Search Results

Search found 4153 results on 167 pages for 'rave reports'.

Page 133/167 | < Previous Page | 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140  | Next Page >

• Agile Database Techniques: Effective Strategies for the Agile Software Developer – book review

  - by DigiMortal

     Agile development expects mind shift and developers are not the only ones who must be agile. Every chain is as strong as it’s weakest link and same goes also for development teams. Agile Database Techniques: Effective Strategies for the Agile Software Developer by Scott W. Ambler is book that calls also data professionals to be part of agile development. Often are DBA-s in situation where they are not part of application development and later they have to survive large set of applications that all use databases different way. Of course, only some of these applications are not problematic when looking what database server has to do to serve them. I have seen many applications that rape database servers because developers have no clue what is going on in database (~3K queries to database per web application request – have you seen something like this? I have…) Agile Database Techniques covers some object and database design technologies and gives suggestions to development teams about topics they need help or assistance by DBA-s. The book is also good reading for DBA-s who usually are not very strong in object technologies. You can take this book as bridge between these two worlds. I think teams that build object applications that use databases should buy this book and try at least one or two projects out with Ambler’s suggestions. Table of contents Foreword by Jon Kern. Foreword by Douglas K. Barry. Acknowledgments. Introduction. About the Author. Part One: Setting the Foundation. Chapter 1: The Agile Data Method. Chapter 2: From Use Cases to Databases — Real-World UML. Chapter 3: Data Modeling 101. Chapter 4: Data Normalization. Chapter 5: Class Normalization. Chapter 6: Relational Database Technology, Like It or Not. Chapter 7: The Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch. Chapter 8: Legacy Databases — Everything You Need to Know But Are Afraid to Deal With. Part Two: Evolutionary Database Development. Chapter 9: Vive L’ Évolution. Chapter 10: Agile Model-Driven Development (AMDD). Chapter 11: Test-Driven Development (TDD). Chapter 12: Database Refactoring. Chapter 13: Database Encapsulation Strategies. Chapter 14: Mapping Objects to Relational Databases. Chapter 15: Performance Tuning. Chapter 16: Tools for Evolutionary Database Development. Part Three: Practical Data-Oriented Development Techniques. Chapter 17: Implementing Concurrency Control. Chapter 18: Finding Objects in Relational Databases. Chapter 19: Implementing Referential Integrity and Shared Business Logic. Chapter 20: Implementing Security Access Control. Chapter 21: Implementing Reports. Chapter 22: Realistic XML. Part Four: Adopting Agile Database Techniques. Chapter 23: How You Can Become Agile. Chapter 24: Bringing Agility into Your Organization. Appendix: Database Refactoring Catalog. References and Suggested Reading. Index.

  Read the article

• Software development stack 2012

  A couple of months ago, I posted on Google+ about my evaluation period for a new software development stack in general. "Analysing existing 'jungle' of multiple applications and tools in various languages for clarification and future design decisions. Great fun and lots of headaches... #DevelopersLife" Surprisingly, there was response... ;-) - And this series of articles is initiated by this post. Thanks Olaf. The past few years... Well, after all my first choice of software development in the past was Microsoft Visual FoxPro 6.0 - 9.0 in combination with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 - 2008 and Crystal Reports 9.x - XI. Honestly, it is my main working environment due to exisiting maintenance and support plans with my customers, but also for new project requests. And... hands on, it is still my first choice for data manipulation and migration options. But the earth is spinning, and as a software craftsman one has to be flexible with the choice of tools. In parallel to my knowledge and expertise in the above mentioned tools, I already started very early to get my hands dirty with the Microsoft .NET Framework. If I remember correctly, I started back in 2002/2003 with the first version ever. But this was more out of curiousity. During the years this kind of development got more serious and demanding, and I focused myself on interop and integrational libraries and applications. Mainly, to expose exisitng features of the .NET Framework to Visual FoxPro - I even had a session about that at the German Developer's Conference in Frankfurt. Observation of recent developments With the recent hype on Javascript and HTML5, especially for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 development, I had several 'Deja vu' events... Back in early 2006 (roughly) I had a conversation on the future of Web and Desktop development with my former colleagues Golo Roden and Thomas Wilting about the underestimation of Javascript and its root as a prototype-based, dynamic, full-featured programming language. During this talk with them I took the Mozilla applications, namely Firefox and Thunderbird, as a reference which are mainly based on XML, CSS, Javascript and images - besides the core rendering engine. And that it is very simple to write your own extensions for the Gecko rendering engine. Looking at the Windows Vista Sidebar widgets, just underlines this kind of usage. So, yes the 'Modern UI' of Windows 8 based on HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript didn't come as any surprise to me. Just allow me to ask why did it take so long for Microsoft to come up with this step? A new set of tools Ok, coming from web development in HTML 4, CSS and Javascript prior to Visual FoxPro, I am partly going back to that combination of technologies. What is the other part of the software development stack here at IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd? Frankly, it is easy and straight forward to describe: Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9.0 SP 2 - still going strong! Visual Studio 2012 (C# on latest .NET Framework) MonoDevelop Telerik DevCraft Suite WPF ASP.NET MVC Windows 8 Kendo UI OpenAccess ORM Reporting JustCode CODE Framework by EPS Software MonoTouch and Mono for Android Subversion and additional tools for the daily routine: Notepad++, JustCode, SQL Compare, DiffMerge, VMware, etc. Following the principles of Clean Code Developer and the Agile Manifesto Actually, nothing special about this combination but rather a solid fundament to work with and create line of business applications for customers.Honestly, I am really interested in your choice of 'weapons' for software development, and hopefully there might be some nice conversations in the comment section. Over the next coming days/weeks I'm going to describe a little bit more in detail about the reasons for my decision. Articles will be added bit by bit here as reference, too. Please bear with me... Regards, JoKi

  Read the article

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

  - by Pinal Dave

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

  Read the article

• Pie Charts Just Don't Work When Comparing Data - Number 10 of Top 10 Reasons to Never Ever Use a Pie

  - by Tony Wolfram

  When comparing data, which is what a pie chart is for, people have a hard time judging the angles and areas of the multiple pie slices in order to calculate how much bigger one slice is than the others. Pie Charts Don't Work A slice of pie is good for serving up a portion of desert. It's not good for making a judgement about how big the slice is, what percentage of 100 it is, or how it compares to other slices. People have trouble comparing angles and areas to each other. Controlled studies show that people will overestimate the percentage that a pie slice area represents. This is because we have trouble calculating the area based on the space between the two angles that define the slice. This picture shows how a pie chart is useless in determing the largest value when you have to compare pie slices.   You can't compare angles and slice areas to each other. Human perception and cognition is poor when viewing angles and areas and trying to make a mental comparison. Pie charts overload the working memory, forcing the person to make complicated calculations, and at the same time make a decision based on those comparisons. What's the point of showing a pie chart when you want to compare data, except to say, "well, the slices are almost the same, but I'm not really sure which one is bigger, or by how much, or what order they are from largest to smallest. But the colors sure are pretty. Plus, I like round things. Oh,was I suppose to make some important business decision? Sorry." Bad Choices and Bad Decisions Interaction Designers, Graphic Artists, Report Builders, Software Developers, and Executives have all made the decision to use pie charts in their reports, software applications, and dashboards. It was a bad decision. It was a poor choice. There are always better options and choices, yet the designer still made the decision to use a pie chart. I'll expore why people make such poor choices in my upcoming blog entires. (Hint: It has more to do with emotions than with analytical thinking.) I've outlined my opinions and arguments about the evils of using pie charts in "Countdown of Top 10 Reasons to Never Ever Use a Pie Chart." Each of my next 10 blog entries will support these arguments with illustrations, examples, and references to studies. But my goal is not to continuously and endlessly rage against the evils of using pie charts. This blog is not about pie charts. This blog is about understanding why designers choose to use a pie chart. Why, when give better alternatives, and acknowledging the shortcomings of pie charts, do designers over and over again still freely choose to place a pie chart in a report? As an extra treat and parting shot, check out the nice pie chart that Wikipedia uses to illustrate the United States population by state.   Remember, somebody chose to use this pie chart, with all its glorious colors, and post it on Wikipedia for all the world to see. My next blog will give you a better alternative for displaying comparable data - the sorted bar chart.

