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menu's nt displaying Horizontally

- by DAFFODIL

Now,menu's are getting displayed in this way Customer Quote Table But,i want it to display in this way Customer Quote Table http://dpaste.com/hold/183841/

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need help while working on a website

- by EqEdi

I'm working for a website where i need to sum functionality related to sales I'm very new to the website stuff and found many things on net but don't knew what to follow. Can anybody suggest me some good tutorials which i can follow to create my website The things which i am going to work on as: saving customer information to data base using saved customer information, placing order generating bills and invoices and downloading it in pdf file format sending mails to customer with those invoice as attachments

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Parsing complicated query parameters

- by Will

My Python server receives jobs that contain a list of the items to act against, rather like a search query term; an example input: (Customer:24 OR Customer:24 OR (Group:NW NOT Customer:26)) To complicate matters, customers can join and leave groups at any time, and the job should be updated live when this happens. How is best to parse, apply and store (in my RDBMS) this kind of list of constraints?

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One database or many?

- by dsims

I am developing a website that will manage data for multiple entities. No data is shared between entities, but they may be owned by the same customer. A customer may want to manage all their entities from a single "dashboard". So should I have one database for everything, or keep the data seperated into individual databases? Is there a best-practice? What are the positives/negatives for having a: database for the entire site (entity has a "customerID", data has "entityID") database for each customer (data has "entityID") database for each entity (relation of database to customer is outside of database) Multiple databases seems like it would have better performance (fewer rows and joins) but may eventually become a maintenance nightmare.

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Problem with generics

- by jess

I have this code in base class protected virtual bool HasAnyStuff<TObject>(TObject obj) where TObject:class { return false; } In child class I am overriding protected override bool HasAnyStuff<Customer>(Customer obj) { //some stuff if Customer.sth etc return false; } I am getting this error '''Type parameter declaration must be an identifier not a type''' What is it I am doing wrong here?

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Performance problem on a query.

- by yapiskan

Hi, I have a performance problem on a query. First table is a Customer table which has millions records in it. Customer table has a column of email address and some other information about customer. Second table is a CommunicationInfo table which contains just Email addresses. And What I want in here is; how many times the email address in CommunicationInfo table repeats in Customers table. What could be the the most performer query. The basic query that I can explain this situation is; Select ci.Email, count(*) from Customer c left join CommunicationInfo ci on c.Email1 = ci.Email or c.Email2 = ci.Email Group by ci.Email But sure, it takes about 5, 6 minutes in execution. Thanks in Advance.

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django: how to use many-to-many relationships in values()?

- by john

i need to group results by a field that requires a few joins from the original model: // response_filter_args is created dynamically responses = Response.objects.filter(**response_filter_args) \ .values('customer__tags__tag') \ # django doesn't like this .annotate(average_score=Avg('rating__score')) Response - customer - tags (many-to-many field pointing to Tag) - tag (the tag as a string) Models are: class Response(models.Model): customer = models.ForeignKey(Customer) ... class Customer(models.Model): tags = models.ManyToManyField(Tag) ... class Tag(models.Model): tag = models.CharField(max_length=255) ... i'm trying to calculate average ratings. to make it work i need to tell django to group by 'tag', but it refuses to. it gives an error: Invalid field name: 'customer__tags__tag' anyone know how i can get it to group by tag? i've tried all the combinations of underscores in customer_tags_tag that i can think of, but nothing works.

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How specific do I get in BDD scenarios?

- by CodeSpelunker

Take two different ways of stating the same behavior. Option A: Given a customer has 50 items in their shopping cart When they check out Then they will receive a 10% discount on their order Option B: Given a customer has a high volume of items in their shopping cart When they check out Then they will receive a high volume discount on their order The former is far more specific. If someone has some question about exactly when a customer gets a high volume discount or how much to give them, reading this scenario makes it very clear. Serving the purposes of documenting the behavior, it's about as specific as it can be, although any change in those values will require changing the scenario. The second is more generalized and doesn't have the clarity of the first. Automating it would require incorporating the values "50" and "10" in the step implementations. On the other hand, the scenario captures the core business need: a high volume customer gets a discount. If we later decide to use "40" and "15", the scenario doesn't have to change because the core business need hasn't really changed (though the step implementation would). Also, the term "high volume customer" communicates something about why we're giving them the discount. So, which is better? Rather, under what circumstances should I favor the former or the latter?

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Entity Framework version 1- Brief Synopsis and Tips – Part 1

