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• How to port animation from one skeleton to another?

  - by shawn

  While I need to do this in a Blender3D modeler script, the math should be similar for other modelers or realtime engines. Blender3D specific terminology: Armature = skeleton EditBone = rest pose bone (stores the rest pose matrix) PoseBone = can store a different pose (animation matrix) for each frame of your animation I need to share animations (Blender Actions) between Armatures which have EditBones with same names and which have the same positions, but can have different (rest pose) angles and scales. Plus the Armatures might have different bone hierarchy (bone parenting/ no bone parenting). Why I need this: I've made an importer/exporter for a 3d format for a game. The format doesn't store enough info to connect/parent the bones, which makes posing/animating character models in a 3d modeller nearly impossible (original model files for the 3d modeler don't exist, this is for modding). As there are only 2 character skeleton types in the game, I decided to optionally allow to generate the bone from a hardcoded data in the model importer and undo that in the exporter. This allows to easily pose the model for checking weights, easily create weights, makes it easier for Blender to generate automatic weights and of course makes animating possible. This worked perfectly: the importer optionally generated the Armature itself and the exporter removed those changes, so the exported model works with existing animations in the game. But now I'm writing an importer and exporter for the game's animation format and here come the problems of: Trying to make original animations work in Blender with my "custom" (modified) Armature Trying to make animations created by using the "custom" (modified) Armature work with the original models in the game (and Blender). Constraints or bone snapping inside Blender won't work as they don't care that the bones have different angles in the rest pose, they will still face the same direction. It seems I just need to get the "difference" between the EditBone matrices of all EditBones for the two Armatures somehow and apply that difference to PoseBone matrices of all PoseBones, for all frames of my animation. I need to know how to get that difference and how to apply it. BTW, PoseBone matrices are relative to rest pose, they are by default [1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000](matrix [row 0]) [0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000](matrix [row 1]) [0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000](matrix [row 2]) [0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000](matrix [row 3]) So the question is: How to get the difference between two bone (EditBone) matrices to apply that difference to the animation matrices (PoseBone matrices)? Please be easy on the matrix math.

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• Get to Know a Candidate (11 of 25): Roseanne Barr&ndash;Peace &amp; Freedom Party

  - by Brian Lanham

  DISCLAIMER: This is not a post about “Romney” or “Obama”. This is not a post for whom I am voting. Information sourced for Wikipedia. Barr is an American actress, comedienne, writer, television producer, and director.  Barr began her career in stand-up comedy at clubs before gaining fame for her role in the sitcom Roseanne. The show was a hit and lasted nine seasons, from 1988 to 1997. She won both an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her work on the show. Barr had crafted a "fierce working-class domestic goddess" persona in the eight years preceding her sitcom and wanted to do a realistic show about a strong mother who was not a victim of patriarchal consumerism. The granddaughter of immigrants from Europe and Russia, Barr was the oldest of four children in a working-class Jewish Salt Lake City family; she was also active in the LDS Church. In 1974 she married Bill Pentland, with whom she had three children, before divorcing in 1990 and marrying comedian Tom Arnold for four years. Controversy arose when she sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" off-key at a 1990 nationally aired baseball game, followed by grabbing her crotch and spitting. After her sitcom ended, she launched her own talk show, The Roseanne Show, which aired from 1998 to 2000. In 2005, she returned to stand-up comedy with a world tour. In 2011, she starred in an unscripted TV show, Roseanne's Nuts that lasted from July to September of that year, about her life on a Hawaiian farm. The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a nationally-organized political party with affiliates in more than a dozen states, including California, Florida, Colorado and Hawaii. Its first candidates appeared on the ballot in 1966, but the Peace and Freedom Party of California was founded on June 23, 1967, after the LAPD riot in the wealthy Century City section of Los Angeles, and qualified for the ballot in January 1968.  The Peace and Freedom Party went national in 1968 as a left-wing organization opposed to the Vietnam War. From its inception, Peace and Freedom Party has been a left-wing political organization. It is a strong advocate of protecting the environment from pollution and nuclear waste. It advocates personal liberties and universal, high quality and free access to education and health care. Its understanding of socialism includes a socialist economy, where industries, financial institutions, and natural resources are owned by the people as a whole and democratically managed by the people who work in them and use them. Barr is on the Ballot in: CA, CO, FL Learn more about Roseanne Barr and Peace and Freedom Party on Wikipedia.

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• On The Road with the HR Community

  - by Kathryn Perry

  A guest post by Steve Boese, Director, Talent Strategy, Oracle One of the best ways to connect with and to get a feel for what is on the minds of Human Resources leaders is to get out of the office and hit the road. I’ve had the great honor to attend and/or present at a number of events recently, including the massive SHRM Annual Conference, the HR Florida Conference, and Taleo World in Chicago. These events, and many others, offer solution providers, talent management professionals, business leaders, and even more casual observers of the Human Resources field with tremendous opportunities to connect, to share information, and to learn from each other. Attending the conferences also give people a sense of how they can improve and enhance their skills and knowledge, learn about the latest workforce technologies, and bring new and innovative ideas back to their organizations. And sure, the parties and conference swag can be pretty nice as well! If you attend a few of these industry events, one of the most beneficial by-products that you can emerge with -- whether you are on the front lines in HR at your organization, or as we are at Oracle, in the business of developing and delivering innovative and impactful technology solutions to our customers -- is to get a larger sense of the big ideas and major trends, concerns, and challenges facing organizations all across the landscape, and to be able to better understand how your strategies and solutions can be improved with this greater perspective. So what are HR folks discussing and debating? What questions and problems keep them up at night? What are the bloggers and large community of HR social media enthusiasts buzzing about? From my perspective some of the common themes you see over and again across the HR community break down (broadly), into three main areas: Talent attraction - How can we locate, attract, recruit, and hire the best talent possible? What new strategies, approaches, and technologies can help us in this critically important area? What role do external social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter play in the increasingly competitive search for talent? Talent Retention - How can we make sure to keep that talent on our team? What engagement, development, recognition, and compensation tools can help us in this regard? How can we continue, (or become), an employer of choice? What is our unique and compelling employer value proposition? Talent Empowerment - How can we put our employees in the best position to succeed? What can we do to better align our talent with the organization’s mission and goals, while simultaneously providing the best and most driven to succeed individuals a clear path to achieve their career goals and aspirations? How can new technologies, particularly social and collaboration tools help in this area? While these are the ‘big themes’ that I know I have seen this year, certainly they are not really new, nor are they likely to fundamentally change in the next year or two. I think the reason is that at the core of any successful enterprise is a collection of smart, interested, engaged, challenged, and empowered group of people. And that was likely the case 10 or 20 years ago, and will probably be the case 10 or 20 years into the future. But what has changed, and what you can see -- evidenced by simply following the Twitter backchannel for an event and by reading some of the many fantastic HR blogs out there -- is that the HR professional's ability, along with technology solution providers like Oracle, to connect, to more openly share information with each other, and to make each other better in the process, (and to create new, improved, and more innovative solutions), has never been greater. And I think it is with this heretofore unprecedented level of opportunity to connect with other members of the community that HR professionals will be better equipped to help their organizations attract, retain, and empower their teams. We at Oracle HCM look forward to continuing to meet, engage, and connect with the HR community in the coming months. Until then -- follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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• The inevitable Hello World post!

