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• Windows Azure Myths

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure is part of the Microsoft "stack" - the suite of software and services we offer. Because we have so many products in almost every part of technology, it's hard to know everything about all parts of what we do - even for those of us who work here. So it's no surprise that some folks are not as familiar with Windows and SQL Azure as they are, say Windows Server or XBox. As I chat with folks about a solution for a business or organization need, I put Windows Azure into the mix. I always start off with "What do you already know about Windows Azure?" so that I don't bore folks with information they already have. I some cases they've checked out the product ahead of time and have specific questions, in others they aren't as familiar, and in still others there is a fair amount of mis-information. Sometimes that's because of a marketing failure, sometimes it's hearsay, and somtetimes it's active misinformation. I thought I might lay out a few of these misconceptions. As always - do your fact-checking! Never take anyone's word alone (including mine) as gospel. Make sure you educate yourself on your options. Your company or your clients depend on you to have the right information on IT, so make sure you live up to that. Myth 1: Nobody uses Windows Azure It's true that we don't give out numbers on the amount of clients on Windows and SQL Azure. But lots of folks are here - companies you may have heard of like Boeing, NASA, Fujitsu, The City of London, Nuedesic, and many others. I deal with firms small and large that use Windows Azure for mission-critical applications, sometimes totally on Windows and/or SQL Azure, sometimes in conjunction with an on-premises system, sometimes for only a specific component in Windows Azure like storage. The interesting thing is that many sites you visit have a Windows Azure component, or are running on Windows Azure. They just don't announce it. Just like the other cloud providers, the companies have asked to be completely branded themselves - they don't want you to be aware or care that they are on Windows Azure. Sometimes that's for security, other times it's for different reasons. It's just like the web sites you visit. For the most part, they don't advertise which OS or Web Server they use. It really just shouldn't matter. The point is that they just use what works to solve a given problem. Check out a few public case studies here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/case-studies/ Myth 2: It's only for Microsoft stuff - can't use Open Source This is the one I face the most, and am the most dismayed by. We work just fine with many open source products, including Java, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, Python, Hadoop, and many other languages and applications. You can quickly deploy a Wordpress, Umbraco and other "kits". We have software development kits (SDK's) for iPhones, iPads, Android, Windows phones and more. We have an SDK to work with FaceBook and other social networks. In short, we play well with others. More on the languages and runtimes we support here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ More on the SDK's here: http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/05/windows-azure-toolkit-for-ios/, http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/08/windows-azure-toolkits-for-devices-now-with-android/, http://azuretoolkit.codeplex.com/ Myth 3: Microsoft expects me to switch everything to "the cloud" No, we don't. That would be disasterous, unless the only things you run in your company uses works perfectly in Azure. Use Windows Azure  - or any cloud for that matter - where it works. Whenever I talk to companies, I focus on two things: Something that is broken and needs to be re-architected Something you want to do that is new If something is broken, and you need new tools to scale, extend, add capacity dynamically and so on, then you can consider using Windows or SQL Azure. It can help solve problems that you have, or it may include a component you don't want to write or architect yourself. Sometimes you want to do something new, like extend your company's offerings to mobile phones, to the web, or to a social network. More info on where it works here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Myth 4: I have to write code to use Windows and SQL Azure If Windows Azure is a PaaS - a Platform as a Service - then don't you have to write code to use it? Nope. Windows and SQL Azure are made up of various components. Some of those components allow you to write and deploy code (like Compute) and others don't. We have lots of customers using Windows Azure storage as a backup, to securely share files instead of using DropBox, to distribute videos or code or firmware, and more. Others use our High Performance Computing (HPC) offering to rent a supercomputer when they need one. You can even throw workloads at that using Excel! In addition there are lots of other components in Windows Azure you can use, from the Windows Azure Media Services to others. More here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/scenarios/saas/ Myth 5: Windows Azure is just another form of "vendor lock-in" Windows Azure uses .NET, OSS languages and standard interfaces for the code. Sure, you're not going to take the code line-for-line and run it on a mainframe, but it's standard code that you write, and can port to something else. And the data is yours - you can bring it back whever you want. It's either in text or binary form, that you have complete control over. There are no licenses - you can "pay as you go", and when you're done, you can leave the service and take all your code, data and IP with you.   So go out there, read up, try it. Use it where it works. And don't believe everything you hear - sometimes the Internet doesn't get it all correct. :)

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• ASP.NET MVC JavaScript Routing

  - by zowens

  Have you ever done this sort of thing in your ASP.NET MVC view? The weird thing about this isn’t the alert function, it’s the code block containing the Url formation using the ASP.NET MVC UrlHelper. The terrible thing about this experience is the obvious lack of IntelliSense and this ugly inline JavaScript code. Inline JavaScript isn’t portable to other pages beyond the current page of execution. It is generally considered bad practice to use inline JavaScript in your public-facing pages. How ludicrous would it be to copy and paste the entire jQuery code base into your pages…? Not something you’d ever consider doing. The problem is that your URLs have to be generated by ASP.NET at runtime and really can’t be copied to your JavaScript code without some trickery. How about this? Does the hard-coded URL bother you? It really bothers me. The typical solution to this whole routing in JavaScript issue is to just hard-code your URLs into your JavaScript files and call it done. But what if your URLs change? You have to now go an track down the places in JavaScript and manually replace them. What if you get the pattern wrong? Do you have tests around it? This isn’t something you should have to worry about.   The Solution To Our Problems The solution is to port routing over to JavaScript. Does that sound daunting to you? It’s actually not very hard, but I decided to create my own generator that will do all the work for you. What I have created is a very basic port of the route formation feature of ASP.NET routing. It will generate the formatted URLs based on your routing patterns. Here’s how you’d do this: Does that feel familiar? It looks a lot like something you’d do inside of your ASP.NET MVC views… but this is inside of a JavaScript file… just a plain ol’ .js file.  Your first question might be why do you have to have that “.toUrl()” thing. The reason is that I wanted to make POST and GET requests dead simple. Here’s how you’d do a POST request (and the same would work with a GET request):   The first parameter is extra data passed to the post request and the second parameter is a function that handles the success of the POST request. If you’re familiar with jQuery’s Ajax goodness, you’ll know how to use it. (if not, check out http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.Post/ and the parameters are essentially the same). But we still haven’t gotten rid of the magic strings. We still have controller names and action names represented as strings. This is going to blow your mind… If you’ve seen T4MVC, this will look familiar. We’re essentially doing the same sort of thing with my JavaScript router, but we’re porting the concept to JavaScript. The good news is that parameters to the controllers are directly reflected in the action function, just like T4MVC. And the even better news… IntlliSense is easily transferred to the JavaScript version if you’re using Visual Studio as your JavaScript editor. The additional data parameter gives you the ability to pass extra routing data to the URL formatter.   About the Magic You may be wondering how this all work. It’s actually quite simple. I’ve built a simple jQuery pluggin (called routeManager) that hangs off the main jQuery namespace and routes all the URLs. Every time your solution builds, a routing file will be generated with this pluggin, all your route and controller definitions along with your documentation. Then by the power of Visual Studio, you get some really slick IntelliSense that is hard to live without. But there are a few steps you have to take before this whole thing is going to work. First and foremost, you need a reference to the JsRouting.Core.dll to your projects containing controllers or routes. Second, you have to specify your routes in a bit of a non-standard way. See, we can’t just pull routes out of your App_Start in your Global.asax. We force you to build a route source like this: The way we determine the routes is by pulling in all RouteSources and generating routes based upon the mapped routes. There are various reasons why we can’t use RouteCollection (different post for another day)… but in this case, you get the same route mapping experience. Converting the RouteSource to a RouteCollection is trivial (there’s an extension method for that). Next thing you have to do is generate a documentation XML file. This is done by going to the project settings, going to the build tab and clicking the checkbox. (this isn’t required, but nice to have). The final thing you need to do is hook up the generation mechanism. Pop open your project file and look for the AfterBuild step. Now change the build step task to look like this: The “PathToOutputExe” is the path to the JsRouting.Output.exe file. This will change based on where you put the EXE. The “PathToOutputJs” is a path to the output JavaScript file. The “DicrectoryOfAssemblies” is a path to the directory containing controller and routing DLLs. The JsRouting.Output.exe executable pulls in all these assemblies and scans them for controllers and route sources.   Now that wasn’t too bad, was it :)   The State of the Project This is definitely not complete… I have a lot of plans for this little project of mine. For starters, I need to look at the generation mechanism. Either I will be creating a utility that will do the project file manipulation or I will go a different direction. I’d like some feedback on this if you feel partial either way. Another thing I don’t support currently is areas. While this wouldn’t be too hard to support, I just don’t use areas and I wanted something up quickly (this is, after all, for a current project of mine). I’ll be adding support shortly. There are a few things that I haven’t covered in this post that I will most certainly be covering in another post, such as routing constraints and how these will be translated to JavaScript. I decided to open source this whole thing, since it’s a nice little utility I think others should really be using. Currently we’re using ASP.NET MVC 2, but it should work with MVC 3 as well. I’ll upgrade it as soon as MVC 3 is released. Along those same lines, I’m investigating how this could be put on the NuGet feed. Show me the Bits! OK, OK! The code is posted on my GitHub account. Go nuts. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you want. Tell me that you hate it. All feedback is welcome! https://github.com/zowens/ASP.NET-MVC-JavaScript-Routing

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• C#: LINQ vs foreach - Round 1.

  - by James Michael Hare

  So I was reading Peter Kellner's blog entry on Resharper 5.0 and its LINQ refactoring and thought that was very cool.  But that raised a point I had always been curious about in my head -- which is a better choice: manual foreach loops or LINQ?    The answer is not really clear-cut.  There are two sides to any code cost arguments: performance and maintainability.  The first of these is obvious and quantifiable.  Given any two pieces of code that perform the same function, you can run them side-by-side and see which piece of code performs better.   Unfortunately, this is not always a good measure.  Well written assembly language outperforms well written C++ code, but you lose a lot in maintainability which creates a big techncial debt load that is hard to offset as the application ages.  In contrast, higher level constructs make the code more brief and easier to understand, hence reducing technical cost.   Now, obviously in this case we're not talking two separate languages, we're comparing doing something manually in the language versus using a higher-order set of IEnumerable extensions that are in the System.Linq library.   Well, before we discuss any further, let's look at some sample code and the numbers.  First, let's take a look at the for loop and the LINQ expression.  This is just a simple find comparison:       // find implemented via LINQ     public static bool FindViaLinq(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         return list.Any(item => item == target);     }         // find implemented via standard iteration     public static bool FindViaIteration(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         foreach (var i in list)         {             if (i == target)             {                 return true;             }         }           return false;     }   Okay, looking at this from a maintainability point of view, the Linq expression is definitely more concise (8 lines down to 1) and is very readable in intention.  You don't have to actually analyze the behavior of the loop to determine what it's doing.   So let's take a look at performance metrics from 100,000 iterations of these methods on a List<int> of varying sizes filled with random data.  For this test, we fill a target array with 100,000 random integers and then run the exact same pseudo-random targets through both searches.                       List<T> On 100,000 Iterations     Method      Size     Total (ms)  Per Iteration (ms)  % Slower     Any         10       26          0.00046             30.00%     Iteration   10       20          0.00023             -     Any         100      116         0.00201             18.37%     Iteration   100      98          0.00118             -     Any         1000     1058        0.01853             16.78%     Iteration   1000     906         0.01155             -     Any         10,000   10,383      0.18189             17.41%     Iteration   10,000   8843        0.11362             -     Any         100,000  104,004     1.8297              18.27%     Iteration   100,000  87,941      1.13163             -   The LINQ expression is running about 17% slower for average size collections and worse for smaller collections.  Presumably, this is due to the overhead of the state machine used to track the iterators for the yield returns in the LINQ expressions, which seems about right in a tight loop such as this.   So what about other LINQ expressions?  After all, Any() is one of the more trivial ones.  I decided to try the TakeWhile() algorithm using a Count() to get the position stopped like the sample Pete was using in his blog that Resharper refactored for him into LINQ:       // Linq form     public static int GetTargetPosition1(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         return list.TakeWhile(item => item != target).Count();     }       // traditionally iterative form     public static int GetTargetPosition2(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         int count = 0;           foreach (var i in list)         {             if(i == target)             {                 break;             }               ++count;         }           return count;     }   Once again, the LINQ expression is much shorter, easier to read, and should be easier to maintain over time, reducing the cost of technical debt.  So I ran these through the same test data:                       List<T> On 100,000 Iterations     Method      Size     Total (ms)  Per Iteration (ms)  % Slower     TakeWhile   10       41          0.00041             128%     Iteration   10       18          0.00018             -     TakeWhile   100      171         0.00171             88%     Iteration   100      91          0.00091             -     TakeWhile   1000     1604        0.01604             94%     Iteration   1000     825         0.00825             -     TakeWhile   10,000   15765       0.15765             92%     Iteration   10,000   8204        0.08204             -     TakeWhile   100,000  156950      1.5695              92%     Iteration   100,000  81635       0.81635             -     Wow!  I expected some overhead due to the state machines iterators produce, but 90% slower?  That seems a little heavy to me.  So then I thought, well, what if TakeWhile() is not the right tool for the job?  The problem is TakeWhile returns each item for processing using yield return, whereas our for-loop really doesn't care about the item beyond using it as a stop condition to evaluate. So what if that back and forth with the iterator state machine is the problem?  Well, we can quickly create an (albeit ugly) lambda that uses the Any() along with a count in a closure (if a LINQ guru knows a better way PLEASE let me know!), after all , this is more consistent with what we're trying to do, we're trying to find the first occurence of an item and halt once we find it, we just happen to be counting on the way.  This mostly matches Any().       // a new method that uses linq but evaluates the count in a closure.     public static int TakeWhileViaLinq2(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         int count = 0;         list.Any(item =>             {                 if(item == target)                 {                     return true;                 }                   ++count;                 return false;             });         return count;     }     Now how does this one compare?                         List<T> On 100,000 Iterations     Method         Size     Total (ms)  Per Iteration (ms)  % Slower     TakeWhile      10       41          0.00041             128%     Any w/Closure  10       23          0.00023             28%     Iteration      10       18          0.00018             -     TakeWhile      100      171         0.00171             88%     Any w/Closure  100      116         0.00116             27%     Iteration      100      91          0.00091             -     TakeWhile      1000     1604        0.01604             94%     Any w/Closure  1000     1101        0.01101             33%     Iteration      1000     825         0.00825             -     TakeWhile      10,000   15765       0.15765             92%     Any w/Closure  10,000   10802       0.10802             32%     Iteration      10,000   8204        0.08204             -     TakeWhile      100,000  156950      1.5695              92%     Any w/Closure  100,000  108378      1.08378             33%     Iteration      100,000  81635       0.81635             -     Much better!  It seems that the overhead of TakeAny() returning each item and updating the state in the state machine is drastically reduced by using Any() since Any() iterates forward until it finds the value we're looking for -- for the task we're attempting to do.   So the lesson there is, make sure when you use a LINQ expression you're choosing the best expression for the job, because if you're doing more work than you really need, you'll have a slower algorithm.  But this is true of any choice of algorithm or collection in general.     Even with the Any() with the count in the closure it is still about 30% slower, but let's consider that angle carefully.  For a list of 100,000 items, it was the difference between 1.01 ms and 0.82 ms roughly in a List<T>.  That's really not that bad at all in the grand scheme of things.  Even running at 90% slower with TakeWhile(), for the vast majority of my projects, an extra millisecond to save potential errors in the long term and improve maintainability is a small price to pay.  And if your typical list is 1000 items or less we're talking only microseconds worth of difference.   It's like they say: 90% of your performance bottlenecks are in 2% of your code, so over-optimizing almost never pays off.  So personally, I'll take the LINQ expression wherever I can because they will be easier to read and maintain (thus reducing technical debt) and I can rely on Microsoft's development to have coded and unit tested those algorithm fully for me instead of relying on a developer to code the loop logic correctly.   If something's 90% slower, yes, it's worth keeping in mind, but it's really not until you start get magnitudes-of-order slower (10x, 100x, 1000x) that alarm bells should really go off.  And if I ever do need that last millisecond of performance?  Well then I'll optimize JUST THAT problem spot.  To me it's worth it for the readability, speed-to-market, and maintainability.