- by Rohit Gupta

To Do Eager loading use Projections (for e.g. from c in context.Contacts select c, c.Addresses) or use Include Query Builder Methods (Include(“Addresses”)) If there is multi-level hierarchical Data then to eager load all the relationships use Include Query Builder methods like customers.Include("Order.OrderDetail") to include Order and OrderDetail collections or use customers.Include("Order.OrderDetail.Location") to include all Order, OrderDetail and location collections with a single include statement =========================================================================== If the query uses Joins then Include() Query Builder method will be ignored, use Nested Queries instead If the query does projections then Include() Query Builder method will be ignored Use Address.ContactReference.Load() OR Contact.Addresses.Load() if you need to Deferred Load Specific Entity – This will result in extra round trips to the database ObjectQuery<> cannot return anonymous types... it will return a ObjectQuery<DBDataRecord> Only Include method can be added to Linq Query Methods Any Linq Query method can be added to Query Builder methods. If you need to append a Query Builder Method (other than Include) after a LINQ method then cast the IQueryable<Contact> to ObjectQuery<Contact> and then append the Query Builder method to it =========================================================================== Query Builder methods are Select, Where, Include Methods which use Entity SQL as parameters e.g. "it.StartDate, it.EndDate" When Query Builder methods do projection then they return ObjectQuery<DBDataRecord>, thus to iterate over this collection use contact.Item[“Name”].ToString() When Linq To Entities methods do projection, they return collection of anonymous types --- thus the collection is strongly typed and supports Intellisense EF Object Context can track changes only on Entities, not on Anonymous types. If you use a Defining Query for a EntitySet then the EntitySet becomes readonly since a Defining Query is the same as a View (which is treated as a ReadOnly by default). However if you want to use this EntitySet for insert/update/deletes then we need to map stored procs (as created in the DB) to the insert/update/delete functions of the Entity in the Designer You can use either Execute method or ToList() method to bind data to datasources/bindingsources If you use the Execute Method then remember that you can traverse through the ObjectResult<> collection (returned by Execute) only ONCE. In WPF use ObservableCollection to bind to data sources , for keeping track of changes and letting EF send updates to the DB automatically. Use Extension Methods to add logic to Entities. For e.g. create extension methods for the EntityObject class. Create a method in ObjectContext Partial class and pass the entity as a parameter, then call this method as desired from within each entity. ================================================================ DefiningQueries and Stored Procedures: For Custom Entities, one can use DefiningQuery or Stored Procedures. Thus the Custom Entity Collection will be populated using the DefiningQuery (of the EntitySet) or the Sproc. If you use Sproc to populate the EntityCollection then the query execution is immediate and this execution happens on the Server side and any filters applied will be applied in the Client App. If we use a DefiningQuery then these queries are composable, meaning the filters (if applied to the entityset) will all be sent together as a single query to the DB, returning only filtered results. If the sproc returns results that cannot be mapped to existing entity, then we first create the Entity/EntitySet in the CSDL using Designer, then create a dummy Entity/EntitySet using XML in the SSDL. When creating a EntitySet in the SSDL for this dummy entity, use a TSQL that does not return any results, but does return the relevant columns e.g. select ContactID, FirstName, LastName from dbo.Contact where 1=2 Also insure that the Entity created in the SSDL uses the SQL DataTypes and not .NET DataTypes. If you are unable to open the EDMX file in the designer then note the Errors ... they will give precise info on what is wrong. The Thrid option is to simply create a Native Query in the SSDL using <Function Name="PaymentsforContact" IsComposable="false"> <CommandText>SELECT ActivityId, Activity AS ActivityName, ImagePath, Category FROM dbo.Activities </CommandText></FuncTion> Then map this Function to a existing Entity. This is a quick way to get a custom Entity which is regular Entity with renamed columns or additional columns (which are computed columns). The disadvantage to using this is that It will return all the rows from the Defining query and any filter (if defined) will be applied only at the Client side (after getting all the rows from DB). If you you DefiningQuery instead then we can use that as a Composable Query. The Fourth option (for mapping a READ stored proc results to a non-existent Entity) is to create a View in the Database which returns all the fields that the sproc also returns, then update the Model so that the model contains this View as a Entity. Then map the Read Sproc to this View Entity. The other option would be to simply create the View and remove the sproc altogether. ================================================================ To Execute a SProc that does not return a entity, use a EntityCommand to execute that proc. You cannot call a sproc FunctionImport that does not return Entities From Code, the only way is to use SSDL function calls using EntityCommand. This changes with EntityFramework Version 4 where you can return Scalar Types, Complex Types, Entities or NonQuery ================================================================ UDF when created as a Function in SSDL, we need to set the Name & IsComposable properties for the Function element. IsComposable is always false for Sprocs, for UDF's set this to true. You cannot call UDF "Function" from within code since you cannot import a UDF Function into the CSDL Model (with Version 1 of EF). only stored procedures can be imported and then mapped to a entity ================================================================ Entity Framework requires properties that are involved in association mappings to be mapped in all of the function mappings for the entity (Insert, Update and Delete). Because Payment has an association to Reservation... hence we need to pass both the paymentId and reservationId to the Delete sproc even though just the paymentId is the PK on the Payment Table. ================================================================ When mapping insert, update and delete procs to a Entity, insure that all the three or none are mapped. Further if you have a base class and derived class in the CSDL, then you must map (ins, upd, del) sprocs to all parent and child entities in the inheritance relationship. Note that this limitation that base and derived entity methods must all must be mapped does not apply when you are mapping Read Stored Procedures.... ================================================================ You can write stored procedures SQL directly into the SSDL by creating a Function element in the SSDL and then once created, you can map this Function to a CSDL Entity directly in the designer during Function Import ================================================================ You can do Entity Splitting such that One Entity maps to multiple tables in the DB. For e.g. the Customer Entity currently derives from Contact Entity...in addition it also references the ContactPersonalInfo Entity. One can copy all properties from the ContactPersonalInfo Entity into the Customer Entity and then Delete the CustomerPersonalInfo entity, finall one needs to map the copied properties to the ContactPersonalInfo Table in Table Mapping (by adding another table (ContactPersonalInfo) to the Table Mapping... this is called Entity Splitting. Thus now when you insert a Customer record, it will automatically create SQL to insert records into the Contact, Customers and ContactPersonalInfo tables even though you have a Single Entity called Customer in the CSDL =================================================================== There is Table by Type Inheritance where another EDM Entity can derive from another EDM entity and absorb the inherted entities properties, for example in the Break Away Geek Adventures EDM, the Customer entity derives (inherits) from the Contact Entity and absorbs all the properties of Contact entity. Thus when you create a Customer Entity in Code and then call context.SaveChanges the Object Context will first create the TSQL to insert into the Contact Table followed by a TSQL to insert into the Customer table =================================================================== Then there is the Table per Hierarchy Inheritance..... where different types are created based on a condition (similar applying a condition to filter a Entity to contain filtered records)... the diference being that the filter condition populates a new Entity Type (derived from the base Entity). In the BreakAway sample the example is Lodging Entity which is a Abstract Entity and Then Resort and NonResort Entities which derive from Lodging Entity and records are filtered based on the value of the Resort Boolean field =================================================================== Then there is Table per Concrete Type Hierarchy where we create a concrete Entity for each table in the database. In the BreakAway sample there is a entity for the Reservation table and another Entity for the OldReservation table even though both the table contain the same number of fields. The OldReservation Entity can then inherit from the Reservation Entity and configure the OldReservation Entity to remove all Scalar Properties from the Entity (since it inherits the properties from Reservation and filters based on ReservationDate field) =================================================================== Complex Types (Complex Properties) Entities in EF can also contain Complex Properties (in addition to Scalar Properties) and these Complex Properties reference a ComplexType (not a EntityType) DropdownList, ListBox, RadioButtonList, CheckboxList, Bulletedlist are examples of List server controls (not data bound controls) these controls cannot use Complex properties during databinding, they need Scalar Properties. So if a Entity contains Complex properties and you need to bind those to list server controls then use projections to return Scalar properties and bind them to the control (the disadvantage is that projected collections are not tracked by the Object Context and hence cannot persist changes to the projected collections bound to controls) ObjectDataSource and EntityDataSource do account for Complex properties and one can bind entities with Complex Properties to Data Source controls and they will be tracked for changes... with no additional plumbing needed to persist changes to these collections bound to controls So DataBound controls like GridView, FormView need to use EntityDataSource or ObjectDataSource as a datasource for entities that contain Complex properties so that changes to the datasource done using the GridView can be persisted to the DB (enabling the controls for updates)....if you cannot use the EntityDataSource you need to flatten the ComplexType Properties using projections With EF Version 4 ComplexTypes are supported by the Designer and can add/remove/compose Complex Types directly using the Designer =================================================================== Conditional Mapping ... is like Table per Hierarchy Inheritance where Entities inherit from a base class and then used conditions to populate the EntitySet (called conditional Mapping). Conditional Mapping has limitations since you can only use =, is null and IS NOT NULL Conditions to do conditional mapping. If you need more operators for filtering/mapping conditionally then use QueryView(or possibly Defining Query) to create a readonly entity. QueryView are readonly by default... the EntitySet created by the QueryView is enabled for change tracking by the ObjectContext, however the ObjectContext cannot create insert/update/delete TSQL statements for these Entities when SaveChanges is called since it is QueryView. One way to get around this limitation is to map stored procedures for the insert/update/delete operations in the Designer. =================================================================== Difference between QueryView and Defining Query : QueryView is defined in the (MSL) Mapping File/section of the EDM XML, whereas the DefiningQuery is defined in the store schema (SSDL). QueryView is written using Entity SQL and is this database agnostic and can be used against any database/Data Layer. DefiningQuery is written using Database Lanaguage i.e. TSQL or PSQL thus you have more control =================================================================== Performance: Lazy loading is deferred loading done automatically. lazy loading is supported with EF version4 and is on by default. If you need to turn it off then use context.ContextOptions.lazyLoadingEnabled = false To improve Performance consider PreCompiling the ObjectQuery using the CompiledQuery.Compile method

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10 Steps to access Oracle stored procedures from Crystal Reports

Requirements to access Oracle stored procedures from CR The following requirements must be met in order for CR to access an Oracle stored procedure: 1. You must create a package that defines the REF CURSOR. This REF CURSOR must be strongly bound to a static pre-defined structure (see Strongly Bound REF CURSORs vs Weakly Bound REF CURSORs). This package must be created separately and before the creation of the stored procedure. NOTE Crystal Reports 9 native connections will support Oracle stored procedures created within packages as well as Oracle stored procedures referencing weakly bound REF CURSORs. Crystal Reports 8.5 native connections will support Oracle stored procedures referencing weakly bound REF CURSORs. 2. The procedure must have a parameter that is a REF CURSOR type. This is because CR uses this parameter to access and define the result set that the stored procedure returns. 3. The REF CURSOR parameter must be defined as IN OUT (read/write mode). After the procedure has opened and assigned a query to the REF CURSOR, CR will perform a FETCH call for every row from the query's result. This is why the parameter must be defined as IN OUT. 4. Parameters can only be input (IN) parameters. CR is not designed to work with OUT parameters. 5. The REF CURSOR variable must be opened and assigned its query within the procedure. 6. The stored procedure can only return one record set. The structure of this record set must not change, based on parameters. 7. The stored procedure cannot call another stored procedure. 8. If using an ODBC driver, it must be the CR Oracle ODBC driver (installed by CR). Other Oracle ODBC drivers (installed by Microsoft or Oracle) may not function correctly. 9. If you are using the CR ODBC driver, you must ensure that in the ODBC Driver Configuration setup, under the Advanced Tab, the option 'Procedure Return Results' is checked ON. 10. If you are using the native Oracle driver and using hard-coded date selection within the procedure, the date selection must use either a string representation format of 'YYYY-DD-MM' (i.e. WHERE DATEFIELD = '1999-01-01') or the TO_DATE function with the same format specified (i.e. WHERE DATEFIELD = TO_DATE ('1999-01-01','YYYY-MM-DD'). For more information, refer to kbase article C2008023. 11. Most importantly, this stored procedure must execute successfully in Oracle's SQL*Plus utility. If all of these conditions are met, you must next ensure you are using the appropriate database driver. Please refer to the sections in this white paper for a list of acceptable database drivers. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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10 Steps to access Oracle stored procedures from Crystal Reports

