customers - Page 179 - Developer IT

top Tweets SOA Partner Community – September 2012

- by JuergenKress

Send your tweets @soacommunity #soacommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/soacommunity OracleBlogs ?Oracle SOA Suite for healthcare integration Dashboard http://ow.ly/1mcJvp SOA Community ?Lost in Translation – Common Mistakes Interpreting Patterns – Mark Simpson, Griffiths-Waite @ SOA, Cloud & Service… ServiceTechSymposium Matthias Zieger, Accenture just added to the agenda to co-present: "Service Modeling & BPM Business Value Patterns" http://ow.ly/ddu7A ServiceTechSymposium ?Newly updated session title and abstract: "Big Data and its impact on SOA", by Demed L'Her, Oracle. http://ow.ly/diOq2 Deepak Arora ?To PaaS or SaaS - the latest discussions with customers using SOA Suite - what are your thoughts #soa #soacommunity SOA Community top Tweets SOA Partner Community July 2012 - are you one of them? If yes please rt! https://soacommunity.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/top-tweets-soa-partner-community-august-2012/ … #soacommunity Sandor Nieuwenhuijs Checkout the BeNeLux Architectural Networking Event during Oracle Open World - meet your peers and the experts http://www.ddg-servicecenter.com/networkmanager/oow/architect/default.aspx … SOA Community ?top Tweets SOA Partner Community – August 2012 http://wp.me/p10C8u-uf SOA Community ?Follow SOA Community on facebook http://www.facebook.com/soacommunity #soacommunity SOA Community ?New Service to promote Your SOA & BPM events at http://oracle.com/events for SOA & BPM Specialized Partners Only! #soacommunity #opn #oracle Jan van Zoggel ?Hotel check, flight check, overview of sessions to visit check http://jvzoggel.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/soa-cloud-servicetech-symposium/ … I'm ready for SOA, Cloud & Service Technology Symposium SOA Community SOA & BPM Specialized Partners Only! New Service to Promote Your SOA & BPM Events at http://oracle.com/events http://wp.me/p10C8u-sH SOA Community Call for content for the next community newsletter. Do you want to publish your success & best practice? Send it @soacommunity #soacommunity SOA Community SOA Adoption in the Brazilian Ministry of Health - Case Study by Ricardo Puttini, University of Brasilia @ SOA, Cloud & Service… Jan van Zoggel ?Just registered for the 5th International SOA, Cloud & Service Technology Symposium in London. Looking forward to it. http://www.servicetechsymposium.com/ OTNArchBeat ?Want to prepare for Oracle SOA Specialization? @t_winterberg offers a suggestion. http://pub.vitrue.com/5Hqu OTNArchBeat ?Oracle BPM enable BAM | @deltalounge http://pub.vitrue.com/BCwj SOA Community Presentations & Training material OFM Summer Camps & Impressions & Feedback http://wp.me/p10C8u-sF Emiel Paasschens Nice! Pdf document on how to use a #Oracle #SOA Suite Domain Value Map (DVM) in the OSB: http://bit.ly/RzyS9w #yam OracleBlogs ?Using Cloud OER to Find Fusion Applications On-Premise Service Concrete WSDL URL http://ow.ly/1m4lz7 demed ?Free VIP pass for @techsymp if you are in London Sep. 24-25. Be the first one to retweet this and I'll DM you details! http://www.servicetechsymposium.com/speaker_bios.php?id=demed_lher … Jan van Zoggel blogpost: Oracle Service Bus duplicate message check using Oracle Coherence caching http://jvzoggel.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/osb-duplicate-message-with-coherence/ … OTNArchBeat ?Oracle Service Bus duplicate message check using Coherence | @jvzoggel http://pub.vitrue.com/ckY8 Oracle UPK & Tutor Synaptis and Oracle Present: Leveraging UPK Throughout the Project Lifecycle: Leveraging UPK throughout the Proj... http://bit.ly/OS2Rbg Rolando Carrasco ?New entry @ oracleradio http://bit.ly/SEvwwS @soacommunity @oracleace How to identify duplicated messages on Oracle SOA SUITE? SOA Community ?Business Driven Development (BDD) Demo Now Available! http://wp.me/p10C8u-sf OTNArchBeat ?Installing Oracle SOA Suite10g on Oracle Enterprise Linux | @lonnekedikmans http://pub.vitrue.com/BEyD OTNArchBeat ?Best practices for Oracle real-time data integration | Frank Ohlhorst http://pub.vitrue.com/1fH1 ServiceTechSymposium ?New OTN podcast featuring speakers Thomas Erl, Tim Hall and Demed L’Her just published. Tune into 1st 3 parts here: http://ow.ly/d1RRn OTNArchBeat ?SOA, Cloud, and Service Technologies - Part 4 of 4 - Best selling SOA author Thomas Erl talks about the latest title... http://ow.ly/1m0txY SOA Community Win a free conference pass for the SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium – become a soacommunity facebook fan!… Lonneke Dikmans VENNSTER BLOG: Installing Oracle SOA Suite10g on Oracle Enterpris... http://blog.vennster.nl/2012/08/installing-oracle-soa-suite-10g-on.html?spref=tw … PeterPaul vande Beek published a blog on exporting Oracle #BPM metrics to a #DWH http://www.deltalounge.net/wpress/2012/08/export-oracle-bpm-metrics-to-a-data-warehouse/ … #soacommunity SOA Community ?Do you follow us on facebook http://www.facebook.com/soacommunity #soacommunity C2B2 Consulting ?Cloud-based Enterprise Architecture by Steve Millidge, C2B2 Consulting @ SOA, Cloud & Service … http://wp.me/p10C8u-sv via @soacommunity Gertjan van het Hof Storing SCA Metadata in the Oracle Metadata Services Repository http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/soa/fonnegra-storing-sca-metadata-1715004.html?msgid=3-6903117805 … arjankramer ?Encrypted OSB Service account passwords http://dlvr.it/20hbNV Richard van Tilborg BPM the Battle http://lnkd.in/yFAJaW OTNArchBeat Using Cloud OER to Find Fusion Applications On-Premise Service Concrete WSDL URL | @RahejaRajesh http://pub.vitrue.com/YDCD SOA Proactive ?Webcast: Introduction to SOA Human Workflow, 8/23, 10 AM EDT. Register @ http://bit.ly/Nx77sY Lucas Jellema ?Programmatically admnistration of OSB using JXM & MBeans. Interesting example is given in https://blogs.oracle.com/ateamsoab2b/entry/automatic_disabling_proxy_service_when … orclateamsoa ?A-Team Blog #ateam: Automatically Disable Proxy Service to avoid overloading OSB http://ow.ly/1lXGKV Atul_Kumar ?Oracle Enterprise Gateway – OEG 11gR1 (11.1.1.*) for beginners http://goo.gl/fb/EJboE Estafet Limited Advanced SOA Boot camp @soacommunity in Munich was excellent.@wlscommunity Learnt a lot and liked the format. SOA Community Oracle Fusion Applications Design Patterns Now Available For Developers by Ultan O'Broin http://wp.me/p10C8u-sd SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA Community twitter,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

Read the article

Interview with Lenz Grimmer about MySQL Connect

- by Keith Larson

Keith Larson: Thank you for allowing me to do this interview with you. I have been talking with a few different Oracle ACEs about the MySQL Connect Conference. I figured the MySQL community might be missing you as well. You have been very busy with Oracle Linux but I know you still have an eye on the MySQL Community. How have things been?Lenz Grimmer: Thanks for including me in this series of interviews, I feel honored! I've read the other interviews, and really liked them. I still try to follow what's going on over in the MySQL community and it's good to see that many of the familiar faces are still around. Over the course of the 9 years that I was involved with MySQL, many colleagues and contacts turned into good friends and we still maintain close relationships.It's been almost 1.5 years ago that I moved into my new role here in the Linux team at Oracle, and I really enjoy working on a Linux distribution again (I worked for SUSE before I joined MySQL AB in 2002). I'm still learning a lot - Linux in the data center has greatly evolved in so many ways and there are a lot of new and exciting technologies to explore. Keith Larson: What were your thoughts when you heard that Oracle was going to deliver the MySQL Connect conference to the MySQL Community?Lenz Grimmer: I think it's testament to the fact that Oracle deeply cares about MySQL, despite what many skeptics may say. What started as "MySQL Sunday" two years ago has now evolved into a full-blown sub-conference, with 80 sessions at one of the largest corporate IT events in the world. I find this quite telling, not many products at Oracle enjoy this level of exposure! So it certainly makes me feel proud to see how far MySQL has come. Keith Larson: Have you had a chance to look over the sessions? What are your thoughts on them?Lenz Grimmer: I did indeed look at the final schedule.The content committee did a great job with selecting these sessions. I'm glad to see that the content selection was influenced by involving well-known and respected members of the MySQL community. The sessions cover a broad range of topics and technologies, both covering established topics as well as recent developments. Keith Larson: When you get a chance, what sessions do you plan on attending?Lenz Grimmer: I will actually be manning the Oracle booth in the exhibition area on one of these days, so I'm not sure if I'll have a lot of time attending sessions. But if I do, I'd love to see the keynotes and catch some of the sessions that talk about recent developments and new features in MySQL, High Availability and Clustering . Quite a lot has happened and it's hard to keep up with this constant flow of new MySQL releases.In particular, the following sessions caught my attention: MySQL Connect Keynote: The State of the Dolphin Evaluating MySQL High-Availability Alternatives CERN’s MySQL “as a Service” Deployment with Oracle VM: Empowering Users MySQL 5.6 Replication: Taking Scalability and High Availability to the Next Level What’s New in MySQL Server 5.6? MySQL Security: Past and Present MySQL at Twitter: Development and Deployment MySQL Community BOF MySQL Connect Keynote: MySQL Perspectives Keith Larson: So I will ask you just like I have asked the others I have interviewed, any tips that you would give to people for handling the long hours at conferences?Lenz Grimmer: Wear comfortable shoes and make sure to drink a lot! Also prepare a plan of the sessions you would like to attend beforehand and familiarize yourself with the venue, so you can get to the next talk in time without scrambling to find the location. The good thing about piggybacking on such a large conference like Oracle OpenWorld is that you benefit from the whole infrastructure. For example, there is a nice schedule builder that helps you to keep track of your sessions of interest. Other than that, bring enough business cards and talk to people, build up your network among your peers and other MySQL professionals! Keith Larson: What features of the MySQL 5.6 release do you look forward to the most ?Lenz Grimmer: There has been solid progress in so many areas like the InnoDB Storage Engine, the Optimizer, Replication or Performance Schema, it's hard for me to really highlight anything in particular. All in all, MySQL 5.6 sounds like a very promising release. I'm confident it will follow the tradition that Oracle already established with MySQL 5.5, which received a lot of praise even from very critical members of the MySQL community. If I had to name a single feature, I'm particularly and personally happy that the precise GIS functions have finally made it into a GA release - that was long overdue. Keith Larson: In your opinion what is the best reason for someone to attend this event?Lenz Grimmer: This conference is an excellent opportunity to get in touch with the key people in the MySQL community and ecosystem and to get facts and information from the domain experts and developers that work on MySQL. The broad range of topics should attract people from a variety of roles and relations to MySQL, beginning with Developers and DBAs, to CIOs considering MySQL as a viable solution for their requirements. Keith Larson: You will be attending MySQL Connect and have some Oracle Linux Demos, do you see a growing demand for MySQL on Oracle Linux ?Lenz Grimmer: Yes! Oracle Linux is our recommended Linux distribution and we have a good relationship to the MySQL engineering group. They use Oracle Linux as a base Linux platform for development and QA, so we make sure that MySQL and Oracle Linux are well tested together. Setting up a MySQL server on Oracle Linux can be done very quickly, and many customers recognize the benefits of using them both in combination.Because Oracle Linux is available for free (including free bug fixes and errata), it's an ideal choice for running MySQL in your data center. You can run the same Linux distribution on both your development/staging systems as well as on the production machines, you decide which of these should be covered by a support subscription and at which level of support. This gives you flexibility and provides some really attractive cost-saving opportunities. Keith Larson: Since I am a Linux user and fan, what is on the horizon for Oracle Linux?Lenz Grimmer: We're working hard on broadening the ecosystem around Oracle Linux, building up partnerships with ISVs and IHVs to certify Oracle Linux as a fully supported platform for their products. We also continue to collaborate closely with the Linux kernel community on various projects, to make sure that Linux scales and performs well on large systems and meets the demands of today's data centers. These improvements and enhancements will then rolled into the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, which is the key ingredient that sets Oracle Linux apart from other distributions. We also have a number of ongoing projects which are making good progress, and I'm sure you'll hear more about this at the upcoming OpenWorld conference :) Keith Larson: What is something that more people should be aware of when it comes to Oracle Linux and MySQL ?Lenz Grimmer: Many people assume that Oracle Linux is just tuned for Oracle products, such as the Oracle Database or our Engineered Systems. While it's of course true that we do a lot of testing and optimization for these workloads, Oracle Linux is and will remain a general-purpose Linux distribution that is a very good foundation for setting up a LAMP-Stack, for example. We also provide MySQL RPM packages for Oracle Linux, so you can easily stay up to date if you need something newer than what's included in the stock distribution.One more thing that is really unique to Oracle Linux is Ksplice, which allows you to apply security patches to the running Linux kernel, without having to reboot. This ensures that your MySQL database server keeps up and running and is not affected by any downtime. Keith Larson: What else would you like to add ?Lenz Grimmer: Thanks again for getting in touch with me, I appreciated the opportunity. I'm looking forward to MySQL Connect and Oracle OpenWorld and to meet you and many other people from the MySQL community that I haven't seen for quite some time! Keith Larson: Thank you Lenz!

Read the article

Company Review: Google Products

Google, Inc offers an array of products and services to all of its end-users. However their search capabilities are the foundation for Google’s current success and their primary business focus. Currently, Google offers over twenty different search applications that allow users to search the internet for books, maps, videos, images, products and much more. Their product decisions have allowed users demands to be met while focusing on the free based model. This allows users to access Google data free of charge and indirectly gives Google a strong competitive advantage of other competitors along with the accuracy of the search results. According to Google, Inc, they offer the following types of searching capabilities: Alerts Get email updates on the topics of your choice Blog Search Find blogs on your favorite topics Books Search the full text of books Custom Search Create a customized search experience for your community Desktop Search and personalize your computer Dictionary Search for definitions of words and phrases Directory Search the web, organized by topic or category Earth Explore the world from your computer Finance Business info, news and interactive charts GOOG-411 Find and connect for free with businesses from your phone Images Search for images on the web Maps View maps and directions News Search thousands of news stories Patent Search Search the full text of US Patents Product Search Search for stuff to buy Scholar Search scholarly papers Toolbar Add a search box to your browser Trends Explore past and present search trends Videos Search for videos on the web Web Search Search billions of web pages Web Search Features Find movies, music, stocks, books and more mapping Google’s free based business model is only one way it differentiates itself from its competition. There is also a strong focus on the accuracy of search results and the speed in which they are returned to the end-user. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a structured method used to help connect user needs to the design features of a project proposed to address those needs. This method is particularly useful in accounting for needs that are not easily articulated or precisely defined according to the U. S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Due to the fact that QFD is so customer driven Google is always in a constant state of change in attempt to reengineer its search algorithms, and other dependant systems so that end-users requirements are constantly being met. Value engineering is a key example of this, Google is constantly trying to improve all aspects of its products, improve system maintainability, and system interoperability. Bridgefield Group defines value engineering as an organized methodology that identifies and selects the lowest lifecycle cost options in design, materials and processes that achieves the desired level of performance, reliability and customer satisfaction. In addition, it seeks to remove unnecessary costs in the above areas and is often a joint effort with cross-functional internal teams and relevant suppliers. Common issues that appear when developing large scale systems like Google’s search applications include modular design of a product and/or service and providing accurate value analysis. A design approach that adheres to four fundamental tenets of cohesiveness, encapsulation, self-containment, and high binding to design a system component as an independently operable unit subject to change is how the Open System Joint Task Force defines modular design. More specifically M. S. Schmaltz defines modular software design as having a large collection of statements strung together in one partition of in-line code; we segment or divide the statements into logical groups called modules. Each module performs one or two tasks, and then passes control to another module. By breaking up the code into "bite-sized chunks", so to speak, we are able to better control the flow of data and control. This is especially true in large software systems. Value analysis is a process to evaluate products and services based on effectiveness, safety, and cost. Value analysis involves assessing the quality as well as the cost of a product or service as defined by the Healthcare Financial Management Association. “Operations Management deals with the design and management of products, processes, services and supply chains. It considers the acquisition, development, and utilization of resources that firms need to deliver the goods and services their clients want.” (MIT,2010) Google, Inc encourages an open environment between all employees, also known as Googlers. This is reinforced by a cross-section team or cross-functional teams comprised from multiple departments assigned to every project so that every department like marketing, finance, and quality assurance has input on every project. In addition, Google is known for their openness to new ideas regardless of the status or seniority of an employee. In fact, Google allows for 20% of an employee’s time can be devoted to developing new ideas and/or pet projects. HumTech.com defines a cross-functional team as a collection of people with varied levels of skills and experience brought together to accomplish a task. As the name implies, Cross-Functional Team members come from different organizational units. Cross-Functional Teams may be permanent or ad hoc. Google’s search application product strategy primarily focuses on mass customization. This is allows Google to create a base search application and allows results to be returned to the end-users quickly based on specific parameters and search settings. In addition, they also store the data that is returned in case other desire the same results based on other end-users supplying the same customized settings. This allows Google to appear to render search results in virtually real-time to the user while allowing for complete customization of the searching criteria. Greg Vogl, a professor at Uganda Martyrs University, defines mass customization as when a business gives its customers the opportunity to tailor its products or services to the customer's specifications. The IT staff at Google play a key role in ensuring that the search application’s product strategy is maintained simply because the IT staff designs, develops, and maintains all of their proprietary applications. In fact, they also maintain all network infrastructure to ensure that it is available to all end-users. References: http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publications/ftat_user_guide/sec5.htm http://www.bridgefieldgroup.com/bridgefieldgroup/glos9.htm#V http://www.acq.osd.mil/osjtf/termsdef.html http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~mssz/Pascal-CGS2462/prog-dsn.html http://www.hfma.org/publications/business_caring_newsletter/exclusives/Supply+and+Inventory+Terms+Defined.htm http://mitsloan.mit.edu/omg/om-definition.php http://www.humtech.com/opm/grtl/ols/ols3.cfm http://www.gregvogl.net/courses/mis1/glossary.htm

Read the article

Is Berkeley DB a NoSQL solution?

