of an action by the other? If this is possible, is this advisable or am I just not thinking about it correctly? What authentication mechanisms seem to work best for public-facing services? What about if I plan to have different types of OS'es and clients connecting to the service? Is there a generally accepted platform-agnostic approach? In the line of authentication, is this something that I should be doing myself (authenticating an managing sessions, etc.) or is this something should be handled at the framework level and I just define exactly how it should work? If that's the case, how do I tell who the requester has authenticated themselves as? I started writing an authentication mechanism (simple username/password combinations stored in the database and a corresponding session table with a GUID key) within my service and just requiring that key to be passed with every operation (other than logging in, of course), but I want to make sure that I'm not reinventing the wheel here. However, I also don't want to clutter up the server with a bunch of machine user accounts just to use Basic authentication. I'm also under the impression that Digest (and of course Windows) authentication requires a machine (or AD) user account.

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  • Using PHP session_id() to Make Sure iframe is Generated by Our Server Dynamically

    - by Michael Robinson
    We use iframes to show ads on our site. Iframes are used to allow us to keep the ad generation code and other site modules separate. As we track ad views on our site, and need to be able to keep an accurate count of which pagetype gets what views, I must ensure that users can't simply copy-paste the iframe in which the ad is loaded onto another site. This would cause ad count to become inflated for this page, and the count would not match the view count of the page the iframe "should" be displayed in. Before anyone says so: no I can't simply compare the page view count with the ad view count, or use the page view count * number of ads per page, as # of ads per page will not necessarily be static. I need to come up with a solution that will allow ads to be shown only for iframes that are generated dynamically and are shown on our pages. I am not familiar with PHP sessions, but from what little reading I have had time to do, the following seems to be to be an acceptable solution: Add "s = session_id()" to the src of the ad's iframe. In the code that receives and processes ad requests, only return (and count) and ad if s == session_id(). Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this would ensure: Ads would only be returned to iframes whose src was generated alongside the rest of the page's content, as is the case during normal use. We can return our logo to ad calls with an invalid session_id. So a simple example would be: One of our pages: <?php session_start(); ?> <div id="someElement"> <!-- EVERYONE LOVES ADS --> <iframe src="http//awesomesite.com/ad/can_has_ad.php?s=<?php echo session_id(); ?>></iframe> </div> ad/can_has_ad.php: <?php session_start(); ?> if($_GET['s'] == session_id()){ echo 'can has ad'; } else{ echo '<img src="http://awesomesite.com/images/canhaslogo.jpg"/>'; } And finally, copied code with static 's' parameter: <!-- HAHA LULZ I WILL SCREW WITH YOUR AD VIEW COUNTS LULZ HAHA --> <iframe src="http//awesomesite.com/ad/can_has_ad.php?s=77f2b5fcdab52f52607888746969b0ad></iframe> Which would give them an iframe showing our awesome site's logo, and not screw with our view counts. I made some basic test cases: two files, one that generates the iframe and echos it, and one that the iframe's src is pointed to, that checks the 's' parameter and shows an appropriate message depending on the result. I copied the iframe into a file and hosted it on a different server, and the correct message was displayed (cannot has ad). So, my question is: Would this work or am I being a PHP session noob, with the above test being a total fluke? Thanks for your time! Edit: I'm trying to solve this without touching the SQL server

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  • How come my South migrations doesn't work for Django?

    - by TIMEX
    First, I create my database. create database mydb; I add "south" to installed Apps. Then, I go to this tutorial: http://south.aeracode.org/docs/tutorial/part1.html The tutorial tells me to do this: $ py manage.py schemamigration wall --initial >>> Created 0001_initial.py. You can now apply this migration with: ./manage.py migrate wall Great, now I migrate. $ py manage.py migrate wall But it gives me this error... django.db.utils.DatabaseError: (1146, "Table 'fable.south_migrationhistory' doesn't exist") So I use Google (which never works. hence my 870 questions asked on Stackoverflow), and I get this page: http://groups.google.com/group/south-users/browse_thread/thread/d4c83f821dd2ca1c Alright, so I follow that instructions >> Drop database mydb; >> Create database mydb; $ rm -rf ./wall/migrations $ py manage.py syncdb But when I run syncdb, Django creates a bunch of tables. Yes, it creates the south_migrationhistory table, but it also creates my app's tables. Synced: > django.contrib.admin > django.contrib.auth > django.contrib.contenttypes > django.contrib.sessions > django.contrib.sites > django.contrib.messages > south > fable.notification > pagination > timezones > fable.wall > mediasync > staticfiles > debug_toolbar Not synced (use migrations): - (use ./manage.py migrate to migrate these) Cool....now it tells me to migrate these. So, I do this: $ py manage.py migrate wall The app 'wall' does not appear to use migrations. Alright, so fine. I'll add wall to initial migrations. $ py manage.py schemamigration wall --initial Then I migrate: $ py manage.py migrate wall You know what? It gives me this BS: _mysql_exceptions.OperationalError: (1050, "Table 'wall_content' already exists") Sorry, this is really pissing me off. Can someone help ? thanks. How do I get South to work and sync correctly with everything?

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  • Reliable session faulting for unknown reason

    - by Scarfman007
    I am trying to achieve the following - one client-side proxy instance (kept open) accessed by multiple threads using a reliable session. What I have managed so far is to have either A) a reliable session with a client-side proxy which is created and disposed per call or B) what I aim for, but without a reliable session. When I enable reliable sessions on my binding however, the following behaviour is exhibited: Client-side Upon application startup everything appears to work fine until roughly 18 messages in to the WCF session. I firstly get the proxy.InnerChannel.Faulted event raised, then an exception is caught at the point where I am calling the method on the proxy. The exception is a System.TimeoutException, with message: "The request channel timed out while waiting for a reply after 00:00:59.9062512. Increase the timeout value passed to the call to Request or increase the SendTimeout value on the Binding. The time allotted to this operation may have been a portion of a longer timeout." The inner exception has a similar message: "The request operation did not complete within the allotted timeout of 00:01:00. The time allotted to this operation may have been a portion of a longer timeout." With the method at the top of the inner stack trace being: System.ServiceModel.Channels.ReliableRequestSessionChannel.SyncRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout) I then call proxy.Close followed by proxy.Abort (catching and ignoring exceptions). If I utilize the default settings (i.e. have simply <reliableSession/>), then calling proxy. Close results in another System.Timeout exception (although this time the allotted timeout is 00:00:00), however if I override the defaults as specified above no exception is thrown. Service-side Utilizing WCF tracing I get a System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException, with message: "The sequence has been terminated by the remote endpoint. The session has stopped waiting for a particular reply. Because of this the reliable session cannot continue. The reliable session was faulted." And a stack trace ending at: System.ServiceModel.AsyncResult.End[TAsyncResult](IAsyncResult result) When remotely attaching to the server I get the same message, which occurs when code execution steps over the return statement of my service in the service call which causes the error. The puzzling thing to me is that the service is stable and runs with options A) or B) as decribed at the beginning of my post, and occurs after a varying number of messages (around 18). The former fact points to there being nothing wrong with the code (indeed I have checked that no exceptions are thrown), and the latter just serves to confuse me and is why I modified the settings on the reliable session binding. I am quite stuck on this. Can anyone suggest why the reliable session would fault in such a way?

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  • Public class: The best way to store and access NSMutableDictionary?