Requirements to access Oracle stored procedures from CR The following requirements must be met in order for CR to access an Oracle stored procedure: 1. You must create a package that defines the REF CURSOR. This REF CURSOR must be strongly bound to a static pre-defined structure (see Strongly Bound REF CURSORs vs Weakly Bound REF CURSORs). This package must be created separately and before the creation of the stored procedure. NOTE Crystal Reports 9 native connections will support Oracle stored procedures created within packages as well as Oracle stored procedures referencing weakly bound REF CURSORs. Crystal Reports 8.5 native connections will support Oracle stored procedures referencing weakly bound REF CURSORs. 2. The procedure must have a parameter that is a REF CURSOR type. This is because CR uses this parameter to access and define the result set that the stored procedure returns. 3. The REF CURSOR parameter must be defined as IN OUT (read/write mode). After the procedure has opened and assigned a query to the REF CURSOR, CR will perform a FETCH call for every row from the query's result. This is why the parameter must be defined as IN OUT. 4. Parameters can only be input (IN) parameters. CR is not designed to work with OUT parameters. 5. The REF CURSOR variable must be opened and assigned its query within the procedure. 6. The stored procedure can only return one record set. The structure of this record set must not change, based on parameters. 7. The stored procedure cannot call another stored procedure. 8. If using an ODBC driver, it must be the CR Oracle ODBC driver (installed by CR). Other Oracle ODBC drivers (installed by Microsoft or Oracle) may not function correctly. 9. If you are using the CR ODBC driver, you must ensure that in the ODBC Driver Configuration setup, under the Advanced Tab, the option 'Procedure Return Results' is checked ON. 10. If you are using the native Oracle driver and using hard-coded date selection within the procedure, the date selection must use either a string representation format of 'YYYY-DD-MM' (i.e. WHERE DATEFIELD = '1999-01-01') or the TO_DATE function with the same format specified (i.e. WHERE DATEFIELD = TO_DATE ('1999-01-01','YYYY-MM-DD'). For more information, refer to kbase article C2008023. 11. Most importantly, this stored procedure must execute successfully in Oracle's SQL*Plus utility. If all of these conditions are met, you must next ensure you are using the appropriate database driver. Please refer to the sections in this white paper for a list of acceptable database drivers. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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Looking for USB Network Attached Storage (NAS) Adapter that supports multiple drives, NTFS/FAT32 fil

- by braveterry

I'm looking for a NAS Adapter that supports attaching multiple USB devices to the network. Here's what I'd like to see in a NAS adapter: Under $100.00. Support for multiple devices. This can be through a USB hub or through multiple USB connectors on the device itself. Bittorrent support would be nice, but this isn't a deal-breaker. Filesystem support for at least NTFS or FAT32. I'd prefer to not have to reformat to use the device, but this is also not a deal-breaker. Here is what I am NOT looking for: I'm NOT looking for a NAS enclosure. I already have a couple of spare external USB drives that I'd like to use. I'm NOT looking for a networked USB hub like the one mentioned here. Network USB hubs only allow access to a drive from one PC at a time. I'm NOT looking for a wireless router with a NAS built in. I already have a wireless router, and I'd rather not go through the hassle of replacing it if possible. What I've looked at so far PogoPlug: This supports multiple devices via a USB hub, but there's not Bittorrent support. It's $99.00, so I may end up going with this and hope that they patch in Bittorrent support later. Addonics NAS Adapter: This supports only one device per adapter, so it's a non-starter. SimpleNET NAS Head USB 2.0 Portable Dongle: I'm not 100% sure this supports multiple devices. Plus there doesn't seem to be any Bittorrent support. I'll try to update this post as I explore other devices.

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configuring vsftpd anonymous upload. Creates files but freezes at 0 bytes

- by Wayne

vsftpd on ubuntu after sudo apt-get install vsftpd Then did configuration as in the attached /etc/vsftpd.conf file. Anonymous ftp allows cd to the upload directly and allows put myfile.txt which gets created on the server but then the client hangs and never proceeds. The file on the server remains at 0 bytes. Here's the folders and permissions: root@support:/home/ftp# ls -ld . drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun 22 00:00 . root@support:/home/ftp# ls -ld pub drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun 21 23:59 pub root@support:/home/ftp# ls -ld pub/upload drwxr-xr-x 2 ftp ftp 4096 Jun 22 00:06 pub/upload root@support:/home/ftp# Here's the vsftpd.conf file: root@support:/home/ftp# grep -v '#' /etc/vsftpd.conf listen=YES anonymous_enable=YES write_enable=YES anon_upload_enable=YES dirmessage_enable=YES xferlog_enable=YES anon_root=/home/ftp/pub/ connect_from_port_20=YES chown_uploads=YES chown_username=ftp nopriv_user=ftp secure_chroot_dir=/var/run/vsftpd pam_service_name=vsftpd rsa_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem rsa_private_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key Here's a file example that attempted to upload: root@support:/home/ftp/pub/upload# ls -l total 0 -rw------- 1 ftp nogroup 0 Jun 22 00:06 build.out This is the client attempting to upload...it is frozen at this point: $ ftp 173.203.89.78 Connected to 173.203.89.78. 220 (vsFTPd 2.0.6) User (173.203.89.78:(none)): ftp 331 Please specify the password. Password: 230 Login successful. ftp> put build.out 200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV. 553 Could not create file. ftp> cd upload 250 Directory successfully changed. ftp> put build.out 200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV. 150 Ok to send data.

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Remote assistance from Remote Desktop sessions: unable to control

- by syneticon-dj

Since Remote Control (aka Session Shadowing) is gone for good in Server 2012 Remote Desktop Session hosts, I am looking for a replacement to support users in a cross-domain environment. Since Remote Assistance is supposed to work for Remote Desktop Sessions as well, I tried leveraging that for support purposes by enabling unsolicited remote assistance for all Remote Desktop Session Hosts via Group Policy. All seems to be working well except that the "expert" seems to be unable to actually excercise any mouse or keyboard control when the remote assistance session has been initiated from a Remote Desktop session itself. Mouse clicks and keyboard strokes from the "expert" session (Server 2012) seem to simply be ignored even after the assisted user has acknowledged the request for control. I would like to see this working through RD sessions for the support staff due to a number of reasons: not every support agent would have the appropriate client system version to support users on a specific terminal server (e.g. an agent might have a Windows Vista or Windows 7 station and thus be unable to offer assistance to users on Server 2012 RDSHs) a support agent would not necessarily have a station which is a member of the specific destination domain (mainly due to the reason that more than a single domain's users are supported) what am I missing?

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NetAdvantage - jQuery, ASP .NET MVC and HTML5 UI Components released for Web Developers

Built for speed and portability across operating systems, iPad/tablets, desktops and multi-browser support. Includes controls for ASP .NET MVC and uses the latest technologies like HTML 5 & CSS 3. This preview includes a sampling of powerful UI controls: grid, date picker, rating, editors, even a video player! All work with the popular WebKit engine that underpins many modern desktop browsers without requiring plug-ins or extensions. The grid embraces the latest Web techniques and frameworks like jQuery Client Templates and DOM virtualization. Download these essentials for jQuery and ASP .NET MVC from us today. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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Allow email from a particular sender through spam filter

- by Greg

We are running exchange 2010 and are using the built in anti-spam feature. We have set up Content Filtering, IP Block List Providers, Sender ID, Sender Reputation and it filters out most of the junk but it also quarantines all emails from one of our customers. It is being quarantined because of the Content Filter agent (Report Below). How can I add an exception for this email address to the Content Filter. I can see how to setup an exception for a delivery address ("Don't filter messages sent TO the following recipients") but I want to add [email protected] to our safe list. I don't want to add the whole domain as it is a very popular ISP in Australia and we often get junk from them. Filter Report: > Diagnostic information for administrators: > > Generating server: something.com > > [email protected] > #550 5.2.1 Content Filter agent quarantined this message ## > > Original message headers: > > Received: from icp-osb-irony-out4.external.iinet.net.au (203.59.1.220) > by server.local.something.com.au (192.5.0.105) with Microsoft SMTP > Server id > 14.1.218.12; Mon, 5 Nov 2012 02:40:40 +1100 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: > AscOALeLllB8qwLw/2dsb2JhbABEKYUFhiigRQOWCwQEgQiBCIIZFAEBTiwCCAIBBwEIFDkBBBoqARoCAQIDAYd4uEuRXGEDiCWFT44UijeDAw > X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.80,710,1344182400"; > d="scan'208,217";a="55137861" Received: from unknown (HELO > asdf83c05c53a3) ([124.171.2.240]) by icp-osb-irony-out4.iinet.net.au > with ESMTP; 04 Nov 2012 23:40:26 +0800 Message-ID: > <E8C866D0299E4BCB8B156723893EB735@asdf83c05c53a3> From: Customer > <[email protected]> To: 'Person' <[email protected]> > Subject: A long sentance Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2011 06:07:57 +1100 > MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; > boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0005_01C5F962.3CD09120" X-Priority: 3 > X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express > 6.00.2900.5931 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 Return-Path: [email protected] Received-SPF: None > (server.local.something.com.au: [email protected] does not > designate permitted sender hosts)

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iptables management tools for large scale environment