- by Gregory Burd

Berkeley DB is a library. To use it to store data you must link the library into your application. You can use most programming languages to access the API, the calls across these APIs generally mimic the Berkeley DB C-API which makes perfect sense because Berkeley DB is written in C. The inspiration for Berkeley DB was the DBM library, a part of the earliest versions of UNIX written by AT&T's Ken Thompson in 1979. DBM was a simple key/value hashtable-based storage library. In the early 1990s as BSD UNIX was transitioning from version 4.3 to 4.4 and retrofitting commercial code owned by AT&T with unencumbered code, it was the future founders of Sleepycat Software who wrote libdb (aka Berkeley DB) as the replacement for DBM. The problem it addressed was fast, reliable local key/value storage. At that time databases almost always lived on a single node, even the most sophisticated databases only had simple fail-over two node solutions. If you had a lot of data to store you would choose between the few commercial RDBMS solutions or to write your own custom solution. Berkeley DB took the headache out of the custom approach. These basic market forces inspired other DBM implementations. There was the "New DBM" (ndbm) and the "GNU DBM" (GDBM) and a few others, but the theme was the same. Even today TokyoCabinet calls itself "a modern implementation of DBM" mimicking, and improving on, something first created over thirty years ago. In the mid-1990s, DBM was the name for what you needed if you were looking for fast, reliable local storage. Fast forward to today. What's changed? Systems are connected over fast, very reliable networks. Disks are cheep, fast, and capable of storing huge amounts of data. CPUs continued to follow Moore's Law, processing power that filled a room in 1990 now fits in your pocket. PCs, servers, and other computers proliferated both in business and the personal markets. In addition to the new hardware entire markets, social systems, and new modes of interpersonal communication moved onto the web and started evolving rapidly. These changes cause a massive explosion of data and a need to analyze and understand that data. Taken together this resulted in an entirely different landscape for database storage, new solutions were needed. A number of novel solutions stepped up and eventually a category called NoSQL emerged. The new market forces inspired the CAP theorem and the heated debate of BASE vs. ACID. But in essence this was simply the market looking at what to trade off to meet these new demands. These new database systems shared many qualities in common. There were designed to address massive amounts of data, millions of requests per second, and scale out across multiple systems. The first large-scale and successful solution was Dynamo, Amazon's distributed key/value database. Dynamo essentially took the next logical step and added a twist. Dynamo was to be the database of record, it would be distributed, data would be partitioned across many nodes, and it would tolerate failure by avoiding single points of failure. Amazon did this because they recognized that the majority of the dynamic content they provided to customers visiting their web store front didn't require the services of an RDBMS. The queries were simple, key/value look-ups or simple range queries with only a few queries that required more complex joins. They set about to use relational technology only in places where it was the best solution for the task, places like accounting and order fulfillment, but not in the myriad of other situations. The success of Dynamo, and it's design, inspired the next generation of Non-SQL, distributed database solutions including Cassandra, Riak and Voldemort. The problem their designers set out to solve was, "reliability at massive scale" so the first focal point was distributed database algorithms. Underneath Dynamo there is a local transactional database; either Berkeley DB, Berkeley DB Java Edition, MySQL or an in-memory key/value data structure. Dynamo was an evolution of local key/value storage onto networks. Cassandra, Riak, and Voldemort all faced similar design decisions and one, Voldemort, choose Berkeley DB Java Edition for it's node-local storage. Riak at first was entirely in-memory, but has recently added write-once, append-only log-based on-disk storage similar type of storage as Berkeley DB except that it is based on a hash table which must reside entirely in-memory rather than a btree which can live in-memory or on disk. Berkeley DB evolved too, we added high availability (HA) and a replication manager that makes it easy to setup replica groups. Berkeley DB's replication doesn't partitioned the data, every node keeps an entire copy of the database. For consistency, there is a single node where writes are committed first - a master - then those changes are delivered to the replica nodes as log records. Applications can choose to wait until all nodes are consistent, or fire and forget allowing Berkeley DB to eventually become consistent. Berkeley DB's HA scales-out quite well for read-intensive applications and also effectively eliminates the central point of failure by allowing replica nodes to be elected (using a PAXOS algorithm) to mastership if the master should fail. This implementation covers a wide variety of use cases. MemcacheDB is a server that implements the Memcache network protocol but uses Berkeley DB for storage and HA to replicate the cache state across all the nodes in the cache group. Google Accounts, the user authentication layer for all Google properties, was until recently running Berkeley DB HA. That scaled to a globally distributed system. That said, most NoSQL solutions try to partition (shard) data across nodes in the replication group and some allow writes as well as reads at any node, Berkeley DB HA does not. So, is Berkeley DB a "NoSQL" solution? Not really, but it certainly is a component of many of the existing NoSQL solutions out there. Forgetting all the noise about how NoSQL solutions are complex distributed databases when you boil them down to a single node you still have to store the data to some form of stable local storage. DBMs solved that problem a long time ago. NoSQL has more to do with the layers on top of the DBM; the distributed, sometimes-consistent, partitioned, scale-out storage that manage key/value or document sets and generally have some form of simple HTTP/REST-style network API. Does Berkeley DB do that? Not really. Is Berkeley DB a "NoSQL" solution today? Nope, but it's the most robust solution on which to build such a system. Re-inventing the node-local data storage isn't easy. A lot of people are starting to come to appreciate the sophisticated features found in Berkeley DB, even mimic them in some cases. Could Berkeley DB grow into a NoSQL solution? Absolutely. Our key/value API could be extended over the net using any of a number of existing network protocols such as memcache or HTTP/REST. We could adapt our node-local data partitioning out over replicated nodes. We even have a nice query language and cost-based query optimizer in our BDB XML product that we could reuse were we to build out a document-based NoSQL-style product. XML and JSON are not so different that we couldn't adapt one to work with the other interchangeably. Without too much effort we could add what's missing, we could jump into this No SQL market withing a single product development cycle. Why isn't Berkeley DB already a NoSQL solution? Why aren't we working on it? Why indeed...

Read the article

Developer’s Life – Disaster Lessons – Notes from the Field #039

- by Pinal Dave

[Note from Pinal]: This is a 39th episode of Notes from the Field series. What is the best solution do you have when you encounter a disaster in your organization. Now many of you would answer that in this scenario you would have another standby machine or alternative which you will plug in. Now let me ask second question – What would you do if you as an individual faces disaster? In this episode of the Notes from the Field series database expert Mike Walsh explains a very crucial issue we face in our career, which is not technical but more to relate to human nature. Read on this may be the best blog post you might read in recent times. Howdy! When it was my turn to share the Notes from the Field last time, I took a departure from my normal technical content to talk about Attitude and Communication.(http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2014/05/08/developers-life-attitude-and-communication-they-can-cause-problems-notes-from-the-field-027/) Pinal said it was a popular topic so I hope he won’t mind if I stick with Professional Development for another of my turns at sharing some information here. Like I said last time, the “soft skills” of the IT world are often just as important – sometimes more important – than the technical skills. As a consultant with Linchpin People – I see so many situations where the professional skills I’ve gained and use are more valuable to clients than knowing the best way to tune a query. Today I want to continue talking about professional development and tell you about the way I almost got myself hit by a train – and why that matters in our day jobs. Sometimes we can learn a lot from disasters. Whether we caused them or someone else did. If you are interested in learning about some of my observations in these lessons you can see more where I talk about lessons from disasters on my blog. For now, though, onto how I almost got my vehicle hit by a train… The Train Crash That Almost Was…. My family and I own a little schoolhouse building about a 10 mile drive away from our house. We use it as a free resource for families in the area that homeschool their children – so they can have some class space. I go up there a lot to check in on the property, to take care of the trash and to do work on the property. On the way there, there is a very small Stop Sign controlled railroad intersection. There is only two small freight trains a day passing there. Actually the same train, making a journey south and then back North. That’s it. This road is a small rural road, barely ever a second car driving in the neighborhood there when I am. The stop sign is pretty much there only for the train crossing. When we first bought the building, I was up there a lot doing renovations on the property. Being familiar with the area, I am also familiar with the train schedule and know the tracks are normally free of trains. So I developed a bad habit. You see, I’d approach the stop sign and slow down as I roll through it. Sometimes I’d do a quick look and come to an “almost” stop there but keep on going. I let my impatience and complacency take over. And that is because most of the time I was going there long after the train was done for the day or in between the runs. This habit became pretty well established after a couple years of driving the route. The behavior reinforced a bit by the success ratio. I saw others doing it as well from the neighborhood when I would happen to be there around the time another car was there. Well. You already know where this ends up by the title and backstory here. A few months ago I came to that little crossing, and I started to do the normal routine. I’d pretty much stopped looking in some respects because of the pattern I’d gotten into. For some reason I looked and heard and saw the train slowly approaching and slammed on my brakes and stopped. It was an abrupt stop, and it was close. I probably would have made it okay, but I sat there thinking about lessons for IT professionals from the situation once I started breathing again and watched the cars loaded with sand and propane slowly labored down the tracks… Here are Those Lessons… It’s easy to get stuck into a routine – That isn’t always bad. Except when it’s a bad routine. Momentum and inertia are powerful. Once you have a habit and a routine developed – it’s really hard to break that. Make sure you are setting the right routines and habits TODAY. What almost dangerous things are you doing today? How are you almost messing up your production environment today? Stop doing that. Be Deliberate – (Even when you are the only one) – Like I said – a lot of people roll through that stop sign. Perhaps the neighbors or other drivers think “why is he fully stopping and looking… The train only comes two times a day!” – they can think that all they want. Through deliberate actions and forcing myself to pay attention, I will avoid that oops again. Slow down. Take a deep breath. Be Deliberate in your job. Pay attention to the small stuff and go out of your way to be careful. It will save you later. Be Observant – Keep your eyes open. By looking around, observing the situation and understanding what your servers, databases, users and vendors are doing – you’ll notice when something is out of place. But if you don’t know what is normal, if you don’t look to make sure nothing has changed – that train will come and get you. Where can you be more observant? What warning signs are you ignoring in your environment today? In the IT world – trains are everywhere. Projects move fast. Decisions happen fast. Problems turn from a warning sign to a disaster quickly. If you get stuck in a complacent pattern of “Everything is okay, it always has been and always will be” – that’s the time that you will most likely get stuck in a bad situation. Don’t let yourself get complacent, don’t let your team get complacent. That will lead to being proactive. And a proactive environment spends less money on consultants for troubleshooting problems you should have seen ahead of time. You can spend your money and IT budget on improving for your customers. If you want to get started with performance analytics and triage of virtualized SQL Servers with the help of experts, read more over at Fix Your SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

Read the article

TechEd 2010 Day One – How I Travel

- by BuckWoody

Normally when I blog on the first day of a conference, well, there hasn’t been a first day yet. So I talk about the value of a conference or some other facet. And normally in my (non-conference) blogs, I show you how I have learned to be a data professional – things I’ve learned how to do over the years. But in all that time, I don’t think I’ve ever talked about a big part of my job – traveling. I’ve traveled a lot throughout the years, when I’ve taught, gone to conferences, consulted and in my current role assisting Microsoft customers with large-scale database system designs. So I’ll share a few thoughts about what I do. Keep in mind that I travel for short durations, just a day or so, and sometimes I travel internationally. For those I prepare differently – what I’m talking about here is what I do for a multi-day, same-country trip. Hopefully you find it useful. I’ll tag a few other travelers I know to add their thoughts. Preparing for Travel When I’m notified of a trip, I begin researching the location. I find the flights, hotel and (if I have to) a car to use while I’m away. We have an in-house system we use to book the travel, but when I travel not-for-Microsoft I use Expedia and Kayak to find what I need. Traveling on Sunday and Friday is the worst. I have to do it sometimes (like this week) and it’s always a bad idea. But you can blunt the impact by booking as early as you can stand it. That means I have to be up super-early, but the flights are normally on time. I stay flexible, and always have a backup plan in case the flights are delayed or canceled. For the hotel, I tend to go on the cheaper side, and I look for older hotels that have been renovated, or quirky ones. For instance, in Boise, ID recently I stayed at a 60’s-themed (think Mad-Men) hotel that was very cool. Always I go on the less expensive side – I find the “luxury” hotels nail me for Internet, food, everything. The cheaper places include all kinds of things, and even have breakfasts, shuttles and all kinds of things that start to add up. I even call ahead to make sure there’s an iron and ironing board available, since I’ll need those when I get there. I find any way I can not to get a car. I use mass-transit wherever possible, and try to make friends and pay their gas to take me places. In a pinch, I’ll use a taxi. It ends up being cheaper, faster, and less stressful all around. Packing Over the years I’ve learned never to check luggage whenever I can. To do that, I lay out everything I want to take with me on the bed, and then try and make sure I’m really going to use it. I wear a dark wool set of pants, which I can clean and wear in hot and cold climates. I bring undies and socks of course, and for most places I have to wear “dress up” shirts. I bring at least two print T-Shirts in case I want to dress down for something while I’m gone, but I only bring one set of shoes. All the clothes are rolled as tightly as possible as I learned in the military. Then I use those to cushion the electronics I take. For toiletries I bring a shaver, toothpaste and toothbrush, D/O and a small brush. Everything else the hotel will provide. For entertainment, I take a small Zune, a full PC-Headset (so I can make IP calls on the road) and my laptop. I don’t take books or anything else – everything is electronic. I use E-books (downloaded from our Library), Audio-Books (on the Zune) and I also bring along a Kaossilator (more here) to play music in the hotel room or even on the plane without being heard. If I can, I pack into one roll-on bag. There’s not a lot better than this one, but I also have a Bag I was given as a prize for something or other here at Microsoft. Either way, I like something with less pockets and more big, open compartments. Everything gets rolled up and packed in, with all of the wires and charges in small bags my wife made for me. The laptop (and anything I don’t want gate-checked) goes on top or in an outside pouch so I can grab it quickly if I have to gate-check the bag. As much as I can, I try to go in one bag. When I can’t (like this week) I use this bag since it can expand, roll up, crush and even be put away later. It’s super-heavy canvas and worth the price. This allows me to not check a bag. Journey Logistics The day of the trip, I have everything ready since I’m getting up early. I pack a few small snacks inside a plastic large-mouth water bottle, which protects the snacks and lets me get water in the terminal. I bring along those little powdered drink mixes to add to the water. At the airport, I make a beeline for the power-outlets. I charge up my laptop and phone, and download all my e-mails so I can work on them off-line in the air. I don’t travel as often as I used to – just every month or so now, so I don’t have a membership to an airline club. If I travel much more, I’ll invest in one again – they are WELL worth the money, for the wifi, food and quiet if for nothing else. I print out my logistics on paper and put that in my pocket – flight numbers, hotel addresses and phones for everything. That way if I have to make a change, I don’t have to boot up anything or even have power to be able to roll with the punches if things change. Working While Away While I’m away I realize I’m going to be swamped with things at the conference or with my clients. So I turn on Out-Of-Office notifications to let people know I won’t be as responsive, and I keep my Outlook calendar up to date so my co-workers know what I’m up to. I even update it with hotel and phone info in case they really need to reach me. I share my calendar with my wife so my family knows what I’m doing as well. I check my e-mail during breaks, but I only respond to them in the evening or early morning at the hotel. I tweet during conferences. The point is to be as present as possible during the event or when I’m at the clients. Both deserve it. So those are my initial thoughts. I’ll tag Brent Ozar, Brad McGeHee and Paul Randal, and they can tag whomever they wish. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