    - by meridimus
    I have a class to help me store persistent data across sessions. The problem is I want to store a running sample of the property list or "plist" file in an NSMutableArray throughout the instance of the Persistance class so I can read and edit the values and write them back when I need to. The problem is, as the methods are publicly defined I cannot seem to access the declared NSMutableDictionary without errors. The particular error I get on compilation is: warning: 'Persistence' may not respond to '+saveData' So it kind of renders my entire process unusable until I work out this problem. Here is my full persistence class (please note, it's unfinished so it's just to show this problem): Persistence.h #import <UIKit/UIKit.h> #define kSaveFilename @"saveData.plist" @interface Persistence : NSObject { NSMutableDictionary *saveData; } @property (nonatomic, retain) NSMutableDictionary *saveData; + (NSString *)dataFilePath; + (NSDictionary *)getSaveWithCampaign:(NSUInteger)campaign andLevel:(NSUInteger)level; + (void)writeSaveWithCampaign:(NSUInteger)campaign andLevel:(NSUInteger)level withData:(NSDictionary *)saveData; + (NSString *)makeCampaign:(NSUInteger)campaign andLevelKey:(NSUInteger)level; @end Persistence.m #import "Persistence.h" @implementation Persistence @synthesize saveData; + (NSString *)dataFilePath { NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES); NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0]; return [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:kSaveFilename]; } + (NSDictionary *)getSaveWithCampaign:(NSUInteger)campaign andLevel:(NSUInteger)level { NSString *filePath = [self dataFilePath]; if([[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:filePath]) { NSLog(@"File found"); [[self saveData] setDictionary:[[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:filePath]]; // This is where the warning "warning: 'Persistence' may not respond to '+saveData'" occurs NSString *campaignAndLevelKey = [self makeCampaign:campaign andLevelKey:level]; NSDictionary *campaignAndLevelData = [[self saveData] objectForKey:campaignAndLevelKey]; return campaignAndLevelData; } else { return nil; } } + (void)writeSaveWithCampaign:(NSUInteger)campaign andLevel:(NSUInteger)level withData:(NSDictionary *)saveData { NSString *campaignAndLevelKey = [self makeCampaign:campaign andLevelKey:level]; NSDictionary *saveDataWithKey = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:saveData, campaignAndLevelKey, nil]; //[campaignAndLevelKey release]; [saveDataWithKey writeToFile:[self dataFilePath] atomically:YES]; } + (NSString *)makeCampaign:(NSUInteger)campaign andLevelKey:(NSUInteger)level { return [[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d - ", campaign+1] stringByAppendingString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", level+1]]; } @end I call this class like any other, by including the header file in my desired location: @import "Persistence.h" Then I call the function itself like so: NSDictionary *tempSaveData = [[NSDictionary alloc] [Persistence getSaveWithCampaign:currentCampaign andLevel:currentLevel]];

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  • Runtime.exec causes duplicate JVM to hang indefinitely until killed (Solaris 10)

    - by John
    All, We are running a J2EE application on WebLogic server 9.2 MP2 with a jrockit 64-bit JVM (27.3.1) on Solaris 10. We call use runtime.exec to call an executable called jfmerge to create PDF documents. We have found that in Solaris, when runtime.exec is called, a duplicate JVM is temporarily spawned to kick off the jfmerge process. While this is inefficient (our JVM is 5 GB, thus the duplicated shell JVM is also 5 GB), the major problem lies in the fact that when there is heavy load on this functionality (PDF generation) in our application, sometimes the duplicated JVM never exits. When the JVM hangs, the servers create large issues (extreme application slowness and terminated user sessions) as the entire duplicate JVM get's all of its 5 GB of process size written to disk swap. We have noted the following hung thread correlated with a hung JVM process until the process is manually killed: "[STUCK] ExecuteThread: '17' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'" id=3463 idx=0x158 tid=3460 prio=1 alive, in native, daemon at jrockit/io/FileNativeIO.readBytesPinned(Ljava/io/FileDescriptor;[BII)I(Native Method) at jrockit/io/FileNativeIO.readBytes(FileNativeIO.java:30) at java/io/FileInputStream.readBytes([BII)I(FileInputStream.java) at java/io/FileInputStream.read(FileInputStream.java:194) at java/lang/UNIXProcess$DeferredCloseInputStream.read(UNIXProcess.java:227) at java/io/BufferedInputStream.fill(BufferedInputStream.java:218) at java/io/BufferedInputStream.read(BufferedInputStream.java:235) ^-- Holding lock: java/io/BufferedInputStream@0xfffffffec6510470[thin lock] at gov/v3/common/formgeneration/sessionbean/FormsBean.getProcessStatus(FormsBean.java:809) at gov/v3/common/formgeneration/sessionbean/FormsBean.createPDF(FormsBean.java:750) at gov/v3/common/formgeneration/sessionbean/FormsBean.getTemplateDetails(FormsBean.java:450) at gov/v3/common/formgeneration/sessionbean/FormsBean.generateSinglePDF(FormsBean.java:1371) at gov/v3/common/formgeneration/sessionbean/FormsBean.generatePDF(FormsBean.java:263) at gov/v3/common/formgeneration/sessionbean/FormsBean.endorseDocument(FormsBean.java:2377) at gov/v3/common/formgeneration/sessionbean/Forms_qaco28_EOImpl.endorseDocument(Forms_qaco28_EOImpl.java:214) at gov/v3/delegates/common/FormsAndNoticesDelegate.endorseDocument(FormsAndNoticesDelegate.java:128) at gov/v3/actions/common/EndorseDocumentAction.executeRequest(EndorseDocumentAction.java:68) at gov/v3/fwk/controller/struts/action/V3CommonDispatchAction.dispatchToExecuteMethod(V3CommonDispatchAction.java:532) at gov/v3/fwk/controller/struts/action/V3CommonDispatchAction.executeBaseAction(V3CommonDispatchAction.java:336) at gov/v3/fwk/controller/struts/action/V3BaseDispatchAction.execute(V3BaseDispatchAction.java:69) at org/apache/struts/action/RequestProcessor.processActionPerform(RequestProcessor.java:484) at gov/v3/fwk/controller/struts/requestprocessor/V3TilesRequestProcessor.processActionPerform(V3TilesRequestProcessor.java:384) at org/apache/struts/action/RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:274) at org/apache/struts/action/ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1482) at org/apache/struts/action/ActionServlet.doGet(ActionServlet.java:507) at gov/v3/fwk/controller/struts/servlet/V3ControllerServlet.doGet(V3ControllerServlet.java:110) at javax/servlet/http/HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:743) at javax/servlet/http/HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856) at weblogic/servlet/internal/StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227) at weblogic/servlet/internal/StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125) at weblogic/servlet/internal/ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:283) at weblogic/servlet/internal/ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:175) at weblogic/servlet/internal/WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.run(WebAppServletContext.java:3231) at weblogic/security/acl/internal/AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321) at weblogic/security/service/SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:121) at weblogic/servlet/internal/WebAppServletContext.securedExecute(WebAppServletContext.java:2002) at weblogic/servlet/internal/WebAppServletContext.execute(WebAppServletContext.java:1908) at weblogic/servlet/internal/ServletRequestImpl.run(ServletRequestImpl.java:1362) at weblogic/work/ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:209) at weblogic/work/ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:181) at jrockit/vm/RNI.c2java(JJJJJ)V(Native Method) -- end of trace We would like to do a couple of things: 1.) Prevent the spawning of a duplicate JVM, as we do not need any of it's functions when executing the simple jfmerge executable, and it creates massive overhead. 2.) In the short term at least prevent this duplicate JVM from handing indefinitely.

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  • Combined sign in and registration page?

    - by Ryan
    This is somewhat against rails convention but I am trying to have one controller that manages both user session authentication and user registration. I am having troubles figuring out how to go about this. So far I am merging the User Controller and the Sessions Controller and having the 'new' method deliver both a new usersession and a new user instance. With the new routes in rails 3 though, I am having trouble figuring out how to generate forms for these items. Below is the code: user_controller.rb class UserController < ApplicationController def new @user_session = UserSession.new @user = User.new end def create_user @user = User.new(params[:user]) if @user.save flash[:notice] = "Account Successfully Registered" redirect_back_or_default signup_path else render :action => new end end def create_session @user_session = UserSession.new(params[:user_session]) if @user_session.save flash[:notice] = "Login successful!" redirect_back_or_default login_path else render :action => new end end end views/user/new.html.erb <div id="login_section"> <% form_for @user_session do |f| -%> <%= f.label :email_address, "Email Address" %> <%= f.text_field :email %> <%= f.label :password, "Password" %> <%= f.text_field :password %> <%= f.submit "Login", :disable_with => 'Logining...' %> <% end -%> </div> <div id="registration_section"> <% form_for @user do |f| -%> <%= f.label :email_address, "Email Address" %> <%= f.text_field :email %> <%= f.label :password, "Password" %> <%= f.text_field :password %> <%= f.label :password_confirmation, "Password Confirmation" %> <%= f.text_field :password_confirmation %> <%= f.submit "Register", :disable_with => 'Logining...' %> <% end -%> </div> I imagine I will need to use :url = something for those forms, but I am unsure how to specify. Within routes.rb I have yet to specify either Usersor UserSessions as resources (not convinced that this is the best way to do it... but I could be). I would like, however, the registration and login on the same page and have implemented this by doing the following: routes.rb match 'signup' => 'user#new' match 'login' => 'user#new' What's the best way to go about solving this?