  - by brendonpage

  Greetings to anyone reading this! This is my first of hopefully many posts. I would like to use this post to introduce myself and to let you know what to expect from this blog in future. Okay so a bit about myself. In case you missed the name of this blog, my name is Brendon Page! I am a Software Developer from South Africa and work for a small company who’s main focus is producing software for the kitchen cupboard industry, although from time to time we do produce custom solutions for other industries. I work in a small team of 3, including myself, and am fortunate enough to work from home! I have been involved in IT since 1996, which is when I got my first PC, and started working as a junior programmer in 2003. Outside of work I enjoy playing squash, PC Games and of course LANing with my friends. If I get any free time between all of that I will usually dedicate some of it to a personal project, these are mainly prototypes for an idea I have had or for something that could be useful at work. I was in 2 minds on whether to include a photo of myself. The reason for this was because while I was looking for a suitable photo to use, it dawned on me how much time I dedicate to pulling funny faces in photos! I also realized how little I shave, which I blame completely on working form home. So after much debate here I am, funny face, beard and all!   Now that you know a bit about me lets move onto what expect from this blog. I work predominantly with Microsoft technologies so most if not all of my posts will be related to something Microsoft. Since most of my job entails Software Development you can expect a lot of posts which will deal with the .NET Framework. I am currently working on a large Silverlight project, so my first few posts will be targeted at in that direction. I will be striving to make the content of my posts as useful as possible from both an explanation and code perspective, I aim to include a working solution for every post, which I will put up on my skydrive for download. Here is what I have planned for my next few posts: Where did my session variables go?  Here I will take you through the lessons I learnt the hard way about the ASP.NET session. I am not going to go into to much depth in this post, as there is already a lot of information available on it. I mainly want to cover it in an effort to keep the scope creep of my posts to a minimum, some the solutions I upload will use it and I would like to have a post that I can reference to explain why I am doing something a certain way. Uploading files through SIlverlight Again there is a lot of existing information on this topic, so I wont be going into to much depth, but I will be using the solution from this as a base for my next post. Generating and Displaying DeepZoom images dynamically in Silverlight Well the title pretty much speaks for it’s self on this one. As I mentioned I will be building off the solution that I create in my ‘Uploading files through Silverlight’ post. Securing DeepZoom images using a custom implementation of the MultiScaleTileSource In this post I will look at the privacy issue surrounding the default usage of DeepZoom images in Silverlight and how to overcome it. This makes the use of DeepZoom in privacy conscious applications more viable. Thanks to anyone who actually read this post! I look forward to producing more which will hopefully be helpful to you.

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• Nominations now open for the Oracle FMW Excellence Awards 2014

  - by Greg Jensen

  2014 Oracle Excellence Award NominationsWho Is the Innovative Leader for Identity Management? •    Is your organization leveraging one of Oracle’s Identity and Access Management solutions in your production environment?•    Are you a leading edge organization that has adopted a forward thinking approach to Identity and Access Management processes across the organization?•    Are you ready to promote and highlight the success of your deployment to your peers? •    Would you a chance to win FREE registration to Oracle OpenWorld 2014? Oracle is pleased to announce the call for nominations for the 2014 Oracle Excellence Awards: Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation.  The Oracle Excellence Awards for Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation honor organizations using Oracle Fusion Middleware to deliver unique business value.  This year, the awards will recognize customers across nine distinct categories, including Identity and Access Management.  Oracle customers, who feel they are pioneers in their implementation of at least one of the Oracle Identity and Access Management offerings in a production environment or active deployment, should submit a nomination.  If submitted by June 20th, 2014, you will have a chance to win a FREE registration to Oracle OpenWorld 2014 (September 28 - October 2) in San Francisco, CA.  Top customers will be showcased at Oracle OpenWorld and featured in Oracle publications.   The  Identity and Access Management Nomination Form Additional benefits to nomineesNominating your organization opens additional opportunities to partner with Oracle such as:•    Promotion of your Customer Success StoriesProvides a platform for you to share the success of your initiatives and programs to peer groups raising the overall visibility of your team and your organization as a leader in security•    Social Media promotion (Video, Blog & Podcast)Reach the masses of Oracle’s customers through sharing of success stories, or customer created blog content that highlights the advanced thought leadership role in security with co-authored articles on Oracle Blog page that reaches close to 100,000 subscribers. There are numerous options to promote activities on Facebook, Twitter and co-branded activities using Video and Audio. •    Live speaking opportunities to your peersAs a technology leader within your organization, you can represent your organization at Oracle sponsored events (online, in person or webcasts) to help share the success of your organizations efforts building out your team/organization brand and success. •    Invitation to the IDM Architect ForumOracle is able to invite the right customers into the IDM Architect Forum which is an invite only group of customers that meet monthly to hear technology driven presentations from their own peers (not from Oracle) on today’s trends.  If you want to hear privately what some of the most successful companies in every industry are doing about security, this is the forum to be in. All presentations are private and remain within the forum, and only members can see take advantage of the lessons gained from these meetings.  To date, there are 125 members. There are many more advantages to partnering with Oracle, however, it can start with the simple nomination form for Identity and Access Management category of the 2014 Oracle Excellence Award Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

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• To SYNC or not to SYNC – Part 4

  - by AshishRay

  This is Part 4 of a multi-part blog article where we are discussing various aspects of setting up Data Guard synchronous redo transport (SYNC). In Part 1 of this article, I debunked the myth that Data Guard SYNC is similar to a two-phase commit operation. In Part 2, I discussed the various ways that network latency may or may not impact a Data Guard SYNC configuration. In Part 3, I talked in details regarding why Data Guard SYNC is a good thing, and the distance implications you have to keep in mind. In this final article of the series, I will talk about how you can nicely complement Data Guard SYNC with the ability to failover in seconds. Wait - Did I Say “Seconds”? Did I just say that some customers do Data Guard failover in seconds? Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Data Guard has an automatic failover capability, aptly called Fast-Start Failover. Initially available with Oracle Database 10g Release 2 for Data Guard SYNC transport mode (and enhanced in Oracle Database 11g to support Data Guard ASYNC transport mode), this capability, managed by Data Guard Broker, lets your Data Guard configuration automatically failover to a designated standby database. Yes, this means no human intervention is required to do the failover. This process is controlled by a low footprint Data Guard Broker client called Observer, which makes sure that the primary database and the designated standby database are behaving like good kids. If something bad were to happen to the primary database, the Observer, after a configurable threshold period, tells that standby, “Your time has come, you are the chosen one!” The standby dutifully follows the Observer directives by assuming the role of the new primary database. The DBA or the Sys Admin doesn’t need to be involved. And - in case you are following this discussion very closely, and are wondering … “Hmmm … what if the old primary is not really dead, but just network isolated from the Observer or the standby - won’t this lead to a split-brain situation?” The answer is No - It Doesn’t. With respect to why-it-doesn’t, I am sure there are some smart DBAs in the audience who can explain the technical reasons. Otherwise - that will be the material for a future blog post. So - this combination of SYNC and Fast-Start Failover is the nirvana of lights-out, integrated HA and DR, as practiced by some of our advanced customers. They have observed failover times (with no data loss) ranging from single-digit seconds to tens of seconds. With this, they support operations in industry verticals such as manufacturing, retail, telecom, Internet, etc. that have the most demanding availability requirements. One of our leading customers with massive cloud deployment initiatives tells us that they know about server failures only after Data Guard has automatically completed the failover process and the app is back up and running! Needless to mention, Data Guard Broker has the integration hooks for interfaces such as JDBC and OCI, or even for custom apps, to ensure the application gets automatically rerouted to the new primary database after the database level failover completes. Net Net? To sum up this multi-part blog article, Data Guard with SYNC redo transport mode, plus Fast-Start Failover, gives you the ideal triple-combo - that is, it gives you the assurance that for critical outages, you can failover your Oracle databases: very fast without human intervention, and without losing any data. In short, it takes the element of risk out of critical IT operations. It does require you to be more careful with your network and systems planning, but as far as HA is concerned, the benefits outweigh the investment costs. So, this is what we in the MAA Development Team believe in. What do you think? How has your deployment experience been? We look forward to hearing from you!

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• SceneManagers as systems in entity system or as a core class used by a system?

  - by Hatoru Hansou

  It seems entity systems are really popular here. Links posted by other users convinced me of the power of such system and I decided to try it. (Well, that and my original code getting messy) In my project, I originally had a SceneManager class that maintained needed logic and structures to organize the scene (QuadTree, 2D game). Before rendering I call selectRect() and pass the x,y of the camera and the width and height of the screen and then obtain a minimized list containing only visible entities ordered from back to front. Now with Systems, originally in my first attempt my Render system required to get added all entities it should handle. This may sound like the correct approach but I realized this was not efficient. Trying to optimize It I reused the SceneManager class internally in the Renderer system, but then I realized I needed methods such as selectRect() in others systems too (AI principally) and make the SceneManager accessible globally again. Currently I converted SceneManager to a system, and ended up with the following interface (only relevant methods): /// Base system interface class System { public: virtual void tick (double delta_time) = 0; // (methods to add and remove entities) }; typedef std::vector<Entity*> EntitiesVector; /// Specialized system interface to allow query the scene class SceneManager: public System { public: virtual EntitiesVector& cull () = 0; /// Sets the entity to be used as the camera and replaces previous ones. virtual void setCamera (Entity* entity) = 0; }; class SceneRenderer // Not a system { vitual void render (EntitiesVector& entities) = 0; }; Also I could not guess how to convert renderers to systems. My game separates logic updates from screen updates, my main class have a tick() method and a render() method that may not be called the same times. In my first attempt renderers were systems but they was saved in a separated manager, updated only in render() and not in tick() like all other systems. I realized that was silly and simply created a SceneRenderer interface and give up about converting them to systems, but that may be for another question. Then... something does not feel right, isn't it? If I understood correctly a system should not depend on another or even count with another system exposing an specific interface. Each system should care only about its entities, or nodes (as optimization, so they have direct references to relevant components without having to constantly call the component() or getComponent() method of the entity).