Read the article

CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 03, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 03, 2010New Projects.radiko: エアログラス採用のシンプルなradiko(http://radiko.jp/)クライアントです。タスクトレイのアイコンからラジオ局の切り替えができます。7Scale: EmptyB2C MVC Plattform: The B2C MVC Plattform aims to be pluggable site framework to help small busisness accomplish basic tasks between business and customers.ElValWeb: The goal of the project to create full featured implementation of ModelValidatorProvider for Enterprise Library Application Validation Block, wich ...esatis yazilimi: asp.net yazılımı ile satış magazasi websitesi kur.IEnumerable.It sample code: IEnumerable.It sample codejQuery MicroAjax for ASP.NET: MicroAjax is a set of jQuery plugins and .NET components designed to provide simple, powerful and efficient Ajax centric web application design pat...Karbon VOS: Karbon VOS is an advanced Virtual Operating System Template for Visual Basic Express. It's developed in Visual Basic. Karbon VOS hopes to one day b...LINQ Mapper: LINQ Mapper translates simple LINQ queries between different sources. It allows you to write queries against your domain model, but have them run ...Meccano Silverlight Framework: Meccano is a new generation of frameworks for creation of LOB Silverlight applications based on MEF, RX, WCF, ADO.NET Data Services etc. It is inte...Multiuse Model View (MMV) Library: This project is an open source library for the Multiuse Model View (MMV) pattern for building robust WPF and ASP.Net applications. Visit my blog ht...Process Affinity Control: Process Affinity Control allows to set the affinity masks of processes based on rules.SilverSpatial: This project helps bridge the gap between Silverlight and Geo-Spatial data type (such as SQL Spatial). It implements the Well-Known-Binary (WKB) fo...StageAssets: Application for storing data about "things" and people in theatre. For example equipment, actors and so on.Stratosphere: Mono compatible library with set of primitives to work with scalable table, queue and block containers with corresponding implementations for Amazo...TRX Web-Viewer: A simple web-based application to upload and view VSTS 2008 and VSTS 2010 test result files with some basic lookup and feature-wise management of r...WDT2: WDT 2 is the school project to begin learning .NET enviroment, The main focus is on learning the use of almost all the componenets.WPF Behavior Library: WPF Behavior Library is a set of additional actions for WPF that allow you to add extra behaviors to a control quickly and easily. Currently the on...YouTubeEmbeddedVideo WebControl for ASP.NET: A Control to embed YouTube videos in ASP.NET pages. Works in C# and VB.NETNew Releases.radiko: beta: 東京局のみ対応あとは手抜きActiveWorlds Managed .NET SDK: AwManaged Technology Preview - WIN32 (Alpha): This WIN32 release contains the Server Console Application. The Setup executable should be run as administrator on O.S. using UAC (Vista/Win7)AJAX Control Framework: v1.0.1.0: v1.0.1.0 - Contains a Bing Maps sample project, a number of bug fixes and a few performance improvements. - AJAX enable ANY custom control that der...App_Code (and Usercontrol) Editor (ACE): v1.0.0 alpha: The first alpha release of the AppCode Editor for Umbraco 4.0.3 is now available to download! Tested to work with usercontrols - pre-compilation wi...ElValWeb: ElValWeb 0.0.1.0: Version 0.0.1.0 contains client validation support forAndCompositeValidator ContainsCharactersValidator DomainValidator NotNullValidator Or...esatis yazilimi: magaza: magazanın yazılımları ve veri tabanının yazılımlarıGrunty OS: Grunty OS USB: Download Grunty OS for USBGrunty OS: Grunty OS.ISO: Grunty OS ISOKarbon VOS: Milestone 1 (Kaptua): Milestone 1...Live Meeting API Wrapper: LiveMeetingAPIWrapperV1.2: Added get meeting and update meeting.Multiuse Model View (MMV) Library: v0.3: first alpha release. Medium amount of functionality and some use cases tested.MVC Foolproof Validation: Beta 0.9.3774: Adds resource provided error messages, regular expression operators and a new RegularExpressionIf attribute.Process Affinity Control: Version 1.0.0: This is the first release. Planned features for the next release: No administrative privileges needed to run the manager Select the active scena...SharePoint 2010 Service Manager: SharePoint 2010 Service Manager 1.1: Added support to run under UAC with automatic security elevationSharePoint Event Handler Manager: Event Handler Manager 2.0: Please download the application here: http://www.ackermantech.com/registerevents.aspxSkyDrive Synchronizer: SkyDrive Sync Beta 0.1: Beta release includes: Upload and download Synchronize updated files Delete files on web/locally if not in source Split larger files into sma...Stratosphere: Stratosphere 1.0.0.0: Initial beta releaseSuggested Resources for .NET Developers: 0.8.0.0 VS2010 - focus on displaying content: This is the first release of Suggested Resources that can be downloaded from the internet. While there is still a lot of work to be done this rele...TRX Web-Viewer: TRX Web-Viewer V1.0: First working versionVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30502.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWatchersNET.TagCloud: WatchersNET.TagCloud 01.04.00: !Whats New New Tag Mode: Search Referrers (Shows Search Tags From Google, Ask, Bing, Yahoo and the Dnn Site Search) Taxonomy Tags now contains L...Web/Cloud Applications Development Framework | Visual WebGui: 6.4 Beta 2e: Fully featured beta version of Visual WebGui Web/Cloud Applicaiton Development FrameworkWPF Behavior Library: WPF Behavior Library 0.1 Release: First alpha release of the WPF Behavior Library. It should be stable but doesn't have all of the features it will have in the future and the API ma...xvanneste: Sharepoint Social Network Client: Client permettant d'avoir accés au social network de sharepoint a l'exterieur du navigateur.Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control Toolkitpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)iTuner - The iTunes CompanionASP.NETDotNetNuke® Community EditionMost Active ProjectsIonics Isapi Rewrite Filterpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRawrHydroServer - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System ServerAJAX Control Frameworkpatterns & practices: Azure Security GuidanceTinyProjectBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleDambach Linear Algebra Framework

Read the article

Guide to Downloading Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Products

- by Daniel Mortimer

IntroductionThe idea of writing a blog about downloading software seems a bit strange .. right? After all, surely just give me the web download link and away I go!? Unfortunately, life is not so simple if you are a DBA or Systems Administrator tasked with staging Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g products for your chosen business technology stack. Here are the challenges: Oracle Fusion Middleware is not a single product, it is a family of products - a media pack with many many "disks" - which ones do I pick? Are the products I pick certified / supported on my chosen platform? Which download site do I use? I need to be on the latest and greatest - how do I get hold of the latest product patch set? The purpose of this blog is to give you a roadmap to get you through these challenges. Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g - A Product SuiteThe first thing to appreciate is that Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is not a single product. It is a product suite, an umbrella label for many products. Typically you don't download the whole media pack - well not unless you want to stage 124 Parts - a total of 68 Gig - instead you pick the pieces that are required for your chosen Middleware solution. Therefore, you need to research / understand which products are required to build your solution. In this respect, before you go looking for the software pick and persue the product guide from the table below which matches your situation: Installing a New / Vanilla FMW 11g architecture Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Planning Guide 11g Upgrading Oracle Application Server 10g to FMW 11g Oracle Fusion Middleware Upgrade Planning Guide 11g Patching an existing FMW 11g architecture Oracle Fusion Middleware Patching Guide 11g Certification Information Ok, so now you have an idea of what Fusion Middleware products you need. It's time to check whether these products are certified against your chosen platform. There are two places to find this information:My Oracle Support Certification Tab PageFigure 1.1 My Oracle Support Certification Tab Page - "Search on SOA Suite" Figure 1.2 My Oracle Support Certification Tab Page - "SOA Suite Search Result" The FMW 11g Certification Central Hub (in the format of xls spreadsheet)Figure 2: Screenshot of FMW 11g Release 1 Certification xls spreadsheet Hints / Tips: Fusion Middleware 11g certification information has only recently been added into the Certification Tab page and I think it is the more friendly way to access the information. However, due to some restrictions with the Certification Tab page interface some of the more, let's say obscure certification information, is still to be only found in the Certification spreadsheet. Be aware that to find certification information via the My Oracle Support Certification Tab page you must enter the FMW 11g product name e.g. "Oracle SOA Suite". Do NOT enter "Oracle Fusion Middleware". The certification information does not exist at this product suite level. For example, if you are building a solution which includes Oracle SOA Suite Oracle WebCenter then you will have to look up the certification information for each product in turn.After choosing the product name, select the latest patch set version. This will not only tell you whether your chosen product is available at that patch set version but provide the certification information relevant to that version. If the product is not available under the latest patch set version, seek the information under previous patch set versions. Important: Make a careful note of the Oracle WebLogic Server version which is certified with your chosen product and patch set version. Oracle WebLogic Server is the core component of a Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g home. It is important therefore to ensure later on that you download the version of Oracle WebLogic Server which is compatible and certified with your chosen product and patch set version.Also - sorry to state the obvious, but please do not take certification information from the screenshots above. The screenshots are only good for the time they were entered into the blog. To ensure you have the latest information, interactively look up the certification details. For more information about finding certification information, bookmark and readMy Oracle Support Certification Tool for Oracle Fusion Middleware Products [Doc ID 1368736.1]How to Find Certification Details for Oracle Application Server 10g and Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g [Doc ID 431578.1] Downloading the Software Now you should be ready to download the software. There are two download locations Oracle Software Delivery Cloud (formerly known as E-Delivery)Figure 3 - Screenshot of Fusion Middleware Download from Delivery CloudOracle Fusion Middleware Download Page on Oracle Technology NetworkFigure 4 - Screenshot of OTN Product Download Screen Hints / Tips: Your choice of download location should be primarily driven by your licensing needs. Take note of the wording on the OTN site - to quote:"The downloads below are provided for evaluators under the OTN License Agreement. Licensed customers should download their software via our Oracle Software Delivery Cloud site, which offers different license terms."However, it has to be said that the presentation of the most of the product download pages on OTN does make the job easier. The Software Delivery Cloud provides you with a flat list of the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g media pack. You have to know what you are looking for and pick out the right pieces :-( The OTN product download pages present not only the download for the product you want but also its dependencies such as WebLogic Server and Repository Creation Utility. So, even if your licensing requirements drive you towards the cloud, it is still worthwhile checking the OTN pages if only as a guide to what you need to pick out from the flat list found on the cloud site. Latest Patch Set This is an area which may cause you confusion - especially if you are more familiar with the Oracle Application Server 10g patching story. From Patch Set 11.1.1.6 and higher, the majority of FMW 11g products (N.B there are exceptions) provide installers which can be used both to update existing FMW 11g product installs or build brand new ones. This is good news because, unless you are dealing with one of the exceptions, it means you do not have to download base software and a patch set. At the time of the writing, the two significant exceptions are: Portal/Forms/Reports/Discoverer 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.x) Identity Access Management 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.x) The other key message here is ensure you are grabbing a version of Oracle WebLogic Server which is compatible with your chosen product patch set version. Get this wrong and you will hit errors / problems at AS Instance Configuration Time.The go to place is this document - Oracle Fusion Middleware Download, Installation, and Configuration Readme FilesIn fact, this README document pretty much takes you through what I have blogged above. The only thing is you need to know which README to choose, and that's why planning your FMW 11g technology stack and viewing certification information comes into play beforehand. And Finally As the Oracle Fusion Middleware Download, Installation, and Configuration Readme Files states don't forget to check FMW 11g System Requirements FMW 11g Product Interoperability

Read the article

Improving the Industry’s Best Cloud Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Solution – New Release of Instantis EnterpriseTrack

- by Melissa Centurio Lopes

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} By Yasser Mahmud, Vice President of Product Strategy & Industry Marketing, Oracle Primavera We know that in today’s rapidly changing world, organizations and leaders must adapt to fierce competition, business climate change and customers consistently demanding more for less. And project portfolio management (PPM) initiatives are a key component to help organizations thrive and stand out among competitors. That’s why I’m excited to announce Instantis EnterpriseTrack 8.5. Since Oracle’s acquisition of Instantis late last year, we’ve been busy working to enhance the leading cloud PPM solution. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Here’s what’s new: Perform more precise resource planning and management Gain more precise capacity visibility for resource planning and project execution with resource calendars that capture vacation, LOA and part-time resource availability Ensure compliance and governance processes with activity labor cost capitalization Improve project labor cost estimation, tracking and administration with variable resource rates Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Optimize Project Demand Management And Execution Enhance productivity and analysis with project request flexible staffing plan and simplified finance estimation Improve project status communication and execution with estimated time to complete (ETC) in timesheets and projects Achieve audit compliance and governance with field change history for key project and project request fields Enforce proper financial accounting processes with the new strict finance lock/close period option Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Improve Reporting and the User Experience Enhance user productivity and analysis with improved listing pages Improve program reporting with new program filters in listing pages and reports Run large data volume user defined Excel reports with MS Excel 2010 support Accelerate user productivity and satisfaction with an improved user interface for project issues, risks, and scope changes Enjoy faster system response and improved user experience with optimized listing pages, resource planning, and application cache Deliver user self-service training on demand with UPK support And if that wasn’t enough, we’ve also made additional improvements to timesheets, field change history and finance lock/close period. Learn more about Instantis EnterpriseTrack 8.5.

Read the article

SQL SERVER – Guest Post – Architecting Data Warehouse – Niraj Bhatt

- by pinaldave

Niraj Bhatt works as an Enterprise Architect for a Fortune 500 company and has an innate passion for building / studying software systems. He is a top rated speaker at various technical forums including Tech·Ed, MCT Summit, Developer Summit, and Virtual Tech Days, among others. Having run a successful startup for four years Niraj enjoys working on – IT innovations that can impact an enterprise bottom line, streamlining IT budgets through IT consolidation, architecture and integration of systems, performance tuning, and review of enterprise applications. He has received Microsoft MVP award for ASP.NET, Connected Systems and most recently on Windows Azure. When he is away from his laptop, you will find him taking deep dives in automobiles, pottery, rafting, photography, cooking and financial statements though not necessarily in that order. He is also a manager/speaker at BDOTNET, Asia’s largest .NET user group. Here is the guest post by Niraj Bhatt. As data in your applications grows it’s the database that usually becomes a bottleneck. It’s hard to scale a relational DB and the preferred approach for large scale applications is to create separate databases for writes and reads. These databases are referred as transactional database and reporting database. Though there are tools / techniques which can allow you to create snapshot of your transactional database for reporting purpose, sometimes they don’t quite fit the reporting requirements of an enterprise. These requirements typically are data analytics, effective schema (for an Information worker to self-service herself), historical data, better performance (flat data, no joins) etc. This is where a need for data warehouse or an OLAP system arises. A Key point to remember is a data warehouse is mostly a relational database. It’s built on top of same concepts like Tables, Rows, Columns, Primary keys, Foreign Keys, etc. Before we talk about how data warehouses are typically structured let’s understand key components that can create a data flow between OLTP systems and OLAP systems. There are 3 major areas to it: a) OLTP system should be capable of tracking its changes as all these changes should go back to data warehouse for historical recording. For e.g. if an OLTP transaction moves a customer from silver to gold category, OLTP system needs to ensure that this change is tracked and send to data warehouse for reporting purpose. A report in context could be how many customers divided by geographies moved from sliver to gold category. In data warehouse terminology this process is called Change Data Capture. There are quite a few systems that leverage database triggers to move these changes to corresponding tracking tables. There are also out of box features provided by some databases e.g. SQL Server 2008 offers Change Data Capture and Change Tracking for addressing such requirements. b) After we make the OLTP system capable of tracking its changes we need to provision a batch process that can run periodically and takes these changes from OLTP system and dump them into data warehouse. There are many tools out there that can help you fill this gap – SQL Server Integration Services happens to be one of them. c) So we have an OLTP system that knows how to track its changes, we have jobs that run periodically to move these changes to warehouse. The question though remains is how warehouse will record these changes? This structural change in data warehouse arena is often covered under something called Slowly Changing Dimension (SCD). While we will talk about dimensions in a while, SCD can be applied to pure relational tables too. SCD enables a database structure to capture historical data. This would create multiple records for a given entity in relational database and data warehouses prefer having their own primary key, often known as surrogate key. As I mentioned a data warehouse is just a relational database but industry often attributes a specific schema style to data warehouses. These styles are Star Schema or Snowflake Schema. The motivation behind these styles is to create a flat database structure (as opposed to normalized one), which is easy to understand / use, easy to query and easy to slice / dice. Star schema is a database structure made up of dimensions and facts. Facts are generally the numbers (sales, quantity, etc.) that you want to slice and dice. Fact tables have these numbers and have references (foreign keys) to set of tables that provide context around those facts. E.g. if you have recorded 10,000 USD as sales that number would go in a sales fact table and could have foreign keys attached to it that refers to the sales agent responsible for sale and to time table which contains the dates between which that sale was made. These agent and time tables are called dimensions which provide context to the numbers stored in fact tables. This schema structure of fact being at center surrounded by dimensions is called Star schema. A similar structure with difference of dimension tables being normalized is called a Snowflake schema. This relational structure of facts and dimensions serves as an input for another analysis structure called Cube. Though physically Cube is a special structure supported by commercial databases like SQL Server Analysis Services, logically it’s a multidimensional structure where dimensions define the sides of cube and facts define the content. Facts are often called as Measures inside a cube. Dimensions often tend to form a hierarchy. E.g. Product may be broken into categories and categories in turn to individual items. Category and Items are often referred as Levels and their constituents as Members with their overall structure called as Hierarchy. Measures are rolled up as per dimensional hierarchy. These rolled up measures are called Aggregates. Now this may seem like an overwhelming vocabulary to deal with but don’t worry it will sink in as you start working with Cubes and others. Let’s see few other terms that we would run into while talking about data warehouses. ODS or an Operational Data Store is a frequently misused term. There would be few users in your organization that want to report on most current data and can’t afford to miss a single transaction for their report. Then there is another set of users that typically don’t care how current the data is. Mostly senior level executives who are interesting in trending, mining, forecasting, strategizing, etc. don’t care for that one specific transaction. This is where an ODS can come in handy. ODS can use the same star schema and the OLAP cubes we saw earlier. The only difference is that the data inside an ODS would be short lived, i.e. for few months and ODS would sync with OLTP system every few minutes. Data warehouse can periodically sync with ODS either daily or weekly depending on business drivers. Data marts are another frequently talked about topic in data warehousing. They are subject-specific data warehouse. Data warehouses that try to span over an enterprise are normally too big to scope, build, manage, track, etc. Hence they are often scaled down to something called Data mart that supports a specific segment of business like sales, marketing, or support. Data marts too, are often designed using star schema model discussed earlier. Industry is divided when it comes to use of data marts. Some experts prefer having data marts along with a central data warehouse. Data warehouse here acts as information staging and distribution hub with spokes being data marts connected via data feeds serving summarized data. Others eliminate the need for a centralized data warehouse citing that most users want to report on detailed data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