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #048

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Order of Result Set of SELECT Statement on Clustered Indexed Table When ORDER BY is Not Used Above theory is true in most of the cases. However SQL Server does not use that logic when returning the resultset. SQL Server always returns the resultset which it can return fastest.In most of the cases the resultset which can be returned fastest is the resultset which is returned using clustered index. Effect of TRANSACTION on Local Variable – After ROLLBACK and After COMMIT One of the Jr. Developer asked me this question (What will be the Effect of TRANSACTION on Local Variable – After ROLLBACK and After COMMIT?) while I was rushing to an important meeting. I was getting late so I asked him to talk with his Application Tech Lead. When I came back from meeting both of them were looking for me. They said they are confused. I quickly wrote down following example for them. 2008 SQL SERVER – Guidelines and Coding Standards Complete List Download Coding standards and guidelines are very important for any developer on the path of a successful career. A coding standard is a set of guidelines, rules and regulations on how to write code. Coding standards should be flexible enough or should take care of the situation where they should not prevent best practices for coding. They are basically the guidelines that one should follow for better understanding. Download Guidelines and Coding Standards complete List Download Get Answer in Float When Dividing of Two Integer Many times we have requirements of some calculations amongst different fields in Tables. One of the software developers here was trying to calculate some fields having integer values and divide it which gave incorrect results in integer where accurate results including decimals was expected. Puzzle – Computed Columns Datatype Explanation SQL Server automatically does a cast to the data type having the highest precedence. So the result of INT and INT will be INT, but INT and FLOAT will be FLOAT because FLOAT has a higher precedence. If you want a different data type, you need to do an EXPLICIT cast. Renaming SP is Not Good Idea – Renaming Stored Procedure Does Not Update sys.procedures I have written many articles about renaming a tables, columns and procedures SQL SERVER – How to Rename a Column Name or Table Name, here I found something interesting about renaming the stored procedures and felt like sharing it with you all. The interesting fact is that when we rename a stored procedure using SP_Rename command, the Stored Procedure is successfully renamed. But when we try to test the procedure using sp_helptext, the procedure will be having the old name instead of new names. 2009 Insert Values of Stored Procedure in Table – Use Table Valued Function It is clear from the result set that , where I have converted stored procedure logic into the table valued function, is much better in terms of logic as it saves a large number of operations. However, this option should be used carefully. The performance of the stored procedure is “usually” better than that of functions. Interesting Observation – Index on Index View Used in Similar Query Recently, I was working on an optimization project for one of the largest organizations. While working on one of the queries, we came across a very interesting observation. We found that there was a query on the base table and when the query was run, it used the index, which did not exist in the base table. On careful examination, we found that the query was using the index that was on another view. This was very interesting as I have personally never experienced a scenario like this. In simple words, “Query on the base table can use the index created on the indexed view of the same base table.” Interesting Observation – Execution Plan and Results of Aggregate Concatenation Queries Working with SQL Server has never seemed to be monotonous – no matter how long one has worked with it. Quite often, I come across some excellent comments that I feel like acknowledging them as blog posts. Recently, I wrote an article on SQL SERVER – Execution Plan and Results of Aggregate Concatenation Queries Depend Upon Expression Location, which is well received in the community. 2010 I encourage all of you to go through complete series and write your own on the subject. If you write an article and send it to me, I will publish it on this blog with due credit to you. If you write on your own blog, I will update this blog post pointing to your blog post. SQL SERVER – ORDER BY Does Not Work – Limitation of the View 1 SQL SERVER – Adding Column is Expensive by Joining Table Outside View – Limitation of the View 2 SQL SERVER – Index Created on View not Used Often – Limitation of the View 3 SQL SERVER – SELECT * and Adding Column Issue in View – Limitation of the View 4 SQL SERVER – COUNT(*) Not Allowed but COUNT_BIG(*) Allowed – Limitation of the View 5 SQL SERVER – UNION Not Allowed but OR Allowed in Index View – Limitation of the View 6 SQL SERVER – Cross Database Queries Not Allowed in Indexed View – Limitation of the View 7 SQL SERVER – Outer Join Not Allowed in Indexed Views – Limitation of the View 8 SQL SERVER – SELF JOIN Not Allowed in Indexed View – Limitation of the View 9 SQL SERVER – Keywords View Definition Must Not Contain for Indexed View – Limitation of the View 10 SQL SERVER – View Over the View Not Possible with Index View – Limitations of the View 11 2011 Startup Parameters Easy to Configure If you are a regular reader of this blog, you must be aware that I have written about SQL Server Denali recently. Here is the quickest way to reach into the screen where we can change the startup parameters. Go to SQL Server Configuration Manager >> SQL Server Services >> Right Click on the Server >> Properties >> Startup Parameters 2012 Validating Unique Columnname Across Whole Database I sometimes come across very strange requirements and often I do not receive a proper explanation of the same. Here is the one of those examples. For example “Our business requirement is when we add new column we want it unique across current database.” Read the solution to this strange request in this blog post. Excel Losing Decimal Values When Value Pasted from SSMS ResultSet It is very common when users are coping the resultset to Excel, the floating point or decimals are missed. The solution is very much simple and it requires a small adjustment in the Excel. By default Excel is very smart and when it detects the value which is getting pasted is numeric it changes the column format to accommodate that. Basic Calculation and PEMDAS Order of Operation Read this interesting blog post for fantastic conversation about the subject. Copy Column Headers from Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #027 – Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_-3tLqTRv0 Delete From Multiple Table – Update Multiple Table in Single Statement There are two questions which I get every single day multiple times. In my gmail, I have created standard canned reply for them. Let us see the questions here. I want to delete from multiple table in a single statement how will I do it? I want to update multiple table in a single statement how will I do it? Read the answer in the blog post. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Windows Azure Myths

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure is part of the Microsoft "stack" - the suite of software and services we offer. Because we have so many products in almost every part of technology, it's hard to know everything about all parts of what we do - even for those of us who work here. So it's no surprise that some folks are not as familiar with Windows and SQL Azure as they are, say Windows Server or XBox. As I chat with folks about a solution for a business or organization need, I put Windows Azure into the mix. I always start off with "What do you already know about Windows Azure?" so that I don't bore folks with information they already have. I some cases they've checked out the product ahead of time and have specific questions, in others they aren't as familiar, and in still others there is a fair amount of mis-information. Sometimes that's because of a marketing failure, sometimes it's hearsay, and somtetimes it's active misinformation. I thought I might lay out a few of these misconceptions. As always - do your fact-checking! Never take anyone's word alone (including mine) as gospel. Make sure you educate yourself on your options. Your company or your clients depend on you to have the right information on IT, so make sure you live up to that. Myth 1: Nobody uses Windows Azure It's true that we don't give out numbers on the amount of clients on Windows and SQL Azure. But lots of folks are here - companies you may have heard of like Boeing, NASA, Fujitsu, The City of London, Nuedesic, and many others. I deal with firms small and large that use Windows Azure for mission-critical applications, sometimes totally on Windows and/or SQL Azure, sometimes in conjunction with an on-premises system, sometimes for only a specific component in Windows Azure like storage. The interesting thing is that many sites you visit have a Windows Azure component, or are running on Windows Azure. They just don't announce it. Just like the other cloud providers, the companies have asked to be completely branded themselves - they don't want you to be aware or care that they are on Windows Azure. Sometimes that's for security, other times it's for different reasons. It's just like the web sites you visit. For the most part, they don't advertise which OS or Web Server they use. It really just shouldn't matter. The point is that they just use what works to solve a given problem. Check out a few public case studies here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/case-studies/ Myth 2: It's only for Microsoft stuff - can't use Open Source This is the one I face the most, and am the most dismayed by. We work just fine with many open source products, including Java, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, Python, Hadoop, and many other languages and applications. You can quickly deploy a Wordpress, Umbraco and other "kits". We have software development kits (SDK's) for iPhones, iPads, Android, Windows phones and more. We have an SDK to work with FaceBook and other social networks. In short, we play well with others. More on the languages and runtimes we support here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ More on the SDK's here: http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/05/windows-azure-toolkit-for-ios/, http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/08/windows-azure-toolkits-for-devices-now-with-android/, http://azuretoolkit.codeplex.com/ Myth 3: Microsoft expects me to switch everything to "the cloud" No, we don't. That would be disasterous, unless the only things you run in your company uses works perfectly in Azure. Use Windows Azure  - or any cloud for that matter - where it works. Whenever I talk to companies, I focus on two things: Something that is broken and needs to be re-architected Something you want to do that is new If something is broken, and you need new tools to scale, extend, add capacity dynamically and so on, then you can consider using Windows or SQL Azure. It can help solve problems that you have, or it may include a component you don't want to write or architect yourself. Sometimes you want to do something new, like extend your company's offerings to mobile phones, to the web, or to a social network. More info on where it works here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Myth 4: I have to write code to use Windows and SQL Azure If Windows Azure is a PaaS - a Platform as a Service - then don't you have to write code to use it? Nope. Windows and SQL Azure are made up of various components. Some of those components allow you to write and deploy code (like Compute) and others don't. We have lots of customers using Windows Azure storage as a backup, to securely share files instead of using DropBox, to distribute videos or code or firmware, and more. Others use our High Performance Computing (HPC) offering to rent a supercomputer when they need one. You can even throw workloads at that using Excel! In addition there are lots of other components in Windows Azure you can use, from the Windows Azure Media Services to others. More here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/scenarios/saas/ Myth 5: Windows Azure is just another form of "vendor lock-in" Windows Azure uses .NET, OSS languages and standard interfaces for the code. Sure, you're not going to take the code line-for-line and run it on a mainframe, but it's standard code that you write, and can port to something else. And the data is yours - you can bring it back whever you want. It's either in text or binary form, that you have complete control over. There are no licenses - you can "pay as you go", and when you're done, you can leave the service and take all your code, data and IP with you.   So go out there, read up, try it. Use it where it works. And don't believe everything you hear - sometimes the Internet doesn't get it all correct. :)

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• The blocking nature of aggregates

  - by Rob Farley

  I wrote a post recently about how query tuning isn’t just about how quickly the query runs – that if you have something (such as SSIS) that is consuming your data (and probably introducing a bottleneck), then it might be more important to have a query which focuses on getting the first bit of data out. You can read that post here.  In particular, we looked at two operators that could be used to ensure that a query returns only Distinct rows. and The Sort operator pulls in all the data, sorts it (discarding duplicates), and then pushes out the remaining rows. The Hash Match operator performs a Hashing function on each row as it comes in, and then looks to see if it’s created a Hash it’s seen before. If not, it pushes the row out. The Sort method is quicker, but has to wait until it’s gathered all the data before it can do the sort, and therefore blocks the data flow. But that was my last post. This one’s a bit different. This post is going to look at how Aggregate functions work, which ties nicely into this month’s T-SQL Tuesday. I’ve frequently explained about the fact that DISTINCT and GROUP BY are essentially the same function, although DISTINCT is the poorer cousin because you have less control over it, and you can’t apply aggregate functions. Just like the operators used for Distinct, there are different flavours of Aggregate operators – coming in blocking and non-blocking varieties. The example I like to use to explain this is a pile of playing cards. If I’m handed a pile of cards and asked to count how many cards there are in each suit, it’s going to help if the cards are already ordered. Suppose I’m playing a game of Bridge, I can easily glance at my hand and count how many there are in each suit, because I keep the pile of cards in order. Moving from left to right, I could tell you I have four Hearts in my hand, even before I’ve got to the end. By telling you that I have four Hearts as soon as I know, I demonstrate the principle of a non-blocking operation. This is known as a Stream Aggregate operation. It requires input which is sorted by whichever columns the grouping is on, and it will release a row as soon as the group changes – when I encounter a Spade, I know I don’t have any more Hearts in my hand. Alternatively, if the pile of cards are not sorted, I won’t know how many Hearts I have until I’ve looked through all the cards. In fact, to count them, I basically need to put them into little piles, and when I’ve finished making all those piles, I can count how many there are in each. Because I don’t know any of the final numbers until I’ve seen all the cards, this is blocking. This performs the aggregate function using a Hash Match. Observant readers will remember this from my Distinct example. You might remember that my earlier Hash Match operation – used for Distinct Flow – wasn’t blocking. But this one is. They’re essentially doing a similar operation, applying a Hash function to some data and seeing if the set of values have been seen before, but before, it needs more information than the mere existence of a new set of values, it needs to consider how many of them there are. A lot is dependent here on whether the data coming out of the source is sorted or not, and this is largely determined by the indexes that are being used. If you look in the Properties of an Index Scan, you’ll be able to see whether the order of the data is required by the plan. A property called Ordered will demonstrate this. In this particular example, the second plan is significantly faster, but is dependent on having ordered data. In fact, if I force a Stream Aggregate on unordered data (which I’m doing by telling it to use a different index), a Sort operation is needed, which makes my plan a lot slower. This is all very straight-forward stuff, and information that most people are fully aware of. I’m sure you’ve all read my good friend Paul White (@sql_kiwi)’s post on how the Query Optimizer chooses which type of aggregate function to apply. But let’s take a look at SQL Server Integration Services. SSIS gives us a Aggregate transformation for use in Data Flow Tasks, but it’s described as Blocking. The definitive article on Performance Tuning SSIS uses Sort and Aggregate as examples of Blocking Transformations. I’ve just shown you that Aggregate operations used by the Query Optimizer are not always blocking, but that the SSIS Aggregate component is an example of a blocking transformation. But is it always the case? After all, there are plenty of SSIS Performance Tuning talks out there that describe the value of sorted data in Data Flow Tasks, describing the IsSorted property that can be set through the Advanced Editor of your Source component. And so I set about testing the Aggregate transformation in SSIS, to prove for sure whether providing Sorted data would let the Aggregate transform behave like a Stream Aggregate. (Of course, I knew the answer already, but it helps to be able to demonstrate these things). A query that will produce a million rows in order was in order. Let me rephrase. I used a query which produced the numbers from 1 to 1000000, in a single field, ordered. The IsSorted flag was set on the source output, with the only column as SortKey 1. Performing an Aggregate function over this (counting the number of rows per distinct number) should produce an additional column with 1 in it. If this were being done in T-SQL, the ordered data would allow a Stream Aggregate to be used. In fact, if the Query Optimizer saw that the field had a Unique Index on it, it would be able to skip the Aggregate function completely, and just insert the value 1. This is a shortcut I wouldn’t be expecting from SSIS, but certainly the Stream behaviour would be nice. Unfortunately, it’s not the case. As you can see from the screenshots above, the data is pouring into the Aggregate function, and not being released until all million rows have been seen. It’s not doing a Stream Aggregate at all. This is expected behaviour. (I put that in bold, because I want you to realise this.) An SSIS transformation is a piece of code that runs. It’s a physical operation. When you write T-SQL and ask for an aggregation to be done, it’s a logical operation. The physical operation is either a Stream Aggregate or a Hash Match. In SSIS, you’re telling the system that you want a generic Aggregation, that will have to work with whatever data is passed in. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be possible to make a sometimes-blocking aggregation component in SSIS. A Custom Component could be created which could detect whether the SortKeys columns of the input matched the Grouping columns of the Aggregation, and either call the blocking code or the non-blocking code as appropriate. One day I’ll make one of those, and publish it on my blog. I’ve done it before with a Script Component, but as Script components are single-use, I was able to handle the data knowing everything about my data flow already. As per my previous post – there are a lot of aspects in which tuning SSIS and tuning execution plans use similar concepts. In both situations, it really helps to have a feel for what’s going on behind the scenes. Considering whether an operation is blocking or not is extremely relevant to performance, and that it’s not always obvious from the surface. In a future post, I’ll show the impact of blocking v non-blocking and synchronous v asynchronous components in SSIS, using some of LobsterPot’s Script Components and Custom Components as examples. When I get that sorted, I’ll make a Stream Aggregate component available for download.