  Read the article

• The Next Wave of PeopleSoft Capabilities for the Staffing Industry Is Here

  - by Mark Rosenberg

  With the release of PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2 in January this year, we introduced substantial new capabilities for our Staffing Industry customers. Through a co-development project with Infosys Limited, we have enriched Oracle's PeopleSoft Staffing Solution with new tools aimed at accelerating and improving the quality of job order fulfillment, increasing branch recruiter productivity, and driving profitable growth. Staffing industry firms succeed based on their ability to rapidly, cost-effectively, and continually fill their pipelines with new clients and job orders, recruit the best talent, and match orders with talent. Pressure to execute in each of these functional areas is even more acute on staffing firms as contingent labor becomes a more substantial and permanent part of the workforce mix. In an industry that creates value through speedy execution, there is little room for manual, inefficient processes and brittle, custom integrations, which throttle profitability and growth. The latest wave of investment in the PeopleSoft Staffing Solution focuses on generating efficiency and flexibility for our customers. Simplicity To operate profitably and continue growing, a Staffing enterprise needs its client management, recruiting, order fulfillment, and other processes to function in harmony. Most importantly, they need to be simple for recruiters, branch managers, and applicants to access and understand. The latest PeopleSoft Staffing Solution set of enhancements includes numerous automated defaulting mechanisms and information-rich dashboard pagelets that even a new employee can learn quickly. Pending Applicant, Agenda management, Search, and other pagelets are just a few of the newest, easy-to-use tools that not only aggregate and summarize information, but also provide instant access to applicants, tasks, and key reports for branch staff. Productivity The leading firms in the Staffing industry are those that can more efficiently orchestrate large numbers of candidates, clients, and orders than their competitors can. PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2 delivers productivity boosters that Staffing firms can leverage to streamline tasks and processes for competitive advantage. For example, we enhanced the Recruiting Funnel, which manages the candidate on-boarding process, with a highly interactive user interface. It integrates disparate Staffing business processes and exploits new PeopleTools technologies to offer a superior on-boarding user experience. Automated creation of agenda items and assignment tasks for each candidate minimizes setup and organizes assignment steps for the on-boarding process. Mass updates of tasks and instant access to the candidate overview page (which we also expanded), candidate event status, event counts, and other key data enable recruiters to better serve clients and candidates. Lower TCO Constructing and maintaining an efficient yet flexible labor supply chain can be complicated, let alone expensive. Traditionally, Staffing firms have been challenged in controlling their technology cost of ownership because connecting candidate and client-facing tools involved building and integrating custom applications and technologies and managing staff turnover, placing heavy demands on IT and support staff. With PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2, there are two major enhancements that aggressively tackle these challenges. First, we added another integration framework to enable cost-effective linking of the Staffing firm’s PeopleSoft applications and its job board distributors. (The first PeopleSoft 9.1 Feature Pack released in March 2011 delivered an integration framework to connect to resume parsing providers.) Second, we introduced the teaming concept to enable work to be partitioned to groups, as well as individuals. These two capabilities, combined with a host of others, position Staffing firms to configure and grow their businesses without growing their IT and overhead expenditures. For our Staffing Industry customers, PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2 is loaded with high-value tools aimed at enabling and sustaining a flexible labor supply chain. For more information, contact [email protected] or [email protected].

  Read the article

• Major Analyst Report Chooses Oracle As An ECM Leader

  - by brian.dirking(at)oracle.com

  Oracle announced that Gartner, Inc. has named Oracle as a Leader in its latest "Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management" in a press release issued this morning. Gartner's Magic Quadrant reports position vendors within a particular quadrant based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute. According to Gartner, "Leaders have the highest combined scores for Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. They are doing well and are prepared for the future with a clearly articulated vision. In the context of ECM, they have strong channel partners, presence in multiple regions, consistent financial performance, broad platform support and good customer support. In addition, they dominate in one or more technology or vertical market. Leaders deliver a suite that addresses market demand for direct delivery of the majority of core components, though these are not necessarily owned by them, tightly integrated, unique or best-of-breed in each area. We place more emphasis this year on demonstrated enterprise deployments; integration with other business applications and content repositories; incorporation of Web 2.0 and XML capabilities; and vertical-process and horizontal-solution focus. Leaders should drive market transformation." "To extend content governance and best practices across the enterprise, organizations need an enterprise content management solution that delivers a broad set of functionality and is tightly integrated with business processes," said Andy MacMillan, vice president, Product Management, Oracle. "We believe that Oracle's position as a Leader in this report is recognition of the industry-leading performance, integration and scalability delivered in Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite 11g." With Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite 11g, Oracle offers a comprehensive, integrated and high-performance content management solution that helps organizations increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve content security. In the report, Oracle is grouped among the top three vendors for execution, and is the furthest to the right, placing Oracle as the most visionary vendor. This vision stems from Oracle's integration of content management right into key business processes, delivering content in context as people need it. Using a PeopleSoft Accounts Payable user as an example, as an employee processes an invoice, Oracle ECM Suite brings that invoice up on the screen so the processor can verify the content right in the process, improving speed and accuracy. Oracle integrates content into business processes such as Human Resources, Travel and Expense, and others, in the major enterprise applications such as PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, and E-Business Suite. As part of Oracle's Enterprise Application Documents strategy, you can see an example of these integrations in this webinar: Managing Customer Documents and Marketing Assets in Siebel. You can also get a white paper of the ROI Embry Riddle achieved using Oracle Content Management integrated with enterprise applications. Embry Riddle moved from a point solution for content management on accounts payable to an infrastructure investment - they are now using Oracle Content Management for accounts payable with Oracle E-Business Suite, and for student on-boarding with PeopleSoft e-Campus. They continue to expand their use of Oracle Content Management to address further use cases from a core infrastructure. Oracle also shows its vision in the ability to deliver content optimized for online channels. Marketers can use Oracle ECM Suite to deliver digital assets and offers as part of an integrated campaign that understands website visitors and ensures that they are given the most pertinent information and offers. Oracle also provides full lifecycle management through its built-in records management. Companies are able to manage the lifecycle of content (both records and non-records) through built-in retention management. And with the integration of Oracle ECM Suite and Sun Storage Archive Manager, content can be routed to the appropriate storage media based upon content type, usage data or other business rules. This ensures that the most accessed content is instantly available, and archived content is stored on a more appropriate medium like tape. You can learn more in this webinar - Oracle Content Management and Sun Tiered Storage. If you are interested in reading more about why Oracle was chosen as a Leader, view the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management.

  Read the article

• Oracle Forms Migration to ADF - Webinar vom ORACLE Partner PITSS

  - by Thomas Leopold

    Tuesday, February 22, 2011 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM CET Free Webinar Re-Engineering Legacy Oracle Forms Migration from Forms to ADF - A Case Study Join Oracle's Grant Ronald and PITSS to see a software architecture comparison of Oracle Forms and ADF and a live step-by-step presentation on how to achieve a successful migration. Learn about various migration options, challenges and best practices to protect your current investment in Oracle Forms. PL/SQL is without match for what it does: manipulating data in the database. If you blindly migrate all your PL/SQL to Java you will, in all probability, end up with less maintainable and less efficient code. Instead you should consider which code it best left as PL/SQL..." Grant Ronald - "Migrating Oracle Forms to Fusion: Myth or Magic Bullet?" Re-Engineering existing business logic is mandatory for your legacy Forms application to take advantage of the new Software architectures like ADF. The PITSS.CON solution combines the deep understanding of Oracle Forms and Reports applications architecture with powerful re-engineering capabilities that allows the developer community to protect the investment in the existing Forms applications and to concentrate on fine-tuning and customization of the modernized functionality rather than manually recreating every module and business logic from bottom up. Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/971702250   PITSS GmbHKönigsdorferstrasse 25D-82515 WolfratshausenDo not forget to check out these Free Webinars in March! Thursday, March 3, 2011 Upgrade and Modernize Your Application to Forms 11g Registration/Information Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Shaping the Future for your Oracle Forms Application:Forms 11g, ADF, APEX Registration/Information Tuesday, March 29, 2011 Oracle Forms Modernization to APEX Registration/Information Registration is limited, so sign up  today!Presented By:        Grant Ronald, Senior Group Product Manager,Oracle       Magdalena Serban, Product Manager,PITSS   Contact Us:            PITSS in Americas +1 248.740.0935 [email protected] www.pitssamerica.com       PITSS in Europe +49 (0) 717287 5200 [email protected] www.pitss.com   White Paper:      From Oracle Forms to Oracle ADF and JEE     © Copyright 2010 PITSS GmbH, Wolfratshausen, Stuttgart, München; Managing Directors: Dipl.-Ing. Andreas Gaede, Michael Kilimann, Dipl.-Ing. Dirk Fleischmann Commercial Register: HRB 125471 at District Court Munich. All rights reserved. Any duplication or further treatment in any medium, in parts or as a whole, requires a written agreement. If you do not want to receive invitations for events, meetings and seminars from us, then please click here.