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  • Rails send mail with GMail

    - by Danny McClelland
    Hi Everyone, I am on rails 2.3.5 and have the latest Ruby installed and my application is running well, except, GMail emails. I am trying to setup my gmail imap connection which has worked previously but now doesnt want to know. This is my code: # Be sure to restart your server when you modify this file # Uncomment below to force Rails into production mode when # you don't control web/app server and can't set it the proper way # ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'production' # Specifies gem version of Rails to use when vendor/rails is not present RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '2.3.5' unless defined? RAILS_GEM_VERSION # Bootstrap the Rails environment, frameworks, and default configuration require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'boot') Rails::Initializer.run do |config| # Gems config.gem "capistrano-ext", :lib => "capistrano" config.gem "configatron" # Make Time.zone default to the specified zone, and make Active Record store time values # in the database in UTC, and return them converted to the specified local zone. config.time_zone = "London" # The internationalization framework can be changed to have another default locale (standard is :en) or more load paths. # All files from config/locales/*.rb,yml are added automatically. # config.i18n.load_path << Dir[File.join(RAILS_ROOT, 'my', 'locales', '*.{rb,yml}')] #config.i18n.default_locale = :de # Your secret key for verifying cookie session data integrity. # If you change this key, all old sessions will become invalid! # Make sure the secret is at least 30 characters and all random, # no regular words or you'll be exposed to dictionary attacks. config.action_controller.session = { :session_key => '_base_session', :secret => '7389ea9180b15f1495a5e73a69a893311f859ccff1ffd0fa2d7ea25fdf1fa324f280e6ba06e3e5ba612e71298d8fbe7f15fd7da2929c45a9c87fe226d2f77347' } config.active_record.observers = :user_observer end ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Date::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(:default => '%d/%m/%Y') ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Time::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(:default => '%d/%m/%Y') require "will_paginate" ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = { :enable_starttls_auto => true, :address => "smtp.gmail.com", :port => 587, :domain => "XXXXXXXX.XXX", :authentication => :plain, :user_name => "XXXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXXXX.XXX", :password => "XXXXX" } But the above just results in an SMTP auth error in the production log. I have read varied reports of this not working in Rails 2.2.2 but nothing for 2.3.5, anyone got any ideas? Thanks, Danny

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  • PHP running as a FastCGI application (php-cgi) - how to issue concurrent requests?

    - by Sbm007
    Some background information: I'm writing my own webserver in Java and a couple of days ago I asked on SO how exactly Apache interfaces with PHP, so I can implement PHP support. I learnt that FastCGI is the best approach (since mod_php is not an option). So I have looked at the FastCGI protocol specification and have managed to write a working FastCGI wrapper for my server. I have tested phpinfo() and it works, in fact all PHP functions seem to work just fine (posting data, sessions, date/time, etc etc). My webserver is able to serve requests concurrently (ie user1 can retrieve file1.html at the same time as user2 requesting some_large_binary_file.zip), it does this by spawning a new Java thread for each user request (terminating when completed or user connection with client is cancelled). However, it cannot deal with 2 (or more) FastCGI requests at the same time. What it does is, it queues them up, so when request 1 is completed immediately thereafter it starts processing request 2. I tested this with 2 PHP pages, one contains sleep(10) and the other phpinfo(). How would I go about dealing with multiple requests as I know it can be done (PHP under IIS runs as FastCGI and it can deal with multiple requests just fine). Some more info: I am coding under windows and my batch file used to execute php-cgi.exe contains: set PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=8 set PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=500 php-cgi.exe -b 9000 But it does not spawn 8 children, the service simply terminates after 500 requests. I have done research and from Wikipedia: Processing of multiple requests simultaneously is achieved either by using a single connection with internal multiplexing (ie. multiple requests over a single connection) and/or by using multiple connections Now clearly the multiple connections isn't working for me, as everytime a client requests something that involves FastCGI it creates a new socket to the FastCGI application, but it does not work concurrently (it queues them up instead). I know that internal multiplexing of FastCGI requests under the same connection is accomplished by issuing each unique FastCGI request with a different request ID. (also see the last 3 paragraphs of 'The Communication Protocol' heading in this article). I have not tested this, but how would I go about implementing that? I take it I need some kind of FastCGI Java thread which contains a Map of some sort and a static function which I can use to add requests to. Then in the Thread's run() function it would have a while loop and for every cycle it would check whether the Map contains new requests, if so it would assign them a request ID and write them to the FastCGI stream. And then wait for input etc etc, As you can see this becomes too complicated. Does anyone know the correct way of doing this? Or any thoughts at all? Thanks very much. Note, if required I can supply the code for my FastCGI wrapper.

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  • Why does every thread in my application use a different hibernate session?

    - by Ittai
    Hi, I have a web-application which uses hibernate and for some reason every thread (httprequest or other threads related to queueing) uses a different session. I've implemented a HibernateSessionFactory class which looks like this: public class HibernateSessionFactory { private static final ThreadLocal<Session> threadLocal = new ThreadLocal<Session>(); private static Configuration configuration = new AnnotationConfiguration(); private static org.hibernate.SessionFactory sessionFactory; static { try { configuration.configure(configFile); sessionFactory = configuration.buildSessionFactory(); } catch (Exception e) {} } private HibernateSessionFactory() {} public static Session getSession() throws HibernateException { Session session = (Session) threadLocal.get(); if (session == null || !session.isOpen()) { if (sessionFactory == null) { rebuildSessionFactory();//This method basically does what the static init block does } session = (sessionFactory != null) ? sessionFactory.openSession(): null; threadLocal.set(session); } return session; } //More non relevant methods here. Now from my testing it seems that the threadLocal member is indeed initialized only once when the class is first loaded by the JVM but for some reason when different threads access the getSession() method they use different sessions. When a thread first accesses this class (Session) threadLocal.get(); will return null but as expected all other access requests will yeild the same session. I'm not sure how this can be happening as the threadLocal variable is final and the method threadLocal.set(session) is only used in the above context (which I'm 99.9% sure has to yeild a non null session as I would have encountered a NullPointerException at a different part of my app). I'm not sure this is relevant but these are the main parts of my hibernate.cfg.xml file: <hibernate-configuration> <session-factory> <property name="connection.url">someURL</property> <property name="connection.driver_class"> com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver</property> <property name="dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServerDialect</property> <property name="hibernate.connection.isolation">1</property> <property name="hibernate.connection.username">User</property> <property name="hibernate.connection.password">Password</property> <property name="hibernate.connection.pool_size">10</property> <property name="show_sql">false</property> <property name="current_session_context_class">thread</property> <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto">update</property> <property name="hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache">false</property> <property name="hibernate.cache.provider_class">org.hibernate.cache.NoCacheProvider</property> <!-- Mapping files --> I'd appreciate any help granted and of course if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to clarify. Ittai

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  • Multi domain rails app. How to intelligently use MVC?