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• Sunshine after the iCloud release?

  - by Laila

  "Why should I believe them? They're the ones that brought us MobileMe? It was not our finest hour, but we learned a lot." Steve Jobs June 6th 2011 Apple's new cloud service has been met with uncritical excitement by industry commentators.  It is wonderful what a rename can do.  Apple has had a 'cloud' offering for three years called MobileMe, successor to .MAC and  iTools, so iCloud is now the fourth internet service Apple have attempted. If this had been Microsoft, there would have been catcalls all around the blogosphere.  I'll admit that there is a lot more functionality announced for iCloud than MobileMe has ever managed to achieve, but then almost anything has more functionality than MobileMe.  It's an expensive service (£120 a year in the UK, $90 in the states), launched as far back as  June 9, 2008, that has delivered very little and suffered a string of technical problems; the documentation was mainly  a community effort, built up gradually by the frustrated and angry users. It was supposed to synchronise PC Outlook calendars but couldn't manage Microsoft Exchange (Google could, of course). It used WebDAV to allow Windows users to attach to the filestore, but didn't document how to do it. The method for downloading and uploading files to the cloud-based filestore was ridiculously clunky. It allowed you to post photos on a public site, but forgot to include a way of deleting photos. I could go on with the list, but you can explore the many sites that have flourished to inhabit the support-vacuum left by Apple. MobileMe should have had all the bright new clever things announced for iCloud. Apple dropped the ball, and allowed services such as Flickr to fill the void. However, their PR skills are such that, a name-change later (the .ME.com email address remains), it has turned a rout into a victory, and hundreds of earnest bloggers have been extolling Apple's expertise in cloud matters. This must be frustrating for the other cloud providers who have quietly got the technology working right. I wish iCloud well, even though I resent the expensive mess they made of MobileMe. Apple promise that iCloud will sync files, apps, app data, and media across all the different iOS5 devices, Macs, and PCs. It also hopes to sync music across devices, but not video content. They've offered existing MobileMe users free use of the MobileMe service for a year as the product is morphed, and they will be able to transfer to iCloud when it is launched in the autumn.  On June 30, 2012, MobileMe will die, and Apple's iWeb is also soon to join iTools and .MAC in the hereafter. So why get excited about iCloud? That all depends on the level of PC integration. Whereas iOS5 machines will be full participants in the new world of data-sharing (Sorry iPod Touch users) what about .NET libraries? There is talk of synchronising 'My Pictures' libraries with iOS5 and iMac machines, but little more detail as yet. Apple has a lot to prove with iCloud and anyone with actual experience of their past attempts to get into cloud services will be wary.

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• Configure Calendar Server 7 to Use the davUniqueId Attribute

  - by dabrain

  Starting with Calendar Server 7 Update 3 (Patch 08) we introduce a new attribute davUniqueId in the davEntity objectclass, to use as the unique identifier.  The reason behind this is quite simple, the LDAP operational attribute nsUniqueId  has been chosen as the default value used for the unique identifier. It was discovered that this choice has a potential serious downside. The problem with using nsUniqueId is that if the LDAP entry for a user, group, or resource is deleted and recreated in LDAP, the new entry would receive a different nsUniqueId value from the Directory Server, causing a disconnect from the existing account in the calendar database. As a result, recreated users cannot access their existing calendars. How To Configure Calendar Server to Use the davUniqueId Attribute? Populate the davUniqueId to the ldap users. You can create a LDIF output file only or (-x option) directly run the ldapmodify from the populate-davuniqueid shell script. # ./populate-davuniqueid -h localhost -p 389 -D "cn=Directory Manager" -w <passwd> -b "o=red" -O -o /tmp/out.ldif The ldapmodify might failed like below, in that case the LDAP entry already have the 'daventity' objectclass, in those cases run populate-davuniqueid script without the -O option. # ldapmodify -x -h localhost -p 389 -D "cn=Directory Manager" -w <passwd> -c -f /tmp/out.ldif modifying entry "uid=mparis,ou=People,o=vmdomain.tld,o=red" ldapmodify: Type or value exists (20) In this case the user 'mparis' already have the objectclass 'daventity', ldapmodify do not take care of this DN and just take the next DN (if you start ldapmodify with -c option otherwise it stop's completely) dn: uid=mparis,ou=People,o=vmdomain.tld,o=red changetype: modify add: objectclass objectclass: daventity - add: davuniqueid davuniqueid: 01a2c501-af0411e1-809de373-18ff5c8d Even run populate-davuniqueid without -O option or changing the outputfile to dn: uid=mparis,ou=People,o=vmdomain.tld,o=red changetype: modify add: davuniqueid davuniqueid: 01a2c501-af0411e1-809de373-18ff5c8d The ldapmodify works fine now. The only issue I see here is you need verify which user might need the 'daventity' objectclass as well. On the other hand start without the objectclass and only add the objectclass for the users where you get 'Objectclass violation' report. That's indicate the objectclass is missing. # ldapmodify -x -h localhost -p 389 -D "cn=Directory Manager" -w <passwd> -c -f /tmp/out.ldif modifying entry "uid=mparis,ou=People,o=vmdomain.tld,o=red" Now it is time to change the configuration to use the davuniquid attribute # ./davadmin config modify -o davcore.uriinfo.permanentuniqueid -v davuniqueid It is also needed to modfiy the search filter to use davuniqueid instead of nsuniqueid # ./davadmin config modify -o davcore.uriinfo.subjectattributes -v "cn davstore icsstatus mail mailalternateaddress davUniqueId  owner preferredlanguageuid objectclass ismemberof uniquemember memberurl mgrprfc822mailmember" Afterward IWC Calendar works fine and my test user able to access all his old events.

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• Process Is The New App by Leon Smiers

  - by JuergenKress

  Process-on-the-Fly #2 - Process is the New App The next generation of business process management and business rules management tools is so powerful that it actually can be seen as the successor to custom-built applications. Being able to define detailed process, flows, decision trees and business helps on both the business and IT side to create powerful, differentiating solutions that would have required extensive custom coding in the past. Now much of the definition can be done ‘on the fly,’ using visual models and (semi) natural language in the nearest proximity to the business. Over the years, ERP systems have been customized to enter organization-specific functionality into the ERP application. This leads to better support for the business, but at the same time involves higher costs for maintenance, high dependency on the personnel involved in this customization, long timelines to deliver change to the system and increased risk involved in upgrading the ERP system. However, the best of both worlds can be created by bringing back the functionality to out-of-the-box usage of the ERP system and at the same time introducing change and flexibility by means of externalized 'Process Apps' in direct connection with the ERP system. The ERP system (or legacy bespoke system, for that matter) is used as originally intended and designed, resulting in more predictable behavior of the system related to usage and performance, and clearly can be maintained in a more standardized and cost-effective way. The Prrocess App externalizes the needed functionality into a highly customizable application outside the ERP for which it is supported by rules engines, task inboxes and can be delivered to different channels. The reasons for needing Process Apps may include the following: The ERP system just doesn't deliver this functionality in a specific industry; the volatility of changing certain functionality is high; or an umbrella type of functionality across (ERP) silos is needed. An example of bringing all this together is around the hiring process for a new employee at a university. Oracle PeopleSoft HCM could be used as the HR system to store all employee details. In the hiring process, an authorization scheme is involved for getting the approval to create a contract for the employee-to-be. In the university world, this authorization scheme is complex and involves faculties/colleges (with different organizational structures) and cross-faculty organizational structures. Including such an authorization scheme into PeopleSoft would require a lot of customization. By adding a handle inside PeopleSoft towards an externalized authorization Process App, the execution of the authorization of the employee is done outside the ERP: in a tool that is aimed to deliver approval schemes via a worklist-type of application. The Process App here works as an add-on to the PeopleSoft system, but can also be extended to support the full lifecycle of the end-to-end hiring process with the possibility to involve multiple applications. The actual core functionality is kept in the supporting ERP systems, while at the same time the Process App acts as an umbrella function to control the end-to-end flow and give insight into the efficiency of the end-to-end process. How to get there? Read the complete article here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Technorati Tags: Capgemini,Leon Smiers,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• An Epic Question "How to call a method when the page loads"

