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• Why are types found on an imported namepace but not on a fully qualified namespace after retargeting the framework?

  - by Paul Ferguson

  We've just re-targeted a VB.NET project from .Net 2.0 to 3.5. Various framework types are now missing from our project. Wherever the type is referenced using a fully qualified namespace it's missing. If the relevant namespace is imported for the type; it's found. For example, this doesn't find the type Object, with compiler error "System.Object is not defined.": Public Class Foo Inherits System.Object End Class However, this works ok: Imports System Public Class Foo Inherits [Object] End Class I've already tried re-opening the solution with no success.

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• How do I dynamically import a module in App Engine?

  - by Scott Ferguson

  I'm trying to dynamically load a class from a specific module (called 'commands') and the code runs totally cool on my local setup running from a local Django server. This bombs out though when I deploy to Google App Engine. I've tried adding the commands module's parent module to the import as well with no avail (on either setup in that case). Here's the code: mod = __import__('commands.%s' % command, globals(), locals(), [command]) return getattr(mod, command) App Engine just throws an ImportError whenever it hits this. And the clarify, it doesn't bomb out on the commands module. If I have a command like 'commands.cat' it can't find 'cat'.

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• Dimensions of a collection, and how to traverse it in an efficient, elegant manner

  - by Bruce Ferguson

  I'm trying to find an elegant way to deal with multi-dimensional collections in Scala. My understanding is that I can have up to a 5 dimensional collection using tabulate, such as in the case of the following 2-Dimensional array: val test = Array.tabulate[Double](row,col)(_+_) and that I can access the elements of the array using for(i<-0 until row) { for(j<-0 until col) { test(i)(j) = 0.0 } } If I don't know a priori what I'm going to be handling, what might be a succinct way of determining the structure of the collection, and spanning it, without doing something like: case(Array(x)) => for(i<-1 until dim1) { test(i) = 0.0 } case(Array(x,y)) => for(i<-1 until dim1) { for(j<-1 until dim2) { test(i)(j) = 0.0 } } case(Array(x,y,z)) => ... The dimensional values n1, n2, n3, etc... are private, right? Also, would one use the same trick of unwrapping a 2-D array into a 1-D vector when dealing with n-Dimensional objects if I want a single case to handle the traversal? Thanks in advance Bruce

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• validates_associated not honoring :if

  - by James Ferguson

  I'm totally blocked on this. See this pastie for sample code: http://pastie.org/990040 The first test will fail. The user model validates an associated address model, but is only supposed to do it if a flag is true. In practice it does it all the time. What is going on?

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• links for 2010-04-02

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Jeff Victor: Solaris Virtualization Book Jeff Victor with an update on the status of the book, "Oracle Solaris 10 System Virtualization Essentials." (tags: sun solaris virtualization) Mitch Denny: Architecture vs. Design It's an old post but it still resonates: "In the consumer electronics business, some people are actually hired to go through a system and remove components until it stops working – they do this to remove the cost before they go into mass production. We need more of this in the software business." -- Mitch Denny (tags: architecture design development) @vambenepe: Enterprise application integration patterns for IT management: a blast from the past or from the future? "In a recent blog post, Don Ferguson (CTO at CA) describes CA Catalyst, a major architectural overall which “applies enterprise application integration patterns to the problem of integrating IT management systems”. Reading this was fascinating to me. Not because the content was some kind of revelation, but exactly for the opposite reason. Because it is so familiar." -- William Vambenepe (tags: otn oracle eai)

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• Podcast Show Notes: Collaborate 10 Wrap-Up - Conclusion