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• Learning content for MCSDs: Web Applications and Windows Store Apps using HTML5

  Recently, I started again to learn for various Microsoft certifications. First candidate on my way to MSCD: Web Applications is the Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3. Motivation to go for a Microsoft exam I guess, this is quite personal but let me briefly describe my intentions to go that exam. First, I'm doing web development since the 1990's. Working with HTML, CSS and Javascript is happening almost daily in my workspace. And honestly, I do not only do 'pure' web development but already integrated several HTML/CSS/Javascript frontend UIs into an existing desktop application (written in Visual FoxPro) inclusive two-way communication and data exchange. Hm, might be an interesting topic for another blog article here... Second, this exam has a very interesting aspect which is listed at the bottom of the exam's details: Credit Toward Certification When you pass Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3, you complete the requirements for the following certification(s): Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 Specialist Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3: counts as credit toward the following certification(s): MCSD: Web Applications MCSD: Windows Store Apps using HTML5 So, passing one single exam will earn you specialist certification straight-forward, and opens the path to higher levels of certifications. Preparations and learning path Well, due to a newsletter from Microsoft Learning (MSL) I caught interest in picking up the circumstances and learning materials for this particular exam. As of writing this article there is a promotional / voucher code available which enables you to register for this exam for free! Simply register yourself with or log into your existing account at Prometric, choose the exam for a testing facility near to you and enter the voucher code HTMLJMP (available through 31.03.2013 or while supplies last). Hurry up, there are restrictions... As stated above, I'm already very familiar with web development and the programming flavours involved into this. But of course, it is always good to freshen up your knowledge and reflect on yourself. Microsoft is putting a lot of effort to attract any kind of developers into the 'App Development'. Whether it is for the Windows 8 Store or the Windows Phone 8 Store, doesn't really matter. They simply need more apps. This demand for skilled developers also comes with a nice side-effect: Lots and lots of material to study. During the first couple of hours, I could easily gather high quality preparation material - again for free! Following is just a small list of starting points. If you have more resources, please drop me a message in the comment section, and I'll be glad to update this article accordingly. Developing HTML5 Apps Jump Start This is an accelerated jump start video course on development of HTML5 Apps for Windows 8. There are six modules that are split into two video sessions per module. Very informative and intense course material. This is packed stuff taken from an official preparation course for exam 70-480. Developing Windows Store Apps with HTML5 Jump Start Again, an accelerated preparation video course on Windows 8 Apps. There are six modules with two video sessions each which will catapult you to your exam. This is also related to preps for exam 70-481. Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Kraig Brockschmidt delves into the ups and downs of Windows 8 App development over 800+ pages. Great eBook to read, study, and to practice the samples - best of all, it's for free. codeSHOW() This is a Windows 8 HTML/JS project with the express goal of demonstrating simple development concepts for the Windows 8 platform. Code, code and more code... absolutely great stuff to study and practice. Microsoft Virtual Academy I already wrote about the MVA in a previous article. Well, if you haven't registered yourself yet, now is the time. The list is not complete for sure, but this might keep you busy for at least one or even two weeks to go through the material. Please don't hesitate to add more resources in the comment section. Right now, I'm already through all videos once, and digging my way through chapter 4 of Kraig's book. Additional material - Pluralsight Apart from those free online resources, I also following some courses from the excellent library of Pluralsight. They already have their own section for Windows 8 development, but of course, you get companion material about HTML5, CSS and Javascript in other sections, too. Introduction to Building Windows 8 Applications Building Windows 8 Applications with JavaScript and HTML Selling Windows 8 Apps HTML5 Fundamentals Using HTML5 and CSS3 HTML5 Advanced Topics CSS3 etc... Interesting to see that Michael Palermo provides his course material on multiple platforms. Fantastic! You might also pay a visit to his personal blog. Hm, it just came to my mind that Aaron Skonnard of Pluralsight publishes so-called '24 hours Learning Paths' based on courses available in the course library. Would be interested to see a combination for Windows 8 App development using HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript in the future. Recommended workspace environment Well, you might have guessed it but this requires Windows 8, Visual Studio 2012 Express or another flavour, and a valid Developers License. Due to an MSDN subscription I working on VS 2012 Premium with some additional tools by Telerik. Honestly, the fastest way to get you up and running for Windows 8 App development is the source code archive of codeSHOW(). It does not only give you all source code in general but contains a couple of SDKs like Bing Maps, Microsoft Advertising, Live ID, and Telerik Windows 8 controls... for free! Hint: Get the Windows Phone 8 SDK as well. Don't worry, while you are studying the material for Windows 8 you will be able to leverage from this knowledge to development for the phone platform, too. It takes roughly one to two hours to get your workspace and learning environment, at least this was my time frame due to slow internet connection and an aged spare machine. ;-) Oh, before I forget to mention it, as soon as you're done, go quickly to the Windows Store and search for ClassBrowserPlus. You might not need it ad hoc for your development using HTML5, CSS and Javascript but I think that it is a great developer's utility that enables you to view the properties, methods and events (along with help text) for all Windows 8 classes. It's always good to look behind the scenes and to explore how it is made. Idea: Start/join a learning group The way you learn new things or intensify your knowledge in a certain technology is completely up to your personal preference. Back in my days at the university, we used to meet once or twice a week in a small quiet room to exchange our progress, questions and problems we ran into. In general, I recommend to any software craftsman to lift your butt and get out to exchange with other developers. Personally, I like this approach, as it gives you new points of view and an insight into others' own experience with certain techniques and how they managed to solve tricky issues. Just keep it relaxed and not too formal after all, and you might a have a good time away from your dull office desk. Give your machine a break, too.

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• .NET to iOS: From WinForms to the iPad

  - by RobertChipperfield

  One of the great things about working at Red Gate is getting to play with new technology - and right now, that means mobile. A few weeks ago, we decided that a little research into the tablet computing arena was due, and purely from a numbers point of view, that suggested the iPad as a good target device. A quick trip to iPhoneDevCon in San Diego later, and Marine and I came back full of ideas, and with some concept of how iOS development was meant to work. Here's how we went from there to the release of Stacks & Heaps, our geeky take on the classic "Snakes & Ladders" game. Step 1: Buy a Mac I've played with many operating systems in my time: from the original BBC Model B, through DOS, Windows, Linux, and others, but I'd so far managed to avoid buying fruit-flavoured computer hardware! If you want to develop for the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, that's the first thing that needs to change. If you've not used OS X before, the first thing you'll realise is that everything is different! In the interests of avoiding a flame war in the comments section, I'll only go so far as to say that a lot of my Windows-flavoured muscle memory no longer worked. If you're in the UK, you'll also realise your keyboard is lacking a # key, and that " and @ are the other way around from normal. The wonderful Ukelele keyboard layout editor restores some sanity here, as long as you don't look at the keyboard when you're typing. I couldn't give up the PC entirely, but a handy application called Synergy comes to the rescue - it lets you share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple machines. There's a few limitations: Alt-Tab always seems to go to the Mac, and Windows 7's UAC dialogs require the local mouse for security reasons, but it gets you a long way at least. Step 2: Register as an Apple Developer You can register as an Apple Developer free of charge, and that lets you download XCode and the iOS SDK. You also get the iPhone / iPad emulator, which is handy, since you'll need to be a paid member before you can deploy your apps to a real device. You can either enroll as an individual, or as a company. They both cost the same ($99/year), but there's a few differences between them. If you register as a company, you can add multiple developers to your team (all for the same $99 - not $99 per developer), and you get to use your company name in the App Store. However, you'll need to send off significantly more documentation to Apple, and I suspect the process takes rather longer than for an individual, where they just need to verify some credit card details. Here's a tip: if you're registering as a company, do so as early as possible. The approval process can take a while to complete, so get the application in in plenty of time. Step 3: Learn to love the square brackets! Objective-C is the language of the iPad. C and C++ are also supported, and if you're doing some serious game development, you'll probably spend most of your time in C++ talking OpenGL, but for forms-based apps, you'll be interacting with a lot of the Objective-C SDK. Like shifting from Ctrl-C to Cmd-C, it feels a little odd at first, with the familiar string.format(.) turning into: NSString *myString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Hello world, it's %@", [NSDate date]]; Thankfully XCode's auto-complete is normally passable, if not up to Visual Studio's standards, which coupled with a huge amount of content on Stack Overflow means you'll soon get to grips with the API. You'll need to get used to some terminology changes, though; here's an incomplete approximation: Coming from a .NET background, there's some luxuries you no longer have developing Objective C in XCode: Generics! Remember back in .NET 1.1, when all collections were just objects? Yup, we're back there now. ReSharper. Or, more generally, very much refactoring support. The not-many-keystrokes to rename a class, its file, and al references to it in Visual Studio turns into a much more painful experience in XCode. Garbage collection. This is actually rather less of an issue than you might expect: if you follow the rules, the reference counting provided by Objective C gets you a long way without too much pain. Circular references are their usual problematic self, though. Decent exception handling. You do have exceptions, but they're nowhere near as widely used. Generally, if something goes wrong, you get nil (see translation table above) back. Which brings me on to. Calling a method on a nil object isn't a failure - it just returns nil itself! There's many arguments for and against this, but personally I fall into the "stuff should fail as quickly and explicitly as possible" camp. Less specifically, I found that there's more chance of code failing at runtime rather than getting caught at compile-time: using the @selector(.) syntax to pass a method signature isn't (can't be) checked at compile-time, so the first you know about a typo is a crash when you try and call it. The solution to this is of course lots of great testing, both automated and manual, but I still find comfort in provably correct type safety being enforced in addition to testing. Step 4: Submit to the App Store Assuming you want to distribute to more than a handful of devices, you're going to need to submit your app to the Apple App Store. There's a few gotchas in terms of getting builds signed with the right certificates, and you'll be bouncing around between XCode and iTunes Connect a fair bit, but eventually you get everything checked off the to-do list, and are ready to upload your first binary! With some amount of anticipation, I pressed the Upload button in XCode, ready to release our creation into the world, but was instead greeted by an error informing me my XML file was malformed. Uh. A little Googling later, and it turned out that a simple rename from "Stacks&Heaps.app" to "StacksAndHeaps.app" worked around an XML escaping bug, and we were good to go. The next step is to wait for approval (or otherwise). After a couple of weeks of intensive development, this part is agonising. Did we make it? The Apple jury is still out at the moment, but our fingers are firmly crossed! In the meantime, you can see some screenshots and leave us your email address if you'd like us to get in touch when it does go live at the MobileFoo website. Step 5: Profit! Actually, that wasn't the idea here: Stacks & Heaps is free; there's no adverts, and we're not going to sell all your data either. So why did we do it? We wanted to get an idea of what it's like to move from coding for a desktop environment, to something completely different. We don't know whether in a year's time, the iPad will still be the dominant force, or whether Android will have smoothed out some bugs, tweaked the performance, and polished the UI, but I think it's a fairly sure bet that the tablet form factor is here to stay. We want to meet people who are using it, start chatting to them, and find out about some of the pain they're feeling. What better way to do that than do it ourselves, and get to write a cool game in the process?

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• The blocking nature of aggregates

  - by Rob Farley

  I wrote a post recently about how query tuning isn’t just about how quickly the query runs – that if you have something (such as SSIS) that is consuming your data (and probably introducing a bottleneck), then it might be more important to have a query which focuses on getting the first bit of data out. You can read that post here.  In particular, we looked at two operators that could be used to ensure that a query returns only Distinct rows. and The Sort operator pulls in all the data, sorts it (discarding duplicates), and then pushes out the remaining rows. The Hash Match operator performs a Hashing function on each row as it comes in, and then looks to see if it’s created a Hash it’s seen before. If not, it pushes the row out. The Sort method is quicker, but has to wait until it’s gathered all the data before it can do the sort, and therefore blocks the data flow. But that was my last post. This one’s a bit different. This post is going to look at how Aggregate functions work, which ties nicely into this month’s T-SQL Tuesday. I’ve frequently explained about the fact that DISTINCT and GROUP BY are essentially the same function, although DISTINCT is the poorer cousin because you have less control over it, and you can’t apply aggregate functions. Just like the operators used for Distinct, there are different flavours of Aggregate operators – coming in blocking and non-blocking varieties. The example I like to use to explain this is a pile of playing cards. If I’m handed a pile of cards and asked to count how many cards there are in each suit, it’s going to help if the cards are already ordered. Suppose I’m playing a game of Bridge, I can easily glance at my hand and count how many there are in each suit, because I keep the pile of cards in order. Moving from left to right, I could tell you I have four Hearts in my hand, even before I’ve got to the end. By telling you that I have four Hearts as soon as I know, I demonstrate the principle of a non-blocking operation. This is known as a Stream Aggregate operation. It requires input which is sorted by whichever columns the grouping is on, and it will release a row as soon as the group changes – when I encounter a Spade, I know I don’t have any more Hearts in my hand. Alternatively, if the pile of cards are not sorted, I won’t know how many Hearts I have until I’ve looked through all the cards. In fact, to count them, I basically need to put them into little piles, and when I’ve finished making all those piles, I can count how many there are in each. Because I don’t know any of the final numbers until I’ve seen all the cards, this is blocking. This performs the aggregate function using a Hash Match. Observant readers will remember this from my Distinct example. You might remember that my earlier Hash Match operation – used for Distinct Flow – wasn’t blocking. But this one is. They’re essentially doing a similar operation, applying a Hash function to some data and seeing if the set of values have been seen before, but before, it needs more information than the mere existence of a new set of values, it needs to consider how many of them there are. A lot is dependent here on whether the data coming out of the source is sorted or not, and this is largely determined by the indexes that are being used. If you look in the Properties of an Index Scan, you’ll be able to see whether the order of the data is required by the plan. A property called Ordered will demonstrate this. In this particular example, the second plan is significantly faster, but is dependent on having ordered data. In fact, if I force a Stream Aggregate on unordered data (which I’m doing by telling it to use a different index), a Sort operation is needed, which makes my plan a lot slower. This is all very straight-forward stuff, and information that most people are fully aware of. I’m sure you’ve all read my good friend Paul White (@sql_kiwi)’s post on how the Query Optimizer chooses which type of aggregate function to apply. But let’s take a look at SQL Server Integration Services. SSIS gives us a Aggregate transformation for use in Data Flow Tasks, but it’s described as Blocking. The definitive article on Performance Tuning SSIS uses Sort and Aggregate as examples of Blocking Transformations. I’ve just shown you that Aggregate operations used by the Query Optimizer are not always blocking, but that the SSIS Aggregate component is an example of a blocking transformation. But is it always the case? After all, there are plenty of SSIS Performance Tuning talks out there that describe the value of sorted data in Data Flow Tasks, describing the IsSorted property that can be set through the Advanced Editor of your Source component. And so I set about testing the Aggregate transformation in SSIS, to prove for sure whether providing Sorted data would let the Aggregate transform behave like a Stream Aggregate. (Of course, I knew the answer already, but it helps to be able to demonstrate these things). A query that will produce a million rows in order was in order. Let me rephrase. I used a query which produced the numbers from 1 to 1000000, in a single field, ordered. The IsSorted flag was set on the source output, with the only column as SortKey 1. Performing an Aggregate function over this (counting the number of rows per distinct number) should produce an additional column with 1 in it. If this were being done in T-SQL, the ordered data would allow a Stream Aggregate to be used. In fact, if the Query Optimizer saw that the field had a Unique Index on it, it would be able to skip the Aggregate function completely, and just insert the value 1. This is a shortcut I wouldn’t be expecting from SSIS, but certainly the Stream behaviour would be nice. Unfortunately, it’s not the case. As you can see from the screenshots above, the data is pouring into the Aggregate function, and not being released until all million rows have been seen. It’s not doing a Stream Aggregate at all. This is expected behaviour. (I put that in bold, because I want you to realise this.) An SSIS transformation is a piece of code that runs. It’s a physical operation. When you write T-SQL and ask for an aggregation to be done, it’s a logical operation. The physical operation is either a Stream Aggregate or a Hash Match. In SSIS, you’re telling the system that you want a generic Aggregation, that will have to work with whatever data is passed in. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be possible to make a sometimes-blocking aggregation component in SSIS. A Custom Component could be created which could detect whether the SortKeys columns of the input matched the Grouping columns of the Aggregation, and either call the blocking code or the non-blocking code as appropriate. One day I’ll make one of those, and publish it on my blog. I’ve done it before with a Script Component, but as Script components are single-use, I was able to handle the data knowing everything about my data flow already. As per my previous post – there are a lot of aspects in which tuning SSIS and tuning execution plans use similar concepts. In both situations, it really helps to have a feel for what’s going on behind the scenes. Considering whether an operation is blocking or not is extremely relevant to performance, and that it’s not always obvious from the surface. In a future post, I’ll show the impact of blocking v non-blocking and synchronous v asynchronous components in SSIS, using some of LobsterPot’s Script Components and Custom Components as examples. When I get that sorted, I’ll make a Stream Aggregate component available for download.

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• MySQL Cluster 7.3 Labs Release – Foreign Keys Are In!