  Read the article

• How to make software development decisions based on facts

  - by Laila

  We love to hear stories about the many and varied ways our customers use the tools that we develop, but in our earnest search for stories and feedback, we'd rather forgotten that some of our keenest users are fellow RedGaters, in the same building. It was almost by chance that we discovered how the SQL Source Control team were using SmartAssembly. As it happens, there is a separate account (here on Simple-Talk) of how SmartAssembly was used to support the Early Access program; by providing answers to specific questions about how the SQL Source Control product was used. But what really got us all grinning was how valuable the SQL Source Control team found the reports that SmartAssembly was quickly and painlessly providing. So gather round, my friends, and I'll tell you the Tale Of The Framework Upgrade . <strange mirage effect to denote a flashback. A subtle background string of music starts playing in minor key> Kevin and his team were undecided. They weren't sure whether they could move their software product from .NET 2 to .NET 3.5 , let alone to .NET 4. You see, they were faced with having to guess what version of .NET was already installed on the average user's machine, which I'm sure you'll agree is no easy task. Upgrading their code to .NET 3.5 might put a barrier to people trying the tool, which was the last thing Kevin wanted: "what if our users have to download X, Y, and Z before being able to open the application?" he asked. That fear of users having to do half an hour of downloads (.followed by at least ten minutes of installation. followed by a five minute restart) meant that Kevin's team couldn't take advantage of WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). This made them sad, because WCF would have allowed them to write their code in a much simpler way, and in hours instead of days (as was the case with .NET 2). Oh sure, they had a gut feeling that this probably wasn't the case, 3.5 had been out for so many years, but they weren't sure. <background music switches to major key> SmartAssembly Feature Usage Reporting gave Kevin and his team exactly what they needed: hard data on their users' systems, both hardware and software. I was there, I saw it happen, and that's not the sort of thing a woman quickly forgets. I'll always remember his last words (before he went to lunch): "You get lots of free information by just checking a box in SmartAssembly" is what he said. For example, they could see how many CPU cores their customers were using, and found out that they should be making use of parallelism to take advantage of available cores. But crucially, (and this is the moral of my tale, dear reader), Kevin saw that 99% of SQL Source Control's users were on .NET 3.5 or above.   So he knew that they could make the switch and that is was safe to do so. With this reassurance, they could use WCF to not only make development easier, but to also give them a really nice way to do inter-process communication between the Source Control and the SQL Compare products. To have done that on .NET 2.0 was certainly possible <knowing chuckle>, but Microsoft have made it a lot easier with WCF. <strange mirage effect to denote end of flashback> So you see, with Feature Usage Reporting, they finally got the hard evidence they needed to safely make the switch to .NET 3.5, knowing it would not inconvenience their users. And that, my friends, is just the sort of thing we like to hear.

  Read the article

• OWB 11gR2 - Find and Search Metadata in Designer

  - by David Allan

  Here are some tools and techniques for finding objects, specifically in the design repository. There are ways of navigating and collating objects that are useful for day to day development and build-time usage - this includes features out of the box and utilities constructed on top. There are a variety of techniques to navigate and find objects in the repository, the first 3 are out of the box, the 4th is an expert utility. Navigating by the tree, grouping by project and module - ok if you are aware of the exact module/folder that objects reside in. The structure panel is a useful way of finding parts of an object, especially when large rather than using the canvas. In large scale projects it helps to have accelerators (either find or collections below). Advanced find to search by name - 11gR2 included a find capability specifically for large scale projects. There were improvements in both the tree search and the object editors (including highlighting in mapping for example). So you can now do regular expression based search and quickly navigate to objects within a repository. Collections - logically organize your objects into virtual folders by shortcutting the actual objects. This is useful for a range of things since all the OWB services operate on collections too (export/import, validation, deployment). See the post here for new collection functionality in 11gR2. Reports for searching by type, updated on, updated by etc. Useful for activities such as periodic incremental actions (deploy all mappings changed in the past week). The report style view is useful since I can quickly see who changed what and when. You can see all the audit details for objects within each objects property inspector, but its useful to just get all objects changed today or example, all objects changed since my last build etc. This utility combines both UI extensions via experts and the public views on the repository. In the figure to the right you see the contextual option 'Object Search' which invokes the utility, you can see I have quite a number of modules within my project. Figure out all the potential objects which have been changed is not simple. The utility is an expert which provides this kind of search capability. The utility provides a report of the objects in the design repository which satisfy some filter criteria. The type of criteria includes; objects updated in the last n days optionally filter the objects updated by user filter the user by project and by type (table/mappings etc.) The search dialog appears with these options, you can multi-select the object types, so for example you can select TABLE and MAPPING. Its also possible to search across projects if need be. If you have multiple users using the repository you can define the OWB user name in the 'Updated by' property to restrict the report to just that user also. Finally there is a search name that will be used for some of the options such as building a collection - this name is used for the collection to be built. In the example I have done, I've just searched my project for all process flows and mappings that users have updated in the last 7 days. The results of the query are returned in a table containing the object names, types, full path and audit details. The columns are sort-able, you can sort the results by name, type, path etc. One of the cool things here, is that you can then perform operations on these objects - such as edit them, export single selection or entire results to MDL, create a collection from the results (now you have a saved set of references in the repository, you could do deploy/export etc.), create a deployment script from the results...or even add in your own ideas! You see from this that you can do bulk operations on sets of objects based on search results. So for example selecting the 'Build Collection' option creates a collection with all of the objects from my search, you can subsequently deploy/generate/maintain this collection of objects. Under the hood of the expert if just basic OMB commands from the product and the use of the public views on the design repository. You can see how easy it is to build up macro-like capabilities that will help you do day-to-day as well as build like tasks on sets of objects.

  Read the article

• Is Microsoft&rsquo;s Cloud Bet Placed on the Ground?

  - by andrewbrust

  Today at the Unversity of Washington, Steve Ballmer gave a speech on Microsoft’s cloud strategy.  Significantly, Azure was only briefly mentioned and was not shown.  Instead, Ballmer spoke about what he called the five “dimensions” of the cloud, and used that as the basis for an almost philosophical discussion.  Ballmer opined on how the cloud should be distinguished from the Internet.as well as what the cloud will and should enable.  Ballmer worked hard to portray the cloud not as a challenger to Windows and PCs (as Google would certainly suggest it is) but  really as just the latest peripheral that adds value to PCs and devices. At one point during his speech, Ballmer said “We start with Windows at Microsoft.  It’s the most popular smart device on the planet.  And our design center for the future of Windows is to make it one of those smarter devices that the cloud really wants.”  I’m not sure I agree with Ballmer’s ambition here, but I must admit he’s taken the “software + services” concept and expanded on it in more consumer-friendly fashion. There were demos too.  For example, Blaise Aguera y Arcas reprised his Bing Maps demo from the TED conference held last month.  And Simon Atwell showed how Microsoft has teamed with Sky TV in the UK to turn Xbox into something that looks uncannily like Windows Media Center.  Specifically, an Xbox console app called Sky Player provides full access to Sky’s on-demand programming but also live TV access to an array of networks carried on its home TV service, complete with an on-screen programming guide.  Windows Phone 7 Series was shown quickly and Ballmer told us that while Windows Mobile/Phone 6.5 and earlier were designed for voice and legacy functionality, Windows Phone 7 Series is designed for the cloud. Over and over during Ballmer’s talk (and those of his guest demo presenters), the message was clear: Microsoft believes that client (“smart”) devices, and not mere HTML terminals, are the technologies to best deliver on the promise of the cloud.  The message was that PCs running Windows, game consoles and smart phones  whose native interfaces are Internet-connected offer the most effective way to utilize cloud capabilities.  Even the Bing Maps demo conveyed this message, because the advanced technology shown in the demo uses Silverlight (and thus the PCs computing power), and not AJAX (which relies only upon the browser’s native scripting and rendering capabilities) to produce the impressive interface shown to the audience. Microsoft’s new slogan, with respect to the cloud, is “we’re all in.”  Just as a Texas Hold ‘em player bets his entire stash of chips when he goes all in, so too is Microsoft “betting the company” on the cloud.  But it would seem that Microsoft’s bet isn’t on the cloud in a pure sense, and is instead on the power of the cloud to fuel new growth in PCs and other client devices, Microsoft’s traditional comfort zone.  Is that a bet or a hedge?  If the latter, is Microsoft truly all in?  I don’t really know.  I think many people would say this is a sucker’s bet.  But others would say it’s suckers who bet against Microsoft.  No matter what, the burden is on Microsoft to prove this contrarian view of the cloud is a sensible one.  To do that, they’ll need to deliver on cloud-connected device innovation.  And to do that, the whole company will need to feel that victory is crucial.  Time will tell.  And I expect to present progress reports in future posts.