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Both parts of my conversation with a small army of people at Collaborate 10 are now available. Listen to Part 1 Listen to Part 2   Here’s the complete list of participants: Floyd Teter - Project Manager at Jet Propulsion Lab, OAUG Board Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Oracle ACE Profile Mark Rittman - EMEA Technical Director and Co-Founder, Rittman Mead,  ODTUG Board Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Oracle ACE Profile Chet Justice - OBI Consultant at BI Wizards Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Oracle ACE Profile Elke Phelps - Oracle Applications DBA at Humana, OAUG SIG Chair Blog | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Book | Oracle ACE Profile Paul Jackson - Oracle Applications DBA at Humana Blog | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Book Srini Chavali - Enterprise Database & Tools Leader at Cummins, Inc Blog | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix Dave Ferguson – President, Oracle Applications Users Group LinkedIn | OAUG Profile John King - Owner, King Training Resources Website | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix Gavyn Whyte - Project Portfolio Manager at iFactory Consulting Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix John Nicholson - Channels & Alliances at Greenlight Technologies Website | LinkedIn   del.icio.us Tags: oracle,otn,collborate 10,c10,oracle ace program,archbeat,arch2arch,oaug,odtug,las vegas Technorati Tags: oracle,otn,collborate 10,c10,oracle ace program,archbeat,arch2arch,oaug,odtug,las vegas

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• Twitter Feeds in Umbraco using XSLT

  - by Vizioz Limited

  There are currently two packages tagged on the Umbraco forum that can be used to add a twitter feed to your website. I was playing around with "Twitter for Umbraco" by Warren Buckley and noticed a bug in the way it converted twitter @names to links, so I thought I would try and solve this using XSLT.It may also be useful for those of you using Darren Ferguson's "Feed Cache" package as the demo on Darren's site does not add links to the tweets.To use this XSLT you simple call the XSLT Template passing in your Twitter message:<xsl:call-template name="formaturl"> <xsl:with-param name="url" select="text"/></xsl:call-template>Then add the XSLT template to your XSLT macro (outside of the main template)<xsl:template name="formaturl"> <xsl:param name="twitterfeed"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-http" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($twitterfeed, '(http\:\/\/\S+)',ig,'<a href="$1">$1</a>')"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-https" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($transform-http, '(HTTps\:\/\/\S+)',ig,'<a href="$1">$1</a>')"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-AT" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($transform-https, '(^|\s)@(\w+)',ig,' <a href="http://www.twitter.com/$2">@$2</a>')"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-HASH" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($transform-AT, '(^|\s)#(\w+)',ig,' <a href="http://www.twitter.com/search?q=$2">#$2</a>')"/> <xsl:value-of select="$transform-HASH" disable-output-escaping="yes"/> </xsl:template>You should find that this now replaces all the @names, #names and URL's with links!

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• PDF from Umbraco | Creating PDF case studies from data in the Umbraco CMS

  - by Vizioz Limited

  Last week we launched the first version of our website based on Umbraco 4.5.2 and this week we have just added a bit of extra functionality to the case studies section which enables you to download the case studies as PDF documents.To do this we used the PDF Creator package by Darren Ferguson, this is actually a wrapper around a product from a company called Ibex, which is where you can download documentation for the mark up required.The way Darren has made the implementation is really simple for anyone already familiar with the Umbraco CMS. You simple create a new template and call a Usercontrol macro, this then does the magic in the background and passes an XSLT file to the ibex engine.What you need to be aware of is that you need to learn a new mark up language called XSL-FO this is actually part of the XSL 1.0 specification and is a language used to express print layouts.As an indication of timescale, from knowing nothing about XSL-FO to the finished product that you can see on the website now has taken me 2 days of learning and just fiddling with the mark up to get the final result.If anyone is interested I might post some code snippets to show you how some of it is done, I would also be really interested to have some feedback about the PDF layout and what you like and don't like about it.Cheers,ChrisPosted using BlogPress from my iPad