  - by Mat Keep

  0 0 1 1097 6254 Homework 52 14 7337 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;} Summary (aka TL/DR): Support for Foreign Key constraints has been one of the most requested feature enhancements for MySQL Cluster. We are therefore extremely excited to announce that Foreign Keys are part of the first Labs Release of MySQL Cluster 7.3 – available for download, evaluation and feedback now! (Select the mysql-cluster-7.3-labs-June-2012 build) In this blog, I will attempt to discuss the design rationale, implementation, configuration and steps to get started in evaluating the first MySQL Cluster 7.3 Labs Release. Pace of Innovation It was only a couple of months ago that we announced the General Availability (GA) of MySQL Cluster 7.2, delivering 1 billion Queries per Minute, with 70x higher cross-shard JOIN performance, Memcached NoSQL key-value API and cross-data center replication.  This release has been a huge hit, with downloads and deployments quickly reaching record levels. The announcement of the first MySQL Cluster 7.3 Early Access lab release at today's MySQL Innovation Day event demonstrates the continued pace in Cluster development, and provides an opportunity for the community to evaluate and feedback on new features they want to see. What’s the Plan for MySQL Cluster 7.3? Well, Foreign Keys, as you may have gathered by now (!), and this is the focus of this first Labs Release. As with MySQL Cluster 7.2, we plan to publish a series of preview releases for 7.3 that will incrementally add new candidate features for a final GA release (subject to usual safe harbor statement below*), including: - New NoSQL APIs; - Features to automate the configuration and provisioning of multi-node clusters, on premise or in the cloud; - Performance and scalability enhancements; - Taking advantage of features in the latest MySQL 5.x Server GA. Design Rationale MySQL Cluster is designed as a “Not-Only-SQL” database. It combines attributes that enable users to blend the best of both relational and NoSQL technologies into solutions that deliver web scalability with 99.999% availability and real-time performance, including: Concurrent NoSQL and SQL access to the database; Auto-sharding with simple scale-out across commodity hardware; Multi-master replication with failover and recovery both within and across data centers; Shared-nothing architecture with no single point of failure; Online scaling and schema changes; ACID compliance and support for complex queries, across shards. Native support for Foreign Key constraints enables users to extend the benefits of MySQL Cluster into a broader range of use-cases, including: - Packaged applications in areas such as eCommerce and Web Content Management that prescribe databases with Foreign Key support. - In-house developments benefiting from Foreign Key constraints to simplify data models and eliminate the additional application logic needed to maintain data consistency and integrity between tables. Implementation The Foreign Key functionality is implemented directly within MySQL Cluster’s data nodes, allowing any client API accessing the cluster to benefit from them – whether using SQL or one of the NoSQL interfaces (Memcached, C++, Java, JPA or HTTP/REST.) The core referential actions defined in the SQL:2003 standard are implemented: CASCADE RESTRICT NO ACTION SET NULL In addition, the MySQL Cluster implementation supports the online adding and dropping of Foreign Keys, ensuring the Cluster continues to serve both read and write requests during the operation. An important difference to note with the Foreign Key implementation in InnoDB is that MySQL Cluster does not support the updating of Primary Keys from within the Data Nodes themselves - instead the UPDATE is emulated with a DELETE followed by an INSERT operation. Therefore an UPDATE operation will return an error if the parent reference is using a Primary Key, unless using CASCADE action, in which case the delete operation will result in the corresponding rows in the child table being deleted. The Engineering team plans to change this behavior in a subsequent preview release. Also note that when using InnoDB "NO ACTION" is identical to "RESTRICT". In the case of MySQL Cluster “NO ACTION” means “deferred check”, i.e. the constraint is checked before commit, allowing user-defined triggers to automatically make changes in order to satisfy the Foreign Key constraints. Configuration There is nothing special you have to do here – Foreign Key constraint checking is enabled by default. If you intend to migrate existing tables from another database or storage engine, for example from InnoDB, there are a couple of best practices to observe: 1. Analyze the structure of the Foreign Key graph and run the ALTER TABLE ENGINE=NDB in the correct sequence to ensure constraints are enforced 2. Alternatively drop the Foreign Key constraints prior to the import process and then recreate when complete. Getting Started Read this blog for a demonstration of using Foreign Keys with MySQL Cluster.  You can download MySQL Cluster 7.3 Labs Release with Foreign Keys today - (select the mysql-cluster-7.3-labs-June-2012 build) If you are new to MySQL Cluster, the Getting Started guide will walk you through installing an evaluation cluster on a singe host (these guides reflect MySQL Cluster 7.2, but apply equally well to 7.3) Post any questions to the MySQL Cluster forum where our Engineering team will attempt to assist you. Post any bugs you find to the MySQL bug tracking system (select MySQL Cluster from the Category drop-down menu) And if you have any feedback, please post them to the Comments section of this blog. Summary MySQL Cluster 7.2 is the GA, production-ready release of MySQL Cluster. This first Labs Release of MySQL Cluster 7.3 gives you the opportunity to preview and evaluate future developments in the MySQL Cluster database, and we are very excited to be able to share that with you. Let us know how you get along with MySQL Cluster 7.3, and other features that you want to see in future releases. * Safe Harbor Statement This information is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

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• FTP Publishing with the new Windows Azure Release

  - by Harish Ranganathan

  There is a good chance you might have stumbled upon the new Windows Azure Release that we made on June 6th.  Scott Guthrie’s Post quite summarizes the overall new features. One of my favorite features is the Windows Azure Websites and the ability to do publish files to Azure using your FTP Client. Windows Azure Websites offers low cost (free upto 10 websites) web hosting where you can deploy any website that can run on IIS 7.0, quickly. The earlier releases of Azure SDKs and the Azure platform support .NET 3.5 & above for running your applications.  This was a constraint for many since there are/were a lot of ASP.NET 2.0 applications built over time and simply to put it on Azure, many of you were skeptical to migrate it to .NET 4. Windows Azure Websites offer the flexibility of running IIS 7.0 supported .NET Versions which means you can run .NET 1.1, 2.0, 3.5 and .NET 4.  Not just that! You can also run classic ASP Applications. Windows Azure Websites don’t need you to go through the complexity of adding the Cloud Project Template and then publishing the Configuration Files.  Lets take a step by step understanding of Websites and publishing using FTP. I downloaded the Club Website Starter Kit from http://www.asp.net/downloads/starter-kits/club It also requires a database and I downloaded the SQL Scripts and created a SQL Server Database called Club. This installs a Web Site Project Template.  Note that I am running Windows 8 Release Preview and Visual Studio 2012 RC.  After installing the template, select File – New – Website and don’t forget to choose the Framework version as .NET 2.0 You can see the “Club Website Starter Kit” .  Once you select the Website gets created.  You would encounter a warning indicating that the Club Website Starter Kit uses SQL Express and the recommended database is LocalDB Express.  Click ok to continue.  Once the Website is created open up the Web.config and locate the “ClubSiteDB” connection string.  By default, it points to a SQL Express Database.  Instead configure it to use your local SQL Server. Also, open up Global.asax and comment out the following line if (!Roles.RoleExists("Administrators")) Roles.CreateRole("Administrators"); There seems to be an issue in the code that doesn’t create the role.  Post that, hit CTRL+F5 and you should be able to see the Website Running, as below So, now we have the Club Starter Kit site up running locally.  Moving to Azure Visit http://manage.windowsazure.com/ and sign up for a trial account.  This allows you to host up to 10 websites for free and a host of other benefits.  The free Websites can be extended to an year without any charge.  Once you have signed up, sign in to the portal using the Live ID used for sign up. After signing in, you would be presented with the “All Items” listing page which lists, Websites, Cloud Services, Databases etc.,  If this is the first time, you wouldn’t find anything. Click on the “Websites” link from the left menu.  Click on “New” in the bottom and it should show up a dialog.  In the same, select Website and click on “Quick Create” and in the URL Textbox, specify “MyFirstDemo” and click the “Create Web Site” link below. It should take a few seconds to create the Website.  Once the Website is created, click on the listing and it should open up the Dashboard.  Since we haven’t done anything yet, there shouldn’t be any statistics Click on the “Download publish profile” link in the right bottom.  This file has the FTP publishing settings. Also, if you scroll down you can see the FTP URL for this site.  It should typically start ftp://waws-xxxx-xxx-xxxx In the downloaded publish profile file, you can also find the ftp URL.  Pick the following from this file publishUrl (the 2nd one, the one that features after publishMethod =”FTP”) and the userName and userPWD that follows. Note that we have everything required to publish the files.  But since the Club Starter Kit uses Databases, we need to have the Database running on SQL Azure.  Go back to the Main Menu and click on “New” in the bottom but this time select “SQL Database” and provide “Club” as Database name for “Quick Create” If this is the first time a Server would be created.  Otherwise, it would pickup the existing server name. Once the database is created, you can use the SQL Azure Migration Wizard http://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com/ and provide the credentials to connect to local database and then the SQL Azure database for migrating the “Club” database.  The migration wizard UI hasn’t changed much and is the same as explained by me in one my posts earlier http://geekswithblogs.net/ranganh/archive/2009/09/29/taking-your-northwind-database-to-sql-azure-and-binding-it.aspx Once the database is migrated, come back to the main screen and click on the Database base in the Azure Management Portal.  It opens up the dashboard of the database.  Click on “Show connection Strings” and it would popup a list of connection string formats.  Choose the ADO.NET connection string and after editing the password with the password that you provided when creating the database server in the Azure Portal, paste it into the config file of the Club Starter Kit Website.  Just to reiterate, the connection string key is ClubSiteDB. Try running the Website once to ensure that the application though running locally could connect to the SQL Database running on Azure. Once you are able to run the website successfully, we are all set to do the FTP Publishing. Download your favorite FTP tool.  I use http://filezilla-project.org/ In the Host Textbox, paste the FTP URL that you picked up from the publish profile file and also paste the username and password.  Click on “QuickConnect”.  If everything is fine, you should be able to connect to the remote server.  If it is successfully connected, you can see the wwwroot folder of the Website, running in Azure Make sure on the “Local Site” in the left, you choose the path to the folder of your Website.  Open up the Website folder on the left such that it lists all the files and folders inside.  Select all of them and click select “Upload” or simply drag and drop all the files to the root folder that is listed above.  Once the publishing is done, you should be able to hit the SiteURL that you can find the dashboard page of the website.  In our case, it would be http://MyFirstDemo.azurewebsites.net That’s it, we have now done FTP publishing in Azure and that too we are running a .NET 2.0 Website on Azure. Cheers !!!

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• Integrate Google Wave With Your Windows Workflow

  - by Matthew Guay

  Have you given Google Wave a try, only to find it difficult to keep up with?  Here’s how you can integrate Google Wave with your desktop and workflow with some free and simple apps. Google Wave is an online web app, and unlike many Google services, it’s not easily integrated with standard desktop applications.  Instead, you’ll have to keep it open in a browser tab, and since it is one of the most intensive HTML5 webapps available today, you may notice slowdowns in many popular browsers.  Plus, it can be hard to stay on top of your Wave conversations and collaborations by just switching back and forth between the website and whatever else you’re working on.  Here we’ll look at some tools that can help you integrate Google Wave with your workflow, and make it feel more native in Windows. Use Google Wave Directly in Windows What’s one of the best ways to make a web app feel like a native application?  By making it into a native application, of course!  Waver is a free Air powered app that can make the mobile version of Google Wave feel at home on your Windows, Mac, or Linux desktop.  We found it to be a quick and easy way to keep on top of our waves and collaborate with our friends. To get started with Waver, open their homepage on the Adobe Air Marketplace (link below) and click Download From Publisher. Waver is powered by Adobe Air, so if you don’t have Adobe Air installed, you’ll need to first download and install it. After clicking the link above, Adobe Air will open a prompt asking what you wish to do with the file.  Click Open, and then install as normal. Once the installation is finished, enter your Google Account info in the window.   After a few moments, you’ll see your Wave account in miniature, running directly in Waver.  Click a Wave to view it, or click New wave to start a new Wave message.  Unfortunately, in our tests the search box didn’t seem to work, but everything else worked fine. Google Wave works great in Waver, though all of the Wave features are not available since it is running the mobile version of Wave. You can still view content from plugins, including YouTube videos, directly in Waver.   Get Wave Notifications From Your Windows Taskbar Most popular email and Twitter clients give you notifications from your system tray when new messages come in.  And with Google Wave Notifier, you can now get the same alerts when you receive a new Wave message. Head over to the Google Wave Notifier site (link below), and click the download link to get started.  Make sure to download the latest Binary zip, as this one will contain the Windows program rather than the source code. Unzip the folder, and then run GoogleWaveNotifier.exe. On first run, you can enter your Google Account information.  Notice that this is not a standard account login window; you’ll need to enter your email address in the Username field, and then your password below it. You can also change other settings from this dialog, including update frequency and whether or not to run at startup.  Click the value, and then select the setting you want from the dropdown menu. Now, you’ll have a new Wave icon in your system tray.  When it detects new Waves or unread updates, it will display a popup notification with details about the unread Waves.  Additionally, the icon will change to show the number of unread Waves.  Click the popup to open Wave in your browser.  Or, if you have Waver installed, simply open the Waver window to view your latest Waves. If you ever need to change settings again in the future, right-click the icon and select Settings, and then edit as above. Get Wave Notifications in Your Email  Most of us have Outlook or Gmail open all day, and seldom leave the house without a Smartphone with push email.  And thanks to a new Wave feature, you can still keep up with your Waves without having to change your workflow. To activate email notifications from Google Wave, login to your Wave account, click the arrow beside your Inbox, and select Notifications. Select how quickly you want to receive notifications, and choose which email address you wish to receive the notifications.  Click Save when you’re finished. Now you’ll receive an email with information about new and updated Waves in your account.  If there were only small changes, you may get enough info directly in the email; otherwise, you can click the link and open that Wave in your browser. Conclusion Google Wave has great potential as a collaboration and communications platform, but by default it can be hard to keep up with what’s going on in your Waves.  These apps for Windows help you integrate Wave with your workflow, and can keep you from constantly logging in and checking for new Waves.  And since Google Wave registration is now open for everyone, it’s a great time to give it a try and see how it works for yourself. Links Signup for Google Wave (Google Account required) Download Waver from the Adobe Air Marketplace Download Google Wave Notifier Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips We Have 20 Google Wave Invites. Want One?Tired of Waiting for Google Wave? Try ShareFlow NowIntegrate Google Docs with Outlook the Easy WayAwesome Desktop Wallpapers: The Windows 7 EditionWeek in Geek: The Stupid Geek Tricks to Hide Extra Windows Edition TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Default Programs Editor – One great tool for Setting Defaults Convert BMP, TIFF, PCX to Vector files with RasterVect Free Identify Fonts using WhatFontis.com Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good Greate Image Viewing and Management with Zoner Photo Studio Free Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer

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• Android - Create a custom multi-line ListView bound to an ArrayList

  - by Bill Osuch

  The Android HelloListView tutorial shows how to bind a ListView to an array of string objects, but you'll probably outgrow that pretty quickly. This post will show you how to bind the ListView to an ArrayList of custom objects, as well as create a multi-line ListView. Let's say you have some sort of search functionality that returns a list of people, along with addresses and phone numbers. We're going to display that data in three formatted lines for each result, and make it clickable. First, create your new Android project, and create two layout files. Main.xml will probably already be created by default, so paste this in: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"  android:orientation="vertical"  android:layout_width="fill_parent"   android:layout_height="fill_parent">  <TextView   android:layout_height="wrap_content"   android:text="Custom ListView Contents"   android:gravity="center_vertical|center_horizontal"   android:layout_width="fill_parent" />   <ListView    android:id="@+id/ListView01"    android:layout_height="wrap_content"    android:layout_width="fill_parent"/> </LinearLayout> Next, create a layout file called custom_row_view.xml. This layout will be the template for each individual row in the ListView. You can use pretty much any type of layout - Relative, Table, etc., but for this we'll just use Linear: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"  android:orientation="vertical"  android:layout_width="fill_parent"   android:layout_height="fill_parent">   <TextView android:id="@+id/name"   android:textSize="14sp"   android:textStyle="bold"   android:textColor="#FFFF00"   android:layout_width="wrap_content"   android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>  <TextView android:id="@+id/cityState"   android:layout_width="wrap_content"   android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>  <TextView android:id="@+id/phone"   android:layout_width="wrap_content"   android:layout_height="wrap_content"/> </LinearLayout> Now, add an object called SearchResults. Paste this code in: public class SearchResults {  private String name = "";  private String cityState = "";  private String phone = "";  public void setName(String name) {   this.name = name;  }  public String getName() {   return name;  }  public void setCityState(String cityState) {   this.cityState = cityState;  }  public String getCityState() {   return cityState;  }  public void setPhone(String phone) {   this.phone = phone;  }  public String getPhone() {   return phone;  } } This is the class that we'll be filling with our data, and loading into an ArrayList. Next, you'll need a custom adapter. This one just extends the BaseAdapter, but you could extend the ArrayAdapter if you prefer. public class MyCustomBaseAdapter extends BaseAdapter {  private static ArrayList<SearchResults> searchArrayList;    private LayoutInflater mInflater;  public MyCustomBaseAdapter(Context context, ArrayList<SearchResults> results) {   searchArrayList = results;   mInflater = LayoutInflater.from(context);  }  public int getCount() {   return searchArrayList.size();  }  public Object getItem(int position) {   return searchArrayList.get(position);  }  public long getItemId(int position) {   return position;  }  public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {   ViewHolder holder;   if (convertView == null) {    convertView = mInflater.inflate(R.layout.custom_row_view, null);    holder = new ViewHolder();    holder.txtName = (TextView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.name);    holder.txtCityState = (TextView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.cityState);    holder.txtPhone = (TextView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.phone);    convertView.setTag(holder);   } else {    holder = (ViewHolder) convertView.getTag();   }      holder.txtName.setText(searchArrayList.get(position).getName());   holder.txtCityState.setText(searchArrayList.get(position).getCityState());   holder.txtPhone.setText(searchArrayList.get(position).getPhone());   return convertView;  }  static class ViewHolder {   TextView txtName;   TextView txtCityState;   TextView txtPhone;  } } (This is basically the same as the List14.java API demo) Finally, we'll wire it all up in the main class file: public class CustomListView extends Activity {     @Override     public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);         setContentView(R.layout.main);                 ArrayList<SearchResults> searchResults = GetSearchResults();                 final ListView lv1 = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.ListView01);         lv1.setAdapter(new MyCustomBaseAdapter(this, searchResults));                 lv1.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {          @Override          public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> a, View v, int position, long id) {           Object o = lv1.getItemAtPosition(position);           SearchResults fullObject = (SearchResults)o;           Toast.makeText(ListViewBlogPost.this, "You have chosen: " + " " + fullObject.getName(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();          }          });     }         private ArrayList<SearchResults> GetSearchResults(){      ArrayList<SearchResults> results = new ArrayList<SearchResults>();            SearchResults sr1 = new SearchResults();      sr1.setName("John Smith");      sr1.setCityState("Dallas, TX");      sr1.setPhone("214-555-1234");      results.add(sr1);            sr1 = new SearchResults();      sr1.setName("Jane Doe");      sr1.setCityState("Atlanta, GA");      sr1.setPhone("469-555-2587");      results.add(sr1);            sr1 = new SearchResults();      sr1.setName("Steve Young");      sr1.setCityState("Miami, FL");      sr1.setPhone("305-555-7895");      results.add(sr1);            sr1 = new SearchResults();      sr1.setName("Fred Jones");      sr1.setCityState("Las Vegas, NV");      sr1.setPhone("612-555-8214");      results.add(sr1);            return results;     } } Notice that we first get an ArrayList of SearchResults objects (normally this would be from an external data source...), pass it to the custom adapter, then set up a click listener. The listener gets the item that was clicked, converts it back to a SearchResults object, and does whatever it needs to do. Fire it up in the emulator, and you should wind up with something like this:

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #032

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Complete Series of Database Coding Standards and Guidelines SQL SERVER Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Introduction SQL SERVER – Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Part 1 SQL SERVER – Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Part 2 SQL SERVER Database Coding Standards and Guidelines Complete List Download Explanation and Example – SELF JOIN When all of the data you require is contained within a single table, but data needed to extract is related to each other in the table itself. Examples of this type of data relate to Employee information, where the table may have both an Employee’s ID number for each record and also a field that displays the ID number of an Employee’s supervisor or manager. To retrieve the data tables are required to relate/join to itself. Insert Multiple Records Using One Insert Statement – Use of UNION ALL This is very interesting question I have received from new developer. How can I insert multiple values in table using only one insert? Now this is interesting question. When there are multiple records are to be inserted in the table following is the common way using T-SQL. Function to Display Current Week Date and Day – Weekly Calendar Straight blog post with script to find current week date and day based on the parameters passed in the function.  2008 In my beginning years, I have almost same confusion as many of the developer had in their earlier years. Here are two of the interesting question which I have attempted to answer in my early year. Even if you are experienced developer may be you will still like to read following two questions: Order Of Column In Index Order of Conditions in WHERE Clauses Example of DISTINCT in Aggregate Functions Have you ever used DISTINCT with the Aggregation Function? Here is a simple example about how users can do it. Create a Comma Delimited List Using SELECT Clause From Table Column Straight to script example where I explained how to do something easy and quickly. Compound Assignment Operators SQL SERVER 2008 has introduced new concept of Compound Assignment Operators. Compound Assignment Operators are available in many other programming languages for quite some time. Compound Assignment Operators is operator where variables are operated upon and assigned on the same line. PIVOT and UNPIVOT Table Examples Here is a very interesting question – the answer to the question can be YES or NO both. “If we PIVOT any table and UNPIVOT that table do we get our original table?” Read the blog post to get the explanation of the question above. 2009 What is Interim Table – Simple Definition of Interim Table The interim table is a table that is generated by joining two tables and not the final result table. In other words, when two tables are joined they create an interim table as resultset but the resultset is not final yet. It may be possible that more tables are about to join on the interim table, and more operations are still to be applied on that table (e.g. Order By, Having etc). Besides, it may be possible that there is no interim table; sometimes final table is what is generated when the query is run. 2010 Stored Procedure and Transactions If Stored Procedure is transactional then, it should roll back complete transactions when it encounters any errors. Well, that does not happen in this case, which proves that Stored Procedure does not only provide just the transactional feature to a batch of T-SQL. Generate Database Script for SQL Azure When talking about SQL Azure the most common complaint I hear is that the script generated from stand-along SQL Server database is not compatible with SQL Azure. This was true for some time for sure but not any more. If you have SQL Server 2008 R2 installed you can follow the guideline below to generate a script which is compatible with SQL Azure. Convert IN to EXISTS – Performance Talk It is NOT necessary that every time when IN is replaced by EXISTS it gives better performance. However, in our case listed above it does for sure give better performance. You can read about this subject in the associated blog post. Subquery or Join – Various Options – SQL Server Engine Knows the Best Every single time whenever there is a performance tuning exercise, I hear the conversation from developer where some prefer subquery and some prefer join. In this two part blog post, I explain the same in the detail with examples. Part 1 | Part 2 Merge Operations – Insert, Update, Delete in Single Execution MERGE is a new feature that provides an efficient way to do multiple DML operations. In earlier versions of SQL Server, we had to write separate statements to INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE data based on certain conditions; however, at present, by using the MERGE statement, we can include the logic of such data changes in one statement that even checks when the data is matched and then just update it, and similarly, when the data is unmatched, it is inserted. 2011 Puzzle – Statistics are not updated but are Created Once Here is the quick scenario about my setup. Create Table Insert 1000 Records Check the Statistics Now insert 10 times more 10,000 indexes Check the Statistics – it will be NOT updated – WHY? Question to You – When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure Personally, I believe that they are both different things - they cannot be compared. I can say, it will be like comparing apples and oranges. Each has its own unique use. However, they can be used interchangeably at many times and in real life (i.e., production environment). I have personally seen both of these being used interchangeably many times. This is the precise reason for asking this question. 2012 In year 2012 I had two interesting series ran on the blog. If there is no fun in learning, the learning becomes a burden. For the same reason, I had decided to build a three part quiz around SEQUENCE. The quiz was to identify the next value of the sequence. I encourage all of you to take part in this fun quiz. Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 1 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 2 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 3 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 4 Simple Example to Configure Resource Governor – Introduction to Resource Governor Resource Governor is a feature which can manage SQL Server Workload and System Resource Consumption. We can limit the amount of CPU and memory consumption by limiting /governing /throttling on the SQL Server. If there are different workloads running on SQL Server and each of the workload needs different resources or when workloads are competing for resources with each other and affecting the performance of the whole server resource governor is a very important task. Tricks to Replace SELECT * with Column Names – SQL in Sixty Seconds #017 – Video  Retrieves unnecessary columns and increases network traffic When a new columns are added views needs to be refreshed manually Leads to usage of sub-optimal execution plan Uses clustered index in most of the cases instead of using optimal index It is difficult to debug SQL SERVER – Load Generator – Free Tool From CodePlex The best part of this SQL Server Load Generator is that users can run multiple simultaneous queries again SQL Server using different login account and different application name. The interface of the tool is extremely easy to use and very intuitive as well. A Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement Let us assume there is a single column in the table called Gender. The challenge is to write a single update statement which will flip or swap the value in the column. For example if the value in the gender column is ‘male’ swap it with ‘female’ and if the value is ‘female’ swap it with ‘male’. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Can Microsoft Build Appliances?

  - by andrewbrust

  Billy Hollis, my Visual Studio Live! colleague and fellow Microsoft Regional Director said recently, and I am paraphrasing, that the computing world, especially on the consumer side, has shifted from one of building hardware and software that makes things possible to do, to building products and technologies that make things easy to do.  Billy crystalized things perfectly, as he often does. In this new world of “easy to do,” Apple has done very well and Microsoft has struggled.  In the old world, customers wanted a Swiss Army Knife, with the most gimmicks and gadgets possible.  In the new world, people want elegantly cutlery.  They may want cake cutters and utility knives too, but they don’t want one device that works for all three tasks.  People don’t want tools, they want utensils.  People don’t want machines.  They want appliances. Microsoft Appliances: They Do Exist Microsoft has built a few appliance-like devices.  I would say XBox 360 is an appliance,  It’s versatile, mind you, but it’s the kind of thing you plug in, turn on and use, as opposed to set-up, tune, and open up to upgrade the internals.  Windows Phone 7 is an appliance too.  It’s a true smartphone, unlike Windows Mobile which was a handheld computer with a radio stack.  Zune is an appliance too, and a nice one.  It hasn’t attained much traction in the market, but that’s probably because the seminal consumer computing appliance -- the iPod – got there so much more quickly. In the embedded world, Mediaroom, Microsoft’s set-top product for the cable industry (used by AT&T U-Verse and others) is an appliance.  So is Microsoft’s Sync technology, used in Ford automobiles.  Even on the enterprise side, Microsoft has an appliance: SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse Edition (PDW) combines Microsoft software with select OEMs’ server, networking and storage hardware.  You buy the appliance units from the OEMs, plug them in, connect them and go. I would even say that Bing is an appliance.  Not in the hardware sense, mind you.  But from the software perspective, it’s a single-purpose product that you visit or run, use and then move on.  You don’t have to install it (except the iOS and Android native apps where it’s pretty straightforward), you don’t have to customize it, you don’t have to program it.  Basically, you just use it. Microsoft Appliances that Should Exist But Microsoft builds a bunch of things that are not appliances.  Media Center is not an appliance, and it most certainly should be.  Instead, it’s an app that runs on Windows 7.  It runs full-screen and you can use this configuration to conceal the fact that Windows is under it, but eventually something will cause you to abandon that masquerade (like Patch Tuesday). The next version of Windows Home Server won’t, in my opinion, be an appliance either.  Now that the Drive Extender technology is gone, and users can’t just add and remove drives into and from a single storage pool, the product is much more like a IT server and less like an appliance-premised one.  Much has been written about this decision by Microsoft.  I’ll just sum it up in one word: pity. Microsoft doesn’t have anything remotely appliance-like in the tablet category, either.  Until it does, it likely won’t have much market share in that space either.  And of course, the bulk of Microsoft’s product catalog on the business side is geared to enterprise machines and not personal appliances. Appliance DNA: They Gotta Have It. The consumerization of IT is real, because businesspeople are consumers too.  They appreciate the fit and finish of appliances at home, and they increasingly feel entitled to have it at work too.  Secure and reliable push email in a smartphone is necessary, but it isn’t enough.  People want great apps and a pleasurable user experience too.  The full Microsoft Office product is needed at work, but a PC with a keyboard and mouse, or maybe a touch screen that uses a stylus (or requires really small fingers), to run Office isn’t enough either.  People want a flawless touch experience available for the times they want to read and take quick notes.  Until Microsoft realizes this fully and internalizes it, it will suffer defeats in the consumer market and even setbacks in the business market.  Think about how slow the Office upgrade cycle is…now imagine if the next version of Office had a first-class alternate touch UI and consider the possible acceleration in adoption rates. Can Microsoft make the appliance switch?  Can the appliance mentality become pervasive at the company?  Can Microsoft hasten its release cycles dramatically and shed the “some assembly required” paradigm upon which many of its products are based?  Let’s face it, the chances that Microsoft won’t make this transition are significant. But there are also encouraging signs, and they should not be ignored.  The appliances we have already discussed, especially Xbox, Zune and Windows Phone 7, are the most obvious in this regard.  The fact that SQL Server has an appliance SKU now is a more subtle but perhaps also more significant outcome, because that product sits so smack in the middle of Microsoft’s enterprise stack.  Bing is encouraging too, especially given its integrated travel, maps and augmented reality capabilities.  As Bing gains market share, Microsoft has tangible proof that it can transform and win, even when everyone outside the company, and many within it, would bet otherwise. That Great Big Appliance in the Sky Perhaps the most promising (and evolving) proof points toward the appliance mentality, though, are Microsoft’s cloud offerings -- Azure and BPOS/Office 365.  While the cloud does not represent a physical appliance (quite the opposite in fact) its ability to make acquisition, deployment and use of technology simple for the user is absolutely an embodiment of the appliance mentality and spirit.  Azure is primarily a platform as a service offering; it doesn’t just provide infrastructure.  SQL Azure does likewise for databases.  And Office 365 does likewise for SharePoint, Exchange and Lync. You don’t administer, tune and manage servers; instead, you create databases or site collections or mailboxes and start using them. Upgrades come automatically, and it seems like releases will come more frequently.  Fault tolerance and content distribution is just there.  No muss.  No fuss.  You use these services; you don’t have to set them up and think about them.  That’s how appliances work.  To me, these signs point out that Microsoft has the full capability of transforming itself.  But there’s a lot of work ahead.  Microsoft may say they’re “all in” on the cloud, but the majority of the company is still oriented around its old products and models.  There needs to be a wholesale cultural transformation in Redmond.  It can happen, but product management, program management, the field and executive ranks must unify in the effort. So must partners, and even customers.  New leaders must rise up and Microsoft must be able to see itself as a winner.  If Microsoft does this, it could lock-in decades of new success, and be a standard business school case study for doing so.  If not, the company will have missed an opportunity, and may see its undoing.

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• Advanced Continuous Delivery to Azure from TFS, Part 1: Good Enough Is Not Great

  - by jasont

  The folks over on the TFS / Visual Studio team have been working hard at releasing a steady stream of new features for their new hosted Team Foundation Service in the cloud. One of the most significant features released was simple continuous delivery of your solution into your Azure deployments. The original announcement from Brian Harry can be found here. Team Foundation Service is a great platform for .Net developers who are used to working with TFS on-premises. I’ve been using it since it became available at the //BUILD conference in 2011, and when I recently came to work at Stackify, it was one of the first changes I made. Managing work items is much easier than the tool we were using previously, although there are some limitations (more on that in another blog post). However, when continuous deployment was made available, it blew my mind. It was the killer feature I didn’t know I needed. Not to say that I wasn’t previously an advocate for continuous delivery; just that it was always a pain to set up and configure. Having it hosted - and a one-click setup – well, that’s just the best thing since sliced bread. It made perfect sense: my source code is in the cloud, and my deployment is in the cloud. Great! I can queue up a build from my iPad or phone and just let it go! I quickly tore through the quick setup and saw it all work… sort of. This will be the first in a three part series on how to take the building block of Team Foundation Service continuous delivery and build a CD model that will actually work for any team deploying something more advanced than a “Hello World” example. Part 1: Good Enough Is Not Great Part 2: A Model That Works: Branching and Multiple Deployment Environments Part 3: Other Considerations: SQL, Custom Tasks, Etc Good Enough Is Not Great There. I’ve said it. I certainly hope no one on the TFS team is offended, but it’s the truth. Let’s take a look under the hood and understand how it works, and then why it’s not enough to handle real world CD as-is. How it works. (note that I’ve skipped a couple of steps; I already have my accounts set up and something deployed to Azure) The first step is to establish some oAuth magic between your Azure management portal and your TFS Instance. You do this via the management portal. Once it’s done, you have a new build process template in your TFS instance. (Image lifted from the documentation) From here, you’ll get the usual prompts for security, allowing access, etc. But you’ll also get to pick which Solution in your source control to build. Here’s what the bulk of the build definition looks like. All I’ve had to do is add in the solution to build (notice that mine is from a specific branch – Release – more on that later) and I’ve changed the configuration. I trigger the build, and voila! I have an Azure deployment a few minutes later. The beauty of this is that it’s all in the cloud and I’m not waiting for my machine to compile and upload the package. (I also had to enable the build definition first – by default it is created in disabled state, probably a good thing since it will trigger on every.single.checkin by default.) I get to see a history of deployments from the Azure portal, and can link into TFS to see the associated changesets and work items. You’ll notice also that this build definition also automatically put my code in the Staging slot of my Azure deployment – more on this soon. For now, I can VIP swap and be in production. (P.S. I hate VIP swap and “production” and “staging” in Azure. More on that later too.) That’s it. That’s the default out-of-box experience. Easy, right? But it’s full of room for improvement, so let’s get into that….   The Problems Nothing is perfect (except my code – it’s always perfect), and neither is Continuous Deployment without a bit of work to help it fit your dev team’s process. So what are the issues? Issue 1: Staging vs QA vs Prod vs whatever other environments your team may have. This, for me, is the big hairy one. Remember how this automatically deployed to staging rather than prod for us? There are a couple of issues with this model: If I want to deliver to prod, it requires intervention on my part after deployment (via a VIP swap). If I truly want to promote between environments (i.e. Nightly Build –> Stable QA –> Production) I likely have configuration changes between each environment such as database connection strings and this process (and the VIP swap) doesn’t account for this. Yet. Issue 2: Branching and delivering on every check-in. As I mentioned above, I have set this up to target a specific branch – Release – of my code. For the purposes of this example, I have adopted the “basic” branching strategy as defined by the ALM Rangers. This basically establishes a “Main” trunk where you branch off Dev and Release branches. Granted, the Release branch is usually the only thing you will deploy to production, but you certainly don’t want to roll to production automatically when you merge to the Release branch and check-in (unless you like the thrill of it, and in that case, I like your style, cowboy….). Rather, you have nightly build and QA environments, or if you’ve adopted the feature-branch model you have environments for those. Those are the environments you want to continuously deploy to. But that takes us back to Issue 1: we currently have a 1:1 solution to Azure deployment target. Issue 3: SQL and other custom tasks. Let’s be honest and address the elephant in the room: I need to get some sleep because I see an elephant in the room. But seriously, I can’t think of an application I have touched in the last 10 years that doesn’t need to consider SQL changes when deploying code and upgrading an environment. Microsoft seems perfectly content to ignore this elephant for now: yes, they’ve added Data Tier Applications. But let’s be honest with ourselves again: no one really uses it, and it’s not suitable for anything more complex than a Hello World sample project database. Why? Because it doesn’t fit well into a great source control story. Developers make stored procedure and table changes all day long while coding complex applications, and if someone forgets to go update the DACPAC before the automated deployment, you have a broken build until it’s completed. Developers – not just DBAs – also like to work with SQL in SQL tools, not in Visual Studio. I’m really picking on SQL because that’s generally the biggest concern that I hear. But we need to account for any custom tasks as well in the build process.   The Solutions… ? We’ve taken a look at how this all works, and addressed the shortcomings. In my next post (which I promise will be very, very soon), I will detail how I’ve overcome these shortcomings and used this foundation to create a mature, flexible model for deploying my app – any version, any time, to any environment.