  Read the article

• Visual Studio 2010 SP1

  - by ScottGu

  Last week we shipped Service Pack 1 of Visual Studio 2010 and the Visual Studio Express Tools.  In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements, SP1 includes a number of feature enhancements.  This includes improved local help support, IntelliTrace support for 64-bit applications and SharePoint, built-in Silverlight 4 Tooling support in the box, unit testing support when targeting .NET 3.5, a new performance wizard for Silverlight, IIS Express and SQL CE Tooling support for web projects, HTML5 Intellisense for ASP.NET, and more.  TFS 2010 SP1 was also released last week, together with a new TFS Project Server Integration Pack and Load Test Feature Pack.  Brian Harry has a good blog post about the TFS updates here. VS 2010 SP1 Download Click here to download and install SP1 for all versions of Visual Studio (including express).  This installer examines what you have installed on your machine, and only downloads the servicing downloads necessary to update them to SP1.  The time it takes to download and update will consequently depend on what all you have installed.  Jon Galloway has a good blog post on tips to speed up the SP1 install by uninstalling unused components. Web Platform Installer Bundles In addition to the core VS 2010 SP1 installer, we have also put together two Web Platform Installer (WebPI) bundles that automate installing SP1 together with additional web-specific components: VS 2010 SP1 WebPI Bundle Visual Web Developer 2010 SP1 WebPI Bundle The above WebPI bundles automate installing: VS 2010/VWD 2010 SP1 ASP.NET MVC 3 (runtime + tools support) IIS 7.5 Express SQL Server Compact Edition 4.0 (runtime + tools support) Web Deployment 2.0 Only the components that are not already installed on your machine will be downloaded when you use the above WebPI bundles.  This means that you can run the WebPI bundle at any time (even if you have already installed SP1 or ASP.NET MVC 3) and not have to worry about wasting time downloading/installing these components again. Earlier this year I did two posts that discussed how to use IIS Express and SQL CE with ASP.NET projects in SP1.  Read the below posts to learn more about how to use them after you run the above bundles: Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and IIS Express Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and SQL CE for ASP.NET The above feature additions work with any web project type – including both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. Additional SP1 Notes Two additional notes about VS 2010 SP1: 1) One change we made between RTM and SP1 is that by default Visual Studio now uses software rendering instead of hardware acceleration when running on Windows XP.  We made this change because we’ve seen reports of (often inconsistent) performance issues caused by older video drivers.  Running in software mode eliminates these and delivers consistent speeds.  You can optionally re-enable hardware acceleration with SP1 using Visual Studio’s Tools->Options menu command – we did not remove support for HW acceleration on XP, we simply changed the default setting for it.  Jason Zander has written more details on the change and how to re-enable HW acceleration inside VS here. 2) We have discovered an issue where installing SP1 can cause TSQL intellisense within SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 to stop working (typing still works – but intellisense doesn’t show up).  The SQL team is investigating this now and I’ll post an update on how to fix this once more details are known.  Hope this helps, Scott P.S. I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

  Read the article

• #MIX Day 2 Keynote: Put the Phone Down and Listen

  - by andrewbrust

  MIX day 1’s keynote was all about Windows Phone 7 (WP7).  MIX day 2’s was a reminder that Microsoft has much more going on than a new mobile platform.  Steven Sinofsky, Scott Guthrie, Doug Purdy and others showed us lots of other good things coming from Microsoft, mostly in the developer stack, that we certainly shouldn’t overlook.  These included the forthcoming IE9, its new JavaScript compiling engine and support for HTML 5 that takes full advantage of the local PC resources, including the Graphics Processing Unit.  The announcements also included important additions to ASP.NET (and one subtraction, in the form of lighter-weight ViewState technology) including almost-obsessive jQuery support.  That support is so good that John Resig, creator of the jQuery project, came on stage to tell us so.  Then Scott Guthrie told us that Microsoft would be contributing code to Open Source jQuery project. This is not your father’s Microsoft, it would seem. But to me, the crown jewel in today’s keynote were the numerous announcements around the Open Data Protocol (OData).  OData is nothing more than the protocol side of “Astoria” (now known as WCF Data Services, and until recently called ADO.NET Data Services) separated out and opened up as a platform-neutral standard.  The 2009 Professional Developers Conference (PDC) was Microsoft’s vehicle for first announcing OData, as well as project “Dallas,” an Azure-based cloud platform for publishing commercial OData feeds.  And we had already known about “bridges” for Astoria (and thus OData) for PHP and Java.  We also knew that PowerPivot, Microsoft’s forthcoming self-service BI plug-in for Excel 2010, will consume OData feeds and then facilitate drill-down analysis of their data.  And we recently found out that SQL Reporting Services reports (in the forthcoming SQL Server 2008 R2) and SharePoint 2010 lists will be consumable in OData format as well. So what was left to announce?  How about OData clients for Palm webOS and Apple iPhone/Objective C?  How about the release to Open Source of .NET’s OData client?  Or the ability to publish any SQL Azure database as an OData service by simply checking a checkbox at deployment?  Maybe even a Silverlight tool (code-named “Houston”) to create SQL Azure databases (and then publish them as OData) right in the browser?  And what if you you could get at NetFlix’s entire catalog in OData format?  You can – just go to http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/ and see for yourself.  Douglas Purdy, who made these announcements said “we want OData to work on as many devices and platforms as possible.”  After all the cross-platform OData announcements made in about a half year’s time, it’s hard to dispute this. When Microsoft plays the data card, and plays it well, watch out, because data programmability is the company’s heritage.  I’ll be discussing OData at length in my April Redmond Review column.  I wrote that column two weeks ago, and was convinced then that OData was a big deal. Today upped the ante even more.  And following the Windows Phone 7 euphoria of yesterday was, I think, smart timing.  The phone, if it’s successful, will be because it’s a good developer platform play.  And developer platforms (as well as their creators) are most successful when they have a good data strategy.  OData is very Silverlight-friendly, and that means it’s WP7-friendly too.  Phone plus service-oriented data is a one-two punch.  A phone platform without data would have been a phone with no signal.

  Read the article

• SQLAuthority News – Top 5 Latest Microsoft Certifications of 2013 – Guest Post

  - by Pinal Dave

  With the IT job market getting more and more competent by the day, certifications are a must for anyone who wishes to get a strong foothold in the industry. Microsoft community comes up with regular updates and enhancements in its existing products to keep up with the rapidly evolving requirements of the ICT industry. We bring you a list of five latest Microsoft certifications that you must consider acquiring this year. MCSE: SharePoint Learn all about Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft SharePoint 2013, which brings an advanced set of features to the fore in this latest version. It introduces new capabilities for business intelligence, social media, branding, search, identity management, mobile device among other features. Enjoy a great user experience with sharing and collaboration in community forum, within a pixel-perfect SharePoint website. Data connectivity and business intelligence tools allow users to process and access data, analyze reports, share and collaborate with each other more conveniently. Microsoft Specialist: Microsoft Project 2013 The only project management system that works seamlessly with other applications and cloud solutions of Microsoft, MS Project 2013 offers more than what meets the eye.  It provides for easier management and monitoring of projects so that users can ensure timely delivery while improving the productivity significantly. So keep all your projects on track and collaborate with your team like never before with this enhanced release! This one’s a must for all project managers. MCSE Messaging Another one of Microsoft gems is its messaging environment which has also launched the latest release Microsoft Exchange Server 2013. Messaging administrators can take up this training and validate their expertise in Unified Messaging, Exchange Online, PowerShell and Virtualization strategies, through MCSE Messaging certification in Exchange Server. If you wish to enhance productivity and data security of your organization while being flexible and extremely efficient, this is the right certification for you. MCSE Communication An enterprise can function optimally on the strength of its information flow and communication systems. With Lync Server 2013, you can introduce a whole new world of unified communications which consists of audio/video conferencing, dial-in, Persistent Chat, instant chat, and EDGE services in your organization. Utilize IT to serve and support business objectives by mastering this UC technology with this latest MCSE Communication course on using Microsoft Lync Server 2013. MCSE: SQL Server 2012 BI Platform The decision making process is largely influenced by underlying enterprise information used by the management for business intelligence. Therefore, a robust business intelligence platform that anchors enterprise IT and transform it to operational efficiencies is the need of the hour. SQL Server 2012 BI Platform certification helps professionals implement, manage and maintain a BI database infrastructure effectively. IT professionals with BI skills are highly sought after these days. MCSD: Windows Store Apps A Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer certification in Windows Store Apps validates your potential in designing interactive apps. Learn The Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using HTML5 and JavaScript and establish yourself as an ace developer capable of creating fast and fluid Metro style apps for Windows 8 that are accessible on a variety of devices. You can also go ahead and Learn Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using C# mode if you’re already familiar and working with C# programming language. Hence the developers are free to choose their own favorite development stream which opens doors for them to get ready for the latest and exciting application development platform called Windows store apps. Software developers with these skills are in great demand in the industry today. In order to continue being competitive in your respective fields, it is imperative that IT personnel update their knowledge on a regular basis. Certifications are a means to achieve this goal. Not considered to be an optional pre-requisite anymore, major IT certifications such as these are now essential to stay afloat in a cut-throat industry where technologies change on a daily basis. This blog is written by Aruneet Anand of Koenig Solutions. Koenig Solutions does training for all of the above courses. For more information, visit the website. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Microsoft Certifications

  Read the article

• July, the 31 Days of SQL Server DMO’s – Day 23 (sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats)