    - by denial
    Background: We have app a, b, and plan to add more apps into this same application. The apps are similar enough they could share many views, assets, and actions. Currently a,b live in a single rails app(2.3.10). c will be similar enough that it could also be in this rails app. The problem: As we continue to add more apps to this one app, there's going to be too much case logic that the app will soon become a nightmare to maintain. There will also be potential namespace issues. However, the apps are very similar in function and layout, it also makes sense to keep them in one app so that it's one app to maintain(since roughly 50% of site look/functionality will be shared). What we are trying to do is keep this as clean as possible so it's easy for multiple teams to work on and easy to maintain. Some things we've thought about/are trying: Engines. Make each app an engine. This would let us base routes on the domain. It also allows us to pull out controllers, models and views for the specific app. This solution does not seem ideal as we won't be reusing the apps any time soon. And explicitly stating the host in the routes doesn't seem right. Skinning/themes. The auth logic would be different between the apps. Each user model would be different. So it's not just a skinning problem. In app/view add folder sitea for sitea views, siteb for siteb views and so on. Do the same for controllers and models. This is still pretty messy and since it didn't follow naming conventions, it did not work with rails so nicely and made much of the code messier. Making another rails app. We just didn't want to maintain the same controller or view in 2 apps if they are identical. What we want to do is make the app intelligently use a controller based on the host. So there would be a sessions controller for each app, and perhaps some parent session controller for shared logic(not needed now). In each of these session controllers, it handles authentication for that specific app. So if the domain is a.mysite.com, it would use session controller for app a and know to use app a's views,models,controllers. And if the domain is b.mysite, it would use the session controller for b. And there would be a user model for a and user model for b, which also would be determined by the domain. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this situation? And ideally using rails 2.3.x as updating to rails 3 isn't an option right now.

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  • How to write my own global lock / unlock functions for PostgreSQL

    - by rafalmag
    I have postgresql (in perlu) function getTravelTime(integer, timestamp), which tries to select data for specified ID and timestamp. If there are no data or if data is old, it downloads them from external server (downloading time ~300ms). Multiple process use this database and this function. There is an error when two process do not find data and download them and try to do an insert to travel_time table (id and timestamp pair have to be unique). I thought about locks. Locking whole table would block all processes and allow only one to proceed. I need to lock only on id and timestamp. pg_advisory_lock seems to lock only in "current session". But my processes uses their own sessions. I tried to write my own lock/unlock functions. Am I doing it right? I use active waiting, how can I omit this? Maybe there is a way to use pg_advisory_lock() as global lock? My code: CREATE TABLE travel_time_locks ( id_key integer NOT NULL, time_key timestamp without time zone NOT NULL, UNIQUE (id_key, time_key) ); ------------ -- Function: mylock(integer, timestamp) DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS mylock(integer, timestamp) CASCADE; -- Usage: SELECT mylock(1, '2010-03-28T19:45'); -- function tries to do a global lock similar to pg_advisory_lock(key, key) CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION mylock(id_input integer, time_input timestamp) RETURNS void AS $BODY$ DECLARE rows int; BEGIN LOOP BEGIN -- active waiting here !!!! :( INSERT INTO travel_time_locks (id_key, time_key) VALUES (id_input, time_input); EXCEPTION WHEN unique_violation THEN CONTINUE; END; EXIT; END LOOP; END; $BODY$ LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' VOLATILE COST 1; ------------ -- Function: myunlock(integer, timestamp) DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS myunlock(integer, timestamp) CASCADE; -- Usage: SELECT myunlock(1, '2010-03-28T19:45'); -- function tries to do a global unlock similar to pg_advisory_unlock(key, key) CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION myunlock(id_input integer, time_input timestamp) RETURNS integer AS $BODY$ DECLARE BEGIN DELETE FROM ONLY travel_time_locks WHERE id_key=id_input AND time_key=time_input; RETURN 1; END; $BODY$ LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' VOLATILE COST 1;

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  • Do you use logical negation operator (!) in "if" statement or check on "== false"

    - by Taras Terebkov
    Hello everyone, I just want to conduct a little survey about code style developers prefer. For me there are two ways to write "if" in such languages as Java, C#, C++, etc. (1) Logical negation operator public void foo() { if (!SessionManager.getInstance().hasActiveSession()) { . . . . . } } (2) Check on "false" public void foo() { if (SessionManager.getInstance().hasActiveSession() == false) { . . . . . } } I always believe that first way is much worst then the second one. Cause usually you don't "read" the code, but "recognize" it in one brief look. And exclamation symbol slipped from your mind, just disturbing you somewhere on the bottom of your unconscious. And only during reading the "if" block below you understand, that the logic is opposite - no sessions in "if" On the other hand in the second way of writing, an eye immediately catches words "SessionManager", "hasActiveSession" and "false". Also for me, the situation with "true" is different. In code like class SessionManager { private bool hasSession; public void foo() { if (hasSession == true) { . . . . . } else { . . . . . } } } I find "true" superfluous. why we repeating the sentence two times? The following is shorter and quicker to catch. class SessionManager { private bool hasSession; public void foo() { if (hasSession) { . . . . . } else { . . . . . } } } What do YOU think, guys?

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  • Twisted + SQLAlchemy and the best way to do it.

    - by Khorkrak
    So I'm writing yet another Twisted based daemon. It'll have an xmlrpc interface as usual so I can easily communicate with it and have other processes interchange data with it as needed. This daemon needs to access a database. We've been using SQL Alchemy in place of hard coding SQL strings for our latest projects - those mostly done for web apps in Pylons. We'd like to do the same for this app and re-use library code that makes use of SQL Alchemy. So what to do? Well of course since that library was written for use in a Pylons app it's all the straight-forward blocking style code that everyone is accustomed to and all of the non-blocking is magically handled by Pylons via threading, thread locals, scoped sessions and so on. So now for Twisted I guess I'm a bit stuck. I could: Just write the sql I need directly if it's minimal and use the dbapi pool in twisted to do runInteractions etc when I need to hit the db. Use the objects and inherently blocking methods in our library and block now and then in my Twisted daemon. Bah. Use sAsync which was last updated in 2008 and kind of reuse the models we have defined already but not really and it does address code that needs to work in Pylons either. Does that even work with the latest version SQL Alchemy? Who knows. That project looked great though - why was it apparently abandoned? Spawn a separate subprocess and have it deal with the library code and all it's blocking, the results being returned back to my daemon when ready as objects marshalled via YAML over xmlrpc. Use deferToThread and then expunge the objects returned having made sure to do eager loads so that I have all my stuff that I might need. Seems kind of ugha to me. I'm also stuck using Python 2.5.4 atm so no 2.6 yet and I don't think I can just do an import from future to get access to the cool new multiprocessing module stuff in there. That's OK though I guess as we've got dealing with interprocess communication down pretty well. So I'm leaning towards option 4 mostly as that would avoid the mortal sin of logic duplication with option 1 while also staying the heck away from threads. Any better ideas?

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  • JPA - Can I create an Entity class, using an @DiscriminatorValue, that doesn't have its own table?

    - by DaveyDaveDave
    Hi - this is potentially a bit complex, so I'll do my best to describe my situation - it's also my first post here, so please forgive formatting mistakes, etc! I'm using JPA with joined inheritance and a database structure that looks like: ACTION --------- ACTION_ID ACTION_MAPPING_ID ACTION_TYPE DELIVERY_CHANNEL_ACTION -------------------------- ACTION_ID CHANNEL_ID OVERRIDE_ADDRESS_ACTION -------------------------- ACTION_ID (various fields specific to this action type) So, in plain English, I have multiple different types of action, all share an ACTION_MAPPING, which is referenced from the 'parent' ACTION table. DELIVERY_CHANNEL_ACTION and OVERRIDE_ADDRESS_ACTION both have extra, supplementary data of their own, and are mapped to ACTION with a FK. Real-world, I also have a 'suppress' action, but this doesn't have any supplementary data of its own, so it doesn't have a corresponding table - all it needs is an ACTION_MAPPING, which is stored in the ACTION table. Hopefully you're with me so far... I'm creating a new project from scratch, so am pretty flexible in what I can do, but obviously would like to get it right from the outset! My current implementation, which works, has three entities loosely defined as follows: @Entity @Table(name="ACTION") @Inheritance(strategy=InheritanceType.JOINED) @DiscriminatorValue("SUPPRESS") public class Action @Entity @Table(name="DELIVERY_CHANNEL_ACTION") @DiscriminatorValue("DELIVERY_CHANNEL") public class DeliveryChannelAction extends Action @Entity @Table(name="OVERRIDE_ADDRESS_ACTION") @DiscriminatorValue("OVERRIDE_ADDRESS") public class OverrideAddressAction extends Action That is - I have a concrete base class, Action, with a Joined inheritance strategy. DeliveryChannelAction and OverrideAddressAction both extend Action. What feels wrong here though, is that my Action class is the base class for these two actions, but also forms the concrete implementation for the suppress action. For the time being this works, but at some point more actions are likely to be added, and there's every chance that some of them will, like SUPPRESS, have no supplementary data, which will start to get difficult! So... what I would like to do, in the object model world, is to have Action be abstract, and create a SuppressAction class, which is empty apart from having a @DiscriminatorValue("SUPPRESS"). I've tried doing exactly what is described above, so, changing Action to: @Entity @Table(name="ACTION") @Inheritance(strategy=InheritanceType.JOINED) public abstract class Action and creating: @DiscriminatorValue("SUPPRESS") public class SuppressAction extends Action but no luck - it seems to work fine for DeliveryChannelAction and OverrideAddressAction, but when I try to create a SuppressAction and persist it, I get: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Object: com.mypackage.SuppressAction[actionId=null] is not a known entity type. at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.sessions.UnitOfWorkImpl.registerNewObjectForPersist(UnitOfWorkImpl.java:4147) at org.eclipse.persistence.internal.jpa.EntityManagerImpl.persist(EntityManagerImpl.java:368) at com.mypackage.test.util.EntityTestUtil.createSuppressAction(EntityTestUtil.java:672) at com.mypackage.entities.ActionTest.testCRUDAction(ActionTest.java:27) which I assume is down to the fact that SuppressAction isn't registered as an entity, but I don't know how I can do that, given that it doesn't have an associated table. Any pointers, either complete answers or hints for things to Google (I'm out of ideas!), most welcome :) EDIT: to correct my stacktrace.