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• Blogging is Hard

  - by Aaron Lazenby

  Not really. But wi-fi access is limited to common areas in the COLLABORATE 10 conference center here in Las Vegas. So my grand roving iPad blog update plan has been delayed a day while I measured signal strength and searched for a place to sit. Tuesday morning, I accomplished both. Yesterday I shot a nice, quick video of Bahseer Khan about embedded decision support--a part of his Oracle Fusion Applications presentation that I think could do with some additional discussion as we ramp up for Oracle's next-generation applications. I'll post that video here by the end of the day. Later today I'll also be interviewing OAUG president David Ferguson about the prevailing trends at COLLABORATE 10, the addition of Sun (and Sun's user groups) to the Oracle portfolio, and what the next 12 month holds in store for the Oracle user community. Look for that video later today too. If you can't wait for me to dash down to the lobby to make a blog update, don't forget that you can follow Profit at COLLABORATE 10 on Twitter (@OracleProfit). That way, you'll get updates about Billy Cripe's kilt in real time. More to come as this day develops. Next up: virtualization. Also, notes and coverage from yesterday's keynote presentation.

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• links for 2010-05-06

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Podcast: Collaborate 10 Wrap-Up - Conclusion #c10 More Collaborate 2010 Las Vegas highlights and hijinks from this ten-member panel, including OAUG and ODTUG board members, members of the Oracle ACE program, and OAUG President Dave Ferguson. (tags: otn oracle collaborate2010) Peter Scott: Realtime Data Warehouse Loading Rittman-Mead's Peter Scott looks at putting data in to a data warehouse in real time. (tags: oracle datawarehousing businessintelligence) Live Webcast: Social BPM - Integrating Enterprise 2.0 with Business Applications - May 12, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. PT Business Process Management with integrated Enterprise 2.0 collaboration can improve business responsiveness and enhance overall enterprise productivity. Learn how to take your business to the next level with a unified solution that fosters process-based collaboration between employees, partners, and customers. (tags: oracle otn bpm enterprise2.0 webcast) Management Pack for Identity Management Viewlet A screencast produced by the Grid Control team showing the features of the Identity Management Pack for Grid Control 11g. Grid Control 11g now works with Oracle Virtual Directory 11g. (tags: oracle otn security identitymanagement) @pevansgreenwood: Having too much SOA is a bad thing (and what we might do about it) "The problem is usually too much flexibility, as flexibility creates complexity, and complexity exponentially increases the effort required to manage and deliver the software." -- Peter Evans-Greenwood (tags: soa complexity flexibility) @vampbenepe: Integration patterns for social data: the Open Social Data Bus "The main point is about defining the right integration pattern for social data: is it a 'message bus' pattern or a 'shared database' pattern?" -- William Vampbenepe (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0 enterprisearchitecture)

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• java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class org.apache.poi.POIXMLDocument on Jboss 5.0 EAP

  - by nidhin

  Getting following exception in Jboss 5.0 EAP but it work fine in JBoss 5.1 GA. we are using POI 3.7 and jars included are poi-3.7.jar poi-ooxml-schemas.jar poi-ooxml.jar The stack trace is ERROR [org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[jboss.ueb].[localhost].[fesbcon-Fig].[Faces Servlet]] 3;13;44.4g3pM (http-0.0.0.0-8280-1) Servlet.service() -For servlet Faces Servlet threu exception java.lang.NoClassDe-FFoundError: Could not initialize class org.apache.poi.POIXMLDocument at org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.HorkbookFactory.create(HorkbookFactory.java:62) at com.-Ferguson.esb.con-Fig.controller.AssociationsExcelUploadController.submit(Unknoun Source) at sun.re-Flect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.re-Flect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.re-Flect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Delegating?ethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.re-Flect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) at org.apache.my-Faces.el.MethodBindingImpl.invoke(MethodBindingImpl.java:132) at org.apache.my-Faces.application.ActionListenerImpl.processAction(ActionListenerImpl.java:61) Please Advise how to solve this issue in JBoss 5.0 EAP

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• Creating PDF documents dynamically using Umbraco and XSL-FO part 2