  - by Arunkumar Ramamoorthy

  Quite often, there comes a question in OTN, with different subjects, all meaning "How to call a method when my ADF page loads?". More often, people tend to take the approach of ADF Phase Listener by overriding before/afterPhase methods.In this blog, we will go through different options in achieving it.1. Method Call Activity as default activity in Taskflow :If the application is built with taskflows, then this is the best suited approach to take. 1.a. Calling a Data Control Method :To call a Data Control method (ex: A method in AMImpl exposed as client interface), simply Drag and Drop the method as Default Method Call Activity, then draw a control flow case from the method to your page. Once after this, drop the taskflow as region in main page. When we run the main page, the Method Call Activity would be called first, and then the page will be rendered.1.b. Calling a Method in Backing Bean: To call a method in the backing bean before pageload, we can follow the similar approach as above. Instead of binding the Method Call Activity to an action/method binding in pagedef, we bind to the method. Insert a Method Call Activity (and make it as default) from the Component Palette. Double click on to select a method to bind. This approach can also be used, to perform some action in backing bean along with calling a method Data Control (just need to add bindings code in backing bean to execute DC method). 2. Using invokeAction Executable :If the application is built with pages and no taskflows are involved, then this option can be taken into consideration.In the page definition of the page, add an invokeAction Executable and bind it to the method needed to be executed. 3. Using combination of Server and Client Listeners : If the page does not have any page definition, then to call a method in backing bean, this approach can be taken. In this, a serverListener would be added at the document level, which would be calling the method in backing bean. Along with this, a clientListener would be added with "load" type (i.e will be triggered when the page loads), which would queue a serverEvent to trigger the method. 4. Using Page Phase Listener :This should be the last resort. Care should be taken when using this approach since the Phase Listener would be called for each request sent by the client.Zeeshan Baig's blog covers this scenario.

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• An Epic Question "How to call a method when the page loads"

  - by Arunkumar Ramamoorthy

  Quite often, there comes a question in OTN, with different subjects, all meaning "How to call a method when my ADF page loads?". More often, people tend to take the approach of ADF Phase Listener by overriding before/afterPhase methods.In this blog, we will go through different options in achieving it.1. Method Call Activity as default activity in Taskflow :If the application is built with taskflows, then this is the best suited approach to take. 1.a. Calling a Data Control Method :To call a Data Control method (ex: A method in AMImpl exposed as client interface), simply Drag and Drop the method as Default Method Call Activity, then draw a control flow case from the method to your page. Once after this, drop the taskflow as region in main page. When we run the main page, the Method Call Activity would be called first, and then the page will be rendered.1.b. Calling a Method in Backing Bean: To call a method in the backing bean before pageload, we can follow the similar approach as above. Instead of binding the Method Call Activity to an action/method binding in pagedef, we bind to the method. Insert a Method Call Activity (and make it as default) from the Component Palette. Double click on to select a method to bind. This approach can also be used, to perform some action in backing bean along with calling a method Data Control (just need to add bindings code in backing bean to execute DC method). 2. Using invokeAction Executable :If the application is built with pages and no taskflows are involved, then this option can be taken into consideration.In the page definition of the page, add an invokeAction Executable and bind it to the method needed to be executed. 3. Using combination of Server and Client Listeners : If the page does not have any page definition, then to call a method in backing bean, this approach can be taken. In this, a serverListener would be added at the document level, which would be calling the method in backing bean. Along with this, a clientListener would be added with "load" type (i.e will be triggered when the page loads), which would queue a serverEvent to trigger the method. 4. Using Page Phase Listener :This should be the last resort. Care should be taken when using this approach since the Phase Listener would be called for each request sent by the client.Zeeshan Baig's blog covers this scenario.

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• Cloud Apps News @#OOW12

  - by Natalia Rachelson

  All eyes were on Oracle this past week and the news cycle was in full swing. What better time to make some key announcements that were guaranteed to create buzz ... and so we did. The name of the game was Cloud! Here are the key Cloud announcements for Apps, which included Fusion Tap that enables mobility across all Cloud Apps, HCM customer momentum in the Cloud, and our very first ERP Cloud Services customer. Oracle Unveils Oracle Fusion Tap for the iPadOracle Fusion Tap - Productivity Amplified Anywhere, Anytime "Both the enterprise and technology providers must recognize the need to innovate and adapt for the increasing mobility of the workforce - not just for sales teams, but across the organization," said Carter Lusher, Research Fellow and Chief Analyst of Enterprise Applications Ecosystem, Ovum. "A mobile application that quickly and powerfully allows employees to make connections, analyze data, and complete activities at any time and wherever they may be located drives new levels of business value and enhances efficiency. Frankly, mobile access is no longer a 'nice to have' but a 'must have.'"  "The mobile workforce is a business reality, and Oracle Fusion Tap is an example of how Oracle delivers mobile and cloud innovations that fundamentally improve productivity and how we work," said Chris Leone, Senior Vice President of Application Development, Oracle. "With Oracle Fusion Tap users will have an all-in-one, easily extensible app that puts mission-critical data and colleague connection at their fingertips." The entire release is available here http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1855392 Customers Live on Oracle Fusion Human Capital ManagementOracle HCM Cloud Service Helps Power HR's Contribution to the Business "More than 25 of the 100-plus customers who have selected Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM) are already live. Ardent Leisure, Peach Aviation, Toshiba Medical Systems and Zillow have deployed Oracle HCM Cloud Service and are using it to transform their HR operations. They join companies such as Principal Financial Group and Elizabeth Arden, who are already using Oracle HCM Cloud Service to help manage international growth and deliver pervasive, role-based, configurable solutions to their employees. With these recent go-lives, Oracle takes a leading position in successfully bringing live HCM customers in the cloud."  "As a technology company, Zillow looked to a partner who could scale with us. Zillow has gone live on Oracle HCM Cloud Service, which will give us the ability automate and streamline HR operations for our employees in the near future," said Sarah Bilton, Senior Director HR, Zillow. Read the entire release here http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1859573 Lending Club Selects Oracle ERP Cloud Service to Help Increase Insight and EfficienciesOracle ERP Cloud Service Provides an Open Architecture, Best-of-Breed Decision-Making, and Scalability in the Cloud "Lending Club, the leading platform for investing in and obtaining personal loans, has selected Oracle ERP Cloud Service to help improve decision-making and workflow, implement robust reporting, and take advantage of the inherent scalability and cost savings provided by the cloud. With more than 76,000 borrowers and 90,000 investors Lending Club utilizes technology and innovation to reduce the cost of traditional banking and offer borrowers better rates and investors better returns.  After an extensive search, Lending Club selected Oracle ERP Cloud Service due to the breadth and depth of capabilities and ongoing innovation of Oracle ERP Cloud Service, as well as Oracle's open architecture, industry leadership and commitment to partners." "Lending Club is an innovative, data-intensive, high-growth company and we needed a solution and partner that could match us," said Carrie Dolan, CFO, Lending Club. "We conducted a thorough review of our options, and Oracle ERP Cloud Service was the clear winner in terms of capabilities and business value as well as commitment to us as a customer." Read the entire release here http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1859020

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• MSFT new trick to promote IE9 by kill IE6 first.