Read the article

SQL Monitor’s data repository

- by Chris Lambrou

As one of the developers of SQL Monitor, I often get requests passed on by our support people from customers who are looking to dip into SQL Monitor’s own data repository, in order to pull out bits of information that they’re interested in. Since there’s clearly interest out there in playing around directly with the data repository, I thought I’d write some blog posts to start to describe how it all works. The hardest part for me is knowing where to begin, since the schema of the data repository is pretty big. Hmmm… I guess it’s tricky for anyone to write anything but the most trivial of queries against the data repository without understanding the hierarchy of monitored objects, so perhaps my first post should start there. I always imagine that whenever a customer fires up SSMS and starts to explore their SQL Monitor data repository database, they become immediately bewildered by the schema – that was certainly my experience when I did so for the first time. The following query shows the number of different object types in the data repository schema: SELECT type_desc, COUNT(*) AS [count] FROM sys.objects GROUP BY type_desc ORDER BY type_desc; type_desccount 1DEFAULT_CONSTRAINT63 2FOREIGN_KEY_CONSTRAINT181 3INTERNAL_TABLE3 4PRIMARY_KEY_CONSTRAINT190 5SERVICE_QUEUE3 6SQL_INLINE_TABLE_VALUED_FUNCTION381 7SQL_SCALAR_FUNCTION2 8SQL_STORED_PROCEDURE100 9SYSTEM_TABLE41 10UNIQUE_CONSTRAINT54 11USER_TABLE193 12VIEW124 With 193 tables, 124 views, 100 stored procedures and 381 table valued functions, that’s quite a hefty schema, and when you browse through it using SSMS, it can be a bit daunting at first. So, where to begin? Well, let’s narrow things down a bit and only look at the tables belonging to the data schema. That’s where all of the collected monitoring data is stored by SQL Monitor. The following query gives us the names of those tables: SELECT sch.name + '.' + obj.name AS [name] FROM sys.objects obj JOIN sys.schemas sch ON sch.schema_id = obj.schema_id WHERE obj.type_desc = 'USER_TABLE' AND sch.name = 'data' ORDER BY sch.name, obj.name; This query still returns 110 tables. I won’t show them all here, but let’s have a look at the first few of them: name 1data.Cluster_Keys 2data.Cluster_Machine_ClockSkew_UnstableSamples 3data.Cluster_Machine_Cluster_StableSamples 4data.Cluster_Machine_Keys 5data.Cluster_Machine_LogicalDisk_Capacity_StableSamples 6data.Cluster_Machine_LogicalDisk_Keys 7data.Cluster_Machine_LogicalDisk_Sightings 8data.Cluster_Machine_LogicalDisk_UnstableSamples 9data.Cluster_Machine_LogicalDisk_Volume_StableSamples 10data.Cluster_Machine_Memory_Capacity_StableSamples 11data.Cluster_Machine_Memory_UnstableSamples 12data.Cluster_Machine_Network_Capacity_StableSamples 13data.Cluster_Machine_Network_Keys 14data.Cluster_Machine_Network_Sightings 15data.Cluster_Machine_Network_UnstableSamples 16data.Cluster_Machine_OperatingSystem_StableSamples 17data.Cluster_Machine_Ping_UnstableSamples 18data.Cluster_Machine_Process_Instances 19data.Cluster_Machine_Process_Keys 20data.Cluster_Machine_Process_Owner_Instances 21data.Cluster_Machine_Process_Sightings 22data.Cluster_Machine_Process_UnstableSamples 23… There are two things I want to draw your attention to: The table names describe a hierarchy of the different types of object that are monitored by SQL Monitor (e.g. clusters, machines and disks). For each object type in the hierarchy, there are multiple tables, ending in the suffixes _Keys, _Sightings, _StableSamples and _UnstableSamples. Not every object type has a table for every suffix, but the _Keys suffix is especially important and a _Keys table does indeed exist for every object type. In fact, if we limit the query to return only those tables ending in _Keys, we reveal the full object hierarchy: SELECT sch.name + '.' + obj.name AS [name] FROM sys.objects obj JOIN sys.schemas sch ON sch.schema_id = obj.schema_id WHERE obj.type_desc = 'USER_TABLE' AND sch.name = 'data' AND obj.name LIKE '%_Keys' ORDER BY sch.name, obj.name; name 1data.Cluster_Keys 2data.Cluster_Machine_Keys 3data.Cluster_Machine_LogicalDisk_Keys 4data.Cluster_Machine_Network_Keys 5data.Cluster_Machine_Process_Keys 6data.Cluster_Machine_Services_Keys 7data.Cluster_ResourceGroup_Keys 8data.Cluster_ResourceGroup_Resource_Keys 9data.Cluster_SqlServer_Agent_Job_History_Keys 10data.Cluster_SqlServer_Agent_Job_Keys 11data.Cluster_SqlServer_Database_BackupType_Backup_Keys 12data.Cluster_SqlServer_Database_BackupType_Keys 13data.Cluster_SqlServer_Database_CustomMetric_Keys 14data.Cluster_SqlServer_Database_File_Keys 15data.Cluster_SqlServer_Database_Keys 16data.Cluster_SqlServer_Database_Table_Index_Keys 17data.Cluster_SqlServer_Database_Table_Keys 18data.Cluster_SqlServer_Error_Keys 19data.Cluster_SqlServer_Keys 20data.Cluster_SqlServer_Services_Keys 21data.Cluster_SqlServer_SqlProcess_Keys 22data.Cluster_SqlServer_TopQueries_Keys 23data.Cluster_SqlServer_Trace_Keys 24data.Group_Keys The full object type hierarchy looks like this: Cluster Machine LogicalDisk Network Process Services ResourceGroup Resource SqlServer Agent Job History Database BackupType Backup CustomMetric File Table Index Error Services SqlProcess TopQueries Trace Group Okay, but what about the individual objects themselves represented at each level in this hierarchy? Well that’s what the _Keys tables are for. This is probably best illustrated by way of a simple example – how can I query my own data repository to find the databases on my own PC for which monitoring data has been collected? Like this: SELECT clstr._Name AS cluster_name, srvr._Name AS instance_name, db._Name AS database_name FROM data.Cluster_SqlServer_Database_Keys db JOIN data.Cluster_SqlServer_Keys srvr ON db.ParentId = srvr.Id -- Note here how the parent of a Database is a Server JOIN data.Cluster_Keys clstr ON srvr.ParentId = clstr.Id -- Note here how the parent of a Server is a Cluster WHERE clstr._Name = 'dev-chrisl2' -- This is the hostname of my own PC ORDER BY clstr._Name, srvr._Name, db._Name; cluster_nameinstance_namedatabase_name 1dev-chrisl2SqlMonitorData 2dev-chrisl2master 3dev-chrisl2model 4dev-chrisl2msdb 5dev-chrisl2mssqlsystemresource 6dev-chrisl2tempdb 7dev-chrisl2sql2005SqlMonitorData 8dev-chrisl2sql2005TestDatabase 9dev-chrisl2sql2005master 10dev-chrisl2sql2005model 11dev-chrisl2sql2005msdb 12dev-chrisl2sql2005mssqlsystemresource 13dev-chrisl2sql2005tempdb 14dev-chrisl2sql2008SqlMonitorData 15dev-chrisl2sql2008master 16dev-chrisl2sql2008model 17dev-chrisl2sql2008msdb 18dev-chrisl2sql2008mssqlsystemresource 19dev-chrisl2sql2008tempdb These results show that I have three SQL Server instances on my machine (a default instance, one named sql2005 and one named sql2008), and each instance has the usual set of system databases, along with a database named SqlMonitorData. Basically, this is where I test SQL Monitor on different versions of SQL Server, when I’m developing. There are a few important things we can learn from this query: Each _Keys table has a column named Id. This is the primary key. Each _Keys table has a column named ParentId. A foreign key relationship is defined between each _Keys table and its parent _Keys table in the hierarchy. There are two exceptions to this, Cluster_Keys and Group_Keys, because clusters and groups live at the root level of the object hierarchy. Each _Keys table has a column named _Name. This is used to uniquely identify objects in the table within the scope of the same shared parent object. Actually, that last item isn’t always true. In some cases, the _Name column is actually called something else. For example, the data.Cluster_Machine_Services_Keys table has a column named _ServiceName instead of _Name (sorry for the inconsistency). In other cases, a name isn’t sufficient to uniquely identify an object. For example, right now my PC has multiple processes running, all sharing the same name, Chrome (one for each tab open in my web-browser). In such cases, multiple columns are used to uniquely identify an object within the scope of the same shared parent object. Well, that’s it for now. I’ve given you enough information for you to explore the _Keys tables to see how objects are stored in your own data repositories. In a future post, I’ll try to explain how monitoring data is stored for each object, using the _StableSamples and _UnstableSamples tables. If you have any questions about this post, or suggestions for future posts, just submit them in the comments section below.

Read the article

A Look Back at 2010 Predictions

- by David Dorf

Now is the time of year people make their predictions for next year, but before I start thinking about 2011 it's worth a look back to see how my predictions for 2010 fared. 1. Borders and Blockbuster bite the dust. I would have never predicted a strong brand such as Circuit City could die, but now I know it can happen to anyone. Borders has lost the battle with Barnes & Noble and Blockbuster has lost to Netflix. And just to be sure, Amazon put an extra nail in each coffin. Borders received additional investment from Bennett LeBow to keep it afloat, but the stock is down around $1.25 with no profits in sight. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy back in September. 2. Every retailer finally has a page on Facebook... but very few figure out how to keep fans engaged. Retailer postings become noise, and fans start to unsubscribe. Twitter goes in the same direction. A few standout retailers will figure out how to use social media, and the rest will remain dumbfounded. Most retailers are on the Facebook bandwagon, and their fan bases seem to be increasing thanks to promotions like The Gap's logo redesign, Lowes' black Friday sneak peak, and Walmart's Crowd Savers. There are several examples of f-commerce advancements, including some interesting integrations from Amazon.3. Smartphones consolidate and grow. More and more people will step-up to smartphones, most of which will choose iPhone, Blackberry, and Android phones. Other smartphones will vanish, and networks will start to strain. But retailers will finally embrace mobile as the next big channel. Retail marketing departments will build mobile apps without the help of their IT department, and eventually they will get into a bind. Android has been on a tear lately stealing market share from Blackberry. Palm and Microsoft are trending down, and Apple is holding steady. Smartphone sales are up 15% and expected to continue. Retailers understand the importance of mobile, and some innovative applications have been produced this year. 4. Google helps the little guys. Google will push its Favorite Places project to help give exposure to small retailers and restaurants. They will enable small retailers to act like big ones by providing storefronts, detailed product information, and coupons for consumers. Google will find a way to bring augmented reality to the masses. I can't say I've seen much new from Google regarding Favorite Places, but they've continued to push local product search. From the PC or smartphone, consumers can search for products and see which nearby stores have it stock. Oracle Retail even productized an integration to Google to support this effort. I suppose if Google ever buys Groupon then it will bring them even closer to local shopping. Google talked about augmented humanity, but that has nothing to do with augmented reality. 5. Steve Jobs Is Bugs Bunny and Steve Ballmer is Elmer Fudd. (OK, I stole that headline from an InformationWeek article. I couldn't resist.) Both Apple and Microsoft will continue to open new stores, but only Apple will show real growth. POSReady 2009 (formerly WEPOS) will continue to share the POS market with Linux. The iPhone and iPod will continue to capture market share, but there won't be an Apple tablet. There won't be an Apple tablet? What was I thinking? While Apple has well over 300 stores, there are less than 10 Microsoft stores. Initial impressions show that even though Microsoft is locating its store near Apple Stores, they are not converting customers, with shoppers citing a lack of assortment and high prices. 6. Consolidation of e-commerce software providers. Software vendors in the areas of search, reviews, online call-centers, payments, and e-commerce will consolidate, partly driven by the success of m-commerce and SaaS. Amazon will find someone else to buy, and eBay will continue to lose momentum. Consolidation of e-commerce providers continued with IBM acquiring Sterling Commerce and CoreMetrics, and Oracle recently announcing the acquisition of ATG. Amazon grabbed Zappos, Woot, and Diapers.com to continue its dominance of online selling. While eBay's Marketplace growth may have slowed, its PayPal division is doing quite well, fueled in part by demand for mobile payments. 7. Book publishers mirror music labels. Just as the iPod brought digital downloads to the masses, the Kindle and Nook will power the e-book revolution. Books will continue to use DRM for a few more years before following the path of music. Publishers will try to preserve the margins of hardbacks by associating e-book releases with paperbacks. Amazon has done a good job providing e-reader clients for smartphones, PCs, and tablets. Competition from Barnes & Noble has forced Amazon to support book loaning, and both companies are making it easier for people to publish ebooks (with or without DRM). Progress is slow but steady. 8. NFC makes inroads, RFID treads water. Near Field Communications start to appear in mobile phones, and retailers beta test its use for payments and loyalty programs. RFID tag costs come down a bit, but not enough to spur accelerated adoption.Nokia announced plans to offer NFC-enabled phones in 2011, and rumors are swirling about NFC in the upcoming iPhone. I think NFC is heading in the right direction, and I've heard more interest from retailers about specialized uses for RFID.9. Digital Signage goes the way of augmented reality. People use their camera phones to leave geo-tagged notes all over cities, rating stores and restaurants, and "painting" graffiti. But people get tired of holding their phones in front of their faces, so AR glasses are offered in much the same way bluetooth headsets emerged. Retailers experiement with in-store advertising using AR. Several retailers like Pizza Hut, Benetton, and Target have experimented with AR but its still somewhat of a gimmick used by marketing. I think this prediction is a year or two too early. 10. JDA flip-flops again. After announcing their embracing of the .Net architecture, then switching to J2EE after the Manugistics acquisition, JDA will finally decide to standardize on Apple's Objective C. Everything will be ported to the iPhone and be available on the AppStore. After all, there's not much left to try. This was, of course, a joke but the sentiment is still valid. JDA seems more supply-chain focused than retail focused, which is a an outcrop if their i2 acquisition. Of the 10 predictions, I'm going to say I got 6 somewhat correct. (Don't you just love grading your own paper?) Soon I'll post my predictions for 2011 so be on the lookout. Until then here's one more prediction: Va Tech beats Stanford in the Orange Bowl -- count on it!

Read the article

Using ExcelPacke to create Excel sheets on server

- by DigiMortal

In one of my community projects I needed to output some listings as Excel file. As installing Excel to server is non-sense that I was easily able to avoid I found simple solution for Excel 2007 files – open-source project called ExcelPackage. In this posting I will show you hot to create simple event attendees report in Excel 2007 format using ExcelPackage. Cautions Although ExcelPackage works well for me here are some things you should be aware of. ExcelPackage needs file system access because compression library it uses is designed so. There is only very old source code available and it is published under GPL. So if you are writing application to your customers then you cannot use this library unless you make your whole application open-source. ExcelPackage has also some technical problems and it is not very easy to use in simple cases. Authors have not provided any new releases since the beginning of 2007 so I have good reason to consider this project as abandoned. You may find the extensive package EPPlus also useful as there are new versions coming over time. EPPlus is also published under GPL (because ExcelPackage is under GPL), so you can use it only on very limited manner. If you don’t afraid some s*itfight with technology and GPL is okay for your system then let’s go on. Exporting event attendees list to Excel Suppose we have list with event attendees and we want to export it to Excel. We are behaving normally and we don’t install Excel desktop software to our web server. Here is the code. void ExportToExcel(Event evt) { var fileInfo = new FileInfo(Path.GetTempPath() + "\\" + DateTime.Now.Ticks + ".xlsx"); using (var xls = new ExcelPackage(fileInfo)) { var sheet = xls.Workbook.Worksheets.Add(evt.Title); sheet.Cell(1, 1).Value = "First name"; sheet.Cell(1, 2).Value = "Last name"; sheet.Cell(1, 3).Value = "E-mail"; sheet.Cell(1, 4).Value = "Phone"; sheet.Cell(1, 5).Value = "Registered"; sheet.Cell(1, 6).Value = "Live Meeting"; var i = 1; foreach(var attendee in evt.Attendees) { i++; var profile = attendee.Profile; sheet.Cell(i, 1).Value = profile.FirstName; sheet.Cell(i, 2).Value = profile.LastName; sheet.Cell(i, 3).Value = profile.Email; sheet.Cell(i, 4).Value = profile.Phone; sheet.Cell(i, 5).Value = att.Created.ToString(); sheet.Cell(i, 6).Value = att.LiveMeeting.ToString(); } xls.Save(); } Response.Clear(); Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.openxmlformats"; Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + fileInfo.Name); Response.WriteFile(fileInfo.FullName); Response.Flush(); if (fileInfo.Exists) fileInfo.Delete(); } And here is the result. Although it is possible to make this list more effective and nice it works and users can start using it until all the nice bells and whistles are coming. Conclusion After some fighting with technology it was not very hard to get nice Excel 2007 sheets coming out from our server. We used ExcelPackage library to create list of event attendees and our event organizers can now simply download data to Excel if they need to contact with attendees or manage their data using Excel tools.