  - by Vizioz Limited

  Since my last post I have made a few modifications to the PDF generation, the main one being that the files are now dynamically renamed so that they reflect the name of the case study instead of all being called PDF.PDF which was not a very helpful filename, I just wanted to get something live last week, so decided that something was better than nothing :)The issue with the filenames comes down to the way that the PDF's are being generated by using an alternative template in Umbraco, this means that all you need to do is add " /pdf " to the end of a case study URL and it will create a PDF version of the case study. The down side is that your browser will merrily download the file and save it as PDF.PDF because that is the name of the last part of the URL.What you need to do is set the content-disposition header to be equal to the name you would like the file use, Darren Ferguson mentioned this on the Change the name of the PDF forum post.We have used the same technique for downloading dynamically generated excel files, so I thought it would be useful to create a small macro to set both this header and also to set the caching headers to prevent any caching issues, I think in the past we have experienced all possible issues, including various issues where IE behaves differently to other browsers when you are using SSL and so the below code should work in all situations!The template for the PDF alternative template is very simple:<%@ Master Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/umbraco/masterpages/default.master" AutoEventWireup="true" %><asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="ContentPlaceHolderDefault" runat="server"> <umbraco:Macro Alias="PDFHeaders" runat="server"></umbraco:Macro> <umbraco:Macro xsl="FO-CaseStudy.xslt" Alias="PDFXSLFO" runat="server"></umbraco:Macro></asp:Content>The following code snippet is the XSLT macro that simply creates our file name and then passes the file name into the helper function:<xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:variable name="fileName"> <xsl:text>Vizioz_</xsl:text> <xsl:value-of select="$currentPage/@nodeName" /> <xsl:text>_case_study.pdf</xsl:text> </xsl:variable> <xsl:value-of select="Vizioz.Helper:AddDocumentDownloadHeaders('application/pdf', $fileName)"/> </xsl:template>And the following code is the helper function that clears the current response and adds all the appropriate headers:public static void AddDocumentDownloadHeaders(string contentType, string fileName){ HttpResponse response = HttpContext.Current.Response; HttpRequest request = HttpContext.Current.Request; response.Clear(); response.ClearHeaders(); if (request.IsSecureConnection & request.Browser.Browser == "IE") { // Don't use the caching headers if the browser is IE and it's a secure connection // see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323308 } else { // force not using the cache response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "private"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-store"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "must-revalidate"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "max-stale=0"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "post-check=0"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "pre-check=0"); response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache); response.Cache.SetNoStore(); response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.UtcNow.AddMinutes(-1)); } response.AppendHeader("Expires", DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(-1).ToLongDateString()); response.AppendHeader("Keep-Alive", "timeout=3, max=993"); response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + fileName + "\""); response.ContentType = contentType;}I will write another blog soon with some more details about XSL-FO and how to create the PDF's dynamically.Please do re-tweet if you find this interest :)

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• Podcast Show Notes: Collaborate 10 Wrap-Up - Part 1