  - by anirudha

  Every developer know every issue on development for IE6 whenever they know things more. they are frustrated whenever they spent time in IE6 for making application cross browser compatible. not long time ago MSFT make a campaign save IE6 you can find the reference http://blogs.msdn.com/b/anna/archive/2009/04/01/save-internet-explorer-6.aspx and the webstite is here http://www.saveie6.com/ well they really make joke see what they write on the page. well why website maked in PHP whenever they can make them in asp.net or any other technology who reflect the Microsoft technology see here  http://www.saveie6.com/compare.php High security (many updates) :- you can find IE6 is how much secure you can also read Wikipedia for know. well i can say IE6 is very easily to hack. wikipedia tell you about that here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_6 and for know about the security watch here http://www.google.co.in/webhp?hl=en#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=webhp&q=ie6+security+issues Lightweight (no support for silly PNG transparency, etc) :- well they tell PNG silly but tell me about the best format on internet. their is no better option as png or SVG. More screen space thanks to no tabs:-  they tell this nonsense without think anything. if they really care about more screen space why they make tab  in 7,8,9. conclusion:- IE team make a research on how to promote IE9 better then they can beat chrome and Firefox. because IE9 not have anything good like customization , plug-in ,add-ons , personas , themes and many other thing like chrome and Firefox provided perhaps IE is outdated thing even everyone their can writing about these days that IE9 have this, have performance better then this… the main problem in IE is IE6. many developer hate them because many of their time goes for making site cross browser compatible. in 2009 they still have no blah like IE9 who they have today so they make a campaign for save IE6. the list they make is a joke. they show that everything in IE6 is perfect even everyone know the truth. they listed IE6 is high security. in 2011 their is a problem for IE9 promotion called IE6. because developer hate IE6 how they can promote IE9 very well. so destroy IE6 is only option for IE9 make promote better. so you can see they make two different different campaign and both are opposite of other. well  how we can believe in IE9. thanks for reading this post. what you thinking on it. have a idea or feedback reported them.

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• Mock RequireJS define dependencies with config.map

  - by Aligned

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Aligned/archive/2014/08/18/mock-requirejs-define-dependencies-with-config.map.aspxI had a module dependency, that I’m pulling down with RequireJS that I needed to use and write tests against. In this case, I don’t care about the actual implementation of the module (it’s simple enough that I’m just avoiding some AJAX calls). EDIT: make sure you look at the bottom example after the edit before using the config.map approach. I found that there is an easier way. I did not want to change the constructor of the consumer as I had a chain of changes that would have to be made and that would have been to invasive for this task. I found a question on StackOverflow with a short, but helpful answer from “Artem Oboturov”. We can use the config.map from RequireJs to achieve this. Here is some code: A module example (“usefulModule” in Common/Modules/usefulModule.js): define([], function() { "use strict"; var testMethod = function() { ... }; // add more functionality of the module return { testMethod; } }); A consumer of usefulModule example: define([ "Commmon/Modules/usefulModule" ], function(usefulModule) { "use strict"; var consumerModule = function(){ var self = this; // add functionality of the module } }); Using config.map in the html of the test runner page (and in your Karma config –> I’m still trying to figure this out): map: {'*': { // replace usefulModule with a mock 'Common/Modules/usefulModule': '/Tests/Specs/Common/usefulModuleMock.js' } } With the new mapping, Require will load usefulModuleMock.js from Tests/Specs/Common instead of the real implementation. Some of the answers on StackOverflow mentioned Squire.js, which looked interesting, but I wasn’t ready to introduce a new library at this time. That’s all you need to be able to mock a depency in RequireJS. However, there are many good cases when you should pass it in through the constructor instead of this approach.   EDIT: After all that, here’s another, probably better way: The consumer class, updated: define([ "Commmon/Modules/usefulModule" ], function(UsefulModule) { "use strict"; var consumerModule = function(){ var self = this; self.usefulModule = new UsefulModule(); // add functionality of the module } }); Jasmine test: define([ "consumerModule", "/UnitTests/Specs/Common/Mocks/usefulModuleMock.js" ], function(consumerModule, UsefulModuleMock){ describe("when mocking out the module", function(){ it("should probably just override the property", function(){ var consumer = new consumerModule(); consumer.usefulModule = new UsefulModuleMock(); }); }); });   Thanks for letting me think out loud :-).

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• What You Can Learn from the NFL Referee Lockout

  - by Christina McKeon

  American football is a lot like religion. The fans are devoted followers that take brand loyalty to a whole new level. These fans that worship their teams each week showed that they are powerful customers whose voice has an impact. Yesterday, these fans proved that their opinion could force the hand of a large and powerful institution. With a three-month NFL referee lockout that seemed like it was nowhere close to resolution, the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks competed last Monday night. For those of you that might have been out of the news cycle the past few days, Green Bay lost the game due to a controversial call that many experts and analysts agree should have resulted in Green Bay winning the game. Outrage ensued. The NFL had pulled replacement referees from the high school ranks, and these replacements did not have the knowledge and experience to handle high intensity NFL games. Fans protested about their customer experience. Their anger-filled rants were heard in social media, in the headlines of newspapers, on radio, and on national TV. Suddenly, the NFL was moved to reach an agreement with the referees. That agreement was reached late in the night on Wednesday with many believing that the referees had the upper hand forcing the owners into submission. Some might argue that the referees benefited, not the fans. Since the fans wanted qualified and competent referees, I would say the fans did benefit. The referees are scheduled to return to the field this Sunday, so the fans got what they wanted. What can you learn from this negative customer experience? Customers are in control. NFL owners thought they were controlling this situation with the upper hand over referees. The owners figured out they weren’t in control when their fans reacted negatively. Customers can make or break you more now than ever before, which is why it is more important to connect with them, engage them in a personal manner, and create rewarding relationships. Protect your brand. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, the NFL put their brand and each team’s brand at risk with replacement referees. Think about each business decision you make, and how it may impact your brand at different points in time. A decision that results in a gain today could result in a larger loss down the road. Customer experience matters. The NFL likely foresaw declining revenues in ticket sales, merchandising, advertising, and other areas if the lockout continued. While fans primarily spoke with their minds in the days following the Green Bay debacle, their wallets would be the next things to speak. Customer experience directly affects your success and is one of the few areas where you can differentiate your business. What would you do if your brand got such negative attention? Would you be prepared to navigate such stormy waters? Would you be able to prevent such a fiasco? If you don’t have a good answer to these questions, consider joining us October 3-5, 2012 at the Oracle Customer Experience Summit in San Francisco. You’ll have the opportunity to learn even more about customer experience from industry experts such as best-selling author Seth Godin, Paul Hagen and Kerry Bodine from Forrester Research, Inc., George Kembel from the Stanford d.School, Bruce Temkin of The Temkin Group, and Gene Alvarez from Gartner Inc.. There will also be plenty of your peers and customer experience experts available for networking and discussions.

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• History of Mobile Technology

  - by David Dorf

  Over the last ten years, mobile phones have gone through several incremental technology leaps that have added capabilities that impact the retail industry.  I've listed the six major ones below, along with their long-lasting impact. 1. Location In the US, the FCC required mobile phones to implement E911 (emergency calls) by 2006, requiring the caller to be located to within 300 meters.  Back in 2000, GPS was opened up for civilian use, and by 2004 Qualcomm had figured out how to use GPS in mobile phones.  So mobile operators moved from cell tower triangulation to GPS, principally for E911.  But then lots of other uses became apparent, especially navigation.  The earliest mobile apps from retailers made it easy to find nearby stores, and companies are looking at ways to use WiFi triangulation inside stores. 2. Computer Vision In 1997 Philippe Kahn shared a photo of his newborn using a mobile phone thus launching the popularity of instant visual communications.  Over the years the quality of the cameras got better, reaching the point where barcodes could be read around 2008.  That's when Occipital came on the scene with their Red Laser application, which was eventually acquired by eBay.  This opened up the ability for consumers to easily price compare inside stores.  Other interesting apps included Tesco's Wine Finder and Amazon's Price Checker, both allowing products to be identified by picture. 3. Augmented Reality Once the mobile phone had GPS, a video camera, and compass functionality it was suddenly possible to overlay digital information on the screen in real-time.  Yelp, which was using GPS to find nearby merchants, created a backdoor called Monocle on the iPhone that showed nearby merchants overlayed on the video camera view.  Today AR apps are mostly used by retailers for marketing, like Moosejaw's app that undresses models in their catalog. 4. Geo-Fencing So if we're able to track the location of a mobile phone, why not use that context to offer timely information?  My first experience with geo-fencing came courtesy of North Face, the outdoor enthusiast store. When a mobile phone enters a predetermined area, like near a store, a text message is sent to phone with an offer or useful information.  Of course retailers can geo-fence their competitors as well and find out which customers are aren't so loyal. 5. Digital Wallet Mobile payments leverage different technologies such as NFC, QRCodes, bluetooth, and SMS to facilitate communication between the consumers's phone and the retailer's point-of-sale. The key here is the potential to consolidate loyalty cards, coupons, and bank cards into the mobile phone and enable faster checkout.  Nobody does this better than Starbucks today, but McDonald's and Duncan Donuts aren't far behind.  Google, Isis, Paypal, Square, and MCX are all vying for leadership in this area.  If NFC does finally take off, it will be leveraged by retailers in more places than just the POS. 6. Voice Response Mobile Phones have had the ability to interpret simple voice commands for a while, but Google and Amazon were the first to use voice to allow searches for products.  Allowing searches by text, barcode, and voice makes it easy to comparison shop in the aisles.  Walmart even uses voice to build shopping lists, and if the Siri API is even opened we could see lots more innovation in this area.