- by womble

The environment I'm operating in is a large-scale web hosting operation (several hundred servers under management, almost-all-public addressing, etc -- so anything that talks about managing ADSL links is unlikely to work well), and we're looking for something that will be comfortable managing both the core ruleset (around 12,000 entries in iptables at current count) plus the host-based rulesets we manage for customers. Our core router ruleset changes a few times a day, and the host-based rulesets would change maybe 50 times a month (across all the servers, so maybe one change per five servers per month). We're currently using filtergen (which is balls in general, and super-balls at our scale of operation), and I've used shorewall in the past at other jobs (which would be preferable to filtergen, but I figure there's got to be something out there that's better than that). The "musts" we've come up with for any replacement system are: Must generate a ruleset fairly quickly (a filtergen run on our ruleset takes 15-20 minutes; this is just insane) -- this is related to the next point: Must generate an iptables-restore style file and load that in one hit, not call iptables for every rule insert Must not take down the firewall for an extended period while the ruleset reloads (again, this is a consequence of the above point) Must support IPv6 (we aren't deploying anything new that isn't IPv6 compatible) Must be DFSG-free Must use plain-text configuration files (as we run everything through revision control, and using standard Unix text-manipulation tools are our SOP) Must support both RedHat and Debian (packaged preferred, but at the very least mustn't be overtly hostile to either distro's standards) Must support the ability to run arbitrary iptables commands to support features that aren't part of the system's "native language" Anything that doesn't meet all these criteria will not be considered. The following are our "nice to haves": Should support config file "fragments" (that is, you can drop a pile of files in a directory and say to the firewall "include everything in this directory in the ruleset"; we use configuration management extensively and would like to use this feature to provide service-specific rules automatically) Should support raw tables Should allow you to specify particular ICMP in both incoming packets and REJECT rules Should gracefully support hostnames that resolve to more than one IP address (we've been caught by this one a few times with filtergen; it's a rather royal pain in the butt) The more optional/weird iptables features that the tool supports (either natively or via existing or easily-writable plugins) the better. We use strange features of iptables now and then, and the more of those that "just work", the better for everyone.

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Deployment/provisioning tool for commercial applications (not developed in-house)

- by mfinni

I help manage a few hosted commercial applications, and we have a lot of manual processes involved when doing new customer-instance deployments into the shared (multitenant) environment. Allow me to describe the most relevant features, and then we can talk about the tools. We have an application on AIX, that requires dozens of changes to config files (some plain text, some XML) as well as a good number of commands to be run on multiple servers - some to start the new instance, some to restart our shared authentication and reporting engines, etc. The config changes follow templates, of course. The servers in question will also depend on the initial conditions specified by the implementer/deployer - we may choose to deploy a given customer to our servers in Europe, or one set of servers may be active-active whereas a different set of servers is active-passive - in short, there's a lot of complications. We have another application that run on IIS 6 and SQL. The DBAs don't want any automation of the SQL components and that's fine with me, but automating the IIS bit would be great. For a new customer instance, we make a filesystem copy of a template Virtual Directory target named after the new customer, make a new AppPool to match, edit a VirDir template .xml file to replace the filepaths and AppPool names with the new ones, and then make a new VirDir from the modified template XML to point to the new filesystem folder and app pool. For the first case, something like ControlTier or Chef might be good. For the second, the new(ish) Web Deploy from MS would probably do a good job. Has anyone used these tools or others to do something similar for applications? More of a nice-to-have, not a fixed requirement - Has anyone used anything that works on both platforms? I'm looking for something free, because the official word is that within a year, we will have whatever HP has renamed the OpsWare suite, which should be able to do stuff like this. Edit - based on someone's suggestion, looking at CFengine for the AIX application, it doesn't seem to address my pain. The problem isn't keeping a given config synced across dozens of servers, we have rsync for that. The problem is that onboarding a new customer instance touches dozens of files, putting pieces of the same or similar information into them - some are new stanzas in existing files, some are new files, and some are new directories. This is a several-hours-long process that is also error-prone because it's mostly done by hand. I guess I'm looking for config-file generation and management. I have built a small Perl script to do something similar for a much smaller case - it binds a CSV file into variables, and then does a copy-and-search-and-replace from a set of template config files. I could probably do the same here.

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Google analytics and multiple independent subdomains

- by MTilsted

I need some help trying to setup google analytics correct. Here is my setup: We host sites for multiple customers, and each customer have their own subdomain on our site. So we have customerA.oursite.com and customerB.oursite.com As we add more customers we get more subdomains. We do want to track all data for each customer independent, but I don't want to to create a new google tracking code for each new customer. So my plan is to track all visits with "oursite.com", and then I will create a filter in google Analytics to get data for each specific customer(All visits for a specific subdomain). Is this(One tracking code, and a subdomain filter) the right way to do it? To create a subdomain filter i add a new profile for each customer, and then add a custom filter saying include "Request URI" and fill in "CustomerDomain.oursite.com". Is this the correct way to do it? And a general question about filters: Is it really impossible to create a new filter by applying it to data in an existing profile? I would really like to just collect all the data in one "main" profile and then create subdomain filters as we need them. But it seems that google only apply filters to new incomming data, not existing data. Is this really true? The following is my tracking code. Is '_setDomainName','none' the right thing to do? <script type="text/javascript"> /* Tracking code for qrtown.com */ var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-11584298-10']); _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'none']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); </script>

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Spring @Transactional not creating required transaction

- by Steve

Ok, so I've finally bowed to peer pressure and started using Spring in my web app :-)... So I'm trying to get the transaction handling stuff to work, and I just can't seem to get it. My Spring configuration looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p" xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx.xsd"> <bean id="groupDao" class="mil.navy.ndms.conops.common.dao.impl.jpa.GroupDao" lazy-init="true"> <property name="entityManagerFactory" ><ref bean="entityManagerFactory"/></property> </bean>  <bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor"/>  <bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor"/>  <bean id="entityManagerFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean"> <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="CONOPS_PU" /> </bean>  <bean id="jpaTransactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.JpaTransactionManager"> <property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="entityManagerFactory"/> </bean>  <tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="jpaTransactionManager" proxy-target-class="true"/> </beans> persistence.xml: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <persistence version="1.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd"> <persistence-unit name="CONOPS_PU" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL"> <provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider> ... Class mappings removed for brevity... <properties> <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle10gDialect"/> <property name="hibernate.connection.autocommit" value="false"/> <property name="hibernate.connection.username" value="****"/> <property name="hibernate.connection.password" value="*****"/> <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class" value="oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver"/> <property name="hibernate.connection.url" value="jdbc:oracle:thin:@*****:1521:*****"/> <property name="hibernate.cache.provider_class" value="org.hibernate.cache.NoCacheProvider"/> <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="create"/> <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true"/> <property name="hibernate.format_sql" value="true"/> </properties> </persistence-unit> </persistence> The DAO method to save my domain object looks like this: @Transactional(propagation=Propagation.REQUIRES_NEW) protected final T saveOrUpdate (T model) { EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager ( ); EntityTransaction trans = em.getTransaction ( ); System.err.println ("Transaction isActive () == " + trans.isActive ( )); if (em != null) { try { if (model.getId ( ) != null) { em.persist (model); em.flush (); } else { em.merge (model); em.flush (); } } finally { em.close (); } } return (model); } So I try to save a copy of my Group object using the following code in my test case: context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(configs); dao = (GroupDao)context.getBean("groupDao"); dao.saveOrUpdate (new Group ()); This bombs with the following exception: javax.persistence.TransactionRequiredException: no transaction is in progress at org.hibernate.ejb.AbstractEntityManagerImpl.flush(AbstractEntityManagerImpl.java:301) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:48) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:37) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:600) at org.springframework.orm.jpa.ExtendedEntityManagerCreator$ExtendedEntityManagerInvocationHandler.invoke(ExtendedEntityManagerCreator.java:341) at $Proxy26.flush(Unknown Source) at mil.navy.ndms.conops.common.dao.impl.jpa.GenericJPADao.saveOrUpdate(GenericJPADao.java:646) at mil.navy.ndms.conops.common.dao.impl.jpa.GroupDao.save(GroupDao.java:641) at mil.navy.ndms.conops.common.dao.impl.jpa.GroupDao$$FastClassByCGLIB$$50343b9b.invoke() at net.sf.cglib.proxy.MethodProxy.invoke(MethodProxy.java:149) at org.springframework.aop.framework.Cglib2AopProxy$DynamicAdvisedInterceptor.intercept(Cglib2AopProxy.java:622) at mil.navy.ndms.conops.common.dao.impl.jpa.GroupDao$$EnhancerByCGLIB$$7359ba58.save() at mil.navy.ndms.conops.common.dao.impl.jpa.GroupDaoTest.testGroupDaoSave(GroupDaoTest.java:91) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:48) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:37) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:600) at junit.framework.TestCase.runTest(TestCase.java:164) at junit.framework.TestCase.runBare(TestCase.java:130) at junit.framework.TestResult$1.protect(TestResult.java:106) at junit.framework.TestResult.runProtected(TestResult.java:124) at junit.framework.TestResult.run(TestResult.java:109) at junit.framework.TestCase.run(TestCase.java:120) at junit.framework.TestSuite.runTest(TestSuite.java:230) at junit.framework.TestSuite.run(TestSuite.java:225) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.junit3.JUnit3TestReference.run(JUnit3TestReference.java:130) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:460) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:673) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:386) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:196) In addition, I get the following warnings when Spring first starts. Since these reference the entityManagerFactory and the transactionManager, they probably have some bearing on the problem, but I've no been able to decipher them enough to know what: Mar 11, 2010 12:19:27 PM org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext$BeanPostProcessorChecker postProcessAfterInitialization INFO: Bean 'entityManagerFactory' is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying) Mar 11, 2010 12:19:27 PM org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext$BeanPostProcessorChecker postProcessAfterInitialization INFO: Bean 'entityManagerFactory' is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying) Mar 11, 2010 12:19:27 PM org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext$BeanPostProcessorChecker postProcessAfterInitialization INFO: Bean 'jpaTransactionManager' is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying) Mar 11, 2010 12:19:27 PM org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext$BeanPostProcessorChecker postProcessAfterInitialization INFO: Bean '(inner bean)' is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying) Mar 11, 2010 12:19:27 PM org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext$BeanPostProcessorChecker postProcessAfterInitialization INFO: Bean '(inner bean)' is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying) Mar 11, 2010 12:19:27 PM org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext$BeanPostProcessorChecker postProcessAfterInitialization INFO: Bean 'org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor' is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying) Mar 11, 2010 12:19:27 PM org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext$BeanPostProcessorChecker postProcessAfterInitialization INFO: Bean 'org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor' is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying) Mar 11, 2010 12:19:27 PM org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory preInstantiateSingletons INFO: Pre-instantiating singletons in org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory@37003700: defining beans [groupDao,org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor,org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor,entityManagerFactory,jpaTransactionManager,org.springframework.aop.config.internalAutoProxyCreator,org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor]; root of factory hierarchy Does anyone have any idea what I'm missing? I'm totally stumped... Thanks