Read the article

15 Kasim 2012 Oracle Day

- by TUFEKCIOGLU,FATIH

15.Kasim'da Harbiye Istanbul Kongre Merkezi'nde düzenlenecek Oracle Day'e ait etkinlik bilgileri : Oracle Day etkinlik bilgileri için tiklayiniz En Son Teknolojiden Faydalanin: Inovasyona ve Rekabete Zaman Birakin 15 Kasim 2012 Bulut Bilisim, Mobilite, Sosyal Medya ve Büyük Veri, bildigimiz dünyayi yeniden tanimliyor. Bu teknolojileri kurumuna ilk getirenlerden biri olun; daha hizli yeni ürün ve hizmet gelistirme, müsteri deneyimini iyilestirme ve yeni inovatif is modellerini hayata geçirme firsati yakalayarak rekabetteki konumunuzu güçlendirin. Oracle ve is ortaklari bu noktada size, teknolojik yenilikleri kurumunuza uyarlamanizda yardim ederken, sizin de piyasadaki degisimlerden rakiplerinizden önce avantaj elde etmenizi saglar. Oracle'in, birlikte çalismak için tasarlanmis olan yazilim ve donanimlarda en yeni teknolojileri kullanarak, bilgi teknolojilerini nasil sadelestirdigini ögrenmek için Oracle Day'de bize katilin. Oracle Day'de: Oracle'in Bulut Bilisim, Büyük Veri, Sosyal Medya, is uygulamalari çözümleri hakkinda bilgi edinme, Basarili is dönüsümleri hakkinda örnek basari hikayelerini dinleme, Sizinle ayni zorluklari tecrübe eden sektör çalisanlariyla biraraya gelme, Oracle uzmanlari ve is ortaklari ile tanisma ve yeni ürün tanitimlarini izleme, Oracle OpenWorld'den en yeni ürün bilgilerini edinme firsatini kaçirmayin... Saygilarimizla, Oracle Türkiye Hemen Kaydolun! Platin Sponsor Istanbul Kongre Merkezi Taskisla Caddesi Harbiye 34367 Istanbul / Türkiye 15 Kasim 2012, Persembe 08:30 - 18:30 LCV: [email protected] oracle.com/oracleday Bizi takip edin: #oracleday Oracle Is Ortagi Müsteri Basari Hikayesi TROUG Sunum Ingilizce'dir Günün Ajandasi 08:45-09:30 Kayit 09:30-10:00 Hos Geldiniz Filiz Dogan, Genel Müdür, Oracle Türkiye 10:00-10:30 Navigating Complexity by Simplifying I.T. Andrew Mendelsohn, Kidemli Baskan Yardimcisi, Oracle Veritabani Sunucu Teknolojileri, Oracle 10:30-11:00 Dönüsümsel Bulut Yolculugu Ilker Kuruöz, CIO, Turkcell 11:00-11:20 Yeni Dönemde Veri Merkezlerinin Olmazsa Olmazlari Yalim Eristiren, Genel Müdür Yardimcisi, Intel 11:20-11:30 Slimfit Feyza Narli, Is Çözümleri Direktörü, Innova 11:30-12:00 Java ile Inovasyon Cuma Yigit, Teknik Mimar, Etiya Yusuf Tok, Java Grup Yöneticisi, OBSS Ersun Engel, Satis Müdürü, Oracle 12:00-12:10 Kahve Molasi 1. SALON 2. SALON 3. SALON 4. SALON 5. SALON 6. SALON 7. SALON 8. SALON 9. SALON 10. SALON Müsteri Deneyimi: Çalisaninizi Yetkinlestirin. Markanizi Güçlendirin. Is Süreçlerinde Degisim Daha Fazla Veri, Daha Hizli Sonuç: Isinizi Analitik Çözümlerle Güçlendirin Peki Ama Nasil? Bulut Uygulayicilari için Çözüm Haritasi Is Uygulamalarinizda Inovasyonun Gücünü Kullanin Yeni Nesil Veri Merkezi ile BT'nin Gücünü Ortaya Çikartin Oracle & Is Ortaklari Çözümleri - Basari Hikayeleri I Oracle & Is Ortaklari Çözümleri - Basari Hikayeleri II Oracle Finansal Hizmetler - Core Banking and Analytical Solutions Oracle User Group (TROUG) 12:10-12:40 Müsteri Deneyimi: Çalisaninizi Yetkinlestirin. Markanizi Güçlendirin. Tekfen Ceyhan Çelik Fabrikasi Maliyet Yönetimi ve Üretim Takibi Daha Fazla Veriyle, Daha Hizli Hareket: Yaraticiligi Aksiyonla Güçlendirme Architect Your Cloud: A Blueprint for Cloud Builders Technology Strategies that Drive Business Excellence: Get Social. Be Mobile. Run Cloud. Yeni Nesil Veri Merkezi ile BT'nin Gücünü Ortaya Çikartin Innovate with Oracle - Virtual Banking and Self Service Channels What's Next for Oracle Database? Oracle Innova Oracle Oracle Oracle Oracle Oracle Oracle 12:40-13:40 Ögle Yemegi 13:40-14:10 Uygulamalariniz Artik Bulutta 21. Yüzyilda Finans: Potansiyeli Kullanin - Sonuçlara Ulasin! "Düsünce Hizinda" Intel Islemcili Oracle Büyük Veri ve Is Analitigi Çözümleri Deniz Seviyesinden Bulutlara I CRM'inizi Sosyallestirin: Telaura Sosyal CRM Yeni Nesil Veri Merkezinde Trend: Sadelik Abone Bilgi Yönetim Sistemi (ABYS) Yüksek Oracle Veri Tabani Performansi - Oracle Veri Tabani Oracle Veri Depolama Sistemi ile Entegre Oldugunda Sigortacilikta Finansal Transformasyon ve Entegre Veri Ambari Çözümleri SQL/PLSQL Yeni Özellikler Oracle Oracle Intel Oracle Etiya Oracle Inspirit Oracle Oraturk TROUG 14:10-14:20 Kahve Molasi 14:20-14:50 Satis ve Pazarlamada Sosyal Mecralar Müsteri Basari Hikayeleri Paneli: Degisim Yolculugu ve Sonuçlari Tukas'in Analitik Yolculugu Deniz Seviyesinden Bulutlara II Loupe: IP Tabanli Servisler için Proaktif Izleme Veri Merkezinizdeki Riskleri Ortadan Kaldirin Oracle iAS to WebLogic Migrasyonu Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance - Turkcell Deneyimleri Analytical Transformation - Risk and Finance Together to Address the Regulatory Changes Today and Tomorrow Veri Madenciligi Veritabaninda Yapilir: Uygulamalariyla Oracle R Enterprise ve Oracle Data Mining Opsiyonu Oracle Akbank, Teknosa, Dogus Holding, Ceynak Gtech Oracle Netas Oracle OBSS Turkcell&Gantek Oracle TROUG 14:50-15:00 Kahve Molasi 15:00-15:30 Yetenek Yönetiminde Entegre Çözümler: Taleo ile Ise Alim Artik Daha Kolay Müsteri Basari Hikayeleri Paneli: Degisim Yolculugu ve Sonuçlari Büyük Veri & Exalytics - Exadata'nin Gelecek Rotasi - Bütünlesik (Engineered) Sistemler'de Ücretsiz Platin Hizmetleri Aksigorta Oracle ATS (Application Testing Suite) ile Uygulamalarini Nasil Test Ediyor? Üstün Performans ve Esneklik ile Servis Seviyenizi Arttirin Akilli Belediyecilik Uygulamalarinda Oracle BPM ile Süreç Yönetimi Teyp ile Uçtan Uca Yedekleme Çözümleri Connecting with Customers to Enhance Revenue Generation: Unleashing the Power of an Enterprise Revenue Management and Billing Solution Günümüzün Uygulama Mimarisi Sorunlari ve Çözüm Önerileri Oracle Akbank, Teknosa, Dogus Holding, Ceynak Oracle Oracle Aksigorta Oracle Sampas Remivac Oracle TROUG 15:30-15:40 Kahve Molasi 15:40-16:10 JD Edwards Yeni Sürüm ile Satis Agi Yönetimi Oracle Policy Automation ile Türkçe Merkezi Is Kurallari Yönetimi Oracle BI ile Kurumsal Karne Çözümleri Turkcell Süperbulut ile Yazilim Artik Hizmetinizde Bütünlesik (Engineered) Sistemler Artik SAP Müsterilerinde de Fark Yaratiyor Yeni Nesil Veri Merkezi Olusturma: Denenmis ve Ispatlanmis Yöntemler Türk Telekom SOA Projesi Basari Hikayesi Yapi Kredi Sigorta Uygulamalarinda Son Kullanici Deneyimini Nasil Izliyor? 2013 NFC Trendleri Karagöz ile Hacivat Veri Tabaninda TupperWare & Akademi Danismanlik Oracle Oracle Turkcell Oracle Oracle Türk Telekom Yapi Kredi Sigorta Smartsoft TROUG 16:10-16:20 Kahve Molasi 16:20-16:50 Tutarli, Tekil Veriye Yolculuk: Oracle Ana Veri Yönetimi Turkcell/Superonline'da Varlik Yönetimi Her Tür Verinin Endeca ile Rahat Analizi Bulut Bilisim'de Güvenlik Nasil Saglanir? Rekabette Kazanmak: GoldenGate ile Dogru Kararlari Rakiplerinizden Önce Verin. Veri Merkeziniz için Bulut Altyapi Stratejileri Oracle Orkestrasi: Çok Sesli Yönetime Kulak Verin Lojistik Zekasi / Horoz Lojistik Basari Hikayesi Bütünlesik Sistemler (Engineered Systems) ile Yüksek Performansli Java Uygulamalari International Growth - Helping the Banks Standardize Overseas Operations Oracle Big Data Oracle Turkcell Oracle Oracle Oracle Oracle Kora & Horoz Lojistik Oracle Oracle TROUG 16:50-18:30 Kokteyl Eger bir kamu kurumunun/kurulusunun çalisani veya görevlisi iseniz, bu etkinlige iliskin önemli etik kurallara iliskin bilgi için lütfen buraya tiklayiniz Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Bize Ulasin | Yasal Uyarilar | Gizlilik Beyani

Read the article

September Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG) Regional Events:

- by Mandy Ho

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} September 5, 2012 – Denver, CO Oracle 11g Database Upgrade Seminar Join Roy Swonger, Senior Director of software development at Oracle to learn about upgrading to Oracle Database 11g. Topics include: All the required preparatory steps Database upgrade strategies Post-upgrade performance analysis Helpful tips and common pitfalls to watch out for http://www.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=152242&src=7598177&src=7598177&Act=4 September 6, 2012 – Salt Lake City, UT Fall Symposium 2012 Plan to join us for our annual fall event on Sept 6. They day will be filled with learning and networking with tracks focused on Applications, APEX, BI, Development and DBA Topics. This event is free for UTOUG members to attend, but please register. http://www.utoug.org/apex/f?p=972:2:6686308836668467::::P2_EVENT_ID:121 September 6, 2012 – Portland, OR Oracle’s Hands on Workshop Series focused on providing Defense-in-Depth Solutions to secure data at the source, reduce risk and simplify compliance The Oracle Database Security Workshop is a one-day hands-on session for IT Managers, IT Security Architects and Oracle DBAs who are looking for solutions to address their information protection, privacy, and accountability challenges within their Oracle database environment. Most security programs offered today fail toadequately address database security. Customers continue to be challenged tosecure information against loss and protect the integrity of sensitiveinformation like critical financial data, personally identifiable information(PII) and credit card data for PCI compliance. http://nwoug.org/content.aspx?page_id=87&club_id=165905&item_id=241082 September 11, 2012 – Montreal, QC APEXposed! For APEX aficionados – join ODTUG in Montreal, September 11-12 for APEXposed! Topics will include Dynamic Actions, Plug-ins, Tuning, and Building Mobile Apps. The cost is $399 US and early registration ends August 15th. For more information: http://www.odtugapextraining.com September 11, 2012 – Philadelphia, PA Big Data & What are we still doing wrong with Tom Kyte Tom Kyte is a Senior Technical Architect in Oracle's Server Technology Division. Tom is the Tom behind the AskTom column in Oracle Magazine and is also the author of Expert Oracle Database Architecture (Apress, 2005/2009) among other books Abstract: Big Data The term "big data" draws a lot of attention, but behind the hype there's a simple story. For decades, companies have been making business decisions based on transactional data stored in relational databases. However, beyond that critical data is a potential treasure trove of less structured data: weblogs, social media, email, sensors, and photographs that can be mined for useful information. This presentation will take a look at what Big Data is and means - and Oracle's strategy for handling it Abstract: What are we still doing wrong? I've given many best practices presentations in the last 10 years. I've given many worst practices presentations in the last 10 years. I've seen some things change over the last ten years and many other things stay exactly the same. In this talk - we'll be taking a look at the good and the bad - what we do right and what we continue to do wrong over and over again. We'll look at why "Why" is probably the right initial answer to most any question. We'll look at how we get to "Know what we Know", and why that can be both a help and a hindrance. We'll peek at "Best Practices" and tie them into what I term "Worst Practices". In short, a talk on the good and the bad. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} http://ioug.itconvergence.com/pls/apex/f?p=207:27:3669516430980563::NO September 12, 2012- New York, NY NYOUG Fall General Meeting “Trends in Database Administration and Why the Future of Database Administration is the Vdba” http://www.nyoug.org/upcoming_events.htm#General_Meeting1 September 21, 2012 – Cleveland, OH Oracle Database 11g for Developers: What You need to know or Oracle Database 11g New Features for Developers Attendees are introduced to the new and improved features of Oracle 11g (both Oracle 11g R1 and Oracle 11g R2) that directly impact application development. Special emphasis is placed on features that reduce development time, make development simpler, improve performance, or speed deployment. Specific topics include: New SQL functions, virtual columns, result caching, XML improvements, pivot statements, JDBC improvements, and PL/SQL enhancements such as compound triggers. http://www.neooug.org/ September 24, 2012 – Ottawa, ON Introduction to Oracle Spatial The free Oracle Locator functionality, and the Oracle Spatial option which dramatically extends Locator, are very useful, but poorly understood capabilities of the database. In the afternoon we will extend into additional areas selected from: storage and performance; answering business problems with spatial queries; using Oracle Maps in OBIEE; an overview and capabilities of Oracle Topology; under the covers with GeoCoding. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} http://www.oug-ottawa.org/pls/htmldb/f?p=327:27:4209274028390246::NO