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  • AudioTrack lag: obtainBuffer timed out

    - by BTR
    I'm playing WAVs on my Android phone by loading the file and feeding the bytes into AudioTrack.write() via the FileInputStream BufferedInputStream DataInputStream method. The audio plays fine and when it is, I can easily adjust sample rate, volume, etc on the fly with nice performance. However, it's taking about two full seconds for a track to start playing. I know AudioTrack has an inescapable delay, but this is ridiculous. Every time I play a track, I get this: 03-13 14:55:57.100: WARN/AudioTrack(3454): obtainBuffer timed out (is the CPU pegged?) 0x2e9348 user=00000960, server=00000000 03-13 14:55:57.340: WARN/AudioFlinger(72): write blocked for 233 msecs, 9 delayed writes, thread 0xba28 I've noticed that the delayed write count increases by one every time I play a track -- even across multiple sessions -- from the time the phone has been turned on. The block time is always 230 - 240ms, which makes sense considering a minimum buffer size of 9600 on this device (9600 / 44100). I've seen this message in countless searches on the Internet, but it usually seems to be related to not playing audio at all or skipping audio. In my case, it's just a delayed start. I'm running all my code in a high priority thread. Here's a truncated-yet-functional version of what I'm doing. This is the thread callback in my playback class. Again, this works (only playing 16-bit, 44.1kHz, stereo files right now), it just takes forever to start and has that obtainBuffer/delayed write message every time. public void run() { // Load file FileInputStream mFileInputStream; try { // mFile is instance of custom file class -- this is correct, // so don't sweat this line mFileInputStream = new FileInputStream(mFile.path()); } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {} BufferedInputStream mBufferedInputStream = new BufferedInputStream(mFileInputStream, mBufferLength); DataInputStream mDataInputStream = new DataInputStream(mBufferedInputStream); // Skip header try { if (mDataInputStream.available() > 44) mDataInputStream.skipBytes(44); } catch (IOException e) {} // Initialize device mAudioTrack = new AudioTrack(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, ConfigManager.SAMPLE_RATE, AudioFormat.CHANNEL_CONFIGURATION_STEREO, AudioFormat.ENCODING_PCM_16BIT, ConfigManager.AUDIO_BUFFER_LENGTH, AudioTrack.MODE_STREAM); mAudioTrack.play(); // Initialize buffer byte[] mByteArray = new byte[mBufferLength]; int mBytesToWrite = 0; int mBytesWritten = 0; // Loop to keep thread running while (mRun) { // This flag is turned on when the user presses "play" while (mPlaying) { try { // Check if data is available if (mDataInputStream.available() > 0) { // Read data from file and write to audio device mBytesToWrite = mDataInputStream.read(mByteArray, 0, mBufferLength); mBytesWritten += mAudioTrack.write(mByteArray, 0, mBytesToWrite); } } catch (IOException e) { } } } } If I can get past the artificially long lag, I can easily deal with the inherit latency by starting my write at a later, predictable position (ie, skip past the minimum buffer length when I start playing a file).

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  • session fixation

    - by markiv
    Hi All, I am new to web development, and trying to get a hold on security issues. I went through this article on http://guides.rubyonrails.org/security.html these are some of the steps the author has mentioned how an attacker fixes session. 1. The attacker creates a valid session id: He loads the login page of the web application where he wants to fix the session, and takes the session id in the cookie from the response (see number 1 and 2 in the image). 2. He possibly maintains the session. Expiring sessions, for example every 20 minutes, greatly reduces the time-frame for attack. Therefore he accesses the web application from time to time in order to keep the session alive. 3. Now the attacker will force the user’s browser into using this session id (see number 3 in the image). As you may not change a cookie of another domain (because of the same origin policy), the attacker has to run a JavaScript from the domain of the target web application. Injecting the JavaScript code into the application by XSS accomplishes this attack. Here is an example: <script>?document.cookie="_session_id=16d5b78abb28e3d6206b60f22a03c8d9";?</script>. Read more about XSS and injection later on. 4. The attacker lures the victim to the infected page with the JavaScript code. By viewing the page, the victim’s browser will change the session id to the trap session id. 5. As the new trap session is unused, the web application will require the user to authenticate. 6. From now on, the victim and the attacker will co-use the web application with the same session: The session became valid and the victim didn’t notice the attack. I dont understand couple of points. i) why is user made to login in step5, since session is sent through. ii) I saw possible solutions on wiki, like user properties check and others why cant we just reset the session for the user whoever is login in when they enter username and password in step5? Thanks in advance Markiv

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  • Week in Geek: USDA Chooses Microsoft for Cloud Services Edition