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• Fraud Detection with the SQL Server Suite Part 2

  - by Dejan Sarka

  This is the second part of the fraud detection whitepaper. You can find the first part in my previous blog post about this topic. My Approach to Data Mining Projects It is impossible to evaluate the time and money needed for a complete fraud detection infrastructure in advance. Personally, I do not know the customer’s data in advance. I don’t know whether there is already an existing infrastructure, like a data warehouse, in place, or whether we would need to build one from scratch. Therefore, I always suggest to start with a proof-of-concept (POC) project. A POC takes something between 5 and 10 working days, and involves personnel from the customer’s site – either employees or outsourced consultants. The team should include a subject matter expert (SME) and at least one information technology (IT) expert. The SME must be familiar with both the domain in question as well as the meaning of data at hand, while the IT expert should be familiar with the structure of data, how to access it, and have some programming (preferably Transact-SQL) knowledge. With more than one IT expert the most time consuming work, namely data preparation and overview, can be completed sooner. I assume that the relevant data is already extracted and available at the very beginning of the POC project. If a customer wants to have their people involved in the project directly and requests the transfer of knowledge, the project begins with training. I strongly advise this approach as it offers the establishment of a common background for all people involved, the understanding of how the algorithms work and the understanding of how the results should be interpreted, a way of becoming familiar with the SQL Server suite, and more. Once the data has been extracted, the customer’s SME (i.e. the analyst), and the IT expert assigned to the project will learn how to prepare the data in an efficient manner. Together with me, knowledge and expertise allow us to focus immediately on the most interesting attributes and identify any additional, calculated, ones soon after. By employing our programming knowledge, we can, for example, prepare tens of derived variables, detect outliers, identify the relationships between pairs of input variables, and more, in only two or three days, depending on the quantity and the quality of input data. I favor the customer’s decision of assigning additional personnel to the project. For example, I actually prefer to work with two teams simultaneously. I demonstrate and explain the subject matter by applying techniques directly on the data managed by each team, and then both teams continue to work on the data overview and data preparation under our supervision. I explain to the teams what kind of results we expect, the reasons why they are needed, and how to achieve them. Afterwards we review and explain the results, and continue with new instructions, until we resolve all known problems. Simultaneously with the data preparation the data overview is performed. The logic behind this task is the same – again I show to the teams involved the expected results, how to achieve them and what they mean. This is also done in multiple cycles as is the case with data preparation, because, quite frankly, both tasks are completely interleaved. A specific objective of the data overview is of principal importance – it is represented by a simple star schema and a simple OLAP cube that will first of all simplify data discovery and interpretation of the results, and will also prove useful in the following tasks. The presence of the customer’s SME is the key to resolving possible issues with the actual meaning of the data. We can always replace the IT part of the team with another database developer; however, we cannot conduct this kind of a project without the customer’s SME. After the data preparation and when the data overview is available, we begin the scientific part of the project. I assist the team in developing a variety of models, and in interpreting the results. The results are presented graphically, in an intuitive way. While it is possible to interpret the results on the fly, a much more appropriate alternative is possible if the initial training was also performed, because it allows the customer’s personnel to interpret the results by themselves, with only some guidance from me. The models are evaluated immediately by using several different techniques. One of the techniques includes evaluation over time, where we use an OLAP cube. After evaluating the models, we select the most appropriate model to be deployed for a production test; this allows the team to understand the deployment process. There are many possibilities of deploying data mining models into production; at the POC stage, we select the one that can be completed quickly. Typically, this means that we add the mining model as an additional dimension to an existing DW or OLAP cube, or to the OLAP cube developed during the data overview phase. Finally, we spend some time presenting the results of the POC project to the stakeholders and managers. Even from a POC, the customer will receive lots of benefits, all at the sole risk of spending money and time for a single 5 to 10 day project: The customer learns the basic patterns of frauds and fraud detection The customer learns how to do the entire cycle with their own people, only relying on me for the most complex problems The customer’s analysts learn how to perform much more in-depth analyses than they ever thought possible The customer’s IT experts learn how to perform data extraction and preparation much more efficiently than they did before All of the attendees of this training learn how to use their own creativity to implement further improvements of the process and procedures, even after the solution has been deployed to production The POC output for a smaller company or for a subsidiary of a larger company can actually be considered a finished, production-ready solution It is possible to utilize the results of the POC project at subsidiary level, as a finished POC project for the entire enterprise Typically, the project results in several important “side effects” Improved data quality Improved employee job satisfaction, as they are able to proactively contribute to the central knowledge about fraud patterns in the organization Because eventually more minds get to be involved in the enterprise, the company should expect more and better fraud detection patterns After the POC project is completed as described above, the actual project would not need months of engagement from my side. This is possible due to our preference to transfer the knowledge onto the customer’s employees: typically, the customer will use the results of the POC project for some time, and only engage me again to complete the project, or to ask for additional expertise if the complexity of the problem increases significantly. I usually expect to perform the following tasks: Establish the final infrastructure to measure the efficiency of the deployed models Deploy the models in additional scenarios Through reports By including Data Mining Extensions (DMX) queries in OLTP applications to support real-time early warnings Include data mining models as dimensions in OLAP cubes, if this was not done already during the POC project Create smart ETL applications that divert suspicious data for immediate or later inspection I would also offer to investigate how the outcome could be transferred automatically to the central system; for instance, if the POC project was performed in a subsidiary whereas a central system is available as well Of course, for the actual project, I would repeat the data and model preparation as needed It is virtually impossible to tell in advance how much time the deployment would take, before we decide together with customer what exactly the deployment process should cover. Without considering the deployment part, and with the POC project conducted as suggested above (including the transfer of knowledge), the actual project should still only take additional 5 to 10 days. The approximate timeline for the POC project is, as follows: 1-2 days of training 2-3 days for data preparation and data overview 2 days for creating and evaluating the models 1 day for initial preparation of the continuous learning infrastructure 1 day for presentation of the results and discussion of further actions Quite frequently I receive the following question: are we going to find the best possible model during the POC project, or during the actual project? My answer is always quite simple: I do not know. Maybe, if we would spend just one hour more for data preparation, or create just one more model, we could get better patterns and predictions. However, we simply must stop somewhere, and the best possible way to do this, according to my experience, is to restrict the time spent on the project in advance, after an agreement with the customer. You must also never forget that, because we build the complete learning infrastructure and transfer the knowledge, the customer will be capable of doing further investigations independently and improve the models and predictions over time without the need for a constant engagement with me.

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• The Internet of Things Is Really the Internet of People

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Mark Hurd - Originally Posted on LinkedIn As I speak with CEOs around the world, our conversations invariably come down to this central question: Can we change our corporate cultures and the ways we train and reward our people as rapidly as new technology is changing the work we do, the products we make and how we engage with customers? It’s a critical consideration given today’s pace of disruption, which already is straining traditional management models and HR strategies. Winning companies will bring innovation and vision to their employees and partners by attracting people who will thrive in this emerging world of relentless data, predictive analytics and unlimited what-if scenarios. So, where are we going to find employees who are as familiar with complex data as I am with orderly financial statements and business plans? I’m not just talking about high-end data scientists who most certainly will sit at or near the top of the new decision-making pyramid. Global organizations will need creative and motivated people who will devote their time to manipulating, reviewing, analyzing, sorting and reshaping data to drive business and delight customers. This might seem evident, but my conversations with business people across the globe indicate that only a small number of companies get it. In the past few years, executives have been busy keeping pace with seismic upheavals, including the rise of social customer engagement, the rapid acceleration of product-development cycles and the relentless move to mobile-first. But all of that, I think, is the start of an uphill climb to the top of a roller-coaster. Today, about 10 billion devices across the globe are connected to the Internet. In a couple of years, that number will probably double, and not because we will have bought 10 billion more computers, smart phones and tablets. This unprecedented explosion of Big Data is being triggered by the Internet of Things, which is another way of saying that the numerous intelligent devices touching our everyday lives are all becoming interconnected. Home appliances, food, industrial equipment, pets, pharmaceutical products, pallets, cars, luggage, packaged goods, athletic equipment, even clothing will be streaming data. Some data will provide important information about how to run our businesses and lead healthier lives. Much of it will be extraneous. How does a CEO cope with this unimaginable volume and velocity of data, much less harness it to excite and delight customers? Here are three things CEOs must do to tackle this challenge: 1) Take care of your employees, take care of your customers. Larry Ellison recently noted that the two most important priorities for any CEO today revolve around people: Taking care of your employees and taking care of your customers. Companies in today’s hypercompetitive business environment simply won’t be able to survive unless they’ve got world-class people at all levels of the organization. CEOs must demonstrate a commitment to employees by becoming champions for HR systems that empower every employee to fully understand his or her job, how it ties into the corporate framework, what’s expected of them, what training is available, and how they can use an embedded social network to communicate, collaborate and excel. Over the next several years, many of the world’s top industrialized economies will see a turnover in the workforce on an unprecedented scale. Across the United States, Europe, China and Japan, the “baby boomer” generation will be retiring and, by 2020, we’ll see turnovers in those regions ranging from 10 to 30 percent. How will companies replace all that brainpower, experience and know-how? How will CEOs perpetuate the best elements of their corporate cultures in the midst of this profound turnover? The challenge will be daunting, but it can be met with world-class HR technology. As companies begin replacing up to 30 percent of their workforce, they will need thousands of new types of data-native workers to exploit the Internet of Things in the service of the Internet of People. The shift in corporate mindset here can’t be overstated. The CEO has to be at the forefront of this new way of recruiting, training, motivating, aligning and developing truly 21-century talent. 2) Start thinking today about the Internet of People. Some forward-looking companies have begun pursuing the “democratization of data.” This allows more people within a company greater access to data that can help them make better decisions, move more quickly and keep pace with the changing interests and demands of their customers. As a result, we’ve seen organizations flatten out, growing numbers of well-informed people authorized to make decisions without corporate approval and a movement of engagement away from headquarters to the point of contact with the customer. These are profound changes, and I’m a huge proponent. As I think about what the next few years will bring as companies become deluged with unprecedented streams of data, I’m convinced that we’ll need dramatically different organizational structures, decision-making models, risk-management profiles and reward systems. For example, if a car company’s marketing department mines incoming data to determine that customers are shifting rapidly toward neon-green models, how many layers of approval, review, analysis and sign-off will be needed before the factory starts cranking out more neon-green cars? Will we continue to have organizations where too many people are empowered to say “No” and too few are allowed to say “Yes”? If so, how will those companies be able to compete in a world in which customers have more choices, instant access to more information and less loyalty than ever before? That’s why I think CEOs need to begin thinking about this problem right now, not in a year or two when competitors are already reshaping their organizations to match the marketplace’s new realities. 3) Partner with universities to help create a new type of highly skilled workers. Several years ago, universities introduced new undergraduate as well as graduate-level programs in analytics and informatics as the business need for deeper insights into the booming world of data began to explode. Today, as the growth rate of data continues to soar, we know that the Internet of Things will only intensify that growth. Moreover, as Big Data fuels insights that can be shaped into products and services that generate revenue, the demand for data scientists and data specialists will go on unabated. Beyond that top-level expertise, companies are going to need data-native thinkers at all levels of the organization. Where will this new type of worker come from? I think it’s incumbent on the business community to collaborate with universities to develop new curricula designed to turn out graduates who can capitalize on the data-driven world that the Internet of Things is surely going to create. These new workers will create opportunities to help their companies in fields as diverse as product design, customer service, marketing, manufacturing and distribution. They will become innovative leaders in fashioning an entirely new type of workforce and organizational structure optimized to fully exploit the Internet of Things so that it becomes a high-value enabler of the Internet of People. Mark Hurd is President of Oracle Corporation and a member of the company's Board of Directors. He joined Oracle in 2010, bringing more than 30 years of technology industry leadership, computer hardware expertise, and executive management experience to his role with the company. As President, Mr. Hurd oversees the corporate direction and strategy for Oracle's global field operations, including marketing, sales, consulting, alliances and channels, and support. He focuses on strategy, leadership, innovation, and customers.

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• The Business of Winning Innovation: An Exclusive Blog Series

  - by Kerrie Foy

  "The Business of Winning Innovation” is a series of articles authored by Oracle Agile PLM experts on what it takes to make innovation a successful and lucrative competitive advantage. Our customers have proven Agile PLM applications to be enormously flexible and comprehensive, so we’ve launched this article series to showcase some of the most fascinating, value-packed use cases. In this article by Keith Colonna, we kick-off the series by taking a look at the science side of innovation within the Consumer Products industry and how PLM can help companies innovate faster, cheaper, smarter. This article will review how innovation has become the lifeline for growth within consumer products companies and how certain companies are “winning” by creating a competitive advantage for themselves by taking a more enterprise-wide,systematic approach to “innovation”.   Managing the Science of Innovation within the Consumer Products Industry By: Keith Colonna, Value Chain Solution Manager, Oracle The consumer products (CP) industry is very mature and competitive. Most companies within this industry have saturated North America (NA) with their products thus maximizing their NA growth potential. Future growth is expected to come from either expansion outside of North America and/or by way of new ideas and products. Innovation plays an integral role in both of these strategies, whether you’re innovating business processes or the products themselves, and may cause several challenges for the typical CP company, Becoming more innovative is both an art and a science. Most CP companies are very good at the art of coming up with new innovative ideas, but many struggle with perfecting the science aspect that involves the best practice processes that help companies quickly turn ideas into sellable products and services. Symptoms and Causes of Business Pain Struggles associated with the science of innovation show up in a variety of ways, like: · Establishing and storing innovative product ideas and data · Funneling these ideas to the chosen few · Time to market cycle time and on-time launch rates · Success rates, or how often the best idea gets chosen · Imperfect decision making (i.e. the ability to kill projects that are not projected to be winners) · Achieving financial goals · Return on R&D investment · Communicating internally and externally as more outsource partners are added globally · Knowing your new product pipeline and project status These challenges (and others) can be consolidated into three root causes: A lack of visibility Poor data with limited access The inability to truly collaborate enterprise-wide throughout your extended value chain Choose the Right Remedy Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions are uniquely designed to help companies solve these types challenges and their root causes. However, PLM solutions can vary widely in terms of configurability, functionality, time-to-value, etc. Business leaders should evaluate PLM solution in terms of their own business drivers and long-term vision to determine the right fit. Many of these solutions are point solutions that can help you cure only one or two business pains in the short term. Others have been designed to serve other industries with different needs. Then there are those solutions that demo well but are owned by companies that are either unable or unwilling to continuously improve their solution to stay abreast of the ever changing needs of the CP industry to grow through innovation. What the Right PLM Solution Should Do for You Based on more than twenty years working in the CP industry, I recommend investing in a single solution that can help you solve all of the issues associated with the science of innovation in a totally integrated fashion. By integration I mean the (1) integration of the all of the processes associated with the development, maintenance and delivery of your product data, and (2) the integration, or harmonization of this product data with other downstream sources, like ERP, product catalogues and the GS1 Global Data Synchronization Network (or GDSN, which is now a CP industry requirement for doing business with most retailers). The right PLM solution should help you: Increase Revenue. A best practice PLM solution should help a company grow its revenues by consolidating product development cycle-time and helping companies get new and improved products to market sooner. PLM should also eliminate many of the root causes for a product being returned, refused and/or reclaimed (which takes away from top-line growth) by creating an enterprise-wide, collaborative, workflow-driven environment. Reduce Costs. A strong PLM solution should help shave many unnecessary costs that companies typically take for granted. Rationalizing SKU’s, components (ingredients and packaging) and suppliers is a major opportunity at most companies that PLM should help address. A natural outcome of this rationalization is lower direct material spend and a reduction of inventory. Another cost cutting opportunity comes with PLM when it helps companies avoid certain costs associated with process inefficiencies that lead to scrap, rework, excess and obsolete inventory, poor end of life administration, higher cost of quality and regulatory and increased expediting. Mitigate Risk. Risks are the hardest to quantify but can be the most costly to a company. Food safety, recalls, line shutdowns, customer dissatisfaction and, worst of all, the potential tarnishing of your brands are a few of the debilitating risks that CP companies deal with on a daily basis. These risks are so uniquely severe that they require an enterprise PLM solution specifically designed for the CP industry that safeguards product information and processes while still allowing the art of innovation to flourish. Many CP companies have already created a winning advantage by leveraging a single, best practice PLM solution to establish an enterprise-wide, systematic approach to innovation. Oracle’s Answer for the Consumer Products Industry Oracle is dedicated to solving the growth and innovation challenges facing the CP industry. Oracle’s Agile Product Lifecycle Management for Process solution was originally developed with and for CP companies and is driven by a specialized development staff solely focused on maintaining and continuously improving the solution per the latest industry requirements. Agile PLM for Process helps CP companies handle all of the processes associated with managing the science of the innovation process, including: specification management, new product development/project and portfolio management, formulation optimization, supplier management, and quality and regulatory compliance to name a few. And as I mentioned earlier, integration is absolutely critical. Many Oracle CP customers, both with Oracle ERP systems and non-Oracle ERP systems, report benefits from Oracle’s Agile PLM for Process. In future articles we will explain in greater detail how both existing Oracle customers (like Gallo, Smuckers, Land-O-Lakes and Starbucks) and new Oracle customers (like ConAgra, Tyson, McDonalds and Heinz) have all realized the benefits of Agile PLM for Process and its integration to their ERP systems. More to Come Stay tuned for more articles in our blog series “The Business of Winning Innovation.” While we will also feature articles focused on other industries, look forward to more on how Agile PLM for Process addresses innovation challenges facing the CP industry. Additional topics include: Innovation Data Management (IDM), New Product Development (NPD), Product Quality Management (PQM), Menu Management,Private Label Management, and more! . Watch this video for more info about Agile PLM for Process