  - by Tamarick Hill

  The sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats Dynamic Management View is used to return usage information about the various indexes on your SQL Server instance. Let’s have a look at this DMV against our AdventureWorks2012 database so we can examine the information returned. SELECT * FROM sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats WHERE database_id = db_id('AdventureWorks2012') The first three columns in the result set represent the database_id, object_id, and index_id of a given row. You can join these columns back to other system tables to extract the actual database, object, and index names. The next four columns are probably the most beneficial columns within this DMV. First, the user_seeks column represents the number of times that a user query caused a seek operation against a particular index. The user_scans column represents how many times a user query caused a scan operation on a particular index. The user_lookups column represents how many times an index was used to perform a lookup operation. The user_updates column refers to how many times an index had to be updated due to a write operation that effected a particular index. The last_user_seek, last_user_scan, last_user_lookup, and last_user_update columns provide you with DATETIME information about when the last user scan, seek, lookup, or update operation was performed. The remaining columns in the result set are the same as the ones we previously discussed, except instead of the various operations being generated from user requests, they are generated from system background requests. This is an extremely useful DMV and one of my favorites when it comes to Index Maintenance. As we all know, indexes are extremely beneficial with improving the performance of your read operations. But indexes do have a downside as well. Indexes slow down the performance of your write operations, and they also require additional resources for storage. For this reason, in my opinion, it is important to regularly analyze the indexes on your system to make sure the indexes you have are being used efficiently. My AdventureWorks2012 database is only used for demonstrating or testing things, so I dont have a lot of meaningful information here, but for a Production system, if you see an index that is never getting any seeks, scans, or lookups, but is constantly getting a ton of updates, it more than likely would be a good candidate for you to consider removing. You would not be getting much benefit from the index, but yet it is incurring a cost on your system due to it constantly having to be updated for your write operations, not to mention the additional storage it is consuming. You should regularly analyze your indexes to ensure you keep your database systems as efficient and lean as possible. One thing to note is that these DMV statistics are reset every time SQL Server is restarted. Therefore it would not be a wise idea to make decisions about removing indexes after a Server Reboot or a cluster roll. If you restart your SQL Server instances frequently, for example if you schedule weekly/monthly cluster rolls, then you may not capture indexes that are being used for weekly/monthly reports that run for business users. And if you remove them, you may have some upset people at your desk on Monday morning. If you would like to begin analyzing your indexes to possibly remove the ones that your system is not using, I would recommend building a process to load this DMV information into a table on scheduled basis, depending on how frequently you perform an operation that would reset these statistics, then you can analyze the data over a period of time to get a more accurate view of what indexes are really being used and which ones or not. For more information about this DMV, please see the below Books Online link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188755.aspx Follow me on Twitter @PrimeTimeDBA

  Read the article

• ASP.NET MVC: Simple view to display contents of DataTable

  - by DigiMortal

  In one of my current projects I have to show reports based on SQL Server views. My code should be not aware of data it shows. It just asks data from view and displays it user. As WebGrid didn’t seem to work with DataTable (at least with no hocus-pocus) I wrote my own very simple view that shows contents of DataTable. I don’t focus right now on data querying questions as this part of my simple generic reporting stuff is still under construction. If the final result is something good enough to share with wider audience I will blog about it for sure. My view uses DataTable as model. It iterates through columns collection to get column names and then iterates through rows and writes out values of all columns. Nothing special, just simple generic view for DataTable. @model System.Data.DataTable @using System.Data; <h2>Report</h2> <table>     <thead>     <tr>     @foreach (DataColumn col in Model.Columns)         {                  <th>@col.ColumnName</th>     }         </tr>     </thead>             <tbody>     @foreach (DataRow row in Model.Rows)         {                 <tr>         @foreach (DataColumn col in Model.Columns)                 {                          <td>@row[col.ColumnName]</td>         }                 </tr>     }         </tbody> </table> In my controller action I have code like this. GetParams() is simple function that reads parameter values from form. This part of my simple reporting system is still under construction but as you can see it will be easy to use for UI developers. public ActionResult TasksByProjectReport() {      var data = _reportService.GetReportData("MEMOS",GetParams());      return View(data); } Before seeing next silver bullet in this example please calm down. It is just plain and simple stuff for simple needs. If you need advanced and powerful reporting system then better use existing components by some vendor.

  Read the article

• Bancassurers Seek IT Solutions to Support Distribution Model

  - by [email protected]

  Oracle Insurance's director of marketing for EMEA, John Sinclair, attended the third annual Bancassurance Forum in Vienna last month. He reports that the outlook for bancassurance in EMEA remains positive, despite changing market conditions that have led a number of bancassurers to re-examine their business models. Vienna is at the crossroads between mature Western European markets, where bancassurance is now an established best practice, and more recently tapped Eastern European markets that offer the greatest growth potential. Attendance at the Bancassurance Forum was good, with 87 bancassurance attendees, most in very senior positions in the industry. The conference provided the chance for a lively discussion among bancassurers looking to keep abreast of the latest trends in one of Europe's most successful distribution models for insurance. Even under normal business conditions, there is a great demand for best practice sharing within the industry as there is no standard formula for success.  Each company has to chart its own course and choose the strategies for sales, products development and the structure of ownership that make sense for their business, and as soon as they get it right bancassurers need to adapt the mix to keep up with ever changing regulations, completion and economic conditions.  To optimize the overall relationship between banking and insurance for mutual benefit, a balance needs to be struck between potentially conflicting interests. The banking side of the house is looking for greater wallet share from its customers and the ability to increase profitability by bundling insurance products with higher margins - especially in light of the recent economic crisis, where margins for traditional banking products are low and completion high. The insurance side of the house seeks access to new customers through a complementary distribution channel that is efficient and cost effective. To make the relationship work, it is important that both sides of the same house forge strategic and long term relationships - irrespective of whether the underlying business model is supported by a distribution agreement, cross-ownership or other forms of capital structure. However, this third annual conference was not held under normal business conditions. The conference took place in challenging, yet interesting times. ING's forced spinoff of its insurance operations under pressure by the EU Commission and the troubling losses suffered by Allianz as a result of the Dresdner bank sale were fresh in everyone's mind. One year after markets crashed, there is now enough hindsight to better understand the implications for bancassurance and best practices that are emerging to deal with them. The loan-driven business that has been crucial to bancassurance up till now evaporated during the crisis, leaving bancassurers grappling with how to change their overall strategy from a loan-driven to a more diversified model.  Attendees came to the conference to learn what strategies were working - not only to cope with the market shift, but to take advantage of it as markets pick up. Over the course of 14 customer case studies and numerous analyst presentations, topical issues ranging from getting the business model right to the impact on capital structuring of Solvency II were debated openly. Many speakers alluded to the need to specifically design insurance products with the banking distribution channel in mind, which brings with it specific requirements such as a high degree of standardization to achieve efficiency and reduce training costs. Moreover, products must be engineered to suit end consumers who consider banks a one-stop shop. The importance of IT to the successful implementation of bancassurance strategies was a theme that surfaced regularly throughout the conference.  The cross-selling opportunity - that will ultimately determine the success or failure of any bancassurance model - can only be fully realized through a flexible IT architecture that enables banking and insurance processes to be integrated and presented to front-line staff through a common interface. However, the reality is that most bancassurers have legacy IT systems, which constrain the businesses' ability to implement new strategies to maintaining competitiveness in turbulent times. My colleague Glenn Lottering, who chaired the conference, believes that the primary opportunities for bancassurers to extract value from their IT infrastructure investments lie in distribution management, risk management with the advent of Solvency II, and achieving operational excellence. "Oracle is ideally suited to meet the needs of bancassurance," Glenn noted, "supplying market-leading software for both banking and insurance. Oracle provides adaptive systems that let customers easily integrate hybrid business processes from both worlds while leveraging existing IT infrastructure." Overall, the consensus at the conference was that the outlook for bancassurance in EMEA remains positive, despite changing market conditions that have led a number of bancassurers to re-examine their business models. John Sinclair is marketing director for Oracle Insurance in EMEA. He has more than 20 years of experience in insurance and financial services.    

  Read the article

• Is there a low carbon future for the retail industry?