Read the article

SPARC T4-4 Beats 8-CPU IBM POWER7 on TPC-H @3000GB Benchmark

- by Brian

Oracle's SPARC T4-4 server delivered a world record TPC-H @3000GB benchmark result for systems with four processors. This result beats eight processor results from IBM (POWER7) and HP (x86). The SPARC T4-4 server also delivered better performance per core than these eight processor systems from IBM and HP. Comparisons below are based upon system to system comparisons, highlighting Oracle's complete software and hardware solution. This database world record result used Oracle's Sun Storage 2540-M2 arrays (rotating disk) connected to a SPARC T4-4 server running Oracle Solaris 11 and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 demonstrating the power of Oracle's integrated hardware and software solution. The SPARC T4-4 server based configuration achieved a TPC-H scale factor 3000 world record for four processor systems of 205,792 QphH@3000GB with price/performance of $4.10/QphH@3000GB. The SPARC T4-4 server with four SPARC T4 processors (total of 32 cores) is 7% faster than the IBM Power 780 server with eight POWER7 processors (total of 32 cores) on the TPC-H @3000GB benchmark. The SPARC T4-4 server is 36% better in price performance compared to the IBM Power 780 server on the TPC-H @3000GB Benchmark. The SPARC T4-4 server is 29% faster than the IBM Power 780 for data loading. The SPARC T4-4 server is up to 3.4 times faster than the IBM Power 780 server for the Refresh Function. The SPARC T4-4 server with four SPARC T4 processors is 27% faster than the HP ProLiant DL980 G7 server with eight x86 processors on the TPC-H @3000GB benchmark. The SPARC T4-4 server is 52% faster than the HP ProLiant DL980 G7 server for data loading. The SPARC T4-4 server is up to 3.2 times faster than the HP ProLiant DL980 G7 for the Refresh Function. The SPARC T4-4 server achieved a peak IO rate from the Oracle database of 17 GB/sec. This rate was independent of the storage used, as demonstrated by the TPC-H @3000TB benchmark which used twelve Sun Storage 2540-M2 arrays (rotating disk) and the TPC-H @1000TB benchmark which used four Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array devices (flash storage). [*] The SPARC T4-4 server showed linear scaling from TPC-H @1000GB to TPC-H @3000GB. This demonstrates that the SPARC T4-4 server can handle the increasingly larger databases required of DSS systems. [*] The SPARC T4-4 server benchmark results demonstrate a complete solution of building Decision Support Systems including data loading, business questions and refreshing data. Each phase usually has a time constraint and the SPARC T4-4 server shows superior performance during each phase. [*] The TPC believes that comparisons of results published with different scale factors are misleading and discourages such comparisons. Performance Landscape The table lists the leading TPC-H @3000GB results for non-clustered systems. TPC-H @3000GB, Non-Clustered Systems System Processor P/C/T – Memory Composite(QphH) $/perf($/QphH) Power(QppH) Throughput(QthH) Database Available SPARC Enterprise M9000 3.0 GHz SPARC64 VII+ 64/256/256 – 1024 GB 386,478.3 $18.19 316,835.8 471,428.6 Oracle 11g R2 09/22/11 SPARC T4-4 3.0 GHz SPARC T4 4/32/256 – 1024 GB 205,792.0 $4.10 190,325.1 222,515.9 Oracle 11g R2 05/31/12 SPARC Enterprise M9000 2.88 GHz SPARC64 VII 32/128/256 – 512 GB 198,907.5 $15.27 182,350.7 216,967.7 Oracle 11g R2 12/09/10 IBM Power 780 4.1 GHz POWER7 8/32/128 – 1024 GB 192,001.1 $6.37 210,368.4 175,237.4 Sybase 15.4 11/30/11 HP ProLiant DL980 G7 2.27 GHz Intel Xeon X7560 8/64/128 – 512 GB 162,601.7 $2.68 185,297.7 142,685.6 SQL Server 2008 10/13/10 P/C/T = Processors, Cores, Threads QphH = the Composite Metric (bigger is better) $/QphH = the Price/Performance metric in USD (smaller is better) QppH = the Power Numerical Quantity QthH = the Throughput Numerical Quantity The following table lists data load times and refresh function times during the power run. TPC-H @3000GB, Non-Clustered Systems Database Load & Database Refresh System Processor Data Loading(h:m:s) T4Advan RF1(sec) T4Advan RF2(sec) T4Advan SPARC T4-4 3.0 GHz SPARC T4 04:08:29 1.0x 67.1 1.0x 39.5 1.0x IBM Power 780 4.1 GHz POWER7 05:51:50 1.5x 147.3 2.2x 133.2 3.4x HP ProLiant DL980 G7 2.27 GHz Intel Xeon X7560 08:35:17 2.1x 173.0 2.6x 126.3 3.2x Data Loading = database load time RF1 = power test first refresh transaction RF2 = power test second refresh transaction T4 Advan = the ratio of time to T4 time Complete benchmark results found at the TPC benchmark website http://www.tpc.org. Configuration Summary and Results Hardware Configuration: SPARC T4-4 server 4 x SPARC T4 3.0 GHz processors (total of 32 cores, 128 threads) 1024 GB memory 8 x internal SAS (8 x 300 GB) disk drives External Storage: 12 x Sun Storage 2540-M2 array storage, each with 12 x 15K RPM 300 GB drives, 2 controllers, 2 GB cache Software Configuration: Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition Audited Results: Database Size: 3000 GB (Scale Factor 3000) TPC-H Composite: 205,792.0 QphH@3000GB Price/performance: $4.10/QphH@3000GB Available: 05/31/2012 Total 3 year Cost: $843,656 TPC-H Power: 190,325.1 TPC-H Throughput: 222,515.9 Database Load Time: 4:08:29 Benchmark Description The TPC-H benchmark is a performance benchmark established by the Transaction Processing Council (TPC) to demonstrate Data Warehousing/Decision Support Systems (DSS). TPC-H measurements are produced for customers to evaluate the performance of various DSS systems. These queries and updates are executed against a standard database under controlled conditions. Performance projections and comparisons between different TPC-H Database sizes (100GB, 300GB, 1000GB, 3000GB, 10000GB, 30000GB and 100000GB) are not allowed by the TPC. TPC-H is a data warehousing-oriented, non-industry-specific benchmark that consists of a large number of complex queries typical of decision support applications. It also includes some insert and delete activity that is intended to simulate loading and purging data from a warehouse. TPC-H measures the combined performance of a particular database manager on a specific computer system. The main performance metric reported by TPC-H is called the TPC-H Composite Query-per-Hour Performance Metric (QphH@SF, where SF is the number of GB of raw data, referred to as the scale factor). QphH@SF is intended to summarize the ability of the system to process queries in both single and multiple user modes. The benchmark requires reporting of price/performance, which is the ratio of the total HW/SW cost plus 3 years maintenance to the QphH. A secondary metric is the storage efficiency, which is the ratio of total configured disk space in GB to the scale factor. Key Points and Best Practices Twelve Sun Storage 2540-M2 arrays were used for the benchmark. Each Sun Storage 2540-M2 array contains 12 15K RPM drives and is connected to a single dual port 8Gb FC HBA using 2 ports. Each Sun Storage 2540-M2 array showed 1.5 GB/sec for sequential read operations and showed linear scaling, achieving 18 GB/sec with twelve Sun Storage 2540-M2 arrays. These were stand alone IO tests. The peak IO rate measured from the Oracle database was 17 GB/sec. Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 required very little system tuning. Some vendors try to make the point that storage ratios are of customer concern. However, storage ratio size has more to do with disk layout and the increasing capacities of disks – so this is not an important metric in which to compare systems. The SPARC T4-4 server and Oracle Solaris efficiently managed the system load of over one thousand Oracle Database parallel processes. Six Sun Storage 2540-M2 arrays were mirrored to another six Sun Storage 2540-M2 arrays on which all of the Oracle database files were placed. IO performance was high and balanced across all the arrays. The TPC-H Refresh Function (RF) simulates periodical refresh portion of Data Warehouse by adding new sales and deleting old sales data. Parallel DML (parallel insert and delete in this case) and database log performance are a key for this function and the SPARC T4-4 server outperformed both the IBM POWER7 server and HP ProLiant DL980 G7 server. (See the RF columns above.) See Also Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) Home Page Ideas International Benchmark Page SPARC T4-4 Server oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN Sun Storage 2540-M2 Array oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement TPC-H, QphH, $/QphH are trademarks of Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). For more information, see www.tpc.org. SPARC T4-4 205,792.0 QphH@3000GB, $4.10/QphH@3000GB, available 5/31/12, 4 processors, 32 cores, 256 threads; IBM Power 780 QphH@3000GB, 192,001.1 QphH@3000GB, $6.37/QphH@3000GB, available 11/30/11, 8 processors, 32 cores, 128 threads; HP ProLiant DL980 G7 162,601.7 QphH@3000GB, $2.68/QphH@3000GB available 10/13/10, 8 processors, 64 cores, 128 threads.

Read the article

Azure, don't give me multiple VMs, give me one elastic VM

- by FransBouma

Yesterday, Microsoft revealed new major features for Windows Azure (see ScottGu's post). It all looks shiny and great, but after reading most of the material describing the new features, I still find the overall idea behind all of it flawed: why should I care on how much VMs my web app runs? Isn't that a problem to solve for the Windows Azure engineers / software? And what if I need the file system, why can't I simply get a virtual filesystem ? To illustrate my point, let's use a real example: a product website with a customer system/database and next to it a support site with accompanying database. Both are written in .NET, using ASP.NET and use a SQL Server database each. The product website offers files to download by customers, very simple. You have a couple of options to host these websites: Buy a server, place it in a rack at an ISP and run the sites on that server Use 'shared hosting' with an ISP, which means your sites' appdomains are running on the same machine, as well as the files stored, and the databases are hosted in the same server as the other shared databases. Hire a VM, install your OS of choice at an ISP, and host the sites on that VM, basically the same as the first option, except you don't have a physical server At some cloud-vendor, either host the sites 'shared' or in a VM. See above. With all of those options, scalability is a problem, even the cloud-based ones, though not due to the same reasons: The physical server solution has the obvious problem that if you need more power, you need to buy a bigger server or more servers which requires you to add replication and other overhead Shared hosting solutions are almost always capped on memory usage / traffic and database size: if your sites get too big, you have to move out of the shared hosting environment and start over with one of the other solutions The VM solution, be it a VM at an ISP or 'in the cloud' at e.g. Windows Azure or Amazon, in theory allows scaling out by simply instantiating more VMs, however that too introduces the same overhead problems as with the physical servers: suddenly more than 1 instance runs your sites. If a cloud vendor offers its services in the form of VMs, you won't gain much over having a VM at some ISP: the main problems you have to work around are still there: when you spin up more than one VM, your application must be completely stateless at any moment, including the DB sub system, because what's in memory in instance 1 might not be in memory in instance 2. This might sounds trivial but it's not. A lot of the websites out there started rather small: they were perfectly runnable on a single machine with normal memory and CPU power. After all, you don't need a big machine to run a website with even thousands of users a day. Moving these sites to a multi-VM environment will cause a problem: all the in-memory state they use, all the multi-page transitions they use while keeping state across the transition, they can't do that anymore like they did that on a single machine: state is something of the past, you have to store every byte of state in either a DB or in a viewstate or in a cookie somewhere so with the next request, all state information is available through the request, as nothing is kept in-memory. Our example uses a bunch of files in a file system. Using multiple VMs will require that these files move to a cloud storage system which is mounted in each VM so we don't have to store the files on each VM. This might require different file paths, but this change should be minor. What's perhaps less minor is the maintenance procedure in place on the new type of cloud storage used: instead of ftp-ing into a VM, you might have to update the files using different ways / tools. All in all this makes moving an existing website which was written for an environment that's based around a VM (namely .NET with its CLR) overly cumbersome and problematic: it forces you to refactor your website system to be able to be used 'in the cloud', which is caused by the limited way how e.g. Windows Azure offers its cloud services: in blocks of VMs. Offer a scalable, flexible VM which extends with my needs Instead, cloud vendors should offer simply one VM to me. On that VM I run the websites, store my DB and my files. As it's a virtual machine, how this machine is actually ran on physical hardware (e.g. partitioned), I don't care, as that's the problem for the cloud vendor to solve. If I need more resources, e.g. I have more traffic to my server, way more visitors per day, the VM stretches, like I bought a bigger box. This frees me from the problem which comes with multiple VMs: I don't have any refactoring to do at all: I can simply build my website as if it runs on my local hardware server, upload it to the VM offered by the cloud vendor, install it on the VM and I'm done. "But that might require changes to windows!" Yes, but Microsoft is Windows. Windows Azure is their service, they can make whatever change to what they offer to make it look like it's windows. Yet, they're stuck, like Amazon, in thinking in VMs, which forces developers to 'think ahead' and gamble whether they would need to migrate to a cloud with multiple VMs in the future or not. Which comes down to: gamble whether they should invest time in code / architecture which they might never need. (YAGNI anyone?) So the VM we're talking about, is that a low-level VM which runs a guest OS, or is that VM a different kind of VM? The flexible VM: .NET's CLR ? My example websites are ASP.NET based, which means they run inside a .NET appdomain, on the .NET CLR, which is a VM. The only physical OS resource the sites need is the file system, however this too is accessed through .NET. In short: all the websites see is what .NET allows the websites to see, the world as the websites know it is what .NET shows them and lets them access. How the .NET appdomain is run physically, that's the concern of .NET, not mine. This begs the question why Windows Azure doesn't offer virtual appdomains? Or better: .NET environments which look like one machine but could be physically multiple machines. In such an environment, no change has to be made to the websites to migrate them from a local machine or own server to the cloud to get proper scaling: the .NET VM will simply scale with the need: more memory needed, more CPU power needed, it stretches. What it offers to the application running inside the appdomain is simply increasing, but not fragmented: all resources are available to the application: this means that the problem of how to scale is back to where it should be: with the cloud vendor. "Yeah, great, but what about the databases?" The .NET application communicates with the database server through a .NET ADO.NET provider. Where the database is located is not a problem of the appdomain: the ADO.NET provider has to solve that. I.o.w.: we can host the databases in an environment which offers itself as a single resource and is accessible through one connection string without replication overhead on the outside, and use that environment inside the .NET VM as if it was a single DB. But what about memory replication and other problems? This environment isn't simple, at least not for the cloud vendor. But it is simple for the customer who wants to run his sites in that cloud: no work needed. No refactoring needed of existing code. Upload it, run it. Perhaps I'm dreaming and what I described above isn't possible. Yet, I think if cloud vendors don't move into that direction, what they're offering isn't interesting: it doesn't solve a problem at all, it simply offers a way to instantiate more VMs with the guest OS of choice at the cost of me needing to refactor my website code so it can run in the straight jacket form factor dictated by the cloud vendor. Let's not kid ourselves here: most of us developers will never build a website which needs a truck load of VMs to run it: almost all websites created by developers can run on just a few VMs at most. Yet, the most expensive change is right at the start: moving from one to two VMs. As soon as you have refactored your website code to run across multiple VMs, adding another one is just as easy as clicking a mouse button. But that first step, that's the problem here and as it's right there at the beginning of scaling the website, it's particularly strange that cloud vendors refuse to solve that problem and leave it to the developers to solve that. Which makes migrating 'to the cloud' particularly expensive.

Read the article

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. :)