    - by Asian Angel
    This week we learned how to create geeky LED holiday lights with old bottles, dig deeper in Windows Defrag via the command prompt, use Google Chrome’s drag/drop feature to upload files easier, find great gift recommendations by looking through the How-To Geek holiday gift guide, and have fun adding Merry Christmas fonts to our computers. Photo by ntr23. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week, so we have extra news link goodness with information that is good for you to know. USDA making the move to Microsoft The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it has chosen Microsoft to host things like e-mail, instant messaging, and collaboration through the software giant’s Business Productivity Online Suite. Google says it was cut off from USDA project bid Google is claiming that it was not given a chance to bid on a cloud-computing project for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which the contract was awarded to rival Microsoft. Apache is being forced into a Java Fork When Oracle rolled over Apache and Google’s objections to its Java plans in December, the scene was set for Apache to leave and, eventually, force a Java code fork. Tumblr explains daylong outage After experiencing an outage that started on Sunday afternoon and stretched through most of the day yesterday, Tumblr has explained what happened. Google demos Chrome OS, launches pilot program During a press briefing this week in San Francisco, Google launched the Chrome application store and demonstrated Chrome OS, its browser-centric netbook operating system. Don’t expect Spotify in U.S. this holiday season As of last week, Spotify had yet to sign a single licensing deal with a major label, after spending more than a year negotiating, multiple music sources told CNET. December 2010 Patch Tuesday will come with most bulletins ever According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 17 Security Bulletins addressing 40 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, December 14. It will also host a webcast to address customer questions the following day. Hacker plants back door in Symbian firmware Indian hacker Atul Alex has had a look at the firmware for Symbian S60 smartphones and come up with a back door for it. PC quarantines raise tough complexities The concept of quarantining PCs to prevent widespread infection is “interesting, but difficult to implement, with far too many problems”, said security experts. Symantec: DDoS attacks hard to defend It has surfaced that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Visa and MasterCard Web sites on Wednesday were carried out by a toolkit known as low orbit ion cannon (LOIC). Web Sockets and the risks of unfinished standards Enthusiasm for a promising new standard called Web Sockets has quickly cooled in some quarters as a potential security problem led some browser makers to hastily postpone support. Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection Microsoft is making changes to Internet Explorer 9’s security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions. NASA sold PCs with sensitive data NASA failed to remove sensitive data from computers that it sold, according to an audit report released this week. Cybercrooks create fake Amazon receipts The bad guys have created yet another online scam, this one involving fake Amazon receipts. World of Warcraft character move fees waived Until December 22, Blizzard will allow free realm transfers from 25 highly populated servers to alleviate log-in queues or performance issues. (The free transfers are one-way and one-time only.) SpaceX Dragon reaches orbit atop a Falcon with a fiery tail The Space Exploration Technologies corporation has become the first nongovernmental entity to put a vehicle into low Earth orbit. Geek Video of the Week If birds have wings, then why are the Angry Birds using slingshots? Photo by Dorkly Bits. Wait… Birds have Wings, Why are the Angry Ones Using Slingshots? Sysadmin Geek Tips How To Setup Email Alerts on Linux Using Gmail or SMTP Linux machines may require administrative intervention in countless ways, but without manually logging into them how would you know about it? Here’s how to setup emails to get notified when your machines want some tender love and attention. Random TinyHacker Links Red Panda Webcam Support Firefox and the Knoxville Zoo’s Red Panda program. Christmas Icons (Icons we like) Superb set of holiday icons by lgp85 at deviantArt. Download the .zip and use as .png or convert to .ico at Convertico.com or with tiny app Imagicon. Super User Questions Enjoy reading the great answers to this week’s popular questions from Super User Useful USB boot disks? DVD/CD burning .zip: is it more reliable, faster, longer lasting to burn a zip of files rather than the files as a folder? What are other ways to backup my files if I do not have an external drive? Anti virus what is the difference between these all? How can I block all Facebook elements/content? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a busy week between work and preparing for the holidays? Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles of the week. 20 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? How to Use and Customize Google Chrome Web Apps One Year Ago on How-To Geek This week’s batch of retro geeky goodness is all about customizing Windows 7. ClassicShell Adds Classic Start Menu and Explorer Features to Windows 7 Get an Aero-Styled Classic Start Menu in Windows 7 Customize the Windows 7 Logon Screen Get the Classic Style Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7 How To Enable Check Boxes for Items In Windows 7 The Geek Note We would like you to join us in welcoming Jason Fitzpatrick to the writing staff here at How-To Geek. He started with us this past week, so take some time to read through his articles about the Wii, Kindle, & PlayStation 2 Peripherals and leave a friendly comment to say “Hi”! Got a great tip to share? Make sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by real00. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek Settle into Orbit with the Voyage Theme for Chrome and Iron Awesome Safari Compass Icons Set Escape from the Exploding Planet Wallpaper Move Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress Pytask is an Easy to Use To-Do List Manager for Your Ubuntu System Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox

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  • Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

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

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  • Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite Now Available

    - by chung.wu
    Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite is now available. The management suite combines features that were available in the standalone Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite and Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle's market leading real user monitoring and configuration management capabilities to provide the most complete solution for managing E-Business Suite applications. The features that were available in the standalone management packs are now packaged into Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0, which is now fully certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control. This latest plug-in extends Grid Control with E-Business Suite specific management capabilities and features enhanced change management support. In addition, this latest release of Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite also includes numerous real user monitoring improvements. General Enhancements This new release of Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite offers the following key capabilities: Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control Support: All components of the management suite are certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control. Built-in Diagnostic Ability: This release has numerous major enhancements that provide the necessary intelligence to determine if the product has been installed and configured correctly. There are diagnostics for Discovery, Cloning, and User Monitoring that will validate if the appropriate patches, privileges, setups, and profile options have been configured. This feature improves the setup and configuration time to be up and operational. Lifecycle Automation Enhancements Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite provides a centralized view to monitor and orchestrate changes (both functional and technical) across multiple Oracle E-Business Suite systems. In this latest release, it provides even more control and flexibility in managing Oracle E-Business Suite changes.Change Management: Built-in Diagnostic Ability: This latest release has numerous major enhancements that provide the necessary intelligence to determine if the product has been installed and configured correctly. There are diagnostics for Customization Manager, Patch Manager, and Setup Manager that will validate if the appropriate patches, privileges, setups, and profile options have been configured. Enhancing the setup time and configuration time to be up and operational. Customization Manager: Multi-Node Custom Application Registration: This feature automates the process of registering and validating custom products/applications on every node in a multi-node EBS system. Public/Private File Source Mappings and E-Business Suite Mappings: File Source Mappings & E-Business Suite Mappings can be created and marked as public or private. Only the creator/owner can define/edit his/her own mappings. Users can use public mappings, but cannot edit or change settings. Test Checkout Command for Versions: This feature allows you to test/verify checkout commands at the version level within the File Source Mapping page. Prerequisite Patch Validation: You can specify prerequisite patches for Customization packages and for Release 12 Oracle E-Business Suite packages. Destination Path Population: You can now automatically populate the Destination Path for common file types during package construction. OAF File Type Support: Ability to package Oracle Application Framework (OAF) customizations and deploy them across multiple Oracle E-Business Suite instances. Extended PLL Support: Ability to distinguish between different types of PLLs (that is, Report and Forms PLL files). Providing better granularity when managing PLL objects. Enhanced Standard Checker: Provides greater and more comprehensive list of coding standards that are verified during the package build process (for example, File Driver exceptions, Java checks, XML checks, SQL checks, etc.) HTML Package Readme: The package Readme is in HTML format and includes the file listing. Advanced Package Search Capabilities: The ability to utilize more criteria within the advanced search package (that is, Public, Last Updated by, Files Source Mapping, and E-Business Suite Mapping). Enhanced Package Build Notifications: More detailed information on the results of a package build process. Better, more detailed troubleshooting guidance in the event of build failures. Patch Manager:Staged Patches: Ability to run Patch Manager with no external internet access. Customer can download Oracle E-Business Suite patches into a shared location for Patch Manager to access and apply. Supports highly secured production environments that prohibit external internet connections. Support for Superseded Patches: Automatic check for superseded patches. Allows users to easily add superseded patches into the Patch Run. More comprehensive and correct Patch Runs. Removes many manual and laborious tasks, frees up Apps DBAs for higher value-added tasks. Automatic Primary Node Identification: Users can now specify which is the "primary node" (that is, which node hosts the Shared APPL_TOP) during the Patch Run interview process, available for Release 12 only. Setup Manager:Preview Extract Results: Ability to execute an extract in "proof mode", and examine the query results, to determine accuracy. Used in conjunction with the "where" clause in Advanced Filtering. This feature can provide better and more accurate fine tuning of extracts. Use Uploaded Extracts in New Projects: Ability to incorporate uploaded extracts in new projects via new LOV fields in package construction. Leverages the Setup Manager repository to access extracts that have been uploaded. Allows customer to reuse uploaded extracts to provision new instances. Re-use Existing (that is, historical) Extracts in New Projects: Ability to incorporate existing extracts in new projects via new LOV fields in package construction. Leverages the Setup Manager repository to access point-in-time extracts (snapshots) of configuration data. Allows customer to reuse existing extracts to provision new instances. Allows comparative historical reporting of identical APIs, executed at different times. Support for BR100 formats: Setup Manager can now automatically produce reports in the BR100 format. Native support for industry standard formats. Concurrent Manager API Support: General Foundation now provides an API for management of "Concurrent Manager" configuration data. Ability to migrate Concurrent Managers from one instance to another. Complete the setup once and never again; no need to redefine the Concurrent Managers. User Experience Management Enhancements Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite includes comprehensive capabilities for user experience management, supporting both real user and synthetic transaction based user monitoring techniques. This latest release of the management suite include numerous improvements in real user monitoring support. KPI Reporting: Configurable decimal precision for reporting of KPI and SLA values. By default, this is two decimal places. KPI numerator and denominator information. It is now possible to view KPI numerator and denominator information, and to have it available for export. Content Messages Processing: The application content message facility has been extended to distinguish between notifications and errors. In addition, it is now possible to specify matching rules that can be used to refine a selected content message specification. Note this is only available for XPath-based (not literal) message contents. Data Export: The Enriched data export facility has been significantly enhanced to provide improved performance and accessibility. Data is no longer stored within XML-based files, but is now stored within the Reporter database. However, it is possible to configure an alternative database for its storage. Access to the export data is through SQL. With this enhancement, it is now more easy than ever to use tools such as Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to analyze correlated data collected from real user monitoring and business data sources. SNMP Traps for System Events: Previously, the SNMP notification facility was only available for KPI alerting. It has now been extended to support the generation of SNMP traps for system events, to provide external health monitoring of the RUEI system processes. Performance Improvements: Enhanced dashboard performance. The dashboard facility has been enhanced to support the parallel loading of items. In the case of dashboards containing large numbers of items, this can result in a significant performance improvement. Initial period selection within Data Browser and reports. The User Preferences facility has been extended to allow you to specify the initial period selection when first entering the Data Browser or reports facility. The default is the last hour. Performance improvement when querying the all sessions group. Technical Prerequisites, Download and Installation Instructions The Linux version of the plug-in is available for immediate download from Oracle Technology Network or Oracle eDelivery. For specific information regarding technical prerequisites, product download and installation, please refer to My Oracle Support note 1224313.1. The following certifications are in progress: * Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit) (9, 10) * HP-UX Itanium (11.23, 11.31) * HP-UX PA-RISC (64-bit) (11.23, 11.31) * IBM AIX on Power Systems (64-bit) (5.3, 6.1)