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• Oracle at HR Tech: What a Difference a Year Makes

  - by Natalia Rachelson

  Last week, I had the privilege of attending the famous HR Technology Conference (HR Tech) in my new hometown of Chicago. This annual event, which draws the who of who in the world of HR technology, was by far the biggest.  It wasn't just the highest level of attendance that was mind blowing, but also the amazing quality of attendees. Kudos go to the organizers, especially Bill Kutik for pulling together such a phenomenal conference. Conference highlights included Naomi Bloom's (http://infullbloom.us) Masters Panel and Mark Hurd's General Session on the last day of the conference. Naomi managed to do the seemingly impossible -- get all of the industry heavyweights and fierce competitors to travel to Chicago for her panel. Here are the executives she hosted: Our own Steve Miranda Sanjay Poonen, President Global Solutions, SAP Stan Swete, CTO, Workday Mike Capone, VP for Product Development and CIO, ADP John Wookey, EVP, Social Applications, Salesforce.com Adam Rogers, CTO, Ultimate Software       I bet you think "WOW" when you look at these names. Just this panel by itself would have been enough of a draw for any tech conference, so Naomi and Bill really scored. TechTarget published a great review of the conference here.  And here are a few highlights from Steve. "Steve Miranda, EVP Apps Dev Oracle, said delivering software in the cloud helps vendors shape their products to customer needs more efficiently. "As vendors, we're able to improve the software faster," he said. "We can see in real time what customers are using and not using." Miranda underscored Oracle's commitment to socializing its HCM platform,and named recruiting as an area where social has had a significant impact. "We want to make social a part of the fabric, not a separate piece," he said. "Already, if you're doing recruiting without social, it probably doesn't make any sense."" Having Mark Hurd at the conference was another real treat and everyone took notice.  The Business of HR publication covered Mark's participation at HR Tech and the full article is available here. Here is what Business of HR had to say: "In truth, the story of Oracle today is a story similar to many of the current and potential customers they faced at the conference this week. Their business is changing and growing. They've dealt with acquisitions of their own and their competitors continue to nip at their heels. They are dealing with growth (and yes, they are hiring in case you're interested). They have concerns about talent as well. If Oracle feels as strongly about their products as they seem to be, they will be getting their co-president in front of a lot more groups of current and potential customers like they did at the HR Technology Conference this year. And here's hoping this is one executive who won't stop talking about the importance of talent just because he isn't at the HR tech conference anymore." Natalia RachelsonSenior Director, Oracle Applications

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• Partner Blog Series: PwC Perspectives - The Gotchas, The Do's and Don'ts for IDM Implementations

  - by Tanu Sood

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:12.0pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6 {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:1; mso-tstyle-colband-size:1; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; border-top:solid #E0301E 1.0pt; mso-border-top-themecolor:accent6; border-left:none; border-bottom:solid #E0301E 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; border-right:none; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:black; mso-themecolor:text1; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6FirstRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:first-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:cell-none; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Georgia; mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:major-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Georgia; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; color:#968C6D; mso-themecolor:text2; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6FirstCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:first-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddColumn {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:12.0pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6 {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:1; mso-tstyle-colband-size:1; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; border-top:solid #E0301E 1.0pt; mso-border-top-themecolor:accent6; border-left:none; border-bottom:solid #E0301E 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; border-right:none; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:black; mso-themecolor:text1; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6FirstRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:first-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:cell-none; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Georgia; mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:major-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Georgia; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; color:#968C6D; mso-themecolor:text2; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6FirstCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:first-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6LastCol {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:last-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-border-top:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-border-bottom:1.0pt solid #E0301E; mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:accent6; mso-ansi-font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddColumn {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-column; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} table.MsoTableMediumList1Accent6OddRow {mso-style-name:"Medium List 1 - Accent 6"; mso-table-condition:odd-row; mso-style-priority:65; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-tstyle-shading:#F7CBC7; mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent6; mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:63;} It is generally accepted among business communities that technology by itself is not a silver bullet to all problems, but when it is combined with leading practices, strategy, careful planning and execution, it can create a recipe for success. This post attempts to highlight some of the best practices along with dos & don’ts that our practice has accumulated over the years in the identity & access management space in general, and also in the context of R2, in particular. Best Practices The following section illustrates the leading practices in “How” to plan, implement and sustain a successful OIM deployment, based on our collective experience. Planning is critical, but often overlooked A common approach to planning an IAM program that we identify with our clients is the three step process involving a current state assessment, a future state roadmap and an executable strategy to get there. It is extremely beneficial for clients to assess their current IAM state, perform gap analysis, document the recommended controls to address the gaps, align future state roadmap to business initiatives and get buy in from all stakeholders involved to improve the chances of success. When designing an enterprise-wide solution, the scalability of the technology must accommodate the future growth of the enterprise and the projected identity transactions over several years. Aligning the implementation schedule of OIM to related information technology projects increases the chances of success. As a baseline, it is recommended to match hardware specifications to the sizing guide for R2 published by Oracle. Adherence to this will help ensure that the hardware used to support OIM will not become a bottleneck as the adoption of new services increases. If your Organization has numerous connected applications that rely on reconciliation to synchronize the access data into OIM, consider hosting dedicated instances to handle reconciliation. Finally, ensure the use of clustered environment for development and have at least three total environments to help facilitate a controlled migration to production. If your Organization is planning to implement role based access control, we recommend performing a role mining exercise and consolidate your enterprise roles to keep them manageable. In addition, many Organizations have multiple approval flows to control access to critical roles, applications and entitlements. If your Organization falls into this category, we highly recommend that you limit the number of approval workflows to a small set. Most Organizations have operations managed across data centers with backend database synchronization, if your Organization falls into this category, ensure that the overall latency between the datacenters when replicating the databases is less than ten milliseconds to ensure that there are no front office performance impacts. Ingredients for a successful implementation During the development phase of your project, there are a number of guidelines that can be followed to help increase the chances for success. Most implementations cannot be completed without the use of customizations. If your implementation requires this, it’s a good practice to perform code reviews to help ensure quality and reduce code bottlenecks related to performance. We have observed at our clients that the development process works best when team members adhere to coding leading practices. Plan for time to correct coding defects and ensure developers are empowered to report their own bugs for maximum transparency. Many organizations struggle with defining a consistent approach to managing logs. This is particularly important due to the amount of information that can be logged by OIM. We recommend Oracle Diagnostics Logging (ODL) as an alternative to be used for logging. ODL allows log files to be formatted in XML for easy parsing and does not require a server restart when the log levels are changed during troubleshooting. Testing is a vital part of any large project, and an OIM R2 implementation is no exception. We suggest that at least one lower environment should use production-like data and connectors. Configurations should match as closely as possible. For example, use secure channels between OIM and target platforms in pre-production environments to test the configurations, the migration processes of certificates, and the additional overhead that encryption could impose. Finally, we ask our clients to perform database backups regularly and before any major change event, such as a patch or migration between environments. In the lowest environments, we recommend to have at least a weekly backup in order to prevent significant loss of time and effort. Similarly, if your organization is using virtual machines for one or more of the environments, it is recommended to take frequent snapshots so that rollbacks can occur in the event of improper configuration. Operate & sustain the solution to derive maximum benefits When migrating OIM R2 to production, it is important to perform certain activities that will help achieve a smoother transition. At our clients, we have seen that splitting the OIM tables into their own tablespaces by categories (physical tables, indexes, etc.) can help manage database growth effectively. If we notice that a client hasn’t enabled the Oracle-recommended indexing in the applicable database, we strongly suggest doing so to improve performance. Additionally, we work with our clients to make sure that the audit level is set to fit the organization’s auditing needs and sometimes even allocate UPA tables and indexes into their own table-space for better maintenance. Finally, many of our clients have set up schedules for reconciliation tables to be archived at regular intervals in order to keep the size of the database(s) reasonable and result in optimal database performance. For our clients that anticipate availability issues with target applications, we strongly encourage the use of the offline provisioning capabilities of OIM R2. This reduces the provisioning process for a given target application dependency on target availability and help avoid broken workflows. To account for this and other abnormalities, we also advocate that OIM’s monitoring controls be configured to alert administrators on any abnormal situations. Within OIM R2, we have begun advising our clients to utilize the ‘profile’ feature to encapsulate multiple commonly requested accounts, roles, and/or entitlements into a single item. By setting up a number of profiles that can be searched for and used, users will spend less time performing the same exact steps for common tasks. We advise our clients to follow the Oracle recommended guides for database and application server tuning which provides a good baseline configuration. It offers guidance on database connection pools, connection timeouts, user interface threads and proper handling of adapters/plug-ins. All of these can be important configurations that will allow faster provisioning and web page response times. Many of our clients have begun to recognize the value of data mining and a remediation process during the initial phases of an implementation (to help ensure high quality data gets loaded) and beyond (to support ongoing maintenance and business-as-usual processes). A successful program always begins with identifying the data elements and assigning a classification level based on criticality, risk, and availability. It should finish by following through with a remediation process. Dos & Don’ts Here are the most common dos and don'ts that we socialize with our clients, derived from our experience implementing the solution. Dos Don’ts Scope the project into phases with realistic goals. Look for quick wins to show success and value to the stake holders. Avoid “boiling the ocean” and trying to integrate all enterprise applications in the first phase. Establish an enterprise ID (universal unique ID across the enterprise) earlier in the program. Avoid major UI customizations that require code changes. Have a plan in place to patch during the project, which helps alleviate any major issues or roadblocks (product and database). Avoid publishing all the target entitlements if you don't anticipate their usage during access request. Assess your current state and prepare a roadmap to address your operations, tactical and strategic goals, align it with your business priorities. Avoid integrating non-production environments with your production target systems. Defer complex integrations to the later phases and take advantage of lessons learned from previous phases Avoid creating multiple accounts for the same user on the same system, if there is an opportunity to do so. Have an identity and access data quality initiative built into your plan to identify and remediate data related issues early on. Avoid creating complex approval workflows that would negative impact productivity and SLAs. Identify the owner of the identity systems with fair IdM knowledge and empower them with authority to make product related decisions. This will help ensure overcome any design hurdles. Avoid creating complex designs that are not sustainable long term and would need major overhaul during upgrades. Shadow your internal or external consulting resources during the implementation to build the necessary product skills needed to operate and sustain the solution. Avoid treating IAM as a point solution and have appropriate level of communication and training plan for the IT and business users alike. Conclusion In our experience, Identity programs will struggle with scope, proper resourcing, and more. We suggest that companies consider the suggestions discussed in this post and leverage them to help enable their identity and access program. This concludes PwC blog series on R2 for the month and we sincerely hope that the information we have shared thus far has been beneficial. For more information or if you have questions, you can reach out to Rex Thexton, Senior Managing Director, PwC and or Dharma Padala, Director, PwC. We look forward to hearing from you. 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Praveen Krishna is a Manager in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  Over the last decade Praveen has helped clients plan, architect and implement Oracle identity solutions across diverse industries.  His experience includes delivering security across diverse topics like network, infrastructure, application and data where he brings a holistic point of view to problem solving. Scott MacDonald is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has consulted for several clients across multiple industries including financial services, health care, automotive and retail.   Scott has 10 years of experience in delivering Identity Management solutions. John Misczak is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has experience implementing multiple Identity and Access Management solutions, specializing in Oracle Identity Manager and Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL).