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• ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0

  - by James Michael Hare

  I had always been a fan of ANTS products (Reflector is absolutely invaluable, and their performance profiler is great as well – very easy to use!), so I was curious to see what the ANTS Memory Profiler could show me. Background While a performance profiler will track how much time is typically spent in each unit of code, a memory profiler gives you much more detail on how and where your memory is being consumed and released in a program. As an example, I’d been working on a data access layer at work to call a market data web service.  This web service would take a list of symbols to quote and would return back the quote data.  To help consolidate the thousands of web requests per second we get and reduce load on the web services, we implemented a 5-second cache of quote data.  Not quite long enough to where customers will typically notice a quote go “stale”, but just long enough to be able to collapse multiple quote requests for the same symbol in a short period of time. A 5-second cache may not sound like much, but it actually pays off by saving us roughly 42% of our web service calls, while still providing relatively up-to-date information.  The question is whether or not the extra memory involved in maintaining the cache was worth it, so I decided to fire up the ANTS Memory Profiler and take a look at memory usage. First Impressions The main thing I’ve always loved about the ANTS tools is their ease of use.  Pretty much everything is right there in front of you in a way that makes it easy for you to find what you need with little digging required.  I’ve worked with other, older profilers before (that shall remain nameless other than to hint it was created by a very large chip maker) where it was a mind boggling experience to figure out how to do simple tasks. Not so with AMP.  The opening dialog is very straightforward.  You can choose from here whether to debug an executable, a web application (either in IIS or from VS’s web development server), windows services, etc. So I chose a .NET Executable and navigated to the build location of my test harness.  Then began profiling. At this point while the application is running, you can see a chart of the memory as it ebbs and wanes with allocations and collections.  At any given point in time, you can take snapshots (to compare states) zoom in, or choose to stop at any time.  Snapshots Taking a snapshot also gives you a breakdown of the managed memory heaps for each generation so you get an idea how many objects are staying around for extended periods of time (as an object lives and survives collections, it gets promoted into higher generations where collection becomes less frequent). Generating a snapshot brings up an analysis view with very handy graphs that show your generation sizes.  Almost all my memory is in Generation 1 in the managed memory component of the first graph, which is good news to me, because Gen 2 collections are much rarer.  I once3 made the mistake once of caching data for 30 minutes and found it didn’t get collected very quick after I released my reference because it had been promoted to Gen 2 – doh! Analysis It looks like (from the second pie chart) that the majority of the allocations were in the string class.  This also is expected for me because the majority of the memory allocated is in the web service responses, so it doesn’t seem the entities I’m adapting to (to prevent being too tightly coupled to the web service proxy classes, which can change easily out from under me) aren’t taking a significant portion of memory. I also appreciate that they have clear summary text in key places such as “No issues with large object heap fragmentation were detected”.  For novice users, this type of summary information can be critical to getting them to use a tool and develop a good working knowledge of it. There is also a handy link at the bottom for “What to look for on the summary” which loads a web page of help on key points to look for. Clicking over to the session overview, it’s easy to compare the samples at each snapshot to see how your memory is growing, shrinking, or staying relatively the same.  Looking at my snapshots, I’m pretty happy with the fact that memory allocation and heap size seems to be fairly stable and in control: Once again, you can check on the large object heap, generation one heap, and generation two heap across each snapshot to spot trends. Back on the analysis tab, we can go to the [Class List] button to get an idea what classes are making up the majority of our memory usage.  As was little surprise to me, System.String was the clear majority of my allocations, though I found it surprising that the System.Reflection.RuntimeMehtodInfo came in second.  I was curious about this, so I selected it and went into the [Instance Categorizer].  This view let me see where these instances to RuntimeMehtodInfo were coming from. So I scrolled back through the graph, and discovered that these were being held by the System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactoryRefCache and I was satisfied this was just an artifact of my WCF proxy. I also like that down at the bottom of the Instance Categorizer it gives you a series of filters and offers to guide you on which filter to use based on the problem you are trying to find.  For example, if I suspected a memory leak, I might try to filter for survivors in growing classes.  This means that for instances of a class that are growing in memory (more are being created than cleaned up), which ones are survivors (not collected) from garbage collection.  This might allow me to drill down and find places where I’m holding onto references by mistake and not freeing them! Finally, if you want to really see all your instances and who is holding onto them (preventing collection), you can go to the “Instance Retention Graph” which creates a graph showing what references are being held in memory and who is holding onto them. Visual Studio Integration Of course, VS has its own profiler built in – and for a free bundled profiler it is quite capable – but AMP gives a much cleaner and easier-to-use experience, and when you install it you also get the option of letting it integrate directly into VS. So once you go back into VS after installation, you’ll notice an ANTS menu which lets you launch the ANTS profiler directly from Visual Studio.   Clicking on one of these options fires up the project in the profiler immediately, allowing you to get right in.  It doesn’t integrate with the Visual Studio windows themselves (like the VS profiler does), but still the plethora of information it provides and the clear and concise manner in which it presents it makes it well worth it. Summary If you like the ANTS series of tools, you shouldn’t be disappointed with the ANTS Memory Profiler.  It was so easy to use that I was able to jump in with very little product knowledge and get the information I was looking it for. I’ve used other profilers before that came with 3-inch thick tomes that you had to read in order to get anywhere with the tool, and this one is not like that at all.  It’s built for your everyday developer to get in and find their problems quickly, and I like that! Tweet Technorati Tags: Influencers,ANTS,Memory,Profiler

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• Testing Workflows &ndash; Test-After

  - by Timothy Klenke

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/05/30/testing-workflows-ndash-test-after.aspxIn this post I’m going to outline a few common methods that can be used to increase the coverage of of your test suite.  This won’t be yet another post on why you should be doing testing; there are plenty of those types of posts already out there.  Assuming you know you should be testing, then comes the problem of how do I actual fit that into my day job.  When the opportunity to automate testing comes do you take it, or do you even recognize it? There are a lot of ways (workflows) to go about creating automated tests, just like there are many workflows to writing a program.  When writing a program you can do it from a top-down approach where you write the main skeleton of the algorithm and call out to dummy stub functions, or a bottom-up approach where the low level functionality is fully implement before it is quickly wired together at the end.  Both approaches are perfectly valid under certain contexts. Each approach you are skilled at applying is another tool in your tool belt.  The more vectors of attack you have on a problem – the better.  So here is a short, incomplete list of some of the workflows that can be applied to increasing the amount of automation in your testing and level of quality in general.  Think of each workflow as an opportunity that is available for you to take. Test workflows basically fall into 2 categories:  test first or test after.  Test first is the best approach.  However, this post isn’t about the one and only best approach.  I want to focus more on the lesser known, less ideal approaches that still provide an opportunity for adding tests.  In this post I’ll enumerate some test-after workflows.  In my next post I’ll cover test-first. Bug Reporting When someone calls you up or forwards you a email with a vague description of a bug its usually standard procedure to create or verify a reproduction plan for the bug via manual testing and log that in a bug tracking system.  This can be problematic.  Often reproduction plans when written down might skip a step that seemed obvious to the tester at the time or they might be missing some crucial environment setting. Instead of data entry into a bug tracking system, try opening up the test project and adding a failing unit test to prove the bug.  The test project guarantees that all aspects of the environment are setup properly and no steps are missing.  The language in the test project is much more precise than the English that goes into a bug tracking system. This workflow can easily be extended for Enhancement Requests as well as Bug Reporting. Exploratory Testing Exploratory testing comes in when you aren’t sure how the system will behave in a new scenario.  The scenario wasn’t planned for in the initial system requirements and there isn’t an existing test for it.  By definition the system behaviour is “undefined”. So write a new unit test to define that behaviour.  Add assertions to the tests to confirm your assumptions.  The new test becomes part of the living system specification that is kept up to date with the test suite. Examples This workflow is especially good when developing APIs.  When you are finally done your production API then comes the job of writing documentation on how to consume the API.  Good documentation will also include code examples.  Don’t let these code examples merely exist in some accompanying manual; implement them in a test suite. Example tests and documentation do not have to be created after the production API is complete.  It is best to write the example code (tests) as you go just before the production code. Smoke Tests Every system has a typical use case.  This represents the basic, core functionality of the system.  If this fails after an upgrade the end users will be hosed and they will be scratching their heads as to how it could be possible that an update got released with this core functionality broken. The tests for this core functionality are referred to as “smoke tests”.  It is a good idea to have them automated and run with each build in order to avoid extreme embarrassment and angry customers. Coverage Analysis Code coverage analysis is a tool that reports how much of the production code base is exercised by the test suite.  In Visual Studio this can be found under the Test main menu item. The tool will report a total number for the code coverage, which can be anywhere between 0 and 100%.  Coverage Analysis shouldn’t be used strictly for numbers reporting.  Companies shouldn’t set minimum coverage targets that mandate that all projects must have at least 80% or 100% test coverage.  These arbitrary requirements just invite gaming of the coverage analysis, which makes the numbers useless. The analysis tool will break down the coverage by the various classes and methods in projects.  Instead of focusing on the total number, drill down into this view and see which classes have high or low coverage.  It you are surprised by a low number on a class this is an opportunity to add tests. When drilling through the classes there will be generally two types of reaction to a surprising low test coverage number.  The first reaction type is a recognition that there is low hanging fruit to be picked.  There may be some classes or methods that aren’t being tested, which could easy be.  The other reaction type is “OMG”.  This were you find a critical piece of code that isn’t under test.  In both cases, go and add the missing tests. Test Refactoring The general theme of this post up to this point has been how to add more and more tests to a test suite.  I’ll step back from that a bit and remind that every line of code is a liability.  Each line of code has to be read and maintained, which costs money.  This is true regardless whether the code is production code or test code. Remember that the primary goal of the test suite is that it be easy to read so that people can easily determine the specifications of the system.  Make sure that adding more and more tests doesn’t interfere with this primary goal. Perform code reviews on the test suite as often as on production code.  Hold the test code up to the same high readability standards as the production code.  If the tests are hard to read then change them.  Look to remove duplication.  Duplicate setup code between two or more test methods that can be moved to a shared function.  Entire test methods can be removed if it is found that the scenario it tests is covered by other tests.  Its OK to delete a test that isn’t pulling its own weight anymore. Remember to only start refactoring when all the test are green.  Don’t refactor the tests and the production code at the same time.  An automated test suite can be thought of as a double entry book keeping system.  The unchanging, passing production code serves as the tests for the test suite while refactoring the tests. As with all refactoring, it is best to fit this into your regular work rather than asking for time later to get it done.  Fit this into the standard red-green-refactor cycle.  The refactor step no only applies to production code but also the tests, but not at the same time.  Perhaps the cycle should be called red-green-refactor production-refactor tests (not quite as catchy).   That about covers most of the test-after workflows I can think of.  In my next post I’ll get into test-first workflows.

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• Automating deployments with the SQL Compare command line

  - by Jonathan Hickford

  In my previous article, “Five Tips to Get Your Organisation Releasing Software Frequently” I looked at how teams can automate processes to speed up release frequency. In this post, I’m looking specifically at automating deployments using the SQL Compare command line. SQL Compare compares SQL Server schemas and deploys the differences. It works very effectively in scenarios where only one deployment target is required – source and target databases are specified, compared, and a change script is automatically generated and applied. But if multiple targets exist, and pressure to increase the frequency of releases builds, this solution quickly becomes unwieldy.   This is where SQL Compare’s command line comes into its own. I’ve put together a PowerShell script that loops through the Servers table and pulls out the server and database, these are then passed to sqlcompare.exe to be used as target parameters. In the example the source database is a scripts folder, a folder structure of scripted-out database objects used by both SQL Source Control and SQL Compare. The script can easily be adapted to use schema snapshots.     -- Create a DeploymentTargets database and a Servers table CREATE DATABASE DeploymentTargets GO USE DeploymentTargets GO CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Servers]( [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [serverName] [nvarchar](50) NULL, [environment] [nvarchar](50) NULL, [databaseName] [nvarchar](50) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_Servers] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([id] ASC) ) GO -- Now insert your target server and database details INSERT INTO dbo.Servers ( serverName , environment , databaseName) VALUES ( N'myserverinstance' , N'myenvironment1' , N'mydb1') INSERT INTO dbo.Servers ( serverName , environment , databaseName) VALUES ( N'myserverinstance' , N'myenvironment2' , N'mydb2') Here’s the PowerShell script you can adapt for yourself as well. # We're holding the server names and database names that we want to deploy to in a database table. # We need to connect to that server to read these details $serverName = "" $databaseName = "DeploymentTargets" $authentication = "Integrated Security=SSPI" #$authentication = "User Id=xxx;PWD=xxx" # If you are using database authentication instead of Windows authentication. # Path to the scripts folder we want to deploy to the databases $scriptsPath = "SimpleTalk" # Path to SQLCompare.exe $SQLComparePath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Red Gate\SQL Compare 10\sqlcompare.exe" # Create SQL connection string, and connection $ServerConnectionString = "Data Source=$serverName;Initial Catalog=$databaseName;$authentication" $ServerConnection = new-object system.data.SqlClient.SqlConnection($ServerConnectionString); # Create a Dataset to hold the DataTable $dataSet = new-object "System.Data.DataSet" "ServerList" # Create a query $query = "SET NOCOUNT ON;" $query += "SELECT serverName, environment, databaseName " $query += "FROM dbo.Servers; " # Create a DataAdapter to populate the DataSet with the results $dataAdapter = new-object "System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter" ($query, $ServerConnection) $dataAdapter.Fill($dataSet) | Out-Null # Close the connection $ServerConnection.Close() # Populate the DataTable $dataTable = new-object "System.Data.DataTable" "Servers" $dataTable = $dataSet.Tables[0] #For every row in the DataTable $dataTable | FOREACH-OBJECT { "Server Name: $($_.serverName)" "Database Name: $($_.databaseName)" "Environment: $($_.environment)" # Compare the scripts folder to the database and synchronize the database to match # NB. Have set SQL Compare to abort on medium level warnings. $arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/AbortOnWarnings:Medium") # + @("/sync" ) # Commented out the 'sync' parameter for safety, write-host $arguments & $SQLComparePath $arguments "Exit Code: $LASTEXITCODE" # Some interesting variations # Check that every database matches a folder. # For example this might be a pre-deployment step to validate everything is at the same baseline state. # Or a post deployment script to validate the deployment worked. # An exit code of 0 means the databases are identical. # # $arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/Assertidentical") # Generate a report of the difference between the folder and each database. Generate a SQL update script for each database. # For example use this after the above to generate upgrade scripts for each database # Examine the warnings and the HTML diff report to understand how the script will change objects # #$arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/ScriptFile:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).sql", "/report:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).html" , "/reportType:Interactive", "/showWarnings", "/include:Identical") } It’s worth noting that the above example generates the deployment scripts dynamically. This approach should be problem-free for the vast majority of changes, but it is still good practice to review and test a pre-generated deployment script prior to deployment. An alternative approach would be to pre-generate a single deployment script using SQL Compare, and run this en masse to multiple targets programmatically using sqlcmd, or using a tool like SQL Multi Script.  You can use the /ScriptFile, /report, and /showWarnings flags to generate change scripts, difference reports and any warnings.  See the commented out example in the PowerShell: #$arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/ScriptFile:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).sql", "/report:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).html" , "/reportType:Interactive", "/showWarnings", "/include:Identical") There is a drawback of running a pre-generated deployment script; it assumes that a given database target hasn’t drifted from its expected state. Often there are (rightly or wrongly) many individuals within an organization who have permissions to alter the production database, and changes can therefore be made outside of the prescribed development processes. The consequence is that at deployment time, the applied script has been validated against a target that no longer represents reality. The solution here would be to add a check for drift prior to running the deployment script. This is achieved by using sqlcompare.exe to compare the target against the expected schema snapshot using the /Assertidentical flag. Should this return any differences (sqlcompare.exe Exit Code 79), a drift report is outputted instead of executing the deployment script.  See the commented out example. # $arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/Assertidentical") Any checks and processes that should be undertaken prior to a manual deployment, should also be happen during an automated deployment. You might think about triggering backups prior to deployment – even better, automate the verification of the backup too.   You can use SQL Compare’s command line interface along with PowerShell to automate multiple actions and checks that you need in your deployment process. Automation is a practical solution where multiple targets and a higher release cadence come into play. As we know, with great power comes great responsibility – responsibility to ensure that the necessary checks are made so deployments remain trouble-free.  (The code sample supplied in this post automates the simple dynamic deployment case – if you are considering more advanced automation, e.g. the drift checks, script generation, deploying to large numbers of targets and backup/verification, please email me at [email protected] for further script samples or if you have further questions)