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BeanCreationException in Spring Framework .WAR deploy to Tomcat 6 on Ubuntu 9.10

- by JediPotPie

I am in the process of switching from a Windows box to Ubunutu and I want to run my own local instance of Tomcat 6. I have installed Tomcat 6 without any basic issues. When I try to deploy a .war file that I had running on the Tomcat 6 instance on my Windows box I am getting the following error.... Apr 26, 2010 3:30:27 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log INFO: Initializing Spring root WebApplicationContext Apr 26, 2010 3:30:27 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext listenerStart SEVERE: Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener org.springframework.beans.factory.CannotLoadBeanClassException: Cannot find class [com.ameren.eam.ldap.LdapDAONovellImpl] for bean with name 'testNovellDao' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]; nested exception is java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.ameren.eam.ldap.LdapDAONovellImpl at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.resolveBeanClass(AbstractBeanFactory.java:1173) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.predictBeanType(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:479) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.isFactoryBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:787) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:393) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:736) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:369) at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.createWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:261) at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:199) at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:45) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:3934) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4429) at org.apache.catalina.manager.ManagerServlet.start(ManagerServlet.java:1249) at org.apache.catalina.manager.HTMLManagerServlet.start(HTMLManagerServlet.java:612) at org.apache.catalina.manager.HTMLManagerServlet.doGet(HTMLManagerServlet.java:136) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:617) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:616) at org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil$1.run(SecurityUtil.java:269) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at javax.security.auth.Subject.doAsPrivileged(Subject.java:537) at org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil.execute(SecurityUtil.java:301) at org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil.doAsPrivilege(SecurityUtil.java:162) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:283) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.access$000(ApplicationFilterChain.java:56) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain$1.run(ApplicationFilterChain.java:189) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:185) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:233) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:191) at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:525) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:128) at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:293) at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:849) at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:583) at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:454) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:636) Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.ameren.eam.ldap.LdapDAONovellImpl at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1399) at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1245) at org.springframework.util.ClassUtils.forName(ClassUtils.java:230) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinition.resolveBeanClass(AbstractBeanDefinition.java:381) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.resolveBeanClass(AbstractBeanFactory.java:1170) ... 40 more The class that is not being found is located at /WEB-INF/classes/com/ameren/eam/ldap/LdapDAONovellImpl.class relative to /WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml. I cannot figure out why it cannot find the class? Any ideas would be great.

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Customer wants some data to appear after you later delete rows. System giant / not my creation. Fast

- by John Sullivan

This is a fairly common problem, it probably has a name, I just don't know what it is. A.) User sees obscure piece of information in Row B of L_OBSCURE_INFO displayed on some screen at a certain point. It is in table L_Obscure_info. B.) Under certain circumstances we want to correctly delete data in L_OBSCURE_INFO. Unfortunately, nobody accounted for the fact that the user might want to backtrack and see some random piece of information that was most recently in L_OBSCURE_INFO. C.) The system is enormous and L_OBSCURE_INFO is used all the time. You have no idea what the ramifications are of implementing some kind of hack and whatever you do, you don't want to introduce more bugs. I think the best approach would be to create an L_OBSCURE_INFO_HISTORY table and record a record in there every time you change data. But god help your ensuring it's accurate in this system where L_OBSCURE_INFO is being touched everywhere and you don't have time to implement L_OBSCURE_INFO_HISTORY. Is there a particularly easy, clever design solution for this kind of problem -- basically an elegant database hack? If not, is this kind of design problem under a particular class of problems or have a name?