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• Move Data into the grid for scalable, predictable response times

  - by JuergenKress

  CloudTran is pleased to introduce the availability of the CloudTran Transaction and Persistence Manager for creating scalable, reliable data services on the Oracle Coherence In-Memory Data Grid (IMDG). Use of IMDG architectures has been key to handling today’s web-scale loads because it eliminates database latency by storing important and frequently access data in memory instead of on disk. The CloudTran product lets developers easily use an IMDG for full ACID-compliant transactions without having to be concerned about the location or spread of data. The system has its own implementation of fast, scalable distributed transactions that does NOT depend on XA protocols but still guarantees all ACID properties. Plus, CloudTran asynchronously replicates data going into the IMDG to back-end datastores and back-up data centers, again ensuring ACID properties. CloudTran can be accessed through Java Persistence API (JPA via TopLink Grid) and now, through a new Low-Level API, or LLAPI. This is ideal for use in SOA applications that need data reliability, high availability, performance, and scalability. It is still in its limited beta release, the LLAPI gives developers the ability to use standard put/remove logic available in Coherence and then wrap logic with simple Spring annotations or XML+AspectJ to start transactions. An important feature of LLAPI is the ability to join transactions. This is a common outcome for SOA applications that need to reduce network traffic by aggregating data into single cache entries and then doing SOA service processing in the node holding the data. This results in the need to orchestrate transaction processing across multiple service calls. CloudTran has the capability to handle these “multi-client” transactions at speed with no loss in ACID properties. Developing software around an IMDG like Oracle Coherence is an important choice for today’s web-scale applications and services. But this introduces new architectural considerations to maintain scalability in light of increased network loads and data movement. Without using CloudTran, developers are faced with an incredibly difficult task to ensure data reliability, availability, performance, and scalability when working with an IMDG. Working with highly distributed data that is entirely volatile while stored in memory presents numerous edge cases where failures can result in data loss. The CloudTran product takes care of all of this, leaving developers with the confidence and peace of mind that all data is processed correctly. For those interested in evaluating the CloudTran product and IMDGs, take a look at this link for more information: http://www.CloudTran.com/downloadAPI.ph , or send your questions to [email protected]. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: CloudTran,data grid,M,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Will HTML5 make Silverlight redundant?

  - by Laila

  One of the great features of Adobe AIR v2 that was launched this month was its support for some of the 2008 draft of HTML5. The HTML5 specification was started in 2004, but the full spec will probably not be approved by W3C until around 2022. One might have thought that it would take years yet from now to reach the point where any browsers were remotely HTML5-compliant, but enough of HTML5 is published and agreed to make a lot of it possible, and Safari and Adobe have got there thanks to Apple's open-source WebKit. The race for HTML 5 has been fuelled by the demand by Apple and Google for advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without having to rely on third party browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash or Silverlight. There is good reason for this haste: Flash doesn't support touch-devices and has been slow in supporting hardware video decoders such as H.264. There is a strong requirement to do all that Flash can do in an open-standards way. Those with proprietary solutions remain sniffy. In AIR 2, Adobe pointedly disables the HTML5 and tags that allow basic playing of media content, saying that the specification is not final and there is still no standard for the supported formats, and adding that Safari implements a 'disjoint set' of codecs. Microsoft also has little interest in HTML 5 as it has so much invested in Silverlight. Google stands to gain by the Adobe AIR for Android as it will allow a lot of applications to be migrated easily to the platform, so sees Apple's war on Flash as a way of gaining market share. Why do we care? It is because HTML5/CSS3 provides facilities much far beyond HTML4, bring the reality of browser-based applications a lot closer. Probably most generally useful is the advanced typography: Safari and AIR already both support a way of reflowing text in a container across an arbitrary number of columns; Page-specific fonts can also be specified. Then there is 2D drawing, video, transitions, local storage, AJAX navigation and mutable DOM prototypes. HTML5 is likely to provide base functionality that is required but it is too early to be certain that it will render Flash, Silverlight or JavaFX obsolete. In the meantime, Adobe Air provides the best vehicle for developing HTML5/CSS3 applications without a twinge of worry about browser incompatibilities. Cheers, Laila

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• Why is there no service-oriented language?