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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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  • Another Marketing Conference, part two – the afternoon

    - by Roger Hart
    In my previous post, I’ve covered the morning sessions at AMC2012. Here’s the rest of the write-up. I’ve skipped Charles Nixon’s session which was a blend of funky futurism and professional development advice, but you can see his slides here. I’ve also skipped the Google presentation, as it was a little thin on insight. 6 – Brand ambassadors: Getting universal buy in across the organisation, Vanessa Northam Slides are here This was the strongest enforcement of the idea that brand and campaign values need to be delivered throughout the organization if they’re going to work. Vanessa runs internal communications at e-on, and shared her experience of using internal comms to align an organization and thereby get the most out of a campaign. She views the purpose of internal comms as: “…to help leaders, to communicate the purpose and future of an organization, and support change.” This (and culture) primes front line staff, which creates customer experience and spreads brand. You ensure a whole organization knows what’s going on with both internal and external comms. If everybody is aligned and informed, if everybody can clearly articulate your brand and campaign goals, then you can turn everybody into an advocate. Alignment is a powerful tool for delivering a consistent experience and message. The pathological counter example is the one in which a marketing message goes out, which creates inbound customer contacts that front line contact staff haven’t been briefed to handle. The NatWest campaign was again mentioned in this context. The good example was e-on’s cheaper tariff campaign. Building a groundswell of internal excitement, and even running an internal launch meant everyone could contribute to a good customer experience. They found that meter readers were excited – not a group they’d considered as obvious in providing customer experience. But they were a group that has a lot of face-to-face contact with customers, and often were asked questions they may not have been briefed to answer. Being able to communicate a simple new message made it easier for them, and also let them become a sales and marketing asset to the organization. 7 – Goodbye Internet, Hello Outernet: the rise and rise of augmented reality, Matt Mills I wasn’t going to write this up, because it was essentially a sales demo for Aurasma. But the technology does merit some discussion. Basically, it replaces QR codes with visual recognition, and provides a simple-looking back end for attaching content. It’s quite sexy. But here’s my beef with it: QR codes had a clear visual language – when you saw one you knew what it was and what to do with it. They were clunky, but they had the “getting started” problem solved out of the box once you knew what you were looking at. However, they fail because QR code reading isn’t native to the platform. You needed an app, which meant you needed to know to download one. Consequentially, you can’t use QR codes with and ubiquity, or depend on them. This means marketers, content providers, etc, never pushed them, and they remained and awkward oddity, a minority sport. Aurasma half solves problem two, and re-introduces problem one, making it potentially half as useful as a QR code. It’s free, and you can apparently build it into your own apps. Add to that the likelihood of it becoming native to the platform if it takes off, and it may have legs. I guess we’ll see. 8 – We all need to code, Helen Mayor Great title – good point. If there was anybody in the room who didn’t at least know basic HTML, and if Helen’s presentation inspired them to learn, that’s fantastic. However, this was a half hour sales pitch for a basic coding training course. Beyond advocating coding skills it contained no useful content. Marketers may also like to consider some of these resources if they’re looking to learn code: Code Academy – free interactive tutorials Treehouse – learn web design, web dev, or app dev WebPlatform.org – tutorials and documentation for web tech  11 – Understanding our inner creativity, Margaret Boden This session was the most theoretical and probably least actionable of the day. It also held my attention utterly. Margaret spoke fluently, fascinatingly, without slides, on the subject of types of creativity and how they work. It was splendid. Yes, it raised a wry smile whenever she spoke of “the content of advertisements” and gave an example from 1970s TV ads, but even without the attempt to meet the conference’s theme this would have been thoroughly engaging. There are, Margaret suggested, three types of creativity: Combinatorial creativity The most common form, and consisting of synthesising ideas from existing and familiar concepts and tropes. Exploratory creativity Less common, this involves exploring the limits and quirks of a particular constraint or style. Transformational creativity This is uncommon, and arises from finding a way to do something that the existing rules would hold to be impossible. In essence, this involves breaking one of the constraints that exploratory creativity is composed from. Combinatorial creativity, she suggested, is particularly important for attaching favourable ideas to existing things. As such is it probably worth developing for marketing. Exploratory creativity may then come into play in something like developing and optimising an idea or campaign that now has momentum. Transformational creativity exists at the edges of this exploration. She suggested that products may often be transformational, but that marketing seemed unlikely to in her experience. This made me wonder about Listerine. Crucially, transformational creativity is characterised by there being some element of continuity with the strictures of previous thinking. Once it has happened, there may be  move from a revolutionary instance into an explored style. Again, from a marketing perspective, this seems to chime well with the thinking in Youngme Moon’s book: Different Talking about the birth of Modernism is visual art, Margaret pointed out that transformational creativity has historically risked a backlash, demanding what is essentially an education of the market. This is best accomplished by referring back to the continuities with the past in order to make the new familiar. Thoughts The afternoon is harder to sum up than the morning. It felt less concrete, and was troubled by a short run of poor presentations in the middle. Mainly, I found myself wrestling with the internal comms issue. It’s one of those things that seems astonishingly obvious in hindsight, but any campaign – particularly any large one – is doomed if the people involved can’t believe in it. We’ve run things here that haven’t gone so well, of course we have; who hasn’t? I’m not going to air any laundry, but people not being informed (much less aligned) feels like a common factor. It’s tough though. Managing and anticipating information needs across an organization of any size can’t be easy. Even the simple things like ensuring sales and support departments know what’s in a product release, and what messages go with it are easy to botch. The thing I like about framing this as a brand and campaign advocacy problem is that it makes it likely to get addressed. Better is always sexier than less-worse. Any technical communicator who’s ever felt crowded out by a content strategist or marketing copywriter  knows this – increasing revenue gets a seat at the table far more readily than reducing support costs, even if the financial impact is identical. So that’s it from AMC. The big thought-provokers were social buying behaviour and eliciting behaviour change, and the value of internal communications in ensuring successful campaigns and continuity of customer experience. I’ll be chewing over that for a while, and I’d definitely return next year.      