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New features of C# 4.0

This article covers New features of C# 4.0. Article has been divided into below sections. Introduction. Dynamic Lookup. Named and Optional Arguments. Features for COM interop. Variance. Relationship with Visual Basic. Resources. Other interested readings… 22 New Features of Visual Studio 2008 for .NET Professionals 50 New Features of SQL Server 2008 IIS 7.0 New features Introduction It is now close to a year since Microsoft Visual C# 3.0 shipped as part of Visual Studio 2008. In the VS Managed Languages team we are hard at work on creating the next version of the language (with the unsurprising working title of C# 4.0), and this document is a first public description of the planned language features as we currently see them. Please be advised that all this is in early stages of production and is subject to change. Part of the reason for sharing our plans in public so early is precisely to get the kind of feedback that will cause us to improve the final product before it rolls out. Simultaneously with the publication of this whitepaper, a first public CTP (community technology preview) of Visual Studio 2010 is going out as a Virtual PC image for everyone to try. Please use it to play and experiment with the features, and let us know of any thoughts you have. We ask for your understanding and patience working with very early bits, where especially new or newly implemented features do not have the quality or stability of a final product. The aim of the CTP is not to give you a productive work environment but to give you the best possible impression of what we are working on for the next release. The CTP contains a number of walkthroughs, some of which highlight the new language features of C# 4.0. Those are excellent for getting a hands-on guided tour through the details of some common scenarios for the features. You may consider this whitepaper a companion document to these walkthroughs, complementing them with a focus on the overall language features and how they work, as opposed to the specifics of the concrete scenarios. C# 4.0 The major theme for C# 4.0 is dynamic programming. Increasingly, objects are “dynamic” in the sense that their structure and behavior is not captured by a static type, or at least not one that the compiler knows about when compiling your program. Some examples include a. objects from dynamic programming languages, such as Python or Ruby b. COM objects accessed through IDispatch c. ordinary .NET types accessed through reflection d. objects with changing structure, such as HTML DOM objects While C# remains a statically typed language, we aim to vastly improve the interaction with such objects. A secondary theme is co-evolution with Visual Basic. Going forward we will aim to maintain the individual character of each language, but at the same time important new features should be introduced in both languages at the same time. They should be differentiated more by style and feel than by feature set. The new features in C# 4.0 fall into four groups: Dynamic lookup Dynamic lookup allows you to write method, operator and indexer calls, property and field accesses, and even object invocations which bypass the C# static type checking and instead gets resolved at runtime. Named and optional parameters Parameters in C# can now be specified as optional by providing a default value for them in a member declaration. When the member is invoked, optional arguments can be omitted. Furthermore, any argument can be passed by parameter name instead of position. COM specific interop features Dynamic lookup as well as named and optional parameters both help making programming against COM less painful than today. On top of that, however, we are adding a number of other small features that further improve the interop experience. Variance It used to be that an IEnumerable<string> wasn’t an IEnumerable<object>. Now it is – C# embraces type safe “co-and contravariance” and common BCL types are updated to take advantage of that. Dynamic Lookup Dynamic lookup allows you a unified approach to invoking things dynamically. With dynamic lookup, when you have an object in your hand you do not need to worry about whether it comes from COM, IronPython, the HTML DOM or reflection; you just apply operations to it and leave it to the runtime to figure out what exactly those operations mean for that particular object. This affords you enormous flexibility, and can greatly simplify your code, but it does come with a significant drawback: Static typing is not maintained for these operations. A dynamic object is assumed at compile time to support any operation, and only at runtime will you get an error if it wasn’t so. Oftentimes this will be no loss, because the object wouldn’t have a static type anyway, in other cases it is a tradeoff between brevity and safety. In order to facilitate this tradeoff, it is a design goal of C# to allow you to opt in or opt out of dynamic behavior on every single call. The dynamic type C# 4.0 introduces a new static type called dynamic. When you have an object of type dynamic you can “do things to it” that are resolved only at runtime: dynamic d = GetDynamicObject(…); d.M(7); The C# compiler allows you to call a method with any name and any arguments on d because it is of type dynamic. At runtime the actual object that d refers to will be examined to determine what it means to “call M with an int” on it. The type dynamic can be thought of as a special version of the type object, which signals that the object can be used dynamically. It is easy to opt in or out of dynamic behavior: any object can be implicitly converted to dynamic, “suspending belief” until runtime. Conversely, there is an “assignment conversion” from dynamic to any other type, which allows implicit conversion in assignment-like constructs: dynamic d = 7; // implicit conversion int i = d; // assignment conversion Dynamic operations Not only method calls, but also field and property accesses, indexer and operator calls and even delegate invocations can be dispatched dynamically: dynamic d = GetDynamicObject(…); d.M(7); // calling methods d.f = d.P; // getting and settings fields and properties d[“one”] = d[“two”]; // getting and setting thorugh indexers int i = d + 3; // calling operators string s = d(5,7); // invoking as a delegate The role of the C# compiler here is simply to package up the necessary information about “what is being done to d”, so that the runtime can pick it up and determine what the exact meaning of it is given an actual object d. Think of it as deferring part of the compiler’s job to runtime. The result of any dynamic operation is itself of type dynamic. Runtime lookup At runtime a dynamic operation is dispatched according to the nature of its target object d: COM objects If d is a COM object, the operation is dispatched dynamically through COM IDispatch. This allows calling to COM types that don’t have a Primary Interop Assembly (PIA), and relying on COM features that don’t have a counterpart in C#, such as indexed properties and default properties. Dynamic objects If d implements the interface IDynamicObject d itself is asked to perform the operation. Thus by implementing IDynamicObject a type can completely redefine the meaning of dynamic operations. This is used intensively by dynamic languages such as IronPython and IronRuby to implement their own dynamic object models. It will also be used by APIs, e.g. by the HTML DOM to allow direct access to the object’s properties using property syntax. Plain objects Otherwise d is a standard .NET object, and the operation will be dispatched using reflection on its type and a C# “runtime binder” which implements C#’s lookup and overload resolution semantics at runtime. This is essentially a part of the C# compiler running as a runtime component to “finish the work” on dynamic operations that was deferred by the static compiler. Example Assume the following code: dynamic d1 = new Foo(); dynamic d2 = new Bar(); string s; d1.M(s, d2, 3, null); Because the receiver of the call to M is dynamic, the C# compiler does not try to resolve the meaning of the call. Instead it stashes away information for the runtime about the call. This information (often referred to as the “payload”) is essentially equivalent to: “Perform an instance method call of M with the following arguments: 1. a string 2. a dynamic 3. a literal int 3 4. a literal object null” At runtime, assume that the actual type Foo of d1 is not a COM type and does not implement IDynamicObject. In this case the C# runtime binder picks up to finish the overload resolution job based on runtime type information, proceeding as follows: 1. Reflection is used to obtain the actual runtime types of the two objects, d1 and d2, that did not have a static type (or rather had the static type dynamic). The result is Foo for d1 and Bar for d2. 2. Method lookup and overload resolution is performed on the type Foo with the call M(string,Bar,3,null) using ordinary C# semantics. 3. If the method is found it is invoked; otherwise a runtime exception is thrown. Overload resolution with dynamic arguments Even if the receiver of a method call is of a static type, overload resolution can still happen at runtime. This can happen if one or more of the arguments have the type dynamic: Foo foo = new Foo(); dynamic d = new Bar(); var result = foo.M(d); The C# runtime binder will choose between the statically known overloads of M on Foo, based on the runtime type of d, namely Bar. The result is again of type dynamic. The Dynamic Language Runtime An important component in the underlying implementation of dynamic lookup is the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), which is a new API in .NET 4.0. The DLR provides most of the infrastructure behind not only C# dynamic lookup but also the implementation of several dynamic programming languages on .NET, such as IronPython and IronRuby. Through this common infrastructure a high degree of interoperability is ensured, but just as importantly the DLR provides excellent caching mechanisms which serve to greatly enhance the efficiency of runtime dispatch. To the user of dynamic lookup in C#, the DLR is invisible except for the improved efficiency. However, if you want to implement your own dynamically dispatched objects, the IDynamicObject interface allows you to interoperate with the DLR and plug in your own behavior. This is a rather advanced task, which requires you to understand a good deal more about the inner workings of the DLR. For API writers, however, it can definitely be worth the trouble in order to vastly improve the usability of e.g. a library representing an inherently dynamic domain. Open issues There are a few limitations and things that might work differently than you would expect. · The DLR allows objects to be created from objects that represent classes. However, the current implementation of C# doesn’t have syntax to support this. · Dynamic lookup will not be able to find extension methods. Whether extension methods apply or not depends on the static context of the call (i.e. which using clauses occur), and this context information is not currently kept as part of the payload. · Anonymous functions (i.e. lambda expressions) cannot appear as arguments to a dynamic method call. The compiler cannot bind (i.e. “understand”) an anonymous function without knowing what type it is converted to. One consequence of these limitations is that you cannot easily use LINQ queries over dynamic objects: dynamic collection = …; var result = collection.Select(e => e + 5); If the Select method is an extension method, dynamic lookup will not find it. Even if it is an instance method, the above does not compile, because a lambda expression cannot be passed as an argument to a dynamic operation. There are no plans to address these limitations in C# 4.0. Named and Optional Arguments Named and optional parameters are really two distinct features, but are often useful together. Optional parameters allow you to omit arguments to member invocations, whereas named arguments is a way to provide an argument using the name of the corresponding parameter instead of relying on its position in the parameter list. Some APIs, most notably COM interfaces such as the Office automation