  - by Wolfgang

  Edit: To avoid further confusion: I am not talking about web services and such. I am talking about structuring applications internally, it's not about how computers communicate. It's about programming languages, compilers and how the imperative programming paradigm is extended. Original: In the imperative programming field, we saw two paradigms in the past 20 years (or more): object-oriented (OO), and service-oriented (SO) aka. component-based (CB). Both paradigms extend the imperative programming paradigm by introducing their own notion of modules. OO calls them objects (and classes) and lets them encapsulates both data (fields) and procedures (methods) together. SO, in contrast, separates data (records, beans, ...) from code (components, services). However, only OO has programming languages which natively support its paradigm: Smalltalk, C++, Java and all other JVM-compatibles, C# and all other .NET-compatibles, Python etc. SO has no such native language. It only comes into existence on top of procedural languages or OO languages: COM/DCOM (binary, C, C++), CORBA, EJB, Spring, Guice (all Java), ... These SO frameworks clearly suffer from the missing native language support of their concepts. They start using OO classes to represent services and records. This leads to designs where there is a clear distinction between classes that have methods only (services) and those that have fields only (records). Inheritance between services or records is then simulated by inheritance of classes. Technically, its not kept so strictly but in general programmers are adviced to make classes to play only one of the two roles. They use additional, external languages to represent the missing parts: IDL's, XML configurations, Annotations in Java code, or even embedded DSL like in Guice. This is especially needed, but not limited to, since the composition of services is not part of the service code itself. In OO, objects create other objects so there is no need for such facilities but for SO there is because services don't instantiate or configure other services. They establish an inner-platform effect on top of OO (early EJB, CORBA) where the programmer has to write all the code that is needed to "drive" SO. Classes represent only a part of the nature of a service and lots of classes have to be written to form a service together. All that boiler plate is necessary because there is no SO compiler which would do it for the programmer. This is just like some people did it in C for OO when there was no C++. You just pass the record which holds the data of the object as a first parameter to the procedure which is the method. In a OO language this parameter is implicit and the compiler produces all the code that we need for virtual functions etc. For SO, this is clearly missing. Especially the newer frameworks extensively use AOP or introspection to add the missing parts to a OO language. This doesn't bring the necessary language expressiveness but avoids the boiler platform code described in the previous point. Some frameworks use code generation to produce the boiler plate code. Configuration files in XML or annotations in OO code is the source of information for this. Not all of the phenomena that I mentioned above can be attributed to SO but I hope it clearly shows that there is a need for a SO language. Since this paradigm is so popular: why isn't there one? Or maybe there are some academic ones but at least the industry doesn't use one.

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• Purple Cows, Copernicus, and Shampoo – Lessons in Customer Experience

  - by Christina McKeon

  What makes a great customer experience? And, why should you or your organization care? These are the questions that set the stage for the Oracle Customer Experience Summit, which kicked off yesterday in San Francisco. Day 1: The first day was filled with demos and insights from customer experience experts and Oracle customers sharing what it takes to deliver great customer experiences. Author Seth Godin delivered an entertaining presentation that included an in-depth exploration of the always-connected, always-sharing experience revolution that we are witnessing and yes, talked about the purple cow. It turns out that customer experience is your way to be the purple cow. Before everyone headed out to see Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon at the Oracle customer appreciation event, the day wrapped up with a discussion around building a customer-centric culture. Where do you start? Whom does it involve? What are some pitfalls to avoid? Day 2: The second day addressed the details behind all the questions brought up at the end of Day 1. Before you start on a customer experience initiative, Paul Hagen noted that you must understand you will forge a path similar to Copernicus. You will be proposing ideas and approaches that challenge current thinking in your organization. Just as Copernicus' heliocentric theory started a scientific revolution, your customer-centric efforts will start an experience revolution. If you think customer experience is like a traditional marketing approach, think again. It’s not about controlling your customers and leading them where you want them to go. It might sound like heresy to some, but your customers are already in control, whether or not your company realizes and acknowledges it. And, to survive and thrive, you'll have to focus on customers by thinking outside-in and working towards a brand that is better and more authentic. We learned how Vail Resorts takes this customer-centric approach. Employees must experience the mountain themselves and understand the experience from the guest’s standpoint. This has created a culture where employees do things for guests that are not expected. We also learned a valuable lesson in designing and innovating customer-centered experiences from Kerry Bodine. First you make the thing, and then you make the thing right. In this case, the thing is customer experience. Getting customer experience right means iterative prototyping and testing of your ideas. This is where shampoo comes in—think lather, rinse, repeat. Be prepared to keep repeating until the customer experience is right. Many of these sessions will be posted to YouTube in the coming weeks so be sure to subscribe to our CX channel.

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• On the art of self-promotion

  - by Tony Davis

  I attended Brent Ozar's Building the Fastest SQL Servers session at Tech Ed last week, and found myself engulfed in a 'perfect storm' of excellent technical and presentational skills coupled with an astute awareness of the value of promoting one's work. I spend a lot of time at such events talking to developers and DBAs about the value of blogging and writing articles, and my impression is that some could benefit from a touch less modesty and a little more self-promotion. I sense a reticence in many would-be writers. Is what I have to say important enough? Haven't far more qualified and established commentators, MVPs and so on, already said it? While it's a good idea to pick reasonably fresh and interesting topics, it's more important not to let such fears lead to writer's block. In the eyes of any future employer, your published writing is an extension of your resume. They will not care that a certain MVP knows how to solve problem x, but they will be very interested to see that you have tackled that same problem, and solved it in your own way, and described the process in your own voice. In your current job, your writing is one of the ways you can express to your peers, and to the organization as a whole, the value of what you contribute. Many Developers and DBAs seem to rely on the idea that their work will speak for itself, and that their skill shines out from it. Unfortunately, this isn't always true. Many Development DBAs, for example, will be painfully aware of the massive effort involved in tuning and adding resilience to rapidly developed applications. However, others in the organization who are unaware of what's involved in getting an application that is 'done' ready for production may dismiss such efforts as fussiness or conservatism. At the dark end of the development cycle, chickens come home to roost, but their droppings tend to land on those trying to clear up the mess. My advice is this: next time you fix a bug or improve the resilience or performance of a database or application, make sure that you use team meetings, informal discussions and so on to ensure that people understand what the problem was and what you had to do to fix it. Use your blog to describe, generally, the process you adopted, the resources you used and the insights that came from your work. Encourage your colleagues to do the same. By spreading the art of self-promotion to everyone involved in an IT project, we get a better idea of the extent of the work and the value of the contribution of all the team members. As always, we'd love to hear what you think. This very week, Simple-talk launches its new blogging platform. If any of this has moved you to 'throw your hat into the ring', drop us a mail at [email protected]. Cheers, Tony.

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• On the art of self-promotion

  - by Tony Davis

  I attended Brent Ozar’s Building the Fastest SQL Servers session at Tech Ed last week, and found myself engulfed in a ‘perfect storm’ of excellent technical and presentational skills coupled with an astute awareness of the value of promoting one’s work. I spend a lot of time at such events talking to developers and DBAs about the value of blogging and writing articles, and my impression is that some could benefit from a touch less modesty and a little more self-promotion. I sense a reticence in many would-be writers. Is what I have to say important enough? Haven’t far more qualified and established commentators, MVPs and so on, already said it? While it’s a good idea to pick reasonably fresh and interesting topics, it’s more important not to let such fears lead to writer’s block. In the eyes of any future employer, your published writing is an extension of your resume. They will not care that a certain MVP knows how to solve problem x, but they will be very interested to see that you have tackled that same problem, and solved it in your own way, and described the process in your own voice. In your current job, your writing is one of the ways you can express to your peers, and to the organization as a whole, the value of what you contribute. Many Developers and DBAs seem to rely on the idea that their work will speak for itself, and that their skill shines out from it. Unfortunately, this isn’t always true. Many Development DBAs, for example, will be painfully aware of the massive effort involved in tuning and adding resilience to rapidly developed applications. However, others in the organization who are unaware of what’s involved in getting an application that is ‘done’ ready for production may dismiss such efforts as fussiness or conservatism. At the dark end of the development cycle, chickens come home to roost, but their droppings tend to land on those trying to clear up the mess. My advice is this: next time you fix a bug or improve the resilience or performance of a database or application, make sure that you use team meetings, informal discussions and so on to ensure that people understand what the problem was and what you had to do to fix it. Use your blog to describe, generally, the process you adopted, the resources you used and the insights that came from your work. Encourage your colleagues to do the same. By spreading the art of self-promotion to everyone involved in an IT project, we get a better idea of the extent of the work and the value of the contribution of all the team members. As always, we’d love to hear what you think. This very week, Simple-talk launches its new blogging platform. If any of this has moved you to ‘throw your hat into the ring’, drop us a mail at [email protected]. Cheers, Tony.

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