Read the article

Pre-rentrée Oracle Open World 2012 : à vos agendas

- by Eric Bezille

A maintenant moins d'un mois de l’événement majeur d'Oracle, qui se tient comme chaque année à San Francisco, fin septembre, début octobre, les spéculations vont bon train sur les annonces qui vont y être dévoilées... Et sans lever le voile, je vous engage à prendre connaissance des sujets des "Key Notes" qui seront tenues par Larry Ellison, Mark Hurd, Thomas Kurian (responsable des développements logiciels) et John Fowler (responsable des développements systèmes) afin de vous donner un avant goût. Stratégie et Roadmaps Oracle Bien entendu, au-delà des séances plénières qui vous donnerons une vision précise de la stratégie, et pour ceux qui seront sur place, je vous engage à ne pas manquer les séances d'approfondissement qui auront lieu dans la semaine, dont voici quelques morceaux choisis : "Accelerate your Business with the Oracle Hardware Advantage" avec John Fowler, le lundi 1er Octobre, 3:15pm-4:15pm "Why Oracle Softwares Runs Best on Oracle Hardware" , avec Bradley Carlile, le responsable des Benchmarks, le lundi 1er Octobre, 12:15pm-13:15pm "Engineered Systems - from Vision to Game-changing Results", avec Robert Shimp, le lundi 1er Octobre 1:45pm-2:45pm "Database and Application Consolidation on SPARC Supercluster", avec Hugo Rivero, responsable dans les équipes d'intégration matériels et logiciels, le lundi 1er Octobre, 4:45pm-5:45pm "Oracle’s SPARC Server Strategy Update", avec Masood Heydari, responsable des développements serveurs SPARC, le mardi 2 Octobre, 10:15am - 11:15am "Oracle Solaris 11 Strategy, Engineering Insights, and Roadmap", avec Markus Flier, responsable des développements Solaris, le mercredi 3 Octobre, 10:15am - 11:15am "Oracle Virtualization Strategy and Roadmap", avec Wim Coekaerts, responsable des développement Oracle VM et Oracle Linux, le lundi 1er Octobre, 12:15pm-1:15pm "Big Data: The Big Story", avec Jean-Pierre Dijcks, responsable du développement produits Big Data, le lundi 1er Octobre, 3:15pm-4:15pm "Scaling with the Cloud: Strategies for Storage in Cloud Deployments", avec Christine Rogers, Principal Product Manager, et Chris Wood, Senior Product Specialist, Stockage , le lundi 1er Octobre, 10:45am-11:45am Retours d'expériences et témoignages Si Oracle Open World est l'occasion de partager avec les équipes de développement d'Oracle en direct, c'est aussi l'occasion d'échanger avec des clients et experts qui ont mis en oeuvre nos technologies pour bénéficier de leurs retours d'expériences, comme par exemple : "Oracle Optimized Solution for Siebel CRM at ACCOR", avec les témoignages d'Eric Wyttynck, directeur IT Multichannel & CRM et Pascal Massenet, VP Loyalty & CRM systems, sur les bénéfices non seulement métiers, mais également projet et IT, le mercredi 3 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Tips from AT&T: Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Database, and SPARC Enterprise", avec le retour d'expérience des experts Oracle, le mardi 2 Octobre, 11:45am-12:45pm "Creating a Maximum Availability Architecture with SPARC SuperCluster", avec le témoignage de Carte Wright, Database Engineer à CKI, le mercredi 3 Octobre, 11:45am-12:45pm "Multitenancy: Everybody Talks It, Oracle Walks It with Pillar Axiom Storage", avec le témoignage de Stephen Schleiger, Manager Systems Engineering de Navis, le lundi 1er Octobre, 1:45pm-2:45pm "Oracle Exadata for Database Consolidation: Best Practices", avec le retour d'expérience des experts Oracle ayant participé à la mise en oeuvre d'un grand client du monde bancaire, le lundi 1er Octobre, 4:45pm-5:45pm "Oracle Exadata Customer Panel: Packaged Applications with Oracle Exadata", animé par Tim Shetler, VP Product Management, mardi 2 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Big Data: Improving Nearline Data Throughput with the StorageTek SL8500 Modular Library System", avec le témoignage du CTO de CSC, Alan Powers, le jeudi 4 Octobre, 12:45pm-1:45pm "Building an IaaS Platform with SPARC, Oracle Solaris 11, and Oracle VM Server for SPARC", avec le témoignage de Syed Qadri, Lead DBA et Michael Arnold, System Architect d'US Cellular, le mardi 2 Octobre, 10:15am-11:15am "Transform Data Center TCO with Oracle Optimized Servers: A Customer Panel", avec les témoignages notamment d'AT&T et Liberty Global, le mardi 2 Octobre, 11:45am-12:45pm "Data Warehouse and Big Data Customers’ View of the Future", avec The Nielsen Company US, Turkcell, GE Retail Finance, Allianz Managed Operations and Services SE, le lundi 1er Octobre, 4:45pm-5:45pm "Extreme Storage Scale and Efficiency: Lessons from a 100,000-Person Organization", le témoignage de l'IT interne d'Oracle sur la transformation et la migration de l'ensemble de notre infrastructure de stockage, mardi 2 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm Echanges avec les groupes d'utilisateurs et les équipes de développement Oracle Si vous avez prévu d'arriver suffisamment tôt, vous pourrez également échanger dès le dimanche avec les groupes d'utilisateurs, ou tous les soirs avec les équipes de développement Oracle sur des sujets comme : "To Exalogic or Not to Exalogic: An Architectural Journey", avec Todd Sheetz - Manager of DBA and Enterprise Architecture, Veolia Environmental Services, le dimanche 30 Septembre, 2:30pm-3:30pm "Oracle Exalytics and Oracle TimesTen for Exalytics Best Practices", avec Mark Rittman, de Rittman Mead Consulting Ltd, le dimanche 30 Septembre, 10:30am-11:30am "Introduction of Oracle Exadata at Telenet: Bringing BI to Warp Speed", avec Rudy Verlinden & Eric Bartholomeus - Managers IT infrastructure à Telenet, le dimanche 30 Septembre, 1:15pm-2:00pm "The Perfect Marriage: Sun ZFS Storage Appliance with Oracle Exadata", avec Melanie Polston, directeur, Data Management, de Novation et Charles Kim, Managing Director de Viscosity, le dimanche 30 Septembre, 9:00am-10am "Oracle’s Big Data Solutions: NoSQL, Connectors, R, and Appliance Technologies", avec Jean-Pierre Dijcks et les équipes de développement Oracle, le lundi 1er Octobre, 6:15pm-7:00pm Testez et évaluez les solutions Et pour finir, vous pouvez même tester les technologies au travers du Oracle DemoGrounds, (1133 Moscone South pour la partie Systèmes Oracle, OS, et Virtualisation) et des "Hands-on-Labs", comme : "Deploying an IaaS Environment with Oracle VM", le mardi 2 Octobre, 10:15am-11:15am "Virtualize and Deploy Oracle Applications in Minutes with Oracle VM: Hands-on Lab", le mardi 2 Octobre, 11:45am-12:45pm (il est fortement conseillé d'avoir suivi le "Hands-on-Labs" précédent avant d'effectuer ce Lab. "x86 Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure with Oracle VM 3.x and Sun ZFS Storage Appliance", le mercredi 3 Octobre, 5:00pm-6:00pm "StorageTek Tape Analytics: Managing Tape Has Never Been So Simple", le mercredi 3 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Oracle’s Pillar Axiom 600 Storage System: Power and Ease", le lundi 1er Octobre, 12:15pm-1:15pm "Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure for SPARC with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c", le lundi 1er Octobre, 1:45pm-2:45pm "Managing Storage in the Cloud", le mardi 2 Octobre, 5:00pm-6:00pm "Learn How to Write MapReduce on Oracle’s Big Data Platform", le lundi 1er Octobre, 12:15pm-1:15pm "Oracle Big Data Analytics and R", le mardi 2 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Reduce Risk with Oracle Solaris Access Control to Restrain Users and Isolate Applications", le lundi 1er Octobre, 10:45am-11:45am "Managing Your Data with Built-In Oracle Solaris ZFS Data Services in Release 11", le lundi 1er Octobre, 4:45pm-5:45pm "Virtualizing Your Oracle Solaris 11 Environment", le mardi 2 Octobre, 1:15pm-2:15pm "Large-Scale Installation and Deployment of Oracle Solaris 11", le mercredi 3 Octobre, 3:30pm-4:30pm En conclusion, une semaine très riche en perspective, et qui vous permettra de balayer l'ensemble des sujets au coeur de vos préoccupations, de la stratégie à l'implémentation... Cette semaine doit se préparer, pour tailler votre agenda sur mesure, à travers les plus de 2000 sessions dont je ne vous ai fait qu'un extrait, et dont vous pouvez retrouver l'ensemble en ligne.

Read the article

Granular Clipboard Control in Oracle IRM

- by martin.abrahams

One of the main leak prevention controls that customers are looking for is clipboard control. After all, there is little point in controlling access to a document if authorised users can simply make unprotected copies by use of the cut and paste mechanism. Oddly, for such a fundamental requirement, many solutions only offer very simplistic clipboard control - and require the customer to make an awkward choice between usability and security. In many cases, clipboard control is simply an ON-OFF option. By turning the clipboard OFF, you disable one of the most valuable edit functions known to man. Try working for any length of time without copying and pasting, and you'll soon appreciate how valuable that function is. Worse, some solutions disable the clipboard completely - not just for the protected document but for all of the various applications you have open at the time. Normal service is only resumed when you close the protected document. In this way, policy enforcement bleeds out of the particular assets you need to protect and interferes with the entire user experience. On the other hand, turning the clipboard ON satisfies a fundamental usability requirement - but also makes it really easy for users to create unprotected copies of sensitive information, maliciously or otherwise. All they need to do is paste into another document. If creating unprotected copies is this simple, you have to question how much you are really gaining by applying protection at all. You may not be allowed to edit, forward, or print the protected asset, but all you need to do is create a copy and work with that instead. And that activity would not be tracked in any way. So, a simple ON-OFF control creates a real tension between usability and security. If you are only using IRM on a small scale, perhaps security can outweigh usability - the business can put up with the restriction if it only applies to a handful of important documents. But try extending protection to large numbers of documents and large user communities, and the restriction rapidly becomes really unwelcome. I am aware of one solution that takes a different tack. Rather than disable the clipboard, pasting is always permitted, but protection is automatically applied to any document that you paste into. At first glance, this sounds great - protection travels with the content. However, at any scale this model may not be so appealing once you've had to deal with support calls from users who have accidentally applied protection to documents that really don't need it - which would be all too easily done. This may help control leakage, but it also pollutes the system with documents that have policies applied with no obvious rhyme or reason, and it can seriously inconvenience the business by making non-sensitive documents difficult to access. And what policy applies if you paste some protected content into an already protected document? Which policy applies? There are no prizes for guessing that Oracle IRM takes a rather different approach. The Oracle IRM Approach Oracle IRM offers a spectrum of clipboard controls between the extremes of ON and OFF, and it leverages the classification-based rights model to give granular control that satisfies both security and usability needs. Firstly, we take it for granted that if you have EDIT rights, of course you can use the clipboard within a given document. Why would we force you to retype a piece of content that you want to move from HERE... to HERE...? If the pasted content remains in the same document, it is equally well protected whether it be at the beginning, middle, or end - or all three. So, the first point is that Oracle IRM always enables the clipboard if you have the right to edit the file. Secondly, whether we enable or disable the clipboard, we only affect the protected document. That is, you can continue to use the clipboard in the usual way for unprotected documents and applications regardless of whether the clipboard is enabled or disabled for the protected document(s). And if you have multiple protected documents open, each may have the clipboard enabled or disabled independently, according to whether you have Edit rights for each. So, even for the simplest cases - the ON-OFF cases - Oracle IRM adds value by containing the effect to the protected documents rather than to the whole desktop environment. Now to the granular options between ON and OFF. Thanks to our classification model, we can define rights that enable pasting between documents in the same classification - ie. between documents that are protected by the same policy. So, if you are working on this month's financial report and you want to pull some data from last month's report, you can simply cut and paste between the two documents. The two documents are classified the same way, subject to the same policy, so the content is equally safe in both documents. However, if you try to paste the same data into an unprotected document or a document in a different classification, you can be prevented. Thus, the control balances legitimate user requirements to allow pasting with legitimate information security concerns to keep data protected. We can take this further. You may have the right to paste between related classifications of document. So, the CFO might want to copy some financial data into a board document, where the two documents are sealed to different classifications. The CFO's rights may well allow this, as it is a reasonable thing for a CFO to want to do. But policy might prevent the CFO from copying the same data into a classification that is accessible to external parties. The above option, to copy between classifications, may be for specific classifications or open-ended. That is, your rights might enable you to go from A to B but not to C, or you might be allowed to paste to any classification subject to your EDIT rights. As for so many features of Oracle IRM, our classification-based rights model makes this type of granular control really easy to manage - you simply define that pasting is permitted between classifications A and B, but omit C. Or you might define that pasting is permitted between all classifications, but not to unprotected locations. The classification model enables millions of documents to be controlled by a few such rules. Finally, you MIGHT have the option to paste anywhere - such that unprotected copies may be created. This is rare, but a legitimate configuration for some users, some use cases, and some classifications - but not something that you have to permit simply because the alternative is too restrictive. As always, these rights are defined in user roles - so different users are subject to different clipboard controls as required in different classifications. So, where most solutions offer just two clipboard options - ON-OFF or ON-but-encrypt-everything-you-touch - Oracle IRM offers real granularity that leverages our classification model. Indeed, I believe it is the lack of a classification model that makes such granularity impractical for other IRM solutions, because the matrix of rules for controlling pasting would be impossible to manage - there are so many documents to consider, and more are being created all the time.

Read the article

Taking the training wheels off: Accelerating the Business with Oracle IAM by Brian Mozinski (Accenture)

- by Greg Jensen

Today, technical requirements for IAM are evolving rapidly, and the bar is continuously raised for high performance IAM solutions as organizations look to roll out high volume use cases on the back of legacy systems. Existing solutions were often designed and architected to support offline transactions and manual processes, and the business owners today demand globally scalable infrastructure to support the growth their business cases are expected to deliver. To help IAM practitioners address these challenges and make their organizations and themselves more successful, this series we will outline the: • Taking the training wheels off: Accelerating the Business with Oracle IAM The explosive growth in expectations for IAM infrastructure, and the business cases they support to gain investment in new security programs. • "Necessity is the mother of invention": Technical solutions developed in the field Well proven tricks of the trade, used by IAM guru’s to maximize your solution while addressing the requirements of global organizations. • The Art & Science of Performance Tuning of Oracle IAM 11gR2 Real world examples of performance tuning with Oracle IAM • No Where to go but up: Extending the benefits of accelerated IAM Anything is possible, compelling new solutions organizations are unlocking with accelerated Oracle IAM Let’s get started … by talking about the changing dynamics driving these discussions. Big Companies are getting bigger everyday, and increasingly organizations operate across state lines, multiple times zones, and in many countries or continents at the same time. No longer is midnight to 6am a safe time to take down the system for upgrades, to run recon’s and import or update user accounts and attributes. Further IT organizations are operating as shared services with SLA’s similar to telephone carrier levels expected by their “clients”. Workers are moved in and out of roles on a weekly, daily, or even hourly rate and IAM is expected to support those rapid changes. End users registering for services during business hours in Singapore are expected their access to be green-lighted in custom apps hosted in Portugal within the hour. Many of the expectations of asynchronous systems and batched updates are not adequate and the number and types of users is growing. When organizations acted more like independent teams at functional or geographic levels it was manageable to have processes that relied on a handful of people who knew how to make things work …. Knew how to get you access to the key systems to get your job done. Today everyone is expected to do more with less, the finance administrator previously supporting their local Atlanta sales office might now be asked to help close the books for the Johannesburg team, and access certification process once completed monthly by Joan on the 3rd floor is now done by a shared pool of resources in Sao Paulo. Fragmented processes that rely on institutional knowledge to get access to systems and get work done quickly break down in these scenarios. Highly robust processes that have automated workflows for connected or disconnected systems give organizations the dynamic flexibility to share work across these lines and cut costs or increase productivity. As the IT industry computing paradigms continue to change with the passing of time, and as mature or proven approaches become clear, it is normal for organizations to adjust accordingly. Businesses must manage identity in an increasingly hybrid world in which legacy on-premises IAM infrastructures are extended or replaced to support more and more interconnected and interdependent services to a wider range of users. The old legacy IAM implementation models we had relied on to manage identities no longer apply. End users expect to self-request access to services from their tablet, get supervisor approval over mobile devices and email, and launch the application even if is hosted on the cloud, or run by a partner, vendor, or service provider. While user expectations are higher, they are also simpler … logging into custom desktop apps to request approvals, or going through email or paper based processes for certification is unacceptable. Users expect security to operate within the paradigm of the application … i.e. feel like the application they are using. Citizen and customer facing applications have evolved from every where, with custom applications, 3rd party tools, and merging in from acquired entities or 3rd party OEM’s resold to expand your portfolio of services. These all have their own user stores, authentication models, user lifecycles, session management, etc. Often the designers/developers are no longer accessible and the documentation is limited. Bringing together underlying directories to scale for growth, and improve user experience is critical for revenue … but also for operations. Job functions are more dynamic.... take the Olympics for example. Endless organizations from corporations broadcasting, endorsing, or marketing through the event … to non-profit athletic foundations and public/government entities for athletes and public safety, all operate simultaneously on the world stage. Each organization needs to spin up short-term teams, often dealing with proprietary information from hot ads to racing strategies or security plans. IAM is expected to enable team’s to spin up, enable new applications, protect privacy, and secure critical infrastructure. Then it needs to be disabled just as quickly as users go back to their previous responsibilities. On a more technical level … Optimized system directory; tuning guidelines and parameters are needed by businesses today. Business’s need to be making the right choices (virtual directories) and considerations via choosing the correct architectural patterns (virtual, direct, replicated, and tuning), challenge is that business need to assess and chose the correct architectural patters (centralized, virtualized, and distributed) Today's Business organizations have very complex heterogeneous enterprises that contain diverse and multifaceted information. With today's ever changing global landscape, the strategic end goal in challenging times for business is business agility. The business of identity management requires enterprise's to be more agile and more responsive than ever before. The continued proliferation of networking devices (PC, tablet, PDA's, notebooks, etc.) has caused the number of devices and users to be granted access to these devices to grow exponentially. Business needs to deploy an IAM system that can account for the demands for authentication and authorizations to these devices. Increased innovation is forcing business and organizations to centralize their identity management services. Access management needs to handle traditional web based access as well as handle new innovations around mobile, as well as address insufficient governance processes which can lead to rouge identity accounts, which can then become a source of vulnerabilities within a business’s identity platform. Risk based decisions are providing challenges to business, for an adaptive risk model to make proper access decisions via standard Web single sign on for internal and external customers,. Organizations have to move beyond simple login and passwords to address trusted relationship questions such as: Is this a trusted customer, client, or citizen? Is this a trusted employee, vendor, or partner? Is this a trusted device? Without a solid technological foundation, organizational performance, collaboration, constituent services, or any other organizational processes will languish. A Single server location presents not only network concerns for distributed user base, but identity challenges. The network risks are centered on latency of the long trip that the traffic has to take. Other risks are a performance around availability and if the single identity server is lost, all access is lost. As you can see, there are many reasons why performance tuning IAM will have a substantial impact on the success of your organization. In our next installment in the series we roll up our sleeves and get into detailed tuning techniques used everyday by thought leaders in the field implementing Oracle Identity & Access Management Solutions.