APIs, are written specifically with named and optional parameters in mind. Up until now it has been very painful to call into these APIs from C#, with sometimes as many as thirty arguments having to be explicitly passed, most of which have reasonable default values and could be omitted. Even in APIs for .NET however you sometimes find yourself compelled to write many overloads of a method with different combinations of parameters, in order to provide maximum usability to the callers. Optional parameters are a useful alternative for these situations. Optional parameters A parameter is declared optional simply by providing a default value for it: public void M(int x, int y = 5, int z = 7); Here y and z are optional parameters and can be omitted in calls: M(1, 2, 3); // ordinary call of M M(1, 2); // omitting z – equivalent to M(1, 2, 7) M(1); // omitting both y and z – equivalent to M(1, 5, 7) Named and optional arguments C# 4.0 does not permit you to omit arguments between commas as in M(1,,3). This could lead to highly unreadable comma-counting code. Instead any argument can be passed by name. Thus if you want to omit only y from a call of M you can write: M(1, z: 3); // passing z by name or M(x: 1, z: 3); // passing both x and z by name or even M(z: 3, x: 1); // reversing the order of arguments All forms are equivalent, except that arguments are always evaluated in the order they appear, so in the last example the 3 is evaluated before the 1. Optional and named arguments can be used not only with methods but also with indexers and constructors. Overload resolution Named and optional arguments affect overload resolution, but the changes are relatively simple: A signature is applicable if all its parameters are either optional or have exactly one corresponding argument (by name or position) in the call which is convertible to the parameter type. Betterness rules on conversions are only applied for arguments that are explicitly given – omitted optional arguments are ignored for betterness purposes. If two signatures are equally good, one that does not omit optional parameters is preferred. M(string s, int i = 1); M(object o); M(int i, string s = “Hello”); M(int i); M(5); Given these overloads, we can see the working of the rules above. M(string,int) is not applicable because 5 doesn’t convert to string. M(int,string) is applicable because its second parameter is optional, and so, obviously are M(object) and M(int). M(int,string) and M(int) are both better than M(object) because the conversion from 5 to int is better than the conversion from 5 to object. Finally M(int) is better than M(int,string) because no optional arguments are omitted. Thus the method that gets called is M(int). Features for COM interop Dynamic lookup as well as named and optional parameters greatly improve the experience of interoperating with COM APIs such as the Office Automation APIs. In order to remove even more of the speed bumps, a couple of small COM-specific features are also added to C# 4.0. Dynamic import Many COM methods accept and return variant types, which are represented in the PIAs as object. In the vast majority of cases, a programmer calling these methods already knows the static type of a returned object from context, but explicitly has to perform a cast on the returned value to make use of that knowledge. These casts are so common that they constitute a major nuisance. In order to facilitate a smoother experience, you can now choose to import these COM APIs in such a way that variants are instead represented using the type dynamic. In other words, from your point of view, COM signatures now have occurrences of dynamic instead of object in them. This means that you can easily access members directly off a returned object, or you can assign it to a strongly typed local variable without having to cast. To illustrate, you can now say excel.Cells[1, 1].Value = "Hello"; instead of ((Excel.Range)excel.Cells[1, 1]).Value2 = "Hello"; and Excel.Range range = excel.Cells[1, 1]; instead of Excel.Range range = (Excel.Range)excel.Cells[1, 1]; Compiling without PIAs Primary Interop Assemblies are large .NET assemblies generated from COM interfaces to facilitate strongly typed interoperability. They provide great support at design time, where your experience of the interop is as good as if the types where really defined in .NET. However, at runtime these large assemblies can easily bloat your program, and also cause versioning issues because they are distributed independently of your application. The no-PIA feature allows you to continue to use PIAs at design time without having them around at runtime. Instead, the C# compiler will bake the small part of the PIA that a program actually uses directly into its assembly. At runtime the PIA does not have to be loaded. Omitting ref Because of a different programming model, many COM APIs contain a lot of reference parameters. Contrary to refs in C#, these are typically not meant to mutate a passed-in argument for the subsequent benefit of the caller, but are simply another way of passing value parameters. It therefore seems unreasonable that a C# programmer should have to create temporary variables for all such ref parameters and pass these by reference. Instead, specifically for COM methods, the C# compiler will allow you to pass arguments by value to such a method, and will automatically generate temporary variables to hold the passed-in values, subsequently discarding these when the call returns. In this way the caller sees value semantics, and will not experience any side effects, but the called method still gets a reference. Open issues A few COM interface features still are not surfaced in C#. Most notably these include indexed properties and default properties. As mentioned above these will be respected if you access COM dynamically, but statically typed C# code will still not recognize them. There are currently no plans to address these remaining speed bumps in C# 4.0. Variance An aspect of generics that often comes across as surprising is that the following is illegal: IList<string> strings = new List<string>(); IList<object> objects = strings; The second assignment is disallowed because strings does not have the same element type as objects. There is a perfectly good reason for this. If it were allowed you could write: objects[0] = 5; string s = strings[0]; Allowing an int to be inserted into a list of strings and subsequently extracted as a string. This would be a breach of type safety. However, there are certain interfaces where the above cannot occur, notably where there is no way to insert an object into the collection. Such an interface is IEnumerable<T>. If instead you say: IEnumerable<object> objects = strings; There is no way we can put the wrong kind of thing into strings through objects, because objects doesn’t have a method that takes an element in. Variance is about allowing assignments such as this in cases where it is safe. The result is that a lot of situations that were previously surprising now just work. Covariance In .NET 4.0 the IEnumerable<T> interface will be declared in the following way: public interface IEnumerable<out T> : IEnumerable { IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator(); } public interface IEnumerator<out T> : IEnumerator { bool MoveNext(); T Current { get; } } The “out” in these declarations signifies that the T can only occur in output position in the interface – the compiler will complain otherwise. In return for this restriction, the interface becomes “covariant” in T, which means that an IEnumerable<A> is considered an IEnumerable<B> if A has a reference conversion to B. As a result, any sequence of strings is also e.g. a sequence of objects. This is useful e.g. in many LINQ methods. Using the declarations above: var result = strings.Union(objects); // succeeds with an IEnumerable<object> This would previously have been disallowed, and you would have had to to some cumbersome wrapping to get the two sequences to have the same element type. Contravariance Type parameters can also have an “in” modifier, restricting them to occur only in input positions. An example is IComparer<T>: public interface IComparer<in T> { public int Compare(T left, T right); } The somewhat baffling result is that an IComparer<object> can in fact be considered an IComparer<string>! It makes sense when you think about it: If a comparer can compare any two objects, it can certainly also compare two strings. This property is referred to as contravariance. A generic type can have both in and out modifiers on its type parameters, as is the case with the Func<…> delegate types: public delegate TResult Func<in TArg, out TResult>(TArg arg); Obviously the argument only ever comes in, and the result only ever comes out. Therefore a Func<object,string> can in fact be used as a Func<string,object>. Limitations Variant type parameters can only be declared on interfaces and delegate types, due to a restriction in the CLR. Variance only applies when there is a reference conversion between the type arguments. For instance, an IEnumerable<int> is not an IEnumerable<object> because the conversion from int to object is a boxing conversion, not a reference conversion. Also please note that the CTP does not contain the new versions of the .NET types mentioned above. In order to experiment with variance you have to declare your own variant interfaces and delegate types. COM Example Here is a larger Office automation example that shows many of the new C# features in action. using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Linq; using Excel = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel; using Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word; class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var excel = new Excel.Application(); excel.Visible = true; excel.Workbooks.Add(); // optional arguments omitted excel.Cells[1, 1].Value = "Process Name"; // no casts; Value dynamically excel.Cells[1, 2].Value = "Memory Usage"; // accessed var processes = Process.GetProcesses() .OrderByDescending(p => p.WorkingSet) .Take(10); int i = 2; foreach (var p in processes) { excel.Cells[i, 1].Value = p.ProcessName; // no casts excel.Cells[i, 2].Value = p.WorkingSet; // no casts i++; } Excel.Range range = excel.Cells[1, 1]; // no casts Excel.Chart chart = excel.ActiveWorkbook.Charts. Add(After: excel.ActiveSheet); // named and optional arguments chart.ChartWizard( Source: range.CurrentRegion, Title: "Memory Usage in " + Environment.MachineName); //named+optional chart.ChartStyle = 45; chart.CopyPicture(Excel.XlPictureAppearance.xlScreen, Excel.XlCopyPictureFormat.xlBitmap, Excel.XlPictureAppearance.xlScreen); var word = new Word.Application(); word.Visible = true; word.Documents.Add(); // optional arguments word.Selection.Paste(); } } The code is much more terse and readable than the C# 3.0 counterpart. Note especially how the Value property is accessed dynamically. This is actually an indexed property, i.e. a property that takes an argument; something which C# does not understand. However the argument is optional. Since the access is dynamic, it goes through the runtime COM binder which knows to substitute the default value and call the indexed property. Thus, dynamic COM allows you to avoid accesses to the puzzling Value2 property of Excel ranges. Relationship with Visual Basic A number of the features introduced to C# 4.0 already exist or will be introduced in some form or other in Visual Basic: · Late binding in VB is similar in many ways to dynamic lookup in C#, and can be expected to make more use of the DLR in the future, leading to further parity with C#. · Named and optional arguments have been part of Visual Basic for a long time, and the C# version of the feature is explicitly engineered with maximal VB interoperability in mind. · NoPIA and variance are both being introduced to VB and C# at the same time. VB in turn is adding a number of features that have hitherto been a mainstay of C#. As a result future versions of C# and VB will have much better feature parity, for the benefit of everyone. Resources All available resources concerning C# 4.0 can be accessed through the C# Dev Center. Specifically, this white paper and other resources can be found at the Code Gallery site. Enjoy! span.fullpost {display:none;}