  - by user801960

  Recently Oracle published a report in conjunction with The Future Laboratory and a global panel of experts to highlight the issue of energy use in modern industry and the serious need to reduce carbon emissions radically by 2050.  Emissions must be cut by 80-95% below the levels in 1990 – but what can the retail industry do to keep up with this? There are three key aspects to the retail industry where carbon emissions can be cut:  manufacturing, transport and IT.  Manufacturing Naturally, manufacturing is going to be a big area where businesses across all industries will be forced to make considerable savings in carbon emissions as well as other forms of pollution.  Many retailers of all sizes will use third party factories and will have little control over specific environmental impacts from the factory, but retailers can reduce environmental impact at the factories by managing orders more efficiently – better planning for stock requirements means economies of scale both in terms of finance and the environment. The John Lewis Partnership has made detailed commitments to reducing manufacturing and packaging waste on both its own-brand products and products it sources from third party suppliers. It aims to divert 95 percent of its operational waste from landfill by 2013, which is a huge logistics challenge.  The John Lewis Partnership’s website provides a large amount of information on its responsibilities towards the environment. Transport Similarly to manufacturing, tightening up on logistical planning for stock distribution will make savings on carbon emissions from haulage.  More accurate supply and demand analysis will mean less stock re-allocation after initial distribution, and better warehouse management will mean more efficient stock distribution.  UK grocery retailer Morrisons has introduced double-decked trailers to its haulage fleet and adjusted distribution logistics accordingly to reduce the number of kilometers travelled by the fleet.  Morrisons measures route planning efficiency in terms of cases moved per kilometre and has, over the last two years, increased the number of cases per kilometre by 12.7%.  See Morrisons Corporate Responsibility report for more information. IT IT infrastructure is often initially overlooked by businesses when considering environmental efficiency.  Datacentres and web servers often need to run 24/7 to handle both consumer orders and internal logistics, and this both requires a lot of energy and puts out a lot of heat.  Many businesses are lowering environmental impact by reducing IT system fragmentation in their offices, while an increasing number of businesses are outsourcing their datacenters to cloud-based services.  Using centralised datacenters reduces the power usage at smaller offices, while using cloud based services means the datacenters can be based in a more environmentally friendly location.  For example, Facebook is opening a massive datacentre in Sweden – close to the Arctic Circle – to reduce the need for artificial cooling methods.  In addition, moving to a cloud-based solution makes IT services more easily scaleable, reducing redundant IT systems that would still use energy.  In store, the UK’s Carbon Trust reports that on average, lighting accounts for 25% of a retailer’s electricity costs, and for grocery retailers, up to 50% of their electricity bill comes from refrigeration units.  On a smaller scale, retailers can invest in greener technologies in store and in their offices.  The report concludes that widely shared objectives of energy security, reduced emissions and continued economic growth are dependent on the development of a smart grid capable of delivering energy efficiency and demand response, as well as integrating renewable and variable sources of energy. The report is available to download from http://emeapressoffice.oracle.com/imagelibrary/detail.aspx?MediaDetailsID=1766I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the report.   

  Read the article

• Plymouth and GRUB do not show at all

  - by WarriorIng64

  I am using Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit as my only OS on my desktop computer, which used to only run Ubuntu 10.04 LTS until I had the time to upgrade it with a fresh install. It uses integrated NVIDIA graphics (listed as a GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 by the NVIDIA X Server Settings utility) with the current proprietary driver as provided by the Additional Drivers utility, and has a VGA connection to a 1680x1050 Acer monitor. I used to get the (ugly-looking version of) Plymouth graphical boot screen while under 10.04. It didn't look that great, but I was fine with it. Now, it doesn't show on 11.04 at all during boot (I just get an error message in a moving gray box from the monitor saying "Input Not Supported"), and only rarely it will show on shutdown, all garbled up. I could not get GRUB to show during boot while holding down Shift, either (same error message), but pressing Enter while it should be up starts the system normally. A picture of the error message I was getting: Once fully booted, the system still shows the login screen and desktop just fine. Any information on how to troubleshoot this would be appreciated. If there's any hardware-specific stuff I forgot to include here, let me know the relevant commands to run in a comment below. Things that I've tried: Running plymouth in a framebuffer: no effect Booting with nomodeset as my grub boot: option no effect Booting with nomodeset and plymouth in a framebuffer: no effect other than Plymouth showing during shutdown only Following the Softpedia instructions for fixing Plymouth's resolution: Problem mostly solved, except logo does not show in Plymouth during boot, and both grub and Plymouth are slightly off-center #4 above, but with nomodeset removed as a grub boot option: same effect as #4 #5 above, but with vt.handoff=7 added as a grub boot option: same effect as #4 I have added the current contents of /etc/default/grub as requested in the comments: # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: # info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration' GRUB_DEFAULT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash video=uvesafb:mode_option=1280x1024-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...) #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef" # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console # The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo' GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x1024 # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true" # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1" CURRENT STATUS: I forgot to uncomment one line as per "things that I've tried" #4, so I took care of that. I can now see GRUB during startup when I hold Shift and a normal-looking Plymouth during shutdown...but Plymouth during boot is now just a solid purple screen. In each case, it's displayed a little off-center to the left, with a thin black bar running down the right side of the monitor. The error pictured above no longer shows. I'd say this problem is about 2/3 solved now. UPDATE: After Natty started freezing up on me, I decided to dual-boot with Oneiric, which unfortunately shows the same problems. Rather than trying all these workarounds though, I decided to do what I should have done from the start and file a pair of bug reports. LAST UPDATE: Bug 850908 has been confirmed as a legitimate nouveaufb bug. I have overwritten my 11.04 partition with 12.04 LTS, and I can confirm at this time that the issue is present there, as well. I will now flag this question to be closed, yet I hope it was helpful for anyone who experienced similar issues; if you are still having the same problem as me, please go there and mark yourself as affected. Thanks!

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – How to Compare the Schema of Two Databases with Schema Compare

  - by Pinal Dave

  Earlier I wrote about An Efficiency Tool to Compare and Synchronize SQL Server Databases and it was very much well received. Since the blog post I have received quite a many question that just like data how we can also compare schema and synchronize it. If you think about comparing the schema manually, it is almost impossible to do so. Table Schema has been just one of the concept but if you really want the all the schema of the database (triggers, views, stored procedure and everything else) it is just impossible task. If you are developer or database administrator who works in the production environment than you know that there are so many different occasions when we have to compare schema of the database. Before deploying any changes to the production server, I personally like to make note of the every single schema change and document it so in case of any issue , I can always go back and refer my documentation. As discussed earlier it is absolutely impossible to do this task without the help of third party tools. I personally use Devart Schema Compare for this task. This is an extremely easy tool. Let us see how it works. First I have two different databases – a) AdventureWorks2012 and b) AdventureWorks2012-V1. There are total three changes between these databases. Here is the list of the same. One of the table has additional column One of the table have new index One of the stored procedure is changed Now let see how dbForge Schema Compare works in this scenario. First open dbForge Schema Compare studio. Click on New Schema Comparison. It will bring you to following screen where we have to configure the database needed to configure. I have selected AdventureWorks2012 and AdventureWorks-V1 databases. In the next screen we can verify various options but for this demonstration we will keep it as it is. We will not change anything in schema mapping screen as in our case it is not required but generically if you are comparing across schema you may need this. This is the most important screen as on this screen we select which kind of object we want to compare. You can see the options which are available to select. The screen lets you select the objects from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2012. Once you click on compare in previous screen it will bring you to this screen, which will essentially display the comparative difference between two of the databases which we had selected in earlier screen. As mentioned above there are three different changes in the database and the same has been listed over here. Two of the changes belongs to the tables and one changes belong to the procedure. Let us click each of them one by one to see what is the difference between them. In very first option we can see that there is an additional column in another database which did not exist earlier. In this example we can see that AdventureWorks2012 database have an additional index. Following example is very interesting as in this case, we have changed the definition of the stored procedure and the result pan contains the same. dbForget Schema Compare very effectively identify the changes in schema and lists them neatly to developers. Here is one more screen. This software not only compares the schema but also provides the options to update or drop them as per the choice. I think this is brilliant option. Well, I have been using schema compare for quite a while and have found it very useful. Here are few of the things which dbForge Schema Compare can do for developers and DBAs. Compare and synchronize SQL Server database schemas Compare schemas of live database and SQL Server backup Generate comparison reports in Excel and HTML formats Eliminate mistakes in schema changes propagation across environments Track production database changes and customizations Automate migration of schema changes using command line interface I suggest that you try out dbForge Schema Compare and let me know what you think of this product. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL

  Read the article

• Silverlight Cream for May 13, 2010 -- #861

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Sigurd Snørteland, Jeff Prosise, DaveDev, Joe Zhou, Chris Eargle, John Papa(-2-, -3-), and David Anson(-2-). Shoutouts: In with the links I've listed below, Sigurd Snørteland also sent a link to this app he's working on which is actually pretty cool to see: ZuneLight. The code is not yet available. He also has a no-code demo of a Silverlight Media Center Pieter Voloshyn, Luiz Thadeu, and Jhun Iti have a very nice Silverlight image editor up: Thumba From SilverlightCream.com: WP7 - Silverlight on mobile Sigurd Snørteland submitted some links for me that have been translated to English from his blog. I hope the pages come out good because he's got a lot of good stuff on there. This one has a link to a presentation he did, and 4 projects you can load up in the emulator that he's converted to the phone: weather, worldclock, coverflow, and solitaire ... pretty cool... thanks for the links Sigurd! Understanding Page Orientation in Silverlight for Windows Phone Jeff Prosise has a really nice post up on page orientation in WP7 ... what it means to your app, how to detect it, and example code for what to do then... also love a quote by Jeff: "Silverlight for Windows Phone is the hottest thing since color TV" Why you should check out Expression Blend Behaviors when using Silverlight DaveDev has a post up describing Behaviors and why we should use them, plus tons of external links to resources, blogs, videos... all good stuff... Fiddler inspector for WCF Silverlight Polling Duplex and WCF RIA Joe Zhou announces and provides a link to a new Fiddler inspector that understands the framing in Polling Duplex and also raw binary xml and binary SOAP. Windows Phone Controls v0.7 Chris Eargle reports the release of Version 0.7 of the Windows Phone Controls project on CodePlex ... this includes a Pivot Control and a Panorama Control... both very nicely done. Binding to Silverlight ComboBox and Using SelectedValue, SelectedValuePath and DisplayMemberPath John Papa responds to a user question and put up a nice post about binding to a ComboBox and then go from the selected item to some other property ... code included No More Boxes! Exploring the PathListBox (Silverlight TV #25) Silverlight TV 25 went up on Tuesday ... thought it was going to be Thursday?? anyway ... John Papa and Adam Kinney are discussing the PathListBox and looking at some cool demos thereof. Exposing SOAP, OData, and JSON Endpoints for RIA Services (Silverlight TV 26) Since today IS Thursday, we have a new Silverlight TV, number 26, and John Papa is chatting with Deepesh Mohnani of the WCF RIA Services team about exposing all sorts of endpoints... should be something in there for everybody :) Workaround for a Silverlight data binding bug affecting various scenarios - including DataGrid+ContextMenu David Anson details the rabbit-trail he and others on the team followed in response to a problem reported via Twitter where the binding on a DataGrid seemed off by a row(!) ... weird but true, validated, and SL3/4 are bug-for-bug compatible with this too! ... But David wouldn't leave us there.. he also has a workaround. Sharing the code for a simple Silverlight 4 REST-based cloud-oriented file management app for Azure and S3 David Anson had an opportunity to build an app he's wanted to build for a while and shares it with us: Blobstore -- a small, lightweight Silverlight 4 application that acts as a basic front-end for the Windows Azure Simple Data Storage and the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) -- and remember I said he shared the source :) Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

  Read the article

• SQLAuthority News – Ahmedabad Tech Ed On Road June 11, 2011 – An Event to Remember – A Grand Success of Community Tech Days

  - by pinaldave

  I am very excited to announce the huge success of the Microsoft Community TechDays at Ahmedabad, on 11 June 2011.  The turn-out for this seminar was huge, and there was a great response from the audience.  In fact, the AMA where the conference was held can seat 275 people – but there were over 50 people standing, the event coordinators had to find 150 more chairs, and we even had to turn away 30 people at the door because there was just no more room.  This means that there were over 500 attendees! The event started right on time, at 10 am, with my introduction and welcome to the audience.  My presentation on my favorite subject of “SQL Server Performance Troubleshooting Using Waits and Queues.”  Because of the number of speakers, I had to cut my presentation short by 10 minutes, so I only had 50 minutes to explain how to use swaits and queues to fine tune performance.  There was a good response to my talk from audience. I feel the best presentation, though, was “HTML5 – Future of the Web” by Harish Vaidyanathan.  He explained how HTML5 is going to change the internet, and taught everyone a lot about how to best use Internet Explorer 9, and discussed CSS3, SVG and DOM specifications.  Many people in the audience came specifically for this session – many had to take a half day leave off work just to travel there. At this point we all took a break for lunch, but there was no one taking a nap with a full stomach because we had a presentation of the new Windows Mango phone from Dhananjay Kumar.  New technology like this always wakes everyone up! After this came “TSQL Worst Practices” by Jacob Sebastian.  He too had to cut his talk short by 10 minutes in order to accommodate everyone, but his discussion of what SQL queries to avoid was still excellent. He is magnificent presenter and Ahmedabad loves him. The final presentation was “ASP.NET Tips and Tricks” by Tejas Shah.  This was a good overview of asp.net fundamentals, and how to use them to improve application performance.  However, the day was not over here!  We kept the audience entertained with prizes and give-aways.  Names were drawn for prizes and there was a quiz session with great gifts for the winners. Overall, the day was a huge success.  There was a good mix of SQL and non-SQL subjects, and many audiences members commented on how much they learned.  We had a much bigger turn-out than expected – all the chairs were filled 45 minutes before we even started!  For our next conference we need to find a space that will hold everyone, especially since we are hoping to have 600-800 people attending.  We definitely feel we can reach this goal.  We are already looking forward to the next Ahmedabad Microsoft Community TechDays. Download presentations: HTML5 Beauty of Web -By Harish Vaidyanathan TSQL Worst Practices- By Jacob Sebastian SQL SERVER Performance troubleshooting using Waits and Queues -By Pinal Dave ASP.NET Tips and Tracks -By Tejas Shah Other reports: Tech-Ed on Road 2011- Ahmedabad–A great event- By Jalpesh Tech-Ed 2011 on the Road in Ahmedabad – by Ritesh Shah Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• Craig Mundie's video

  - by GGBlogger

  Timothy recently posted “Microsoft Shows Off Radical New UI, Could Be Used In Windows 8” on Slashdot. I took such grave exception to his post that I found it necessary to my senses to write this blog. We need to go back many years to the days of hand cranked calculators and early main frame computers. These devices had singular purposes – they were “number crunchers” used to make accounting easier. The front facing display in early mainframes was “blinken lights.” The calculators did provide printing – in the form of paper tape and the mainframes used line printers to generate reports as needed. We had other metaphors to work with. The typewriter was/is a mechanical device that substitutes for a type setting machine. The originals go back to 1867 and the keyboard layout has remained much the same to this day. In the earlier years the Morse code telegraphs gave way to Teletype machines. The old ASR33, seen on the left in this photo of one of the first computers I help manufacture, used a keyboard very similar to the keyboards in use today. It also generated punched paper tape that we generated to program this computer in machine language. Everything considered this computer which dates back to the late 1960s has a keyboard for input and a roll of paper as output. So in a very rudimentary fashion little has changed. Oh – we didn’t have a mouse! The entire point of this exercise is to point out that we still use very similar methods to get data into and out of a computer regardless of the operating system involved. The Altair, IMSAI, Apple, Commodore and onward to our modern machines changed the hardware that we interfaced to but changed little in the way we input, view and output the results of our computing effort. The mouse made some changes and the advent of windowed interfaces such as Windows and Apple made things somewhat easier for the user. My 4 year old granddaughter plays here Dora games on our computer. She knows how to start programs, use the mouse, play the game and is quite adept so we have come some distance in making computers useable. One of my chief bitches is the constant harangues leveled at Microsoft. Yup – they are a money making organization. You like Apple? No problem for me. I don’t use Apple mostly because I’m comfortable in the Windows environment but probably more because I don’t like Apple’s “Holier than thou” attitude. Some think they do superior things and that’s also fine with me. Obviously the iPhone has not done badly and other Apple products have fared well. But they are expensive. I just build a new machine with 4 Terabytes of storage, an Intel i7 Core 950 processor and 12 GB of RAMIII. It cost me – with dual monitors – less than 2000 dollars. Now to the chief reason for this blog. I’m going to continue developing software for as long as I’m able. For that reason I don’t see my keyboard, mouse and displays changing much for many years. I also don’t think Microsoft is going to spoil that for me by making radical changes to my developer experience. What Craig Mundie does in his video here:  http://www.ispyce.com/2011/02/microsoft-shows-off-radical-new-ui.html is explore the potential future of computer interfaces for the masses of potential users. Using a computer today requires a person to have rudimentary capabilities with keyboards and the mouse. Wouldn’t it be great if all they needed was hand gestures? Although not mentioned it would also be nice if computers responded intelligently to a user’s voice. There is absolutely no argument with the fact that user interaction with these machines is going to change over time. My personal prediction is that it will take years for much of what Craig discusses to come to a cost effective reality but it is certainly coming. I just don’t believe that what Craig discusses will be the future look of a Window 8.