Read the article

SQL SERVER – Faster SQL Server Databases and Applications – Power and Control with SafePeak Caching Options

- by Pinal Dave

Update: This blog post is written based on the SafePeak, which is available for free download. Today, I’d like to examine more closely one of my preferred technologies for accelerating SQL Server databases, SafePeak. Safepeak’s software provides a variety of advanced data caching options, techniques and tools to accelerate the performance and scalability of SQL Server databases and applications. I’d like to look more closely at some of these options, as some of these capabilities could help you address lagging database and performance on your systems. To better understand the available options, it is best to start by understanding the difference between the usual “Basic Caching” vs. SafePeak’s “Dynamic Caching”. Basic Caching Basic Caching (or the stale and static cache) is an ability to put the results from a query into cache for a certain period of time. It is based on TTL, or Time-to-live, and is designed to stay in cache no matter what happens to the data. For example, although the actual data can be modified due to DML commands (update/insert/delete), the cache will still hold the same obsolete query data. Meaning that with the Basic Caching is really static / stale cache. As you can tell, this approach has its limitations. Dynamic Caching Dynamic Caching (or the non-stale cache) is an ability to put the results from a query into cache while maintaining the cache transaction awareness looking for possible data modifications. The modifications can come as a result of: DML commands (update/insert/delete), indirect modifications due to triggers on other tables, executions of stored procedures with internal DML commands complex cases of stored procedures with multiple levels of internal stored procedures logic. When data modification commands arrive, the caching system identifies the related cache items and evicts them from cache immediately. In the dynamic caching option the TTL setting still exists, although its importance is reduced, since the main factor for cache invalidation (or cache eviction) become the actual data updates commands. Now that we have a basic understanding of the differences between “basic” and “dynamic” caching, let’s dive in deeper. SafePeak: A comprehensive and versatile caching platform SafePeak comes with a wide range of caching options. Some of SafePeak’s caching options are automated, while others require manual configuration. Together they provide a complete solution for IT and Data managers to reach excellent performance acceleration and application scalability for a wide range of business cases and applications. Automated caching of SQL Queries: Fully/semi-automated caching of all “read” SQL queries, containing any types of data, including Blobs, XMLs, Texts as well as all other standard data types. SafePeak automatically analyzes the incoming queries, categorizes them into SQL Patterns, identifying directly and indirectly accessed tables, views, functions and stored procedures; Automated caching of Stored Procedures: Fully or semi-automated caching of all read” stored procedures, including procedures with complex sub-procedure logic as well as procedures with complex dynamic SQL code. All procedures are analyzed in advance by SafePeak’s Metadata-Learning process, their SQL schemas are parsed – resulting with a full understanding of the underlying code, objects dependencies (tables, views, functions, sub-procedures) enabling automated or semi-automated (manually review and activate by a mouse-click) cache activation, with full understanding of the transaction logic for cache real-time invalidation; Transaction aware cache: Automated cache awareness for SQL transactions (SQL and in-procs); Dynamic SQL Caching: Procedures with dynamic SQL are pre-parsed, enabling easy cache configuration, eliminating SQL Server load for parsing time and delivering high response time value even in most complicated use-cases; Fully Automated Caching: SQL Patterns (including SQL queries and stored procedures) that are categorized by SafePeak as “read and deterministic” are automatically activated for caching; Semi-Automated Caching: SQL Patterns categorized as “Read and Non deterministic” are patterns of SQL queries and stored procedures that contain reference to non-deterministic functions, like getdate(). Such SQL Patterns are reviewed by the SafePeak administrator and in usually most of them are activated manually for caching (point and click activation); Fully Dynamic Caching: Automated detection of all dependent tables in each SQL Pattern, with automated real-time eviction of the relevant cache items in the event of “write” commands (a DML or a stored procedure) to one of relevant tables. A default setting; Semi Dynamic Caching: A manual cache configuration option enabling reducing the sensitivity of specific SQL Patterns to “write” commands to certain tables/views. An optimization technique relevant for cases when the query data is either known to be static (like archive order details), or when the application sensitivity to fresh data is not critical and can be stale for short period of time (gaining better performance and reduced load); Scheduled Cache Eviction: A manual cache configuration option enabling scheduling SQL Pattern cache eviction based on certain time(s) during a day. A very useful optimization technique when (for example) certain SQL Patterns can be cached but are time sensitive. Example: “select customers that today is their birthday”, an SQL with getdate() function, which can and should be cached, but the data stays relevant only until 00:00 (midnight); Parsing Exceptions Management: Stored procedures that were not fully parsed by SafePeak (due to too complex dynamic SQL or unfamiliar syntax), are signed as “Dynamic Objects” with highest transaction safety settings (such as: Full global cache eviction, DDL Check = lock cache and check for schema changes, and more). The SafePeak solution points the user to the Dynamic Objects that are important for cache effectiveness, provides easy configuration interface, allowing you to improve cache hits and reduce cache global evictions. Usually this is the first configuration in a deployment; Overriding Settings of Stored Procedures: Override the settings of stored procedures (or other object types) for cache optimization. For example, in case a stored procedure SP1 has an “insert” into table T1, it will not be allowed to be cached. However, it is possible that T1 is just a “logging or instrumentation” table left by developers. By overriding the settings a user can allow caching of the problematic stored procedure; Advanced Cache Warm-Up: Creating an XML-based list of queries and stored procedure (with lists of parameters) for periodically automated pre-fetching and caching. An advanced tool allowing you to handle more rare but very performance sensitive queries pre-fetch them into cache allowing high performance for users’ data access; Configuration Driven by Deep SQL Analytics: All SQL queries are continuously logged and analyzed, providing users with deep SQL Analytics and Performance Monitoring. Reduce troubleshooting from days to minutes with database objects and SQL Patterns heat-map. The performance driven configuration helps you to focus on the most important settings that bring you the highest performance gains. Use of SafePeak SQL Analytics allows continuous performance monitoring and analysis, easy identification of bottlenecks of both real-time and historical data; Cloud Ready: Available for instant deployment on Amazon Web Services (AWS). As you can see, there are many options to configure SafePeak’s SQL Server database and application acceleration caching technology to best fit a lot of situations. If you’re not familiar with their technology, they offer free-trial software you can download that comes with a free “help session” to help get you started. You can access the free trial here. Also, SafePeak is available to use on Amazon Cloud. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

Read the article

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. :)

Read the article

Underwriting in a New Frontier: Spurring Innovation

- by [email protected]

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} Susan Keuer, product strategy manager for Oracle Insurance, shares her experiences and insight from the 2010 Association of Home Office Underwriters (AHOU) Annual Conference, April 11-14, in San Antonio, Texas How can I be more innovative in underwriting? It's a common question I hear from insurance carriers, producers and others, so it was no surprise that it was the key theme at the recent 2010 AHOU Annual Conference. This year's event drew more than 900 insurance professionals involved in the underwriting process across life and annuities, property and casualty and reinsurance from around the globe, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, Bahamas, and more, to San Antonio - a Texas city where innovation transformed a series of downtown drainage canals into its premiere River Walk tourist destination. CNN's Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta kicked off the conference with a phenomenal opening session that drove home the theme of the conference, "Underwriting in a New Frontier: Spurring Innovation." Drawing from his own experience as a neurosurgeon treating critically injured medical patients in the field in Iraq, Gupta inspired audience members to think outside the box during the underwriting process. He shared a compelling story of operating on a soldier who had suffered a head-related trauma in a field hospital. With minimal supplies available Gupta used a Black and Decker saw to operate on the soldier's head and reduce pressure on his swelling brain. Drawing from this example, Gupta encouraged underwriters to think creatively, be innovative, and consider new tools and sources of information, such as social networking sites, during the underwriting process. So as you are looking at risk take into consideration all resources you have available. Gupta also stressed the concept of IKIGAI - noting that individuals who believe that their life is worth living are less likely to die than are their counterparts without this belief. How does one quantify this approach to life or thought process when evaluating risk? Could this be something to consider as a "category" in the near future? How can this same belief in your own work spur innovation? The role of technology was a hot topic of discussion throughout the conference. Sessions delved into the latest in underwriting software to the rise of social media and how it is being increasingly integrated into underwriting process and solutions. In one session a trio of panelists representing the carrier, producer and vendor communities stressed the importance to underwriters of leveraging new technology and the plethora of online information sources, which all could be used to accurately, honestly and consistently evaluate the risk throughout the underwriting process. Another focused on the explosion of social media noting: 1. Social media is growing exponentially - About eight percent of Americans used social media five years ago. Today about 46 percent of Americans do so, with 85 percent of financial services professionals using social media in their work. 2. It will impact your business - Underwriters reconfirmed over and over that they are increasingly using "free" tools that are available in cyberspace in lieu of more costly solutions, such as inspection reports conducted by individuals in the field. 3. Information is instantly available on the Web, anytime, anywhere - LinkedIn was mentioned as a way to connect to peers in the underwriting community and producers alike. Many carriers and agents also are using Facebook to promote their company to customers - and as a point-of-entry to allow them to perform some functionality - such as accessing product marketing information versus directing users to go to the carrier's own proprietary website. Other carriers have released their tight brand marketing to allow their producers to drive more business to their personal Facebook site where they offer innovative tools such as Application Capture or asking medical information in a more relaxed fashion. Other key topics at the conference included the economy, ongoing industry consolidation, real-estate valuations as an asset and input into the underwriting process, and producer trends. All stressed a "back to basics" approach for low cost, term products. Finally, Connie Merritt, RN, PHN, entertained the large group of atttendees with audience-engaging insight on how to "Tame the Lions in Your Life - Dealing with Complainers, Bullies, Grump and Curmudgeon." Merritt noted "we are too busy for our own good." She shared how her overachieving personality had impacted her life. Audience members then were asked to pick red, yellow, blue, or green shapes, without knowing that each one represented a specific personality trait. For example, those who picked blue were the peacemakers. Those who choose yellow were social - the hint was to "Be Quiet Longer." She then offered these "lion taming" steps: 1. Admit It 2. Accept It 3. Let Go 4. Be Present (which paralleled Gupta's IKIGAI concept) When thinking about underwriting I encourage you to be present in the moment and think creatively, but don't be afraid to look ahead to the future and be an innovator. I hope to see you at next year's AHOU Annual Conference, May 1-4, 2011 at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Nev. Susan Keuer is the product strategy manager for new business underwriting. She brings more than 20 years of insurance industry experience working with leading insurance carriers and technology companies to her role on the product strategy team for life/annuities solutions within the Oracle Insurance Global Business Unit

Read the article

How you can extend Tasklists in Fusion Applications

- by Elie Wazen

In this post we describe the process of modifying and extending a Tasklist available in the Regional Area of a Fusion Applications UI Shell. This is particularly useful to Customers who would like to expose Setup Tasks (generally available in the Fusion Setup Manager application) in the various functional pillars workareas. Oracle Composer, the tool used to implement such extensions allows changes to be made at runtime. The example provided in this document is for an Oracle Fusion Financials page. Let us examine the case of a customer role who requires access to both, a workarea and its associated functional tasks, and to an FSM (setup) task. Both of these tasks represent ADF Taskflows but each is accessible from a different page. We will show how an FSM task is added to a Functional tasklist and made accessible to a user from within a single workarea, eliminating the need to navigate between the FSM application and the Functional workarea where transactions are conducted. In general, tasks in Fusion Applications are grouped in two ways: Setup tasks are grouped in tasklists available to implementers in the Functional Setup Manager (FSM). These Tasks are accessed by implementation users and in general do not represent daily operational tasks that fit into a functional business process and were consequently included in the FSM application. For these tasks, the primary organizing principle is precedence between tasks. If task "Manage Suppliers" has prerequisites, those tasks must precede it in a tasklist. Task Lists are organized to efficiently implement an offering. Tasks frequently performed as part of business process flows are made available as links in the tasklist of their corresponding menu workarea. The primary organizing principle in the menu and task pane entries is to group tasks that are generally accessed together. Customizing a tasklist thus becomes required for business scenarios where a task packaged under FSM as a setup task, is for a particular customer a regular maintenance task that is accessed for record updates or creation as part of normal operational activities and where the frequency of this access merits the inclusion of that task in the related operational tasklist A user with the role of maintaining Journals in General Ledger is also responsible for maintaining Chart of Accounts Mappings. In the Fusion Financials Product Family, Manage Journals is a task available from within the Journals Menu whereas Chart of Accounts Mapping is available via FSM under the Define Chart of Accounts tasklist Figure 1. The Manage Chart of Accounts Mapping Task in FSM Figure 2. The Manage Journals Task in the Task Pane of the Journals Workarea Our goal is to simplify cross task navigation and allow the user to access both tasks from a single tasklist on a single page without having to navigate to FSM for the Mapping task and to the Journals workarea for the Manage task. To accomplish that, we use Oracle Composer to customize the Journals tasklist by adding to it the Mapping task. Identify the Taskflow name and path of the FSM Task The first step in our process is to identify the underlying taskflow for the Manage Chart of Accounts Mappings task. We select to Setup and Maintenance from the Navigator to launch the FSM Application, and we query the task from Manage Tasklists and Tasks Figure 3. Task Details including Taskflow path The Manage Chart of Accounts Mapping Task Taskflow is: /WEB-INF/oracle/apps/financials/generalLedger/sharedSetup/coaMappings/ui/flow /CoaMappingsMainAreaFlow.xml#CoaMappingsMainAreaFlow We copy that value and use it later as a parameter to our new task in the customized Journals Tasklist. Customize the Journals Page A user with Administration privileges can start the run time customization directly from the Administration Menu of the Global Area. This customization is done at the Site level and once implemented becomes available to all users with access to the Journals Workarea. Figure 4. Customization Menu The Oracle Composer Window is displayed in the same browser and the Hierarchy of the page component is displayed and available for modification. Figure 5. Oracle Composer In the composer Window select the PanelFormLayout node and click on the Edit Button. Note that the selected component is simultaneously highlighted in the lower pane in the browser. In the Properties popup window, select the Tasks List and Task Properties Tab, where the user finds the hierarchy of the Tasklist and is able to Edit nodes or create new ones. src="https://blogs.oracle.com/FunctionalArchitecture/resource/TL5.jpg" Figure 6. The Tasklist in edit mode Add a Child Task to the Tasklist In the Edit Window the user will now create a child node at the desired level in the hierarchy by selecting the immediate parent node and clicking on the insert node button. This process requires four values to be set as described in Table 1 below. Parameter Value How to Determine the Value Focus View Id /JournalEntryPage This is the Focus View ID of the UI Shell where the Tasklist we want to customize is. A simple way to determine this value is to copy it from any of the Standard tasks on the Tasklist Label COA Mapping This is the Display name of the Task as it will appear in the Tasklist Task Type dynamicMain If the value is dynamicMain, the page contains a new link in the Regional Area. When you click the link, a new tab with the loaded task opens Taskflowid /WEB-INF/oracle/apps/financials/generalLedger/sharedSetup/ coaMappings/ui/flow/ CoaMappingsMainAreaFlow.xml#CoaMappingsMainAreaFlow This is the Taskflow path we retrieved from the Task Definition in FSM earlier in the process Table 1. Parameters and Values for the Task to be added to the customized Tasklist Figure 7. The parameters window of the newly added Task Access the FSM Task from the Journals Workarea Once the FSM task is added and its parameters defined, the user saves the record, closes the Composer making the new task immediately available to users with access to the Journals workarea (Refer to Figure 8 below). Figure 8. The COA Mapping Task is now visible and can be invoked from the Journals Workarea Additional Considerations If a Task Flow is part of a product that is deployed on the same app server as the Tasklist workarea then that task flow can be added to a customized tasklist in that workarea. Otherwise that task flow can be invoked from its parent product’s workarea tasklist by selecting that workarea from the Navigator menu. For Example The following Taskflows belong respectively to the Subledger Accounting, and to the General Ledger Products. /WEB-INF/oracle/apps/financials/subledgerAccounting/accountingMethodSetup/mappingSets/ui/flow/MappingSetFlow.xml#MappingSetFlow /WEB-INF/oracle/apps/financials/generalLedger/sharedSetup/coaMappings/ui/flow/CoaMappingsMainAreaFlow.xml#CoaMappingsMainAreaFlow Since both the Subledger Accounting and General Ledger products are part of the LedgerApp J2EE Applicaton and are both deployed on the General Ledger Cluster Server (Figure 8 below), the user can add both of the above taskflows to the tasklist in the /JournalEntryPage FocusVIewID Workarea. Note: both FSM Taskflows and Functional Taskflows can be added to the Tasklists as described in this document Figure 8. The Topology of the Fusion Financials Product Family. Note that SubLedger Accounting and General Ledger are both deployed on the Ledger App Conclusion In this document we have shown how an administrative user can edit the Tasklist in the Regional Area of a Fusion Apps page using Oracle Composer. This is useful for cases where tasks packaged in different workareas are frequently accessed by the same user. By making these tasks available from the same page, we minimize the number of steps in the navigation the user has to do to perform their transactions and queries in Fusion Apps. The example explained above showed that tasks classified as Setup tasks, meaning made accessible to implementation users from the FSM module can be added to the workarea of their respective Fusion application. This eliminates the need to navigate to FSM to access tasks that are both setup and regular maintenance tasks. References Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5) Part Number E16691-02 (Section 3.2) Oracle Fusion Applications Developer's Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1.4) Part Number E15524-05

Search Results

Search found 4647 results on 186 pages for 'customers'.

Page 179/186 | < Previous Page | 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 | Next Page >

- by JuergenKress

- by Keith Larson

- by Gregory Burd

- by Pinal Dave

- by BuckWoody

- by Daniel Mortimer

- by Melissa Centurio Lopes

- by pinaldave

- by Chris Lambrou

- by David Dorf

- by DigiMortal

- by TUFEKCIOGLU,FATIH

- by Mandy Ho

- by Brian

- by FransBouma

- by BuckWoody

- by Eric Bezille

- by martin.abrahams

- by Greg Jensen

- by Pinal Dave

- by BuckWoody

- by [email protected]

- by Elie Wazen

< Previous Page | 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 | Next Page >