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• Design for complex ATG applications

  - by Glen Borkowski

  Overview Needless to say, some ATG applications are more complex than others.  Some ATG applications support a single site, single language, single catalog, single currency, have a single development staff, single business team, and a relatively simple business model.  The real complex applications have to support multiple sites, multiple languages, multiple catalogs, multiple currencies, a couple different development teams, multiple business teams, and a highly complex business model (and processes to go along with it).  While it's still important to implement a proper design for simple applications, it's absolutely critical to do this for the complex applications.  Why?  It's all about time and money.  If you are unable to manage your complex applications in an efficient manner, the cost of managing it will increase dramatically as will the time to get things done (time to market).  On the positive side, your competition is most likely in the same situation, so you just need to be more efficient than they are. This article is intended to discuss a number of key areas to think about when designing complex applications on ATG.  Some of this can get fairly technical, so it may help to get some background first.  You can get enough of the required background information from this post.  After reading that, come back here and follow along. Application Design Of all the various types of ATG applications out there, the most complex tend to be the ones in the telecommunications industry - especially the ones which operate in multiple countries.  To get started, let's assume that we are talking about an application like that.  One that has these properties: Operates in multiple countries - must support multiple sites, catalogs, languages, and currencies The organization is fairly loosely-coupled - single brand, but different businesses across different countries There is some common functionality across all sites in all countries There is some common functionality across different sites within the same country Sites within a single country may have some unique functionality - relative to other sites in the same country Complex product catalog (mostly in terms of bundles, eligibility, and compatibility) At this point, I'll assume you have read through the required reading and have a decent understanding of how ATG modules work... Code / configuration - assemble into modules When it comes to defining your modules for a complex application, there are a number of goals: Divide functionality between the modules in a way that maps to your business Group common functionality 'further down in the stack of modules' Provide a good balance between shared resources and autonomy for countries / sites Now I'll describe a high level approach to how you could accomplish those goals...  Let's start from the bottom and work our way up.  At the very bottom, you have the modules that ship with ATG - the 'out of the box' stuff.  You want to make sure that you are leveraging all the modules that make sense in order to get the most value from ATG as possible - and less stuff you'll have to write yourself.  On top of the ATG modules, you should create what we'll refer to as the Corporate Foundation Module described as follows: Sits directly on top of ATG modules Used by all applications across all countries and sites - this is the foundation for everyone Contains everything that is common across all countries / all sites Once established and settled, will change less frequently than other 'higher' modules Encapsulates as many enterprise-wide integrations as possible Will provide means of code sharing therefore less development / testing - faster time to market Contains a 'reference' web application (described below) The next layer up could be multiple modules for each country (you could replace this with region if that makes more sense).  We'll define those modules as follows: Sits on top of the corporate foundation module Contains what is unique to all sites in a given country Responsible for managing any resource bundles for this country (to handle multiple languages) Overrides / replaces corporate integration points with any country-specific ones Finally, we will define what should be a fairly 'thin' (in terms of functionality) set of modules for each site as follows: Sits on top of the country it resides in module Contains what is unique for a given site within a given country Will mostly contain configuration, but could also define some unique functionality as well Contains one or more web applications The graphic below should help to indicate how these modules fit together: Web applications As described in the previous section, there are many opportunities for sharing (minimizing costs) as it relates to the code and configuration aspects of ATG modules.  Web applications are also contained within ATG modules, however, sharing web applications can be a bit more difficult because this is what the end customer actually sees, and since each site may have some degree of unique look & feel, sharing becomes more challenging.  One approach that can help is to define a 'reference' web application at the corporate foundation layer to act as a solid starting point for each site.  Here's a description of the 'reference' web application: Contains minimal / sample reference styling as this will mostly be addressed at the site level web app Focus on functionality - ensure that core functionality is revealed via this web application Each individual site can use this as a starting point There may be multiple types of web apps (i.e. B2C, B2B, etc) There are some techniques to share web application assets - i.e. multiple web applications, defined in the web.xml, and it's worth investigating, but is out of scope here. Reference infrastructure In this complex environment, it is assumed that there is not a single infrastructure for all countries and all sites.  It's more likely that different countries (or regions) could have their own solution for infrastructure.  In this case, it will be advantageous to define a reference infrastructure which contains all the hardware and software that make up the core environment.  Specifications and diagrams should be created to outline what this reference infrastructure looks like, as well as it's baseline cost and the incremental cost to scale up with volume.  Having some consistency in terms of infrastructure will save time and money as new countries / sites come online.  Here are some properties of the reference infrastructure: Standardized approach to setup of hardware Type and number of servers Defines application server, operating system, database, etc... - including vendor and specific versions Consistent naming conventions Provides a consistent base of terminology and understanding across environments Defines which ATG services run on which servers Production Staging BCC / Preview Each site can change as required to meet scale requirements Governance / organization It should be no surprise that the complex application we're talking about is backed by an equally complex organization.  One of the more challenging aspects of efficiently managing a series of complex applications is to ensure the proper level of governance and organization.  Here are some ideas and goals to work towards: Establish a committee to make enterprise-wide decisions that affect all sites Representation should be evenly distributed Should have a clear communication procedure Focus on high level business goals Evaluation of feature / function gaps and how that relates to ATG release schedule / roadmap Determine when to upgrade & ensure value will be realized Determine how to manage various levels of modules Who is responsible for maintaining corporate / country / site layers Determine a procedure for controlling what goes in the corporate foundation module Standardize on source code control, database, hardware, OS versions, J2EE app servers, development procedures, etc only use tested / proven versions - this is something that should be centralized so that every country / site does not have to worry about compatibility between versions Create a innovation team Quickly develop new features, perform proof of concepts All teams can benefit from their findings Summary At this point, it should be clear why the topics above (design, governance, organization, etc) are critical to being able to efficiently manage a complex application.  To summarize, it's all about competitive advantage...  You will need to reduce costs and improve time to market with the goal of providing a better experience for your end customers.  You can reduce cost by reducing development time, time allocated to testing (don't have to test the corporate foundation module over and over again - do it once), and optimizing operations.  With an efficient design, you can improve your time to market and your business will be more flexible  and agile.  Over time, you'll find that you're becoming more focused on offering functionality that is new to the market (creativity) and this will be rewarded - you're now a leader. In addition to the above, you'll realize soft benefits as well.  Your staff will be operating in a culture based on sharing.  You'll want to reward efforts to improve and enhance the foundation as this will benefit everyone.  This culture will inspire innovation, which can only lend itself to your competitive advantage.

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• Windows 8 Launch&ndash;Why OEM and Retailers Should STFU

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Microsoft has gotten a lot of flack for the Surface from OEM/hardware partners who create Windows-based devices and I’m sure, to an extent, retailers who normally stock and sell Windows-based devices. I mean we all know how this is supposed to work – Microsoft makes the OS, partners make the hardware, retailers sell the hardware. Now Microsoft is breaking the rules by not only offering their own hardware but selling them via online and through their Microsoft branded stores! The thought has been that Microsoft is trying to set a standard for the other hardware companies to reach for. Maybe. I hope, at some level, Microsoft may be covertly responding to frustrations associated with trusting the OEMs and Retailers to deliver on their part of the supply chain. I know as a consumer, I’m very frustrated with the Windows 8 launch. Aside from the Surface sales, there’s nothing happening at the retail level. Let me back up and explain. Over the weekend I visited a number of stores in hopes of trying out various Windows 8 devices. Out of three retailers (Staples, Best Buy, and Future Shop), not *one* met my expectations. Let me be honest with you Staples, I never really have high expectations from your computer department. If I need paper or pens, whatever, but computers – you’re not the top of my list for price or selection. Still, considering you flaunted Win 8 devices in your flyer I expected *something* – some sign of effort that you took the Windows 8 launch seriously. As I entered the 1910 Pembina Highway location in Winnipeg, there was nothing – no signage, no banners – nothing that would suggest Windows 8 had even launched. I made my way to the laptops. I had to play with each machine to determine which ones were running Windows 8. There wasn’t anything on the placards that made it obvious which were Windows 8 machines and which ones were Windows 7. Likewise, there was no easy way to identify the touch screen laptop (the HP model) from the others without physically touching the screen to verify. Horrible experience. In the same mall as the Staples I mentioned above, there’s a Future Shop. Surely they would be more on the ball. I walked in to the 1910 Pembina Highway location and immediately realized I would not get a better experience. Except for the sign by the front door mentioning Windows 8, there was *nothing* in the computer department pointing you to the Windows 8 devices. Like in Staples, the Win 8 laptops were mixed in with the Win 7 ones and there was nothing notable calling out which ones were running Win 8. I happened to hit up the St. James Street location today, thinking since its a busier store they must have more options. To their credit, they did have two staff members decked out in Windows 8 shirts and who were helping a customer understand Windows 8. But otherwise, there was nothing highlighting the Windows 8 devices and they were again mixed in with the rest of the Win 7 machines. Finally, we have the St. James Street Best Buy location here in Winnipeg. I’m sure Best Buy will have their act together. Nope, not even close. Same story as the others: minimal signage (there was a sign as you walked in with a link to this schedule of demo days), Windows 8 hardware mixed with the rest of the PC offerings, and no visible call-outs identifying which were Win 8 based. This meant that, like Future Shop and Staples, if you wanted to know which machine had Windows 8 you had to go and scrutinize each machine. Also, there was nothing identifying which ones were touch based and which were not. Just Another Day… To these retailers, it seemed that the Windows 8 launch was just another day, with another product to add to the showroom floor. Meanwhile, Apple has their dedicated areas *in all three stores*. It was dead simple to find where the Apple products were compared to the Windows 8 products. No wonder Microsoft is starting to push their own retail stores. No wonder Microsoft is trying to funnel orders through them instead of relying on these bloated retail big box stores who obviously can’t manage a product launch. It’s Not Just The Retailers… Remember when the Acer CEO, Founder, and President of Computer Global Operations all weighed in on how Microsoft releasing the Surface would have a “huge negative impact for the ecosystem and other brands may take a negative reaction”? Also remember the CEO stating “[making hardware] is not something you are good at so please think twice”? Well the launch day has come and gone, and so far Microsoft is the only one that delivered on having hardware available on the October 26th date. Oh sure, there are laptops running Windows 8 – but all in one desktop PCs? I’ve only seen one or two! And tablets are *non existent*, with some showing an early to late November availability on Best Buy’s website! So while the retailers could be doing more to make it easier to find Windows 8 devices, the manufacturers could help by *getting devices into stores*! That’s supposedly something that these companies are good at, according to the Acer CEO. So Here’s What the Retailers and Manufacturers Need To Do… Get Product Out The pivotal timeframe will be now to the end of November. We need to start seeing all these fantastic pieces of hardware ship – including the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro, the Acer Iconia, the Asus TAICHI 21, and the sexy Samsung Series 7 27” desktop. It’s not enough to see product announcements, we need to see actual devices. Make It Easy For Customers To Find Win8 Devices You want to make it easy to sell these things? Make it easy for people to find them! Have staff on hand that really know how these devices run and what can be done with them. Don’t just have a single demo day, have people who can demo it every day! Make It Easy to See the Features There’s touch screen desktops, touch screen laptops, tablets, non-touch laptops, etc. People need to easily find the features for each machine. If I’m looking for a touch-laptop, I shouldn’t need to sift through all the non-touch laptops to find them – at the least, I need to quickly be able to see which ones are touch. I feel silly even typing this because this should be retail 101 and I have no retail background (but I do have an extensive background as a customer). In Summary… Microsoft launching the Surface and selling them through their own channels isn’t slapping its OEM and retail partners in the face; its slapping them to wake the hell up and stop coasting through Windows launch events like they don’t matter. Unless I see some improvements from vendors and retailers in November, I may just hold onto my money for a Surface Pro even if I have to wait until early 2013. Your move OEM/Retailers. *Update – While my experience has been in Winnipeg, similar experiences have been voiced from colleagues in Calgary and Edmonton.

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• Summit Time!

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  Boy, how time flies!  I can hardly believe that the 2011 PASS Summit is just one week away.  Maybe it snuck up on me because it’s a few weeks earlier than last year.  Whatever the cause, I am really looking forward to next week.  The PASS Summit is the largest SQL Server conference in the world and a fantastic networking opportunity thrown in for no additional charge.  Here are a few thoughts to help you maximize the week. Networking As Karen Lopez (blog | @DataChick) mentioned in her presentation for the Professional Development Virtual Chapter just a couple of weeks ago, “Don’t wait until you need a new job to start networking.”  You should always be working on your professional network.  Some people, especially technical-minded people, get confused by the term networking.  The first image that used to pop into my head was the image of some guy standing, awkwardly, off to the side of a cocktail party, trying to shmooze those around him.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  If you’re good at that sort of thing, and you can strike up a conversation with some stranger and learn all about them in 5 minutes, and walk away with your next business deal all but approved by the lawyers, then congratulations.  But if you’re not, and most of us are not, I have two suggestions for you.  First, register for Don Gabor’s 2-hour session on Tuesday at the Summit called Networking to Build Business Contacts.  Don is a master at small talk, and at teaching others, and in just those two short hours will help you with important tips about breaking the ice, remembering names, and smooth transitions into and out of conversations.  Then go put that great training to work right away at the Tuesday night Welcome Reception and meet some new people; which is really my second suggestion…just meet a few new people.  You see, “networking” is about meeting new people and being friendly without trying to “work it” to get something out of the relationship at this point.  In fact, Don will tell you that a better way to build the connection with someone is to look for some way that you can help them, not how they can help you. There are a ton of opportunities as long as you follow this one key point: Don’t stay in your hotel!  At the least, get out and go to the free events such as the Tuesday night Welcome Reception, the Wednesday night Exhibitor Reception, and the Thursday night Community Appreciation Party.  All three of these are perfect opportunities to meet other professionals with a similar job or interest as you, and you never know how that may help you out in the future.  Maybe you just meet someone to say HI to at breakfast the next day instead of eating alone.  Or maybe you cross paths several times throughout the Summit and compare notes on different sessions you attended.  And you just might make new friends that you look forward to seeing year after year at the Summit.  Who knows, it might even turn out that you have some specific experience that will help out that other person a few months’ from now when they run into the same challenge that you just overcame, or vice-versa.  But the point is, if you don’t get out and meet people, you’ll never have the chance for anything else to happen in the future. One more tip for shy attendees of the Summit…if you can’t bring yourself to strike up conversation with strangers at these events, then at the least, after you sit through a good session that helps you out, go up to the speaker and introduce yourself and thank them for taking the time and effort to put together their presentation.  Ideally, when you do this, tell them WHY it was beneficial to you (e.g. “Now I have a new idea of how to tackle a problem back at the office.”)  I know you think the speakers are all full of confidence and are always receiving a ton of accolades and applause, but you’re wrong.  Most of them will be very happy to hear first-hand that all the work they put into getting ready for their presentation is paying off for somebody. Training With over 170 technical sessions at the Summit, training is what it’s all about, and the training is fantastic!  Of course there are the big-name trainers like Paul Randall, Kimberly Tripp, Kalen Delaney, Itzik Ben-Gan and several others, but I am always impressed by the quality of the training put on by so many other “regular” members of the SQL Server community.  It is amazing how you don’t have to be a published author or otherwise recognized as an “expert” in an area in order to make a big impact on others just by sharing your personal experience and lessons learned.  I would rather hear the story of, and lessons learned from, “some guy or gal” who has actually been through an issue and came out the other side, than I would a trained professor who is speaking just from theory or an intellectual understanding of a topic. In addition to the three full days of regular sessions, there are also two days of pre-conference intensive training available.  There is an extra cost to this, but it is a fantastic opportunity.  Think about it…you’re already coming to this area for training, so why not extend your stay a little bit and get some in-depth training on a particular topic or two?  I did this for the first time last year.  I attended one day of extra training and it was well worth the time and money.  One of the best reasons for it is that I am extremely busy at home with my regular job and family, that it was hard to carve out the time to learn about the topic on my own.  It worked out so well last year that I am doubling up and doing two days or “pre-cons” this year. And then there are the DVDs.  I think these are another great option.  I used the online schedule builder to get ready and have an idea of which sessions I want to attend and when they are (much better than trying to figure this out at the last minute every day).  But the problem that I have run into (seems this happens every year) is that nearly every session block has two different sessions that I would like to attend.  And some of them have three!  ACK!  That won’t work!  What is a guy supposed to do?  Well, one option is to purchase the DVDs which are recordings of the audio and projected images from each session so you can continue to attend sessions long after the Summit is officially over.  Yes, many (possibly all) of these also get posted online and attendees can access those for no extra charge, but those are not necessarily all available as quickly as the DVD recording are, and the DVDs are often more convenient than downloading, especially if you want to share the training with someone who was not able to attend in person. Remember, I don’t make any money or get any other benefit if you buy the DVDs or from anything else that I have recommended here.  These are just my own thoughts, trying to help out based on my experiences from the 8 or so Summits I have attended.  There is nothing like the Summit.  It is an awesome experience, fantastic training, and a whole lot of fun which is just compounded if you’ll take advantage of the first part of this article and make some new friends along the way.

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