  Read the article

• Closer look at the SOA 12c Feature: Oracle Managed File Transfer

  - by Tshepo Madigage-Oracle

  The rapid growth of cloud-based applications in the enterprise, combined with organizations' desire to integrate applications with mobile technologies, is dramatically increasing application integration complexity. To meet this challenge, Oracle introduced Oracle SOA Suite 12c, the latest version of the industry's most complete and unified application integration and SOA solution. With simplified cloud, mobile, on-premises, and Internet of Things (IoT) integration capabilities, all within a single platform, Oracle SOA Suite 12c helps organizations speed time to integration, improve productivity, and lower TCO. To extend its B2B solution capabilities with Oracle SOA Suite 12c, Oracle unveiled Oracle Managed File Transfer, an integrated solution that enables organizations to virtually eliminate file transfer complexities. This allows customers to load data securely into Oracle Cloud applications as well as third-party cloud or partner applications. Oracle Managed File Transfer (Oracle MFT) enables secure file exchange and management with internal departments and external partners. It protects against inadvertent access to unsecured files at every step in the end-to-end transfer of files. It is easy to use especially for non technical staff so you can leverage more resources to manage the transfer of files. The extensive reporting capabilities allow you to get quick status of a file transfer and resubmit it as required. You can protect data in your DMZ by using the SSH/FTP reverse proxy. Oracle Managed File Transfer can help integrate applications by transferring files between them in complex use case patterns. Standalone: Transferring files on its own using embedded FTP and sFTP servers and the file systems to which it has access. SOA Integration: a SOA application can be the source or target of a transfer. A SOA application can also be the common endpoint for the target of one transfer and the source of another. B2B Integration: B2B application can be the source or target of a transfer. A B2B application can also be the common endpoint for the target of one transfer and the source of another. Healthcare Integration:  Healthcare application can be the source or target of a transfer. A Healthcare application can also be the common endpoint for the target of one transfer and the source of another. Oracle Service Bus (OSB) integration: OMT can integrate with Oracle Service Bus web service interfaces. OSB interface can be the source or target of a transfer. An Oracle Service Bus interface can also be the common endpoint for the target of one transfer and the source of another. Hybrid Integration: can be one participant in a web of data transfers that includes multiple application types. Oracle Managed File Transfers has four user roles: file handlers, designers, monitors, and administrators. File Handlers: - Copy files to file transfer staging areas, which are called sources. - Retrieve files from file transfer destinations, which are called targets. Designers: - Create, read, update and delete file transfer sources. - Create, read, update and delete file transfer targets. - Create, read, update and delete transfers, which link sources and targets in complete file delivery flows. - Deploy and test transfers. Monitors: - Use the Dashboard and reports to ensure that transfer instances are successful. - Pause and resume lengthy transfers. - Troubleshoot errors and resubmit transfers. - View artifact deployment details and history. - View artifact dependence relationships. - Enable and disable sources, targets, and transfers. - Undeploy sources, targets, and transfers. - Start and stop embedded FTP and sFTP servers. Administrators: - All file handler tasks - All designer tasks - All monitor tasks - Add other users and determine their roles - Configure user directory permissions - Configure the Oracle Managed File Transfer server - Configure embedded FTP and sFTP servers, including security - Configure B2B and Healthcare domains - Back up and restore the Oracle Managed File Transfer configuration - Purge transferred files and instance data - Archive and restore instance data and payloads - Import and export metadata You will find all the related information about SOA 12.1.3. Oracle Manages File Transfer OMT in the documentation: Using Oracle Manages File Transfer Resources and links: Oracle Unveils Oracle SOA Suite 12c Oracle Managed Files Transfer Oracle Managed Files Transfer SOA 12c White Paper For further enquiries don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected] and join our Partner Webcast on Oracle SOA Suite 12c

  Read the article

• Oracle Big Data Software Downloads

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  Companies have been making business decisions for decades based on transactional data stored in relational databases. Beyond that critical data, is a potential treasure trove of less structured data: weblogs, social media, email, sensors, and photographs that can be mined for useful information. Oracle offers a broad integrated portfolio of products to help you acquire and organize these diverse data sources and analyze them alongside your existing data to find new insights and capitalize on hidden relationships. Oracle Big Data Connectors Downloads here, includes: Oracle SQL Connector for Hadoop Distributed File System Release 2.1.0 Oracle Loader for Hadoop Release 2.1.0 Oracle Data Integrator Companion 11g Oracle R Connector for Hadoop v 2.1 Oracle Big Data Documentation The Oracle Big Data solution offers an integrated portfolio of products to help you organize and analyze your diverse data sources alongside your existing data to find new insights and capitalize on hidden relationships. Oracle Big Data, Release 2.2.0 - E41604_01 zip (27.4 MB) Integrated Software and Big Data Connectors User's Guide HTML PDF Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) Application Adapter for Hadoop Apache Hadoop is designed to handle and process data that is typically from data sources that are non-relational and data volumes that are beyond what is handled by relational databases. Typical processing in Hadoop includes data validation and transformations that are programmed as MapReduce jobs. Designing and implementing a MapReduce job usually requires expert programming knowledge. However, when you use Oracle Data Integrator with the Application Adapter for Hadoop, you do not need to write MapReduce jobs. Oracle Data Integrator uses Hive and the Hive Query Language (HiveQL), a SQL-like language for implementing MapReduce jobs. Employing familiar and easy-to-use tools and pre-configured knowledge modules (KMs), the application adapter provides the following capabilities: Loading data into Hadoop from the local file system and HDFS Performing validation and transformation of data within Hadoop Loading processed data from Hadoop to an Oracle database for further processing and generating reports Oracle Database Loader for Hadoop Oracle Loader for Hadoop is an efficient and high-performance loader for fast movement of data from a Hadoop cluster into a table in an Oracle database. It pre-partitions the data if necessary and transforms it into a database-ready format. Oracle Loader for Hadoop is a Java MapReduce application that balances the data across reducers to help maximize performance. Oracle R Connector for Hadoop Oracle R Connector for Hadoop is a collection of R packages that provide: Interfaces to work with Hive tables, the Apache Hadoop compute infrastructure, the local R environment, and Oracle database tables Predictive analytic techniques, written in R or Java as Hadoop MapReduce jobs, that can be applied to data in HDFS files You install and load this package as you would any other R package. Using simple R functions, you can perform tasks such as: Access and transform HDFS data using a Hive-enabled transparency layer Use the R language for writing mappers and reducers Copy data between R memory, the local file system, HDFS, Hive, and Oracle databases Schedule R programs to execute as Hadoop MapReduce jobs and return the results to any of those locations Oracle SQL Connector for Hadoop Distributed File System Using Oracle SQL Connector for HDFS, you can use an Oracle Database to access and analyze data residing in Hadoop in these formats: Data Pump files in HDFS Delimited text files in HDFS Hive tables For other file formats, such as JSON files, you can stage the input in Hive tables before using Oracle SQL Connector for HDFS. Oracle SQL Connector for HDFS uses external tables to provide Oracle Database with read access to Hive tables, and to delimited text files and Data Pump files in HDFS. Related Documentation Cloudera's Distribution Including Apache Hadoop Library HTML Oracle R Enterprise HTML Oracle NoSQL Database HTML Recent Blog Posts Big Data Appliance vs. DIY Price Comparison Big Data: Architecture Overview Big Data: Achieve the Impossible in Real-Time Big Data: Vertical Behavioral Analytics Big Data: In-Memory MapReduce Flume and Hive for Log Analytics Building Workflows in Oozie

  Read the article

• Inside Red Gate - The Office

  - by Simon Cooper

  The vast majority of Red Gate is on the first and second floors (the second and third floors in US parlance) of an office building in Cambridge Business Park (here we are!). As you can see, the building is split into three sections; the two wings, and the section between them. As well as being organisationally separate, the four divisions are also split up in the office; each division has it's own floor and wing, so everyone in the division is working together in the same area (.NET and DBA on the left, SQL Tools and New Business on the right). The non-divisional parts of the business share wings with the smaller divisions, again keeping each group together. The canteen One of the downsides of divisionalisation is that communication between people in different decisions is greatly reduced. This is where the canteen (aka the SQL Servery) comes in. Occupying most of the central section on the first floor, the canteen provides free cooked lunch every day, and is where everyone in the company gathers for lunch. The idea is to encourage communication between the divisions; having lunch with people in a different division you wouldn't otherwise talk to helps people keep track of what's going on elsewhere in the company. (I'm still amazed at how the canteen staff provide a wide range of superbly cooked food for over 200 people out of a kitchen in which, if you were to swing a cat, it would get severe head injuries.). There's also table tennis and table football tables that anyone can use, provided you can grab them when they're free! Office layout Cubicles are practically unheard of in the UK, and no one, including the CEOs, has separate offices. The entire office is open-plan, as you can see in this youtube video from when we first moved in (although all the empty desks are now full!). Neil & Simon, instead of having dedicated offices, move between the different divisions every few months to keep up to date with what's going on around the company; sitting with a division gives you a much better overall impression of how the division's doing than written status reports from the division heads. There's also the usual plethora of meeting rooms scattered around the place; when we first moved in in 2009 we had a competition to name them all. We've got Afoxalypse A & B, Seagulls A & B, Traffic Jam, Thinking Hats, Camelids A & B, Horses, etc. All the meeting rooms have pictures on the walls corresponding to their theme, which adds a nice bit of individuality to otherwise fairly drab meeting rooms. Generally, any meeting room can be booked by anyone at any time, although some groups have priority in certain rooms (Camelids B is used a lot for UX testing, the Interview Room is used for, well, interviews). And, as you can see from the video, each area has various pictures, post-its, notes, signs, on the walls to try and stop it being a dull office space. Yes, it's still an office, but it's designed to be as interesting and as individual as possible.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140  | Next Page >