  - by Bob Rhubart

  OK, I know last week I promised you a program featuring Oracle ACE Directors Mike van Alst (IT-Eye) and Jordan Braunstein (TUSC) and The Definitive Guide to SOA: Oracle Service Bus author Jeff Davies. But things happen. In this case, what happened was Collaborate 10 in Las Vegas. Prior to the event I asked Oracle ACE Director and OAUG board member Floyd Teter to see if he could round up a couple of people at the event for an impromtu interview over Skype (I was here in Cleveland) to get their impressions of the event. Listen to Part 1 Floyd, armed with his brand new iPad, went above and beyond the call of duty. At the appointed hour, which turned out to be about hour after the close of Collaborate 10,  Floyd had gathered nine other people to join him in a meeting room somewhere in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Here’s the entire roster: Floyd Teter - Project Manager at Jet Propulsion Lab, OAUG Board Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Oracle ACE Profile Mark Rittman - EMEA Technical Director and Co-Founder, Rittman Mead,  ODTUG Board Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Oracle ACE Profile Chet Justice - OBI Consultant at BI Wizards Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Oracle ACE Profile Elke Phelps - Oracle Applications DBA at Humana, OAUG SIG Chair Blog | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Book | Oracle ACE Profile Paul Jackson - Oracle Applications DBA at Humana Blog | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix | Book Srini Chavali - Enterprise Database & Tools Leader at Cummins, Inc Blog | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix Dave Ferguson – President, Oracle Applications Users Group LinkedIn | OAUG Profile John King - Owner, King Training Resources Website | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix Gavyn Whyte - Project Portfolio Manager at iFactory Consulting Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix John Nicholson - Channels & Alliances at Greenlight Technologies Website | LinkedIn Big thanks to Floyd for assembling the panelists and handling the on-scene MC/hosting duties.  Listen to Part 1 On a technical note, this discussion was conducted over Skype, using Floyd’s iPad, placed in the middle of the table.  During the call the audio was fantastic – the iPad did a remarkable job. Sadly, the Technology Gods were not smiling on me that day. The audio set-up that I tested successfully before the call failed to deliver when we first connected – I could hear the folks in Vegas, but they couldn’t hear me. A frantic, last-minute adjustment appeared to have fixed that problem, and the audio in my headphones from both sides of the conversation was loud and clear.  It wasn’t until I listened to the playback that I realized that something was wrong. So the audio for Vegas side of the discussion has about the same fidelity as a cell phone. It’s listenable, but disappointing when compared to what it sounded like during the discussion. Still, this was a one shot deal, and the roster of panelists and the resulting conversation was too good and too much fun to scrap just because of an unfortunate technical glitch.   Part 2 of this Collaborate 10 Wrap-Up will run next week. After that, it’s back on track with the previously scheduled program. So stay tuned: RSS del.icio.us Tags: oracle,otn,collborate 10,c10,oracle ace program,archbeat,arch2arch,oaug,odtug,las vegas Technorati Tags: oracle,otn,collborate 10,c10,oracle ace program,archbeat,arch2arch,oaug,odtug,las vegas

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• Java EE at JavaOne - A Few Picks from a Very Rich Line-up