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Issue 15: The Benefits of Oracle Exastack

- by rituchhibber

SOLUTIONS FOCUS The Benefits of Oracle Exastack Paul ThompsonDirector, Alliances and Solutions Partner ProgramsOracle EMEA Alliances & Channels RESOURCES -- Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Oracle Exastack Program Oracle Exastack Ready Oracle Exastack Optimized Oracle Exastack Labs and Enablement Resources Oracle Exastack Labs Video Tour SUBSCRIBE FEEDBACK PREVIOUS ISSUES Exastack is a revolutionary programme supporting Oracle independent software vendor partners across the entire Oracle technology stack. Oracle's core strategy is to engineer software and hardware together, and our ISV strategy is the same. At Oracle we design engineered systems that are pre-integrated to reduce the cost and complexity of IT infrastructures while increasing productivity and performance. Oracle innovates and optimises performance at every layer of the stack to simplify business operations, drive down costs and accelerate business innovation. Our engineered systems are optimised to achieve enterprise performance levels that are unmatched in the industry. Faster time to production is achieved by implementing pre-engineered and pre-assembled hardware and software bundles. Our strategy of delivering a single-vendor stack simplifies and reduces costs associated with purchasing, deploying, and supporting IT environments for our customers and partners. In parallel to this core engineered systems strategy, the Oracle Exastack Program enables our Oracle ISV partners to leverage a scalable, integrated infrastructure that delivers their applications tuned, tested and optimised for high-performance. Specifically, the Oracle Exastack Program helps ISVs run their solutions on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4 - integrated systems products in which the software and hardware are engineered to work together. These products provide OPN members with a lower cost and high performance infrastructure for database and application workloads across on-premise and cloud based environments. Ready and Optimized Oracle Partners can now leverage our new Oracle Exastack Program to become Oracle Exastack Ready and Oracle Exastack Optimized. Partners can achieve Oracle Exastack Ready status through their support for Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, Oracle Database, Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4. By doing this, partners can demonstrate to their customers that their applications are available on the latest major releases of these products. The Oracle Exastack Ready programme helps customers readily differentiate Oracle partners from lesser software developers, and identify applications that support Oracle engineered systems. Achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status demonstrates that an OPN member has proven itself against goals for performance and scalability on Oracle integrated systems. This status enables end customers to readily identify Oracle partners that have tested and tuned their solutions for optimum performance on an Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4. These ISVs can display the Oracle Exadata Optimized, Oracle Exalogic Optimized or Oracle SPARC SuperCluster Optimized logos on websites and on all their collateral to show that they have tested and tuned their application for optimum performance. Deliver higher value to customers Oracle's investment in engineered systems enables ISV partners to deliver higher value to customer business processes. New innovations are enabled through extreme performance unachievable through traditional best-of-breed multi-vendor server/software approaches. Core product requirements can be launched faster, enabling ISVs to focus research and development investment on core competencies in order to bring value to market as quickly as possible. Through Exastack, partners no longer have to worry about the underlying product stack, which allows greater focus on the development of intellectual property above the stack. Partners are not burdened by platform issues and can concentrate simply on furthering their applications. The advantage to end customers is that partners can focus all efforts on business functionality, rather than bullet-proofing underlying technologies, and so will inevitably deliver application updates faster. Exastack provides ISVs with a number of flexible deployment options, such as on-premise or Cloud, while maintaining one single code base for applications regardless of customer deployment preference. Customers buying their solutions from Exastack ISVs can therefore be confident in deploying on their own networks, on private clouds or into a public cloud. The underlying platform will support all conceivable deployments, enabling a focus on the ISV's application itself that wouldn't be possible with other vendor partners. It stands to reason that Exastack accelerates time to value as well as lowering implementation costs all round. There is a big competitive advantage in partners being able to offer customers an optimised, pre-configured solution rather than an assortment of components and a suggested fit. Once a customer has decided to buy an Oracle Exastack Ready or Optimized partner solution, it will be up and running without any need for the customer to conduct testing of its own. Operational costs and complexity are also reduced, thanks to streamlined customer support through standardised configurations and pro-active monitoring. 'Engineered to Work Together' is a significant statement of Oracle strategy. It guarantees smoother deployment of a single vendor solution, clear ownership with no finger-pointing and the peace of mind of the Oracle Support Centre underpinning the entire product stack. Next steps Every OPN member with packaged applications must seriously consider taking steps to become Exastack Ready, or Exastack Optimized at the first opportunity. That first step down the track is to talk to an expert on the OPN Portal, at the Oracle Partner Business Center or to discuss the next steps with the closest Oracle account manager. Oracle Exastack lab environments and other technical enablement resources are available for OPN members wishing to further their knowledge of Oracle Exastack and qualify their applications for Oracle Exastack Optimized. New Boot Camps and Guided Learning Paths (GLPs), tailored specifically for ISVs, are available for Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, Oracle Linux, Oracle Solaris, Oracle Database, and Oracle WebLogic Server. More information about these GLPs and Boot Camps (including delivery dates and locations) are posted on the OPN Competency Center and corresponding OPN Knowledge Zones. Learn more about Oracle Exastack labs and ISV specific enablement resources. "Oracle Specialized partners are of course front-and-centre, with potential customers clearly directed to those partners and to Exadata Ready partners as a matter of priority." --More OpenWorld 2011 highlights for Oracle partners and customers Oracle Application Testing Suite 9.3 application testing solution for Web, SOA and Oracle Applications Oracle Application Express Release 4.1 improving the development of database-centric Web 2.0 applications and reports Oracle Unified Directory 11g helping customers manage the critical identity information that drives their business applications Oracle SOA Suite for healthcare integration Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 11g demonstrating continued commitment to the developer and open source communities Oracle Coherence 3.7.1, the latest release of the industry's leading distributed in-memory data grid Oracle Process Accelerators helping to simplify and accelerate time-to-value for customers' business process management initiatives Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne on the iPad meeting the increasingly mobile demands of today's workforces Oracle CRM On Demand Release 19 Innovation Pack introducing industry-leading hosted call centre and enterprise-marketing capabilities designed to drive further revenue and productivity while reducing costs and improving the customer experience Oracle's Primavera Portfolio Management 9 for businesses delivering on project portfolio goals with increased versatility, transparency and accuracy Oracle's PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (HCM) 9.1 On Demand Standard Edition helping customers manage their long-term investment in enterprise-wide business applications New versions of Oracle FLEXCUBE Universal Banking and Oracle FLEXCUBE Investor Servicing for Financial Institutions, as well as Oracle Financial Services Enterprise Case Management, Oracle Financial Services Pricing Management, Oracle Financial Management Analytics and Oracle Tax Analytics Oracle Utilities Network Management System 1.11 offering new modelling and analysis features to improve distribution-grid management for electric utilities Oracle Communications Network Charging and Control 4.4 helping communications service providers (CSPs) offer their customers more flexible charging options Plus many, many more technology announcements, enhancements, momentum news and community updates -- Oracle OpenWorld 2012 A date has already been set for Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Held once again in San Francisco, exhibitors, partners, customers and Oracle people will gather from 30 September until 4 November to meet, network and learn together with the rest of the global Oracle community. Register now for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 and save $$$! We'll reward your early planning for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 with reduced rates. Super Saver deals are now available! -- Back to the welcome page

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SQL SERVER – Introduction to Adaptive ETL Tool – How adaptive is your ETL?

- by pinaldave

I am often reminded by the fact that BI/data warehousing infrastructure is very brittle and not very adaptive to change. There are lots of basic use cases where data needs to be frequently loaded into SQL Server or another database. What I have found is that as long as the sources and targets stay the same, SSIS or any other ETL tool for that matter does a pretty good job handling these types of scenarios. But what happens when you are faced with more challenging scenarios, where the data formats and possibly the data types of the source data are changing from customer to customer? Let’s examine a real life situation where a health management company receives claims data from their customers in various source formats. Even though this company supplied all their customers with the same claims forms, they ended up building one-off ETL applications to process the claims for each customer. Why, you ask? Well, it turned out that the claims data from various regional hospitals they needed to process had slightly different data formats, e.g. “integer” versus “string” data field definitions. Moreover the data itself was represented with slight nuances, e.g. “0001124” or “1124” or “0000001124” to represent a particular account number, which forced them, as I eluded above, to build new ETL processes for each customer in order to overcome the inconsistencies in the various claims forms. As a result, they experienced a lot of redundancy in these ETL processes and recognized quickly that their system would become more difficult to maintain over time. So imagine for a moment that you could use an ETL tool that helps you abstract the data formats so that your ETL transformation process becomes more reusable. Imagine that one claims form represents a data item as a string – acc_no(varchar) – while a second claims form represents the same data item as an integer – account_no(integer). This would break your traditional ETL process as the data mappings are hard-wired. But in a world of abstracted definitions, all you need to do is create parallel data mappings to a common data representation used within your ETL application; that is, map both external data fields to a common attribute whose name and type remain unchanged within the application. acc_no(varchar) is mapped to account_number(integer) expressor Studio first claim form schema mapping account_no(integer) is also mapped to account_number(integer) expressor Studio second claim form schema mapping All the data processing logic that follows manipulates the data as an integer value named account_number. Well, these are the kind of problems that that the expressor data integration solution automates for you. I’ve been following them since last year and encourage you to check them out by downloading their free expressor Studio ETL software. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Business Intelligence, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: ETL, SSIS

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