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  • SSH new connection begins to hang (not reject or terminate) after a day or so on Ubuntu 13.04 server

    - by kross
    Recently we upgraded the server from 12.04 LTS server to 13.04. All was well, including after a reboot. With all packages updated we began to see a strange issue, ssh works for a day or so (unclear on timing) then a later request for SSH hangs (cannot ctrl+c, nothing). It is up and serving webserver traffic etc. Port 22 is open (ips etc altered slightly for posting): nmap -T4 -A x.acme.com Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-09-12 16:01 CDT Nmap scan report for x.acme.com (69.137.56.18) Host is up (0.026s latency). rDNS record for 69.137.56.18: c-69-137-56-18.hsd1.tn.provider.net Not shown: 998 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 6.1p1 Debian 4 (protocol 2.0) | ssh-hostkey: 1024 54:d3:e3:38:44:f4:20:a4:e7:42:49:d0:a7:f1:3e:21 (DSA) | 2048 dc:21:77:3b:f4:4e:74:d0:87:33:14:40:04:68:33:a6 (RSA) |_256 45:69:10:79:5a:9f:0b:f0:66:15:39:87:b9:a1:37:f7 (ECDSA) 80/tcp open http Jetty 7.6.2.v20120308 | http-title: Log in as a Bamboo user - Atlassian Bamboo |_Requested resource was http://x.acme.com/userlogin!default.action;jsessionid=19v135zn8cl1tgso28fse4d50?os_destination=%2Fstart.action Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ . Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 12.89 seconds Here is the ssh -vvv: ssh -vvv x.acme.com OpenSSH_5.9p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8x 10 May 2012 debug1: Reading configuration data /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/config debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config debug1: /etc/ssh_config line 20: Applying options for * debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0 debug1: Connecting to x.acme.com [69.137.56.18] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug3: Incorrect RSA1 identifier debug3: Could not load "/Users/tfergeson/.ssh/id_rsa" as a RSA1 public key debug1: identity file /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/id_rsa type 1 debug1: identity file /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1 debug1: identity file /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/id_dsa type -1 debug1: identity file /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_6.1p1 Debian-4 debug1: match: OpenSSH_6.1p1 Debian-4 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.9 debug2: fd 3 setting O_NONBLOCK debug3: load_hostkeys: loading entries for host "x.acme.com" from file "/Users/tfergeson/.ssh/known_hosts" debug3: load_hostkeys: found key type RSA in file /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/known_hosts:10 debug3: load_hostkeys: loaded 1 keys debug3: order_hostkeyalgs: prefer hostkeyalgs: [email protected],[email protected],ssh-rsa debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: [email protected],[email protected],ssh-rsa,[email protected],[email protected],ssh-dss debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,arcfour,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,arcfour,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-256-96,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-sha2-512-96,hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-256-96,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-sha2-512-96,hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected],zlib debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected],zlib debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: first_kex_follows 0 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: reserved 0 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: ecdh-sha2-nistp256,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp521,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: ssh-rsa,ssh-dss,ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,arcfour,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,arcfour,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: first_kex_follows 0 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: reserved 0 debug2: mac_setup: found hmac-md5 debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug2: mac_setup: found hmac-md5 debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug2: dh_gen_key: priv key bits set: 130/256 debug2: bits set: 503/1024 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug1: Server host key: RSA dc:21:77:3b:f4:4e:74:d0:87:33:14:40:04:68:33:a6 debug3: load_hostkeys: loading entries for host "x.acme.com" from file "/Users/tfergeson/.ssh/known_hosts" debug3: load_hostkeys: found key type RSA in file /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/known_hosts:10 debug3: load_hostkeys: loaded 1 keys debug3: load_hostkeys: loading entries for host "69.137.56.18" from file "/Users/tfergeson/.ssh/known_hosts" debug3: load_hostkeys: found key type RSA in file /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/known_hosts:6 debug3: load_hostkeys: loaded 1 keys debug1: Host 'x.acme.com' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/known_hosts:10 debug2: bits set: 493/1024 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug2: kex_derive_keys debug2: set_newkeys: mode 1 debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug2: set_newkeys: mode 0 debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: Roaming not allowed by server debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug2: service_accept: ssh-userauth debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug2: key: /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/id_rsa (0x7ff189c1d7d0) debug2: key: /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/id_dsa (0x0) debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey debug3: start over, passed a different list publickey debug3: preferred publickey,keyboard-interactive,password debug3: authmethod_lookup publickey debug3: remaining preferred: keyboard-interactive,password debug3: authmethod_is_enabled publickey debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Offering RSA public key: /Users/tfergeson/.ssh/id_rsa debug3: send_pubkey_test debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply debug1: Server accepts key: pkalg ssh-rsa blen 277 debug2: input_userauth_pk_ok: fp 3c:e5:29:6c:9d:27:d1:7d:e8:09:a2:e8:8e:6e:af:6f debug3: sign_and_send_pubkey: RSA 3c:e5:29:6c:9d:27:d1:7d:e8:09:a2:e8:8e:6e:af:6f debug1: read PEM private key done: type RSA debug1: Authentication succeeded (publickey). Authenticated to x.acme.com ([69.137.56.18]:22). debug1: channel 0: new [client-session] debug3: ssh_session2_open: channel_new: 0 debug2: channel 0: send open debug1: Requesting [email protected] debug1: Entering interactive session. debug2: callback start debug2: client_session2_setup: id 0 debug2: fd 3 setting TCP_NODELAY debug2: channel 0: request pty-req confirm 1 debug1: Sending environment. debug3: Ignored env ATLAS_OPTS debug3: Ignored env rvm_bin_path debug3: Ignored env TERM_PROGRAM debug3: Ignored env GEM_HOME debug3: Ignored env SHELL debug3: Ignored env TERM debug3: Ignored env CLICOLOR debug3: Ignored env IRBRC debug3: Ignored env TMPDIR debug3: Ignored env Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render debug3: Ignored env TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION debug3: Ignored env MY_RUBY_HOME debug3: Ignored env TERM_SESSION_ID debug3: Ignored env USER debug3: Ignored env COMMAND_MODE debug3: Ignored env rvm_path debug3: Ignored env COM_GOOGLE_CHROME_FRAMEWORK_SERVICE_PROCESS/USERS/tfergeson/LIBRARY/APPLICATION_SUPPORT/GOOGLE/CHROME_SOCKET debug3: Ignored env JPDA_ADDRESS debug3: Ignored env APDK_HOME debug3: Ignored env SSH_AUTH_SOCK debug3: Ignored env Apple_Ubiquity_Message debug3: Ignored env __CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING debug3: Ignored env rvm_sticky_flag debug3: Ignored env MAVEN_OPTS debug3: Ignored env LSCOLORS debug3: Ignored env rvm_prefix debug3: Ignored env PATH debug3: Ignored env PWD debug3: Ignored env JAVA_HOME debug1: Sending env LANG = en_US.UTF-8 debug2: channel 0: request env confirm 0 debug3: Ignored env JPDA_TRANSPORT debug3: Ignored env rvm_version debug3: Ignored env M2_HOME debug3: Ignored env HOME debug3: Ignored env SHLVL debug3: Ignored env rvm_ruby_string debug3: Ignored env LOGNAME debug3: Ignored env M2_REPO debug3: Ignored env GEM_PATH debug3: Ignored env AWS_RDS_HOME debug3: Ignored env rvm_delete_flag debug3: Ignored env EC2_PRIVATE_KEY debug3: Ignored env RUBY_VERSION debug3: Ignored env SECURITYSESSIONID debug3: Ignored env EC2_CERT debug3: Ignored env _ debug2: channel 0: request shell confirm 1 debug2: callback done debug2: channel 0: open confirm rwindow 0 rmax 32768 I can hard reboot (only mac monitors at that location) and it will again be accessible. This now happens every single time. It is imperative that I get it sorted. The strange thing is that it behaves initially then starts to hang after several hours. I perused logs previously and nothing stood out. From the auth.log, I can see that it has allowed me in, but still I get nothing back on the client side: Sep 20 12:47:50 cbear sshd[25376]: Accepted publickey for tfergeson from 10.1.10.14 port 54631 ssh2 Sep 20 12:47:50 cbear sshd[25376]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user tfergeson by (uid=0) UPDATES: Still occurring even after setting UseDNS no and commenting out #session optional pam_mail.so standard noenv This does not appear to be a network/dns related issue, as all services running on the machine are as responsive and accessible as ever, with the exception of sshd. Any thoughts on where to start?

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