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  A rich and diverse set of sessions cast a spotlight on Java EE at this year’s JavaOne, ranging from the popular Web Framework Smackdown, to Java EE 6 and Spring, to sessions exploring Java EE 7, and one on the implications of HTML5. Some of the world’s best EE architects and developers will be sharing their insight and expertise. If only I could be at ten places at once!BOF4149 - Web Framework Smackdown 2012    Markus Eisele - Principal IT Architect, msg systems ag    Graeme Rocher - Senior Staff Engineer, VMware    James Ward - Developer Evangelist, Heroku    Ed Burns - Consulting Member of Technical Staff, Oracle    Santiago Pericasgeertsen - Software Engineer, Oracle* Monday, Oct 1, 8:30 PM - 9:15 PM - Parc 55 - Cyril Magnin II/III Much has changed since the first Web framework smackdown, at JavaOne 2005. Or has it? The 2012 edition of this popular panel discussion surveys the current landscape of Web UI frameworks for the Java platform. The 2005 edition featured JSF, Webwork, Struts, Tapestry, and Wicket. The 2012 edition features representatives of the current crop of frameworks, with a special emphasis on frameworks that leverage HTML5 and thin-server architecture. Java Champion Markus Eisele leads the lively discussion with panelists James Ward (Play), Graeme Rocher (Grails), Edward Burns (JSF) and Santiago Pericasgeertsen (Avatar).CON6430 - Java EE and Spring Framework Panel Discussion    Richard Hightower - Developer, InfoQ    Bert Ertman - Fellow, Luminis    Gordon Dickens - Technical Architect, IT101, Inc.    Chris Beams - Senior Technical Staff, VMware    Arun Gupta - Technology Evangelist, Oracle* Tuesday, Oct 2, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM - Parc 55 - Cyril Magnin II/III In the age of Java EE 6 and Spring 3, enterprise Java developers have many architectural choices, including Java EE 6 and Spring, but which one is right for your project? Many of us have heard the debate and seen the flame wars—it’s a topic with passionate community members, and it’s a vibrant debate. If you are looking for some level-headed discussion, grounded in real experience, by developers who have tried both, then come join this discussion. InfoQ’s Java editors moderate the discussion, and they are joined by independent consultants and representatives from both Java EE and VMWare/SpringSource.BOF4213 - Meet the Java EE 7 Specification Leads   Linda Demichiel - Consulting Member of Technical Staff, Oracle   Bill Shannon - Architect, Oracle* Tuesday, Oct 2, 5:30 PM - 6:15 PM – Parc 55 - Cyril Magnin II/III This is your chance to meet face-to-face with the engineers who are developing the next version of the Java EE platform. In this session, the specification leads for the leading technologies that are part of the Java EE 7 platform discuss new and upcoming features and answer your questions. Come prepared with your questions, your feedback, and your suggestions for new features in Java EE 7 and beyond.CON10656 - JavaEE.Next(): Java EE 7, 8, and Beyond    Ian Robinson - IBM Distinguished Engineer, IBM    Mark Little - JBoss CTO, NA    Scott Ferguson - Developer, Caucho Technology    Cameron Purdy - VP Development, Oracle*Wednesday, Oct 3, 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM - Parc 55 - Cyril Magnin II/IIIIn this session, hear from a distinguished panel of industry and open source luminaries regarding where they believe the Java EE community is headed, starting with Java EE 7. The focus of Java EE 7 and 8 is mostly on the cloud, specifically aiming to bring platform as a service (PaaS) providers and application developers together so that portable applications can be deployed on any cloud infrastructure and reap all its benefits in terms of scalability, elasticity, multitenancy, and so on. Most importantly, Java EE will leverage the modularization work in the underlying Java SE platform. Java EE will, of course, also update itself for trends such as HTML5, caching, NoSQL, ployglot programming, map/reduce, JSON, REST, and improvements to existing core APIs.CON7001 - HTML5 WebSocket and Java    Danny Coward - Java, Oracle*Wednesday, Oct 3, 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM - Parc 55 - Cyril Magnin IThe family of HTML5 technologies has pushed the pendulum away from rich client technologies and toward ever-more-capable Web clients running on today’s browsers. In particular, WebSocket brings new opportunities for efficient peer-to-peer communication, providing the basis for a new generation of interactive and “live” Web applications. This session examines the efforts under way to support WebSocket in the Java programming model, from its base-level integration in the Java Servlet and Java EE containers to a new, easy-to-use API and toolset that are destined to become part of the standard Java platform.

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• Master Data Management and Cloud Computing

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Cloud Computing is all the rage these days. There are many reasons why this is so. But like its predecessor, Service Oriented Architecture, it can fall on hard times if the underlying data is left unmanaged. Master Data Management is the perfect Cloud companion. It can materially increase the chances for successful Cloud initiatives. In this blog, I'll review the nature of the Cloud and show how MDM fits in.   Here's the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cloud definition: •          Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.   Cloud architectures have three main layers: applications or Software as a Service (SaaS), Platforms as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). SaaS generally refers to applications that are delivered to end-users over the Internet. Oracle CRM On Demand is an example of a SaaS application. Today there are hundreds of SaaS providers covering a wide variety of applications including Salesforce.com, Workday, and Netsuite. Oracle MDM applications are located in this layer of Oracle's On Demand enterprise Cloud platform. We call it Master Data as a Service (MDaaS). PaaS generally refers to an application deployment platform delivered as a service. They are often built on a grid computing architecture and include database and middleware. Oracle Fusion Middleware is in this category and includes the SOA and Data Integration products used to connect SaaS applications including MDM. Finally, IaaS generally refers to computing hardware (servers, storage and network) delivered as a service.  This typically includes the associated software as well: operating systems, virtualization, clustering, etc.    Cloud Computing benefits are compelling for a large number of organizations. These include significant cost savings, increased flexibility, and fast deployments. Cost advantages include paying for just what you use. This is especially critical for organizations with variable or seasonal usage. Companies don't have to invest to support peak computing periods. Costs are also more predictable and controllable. Increased agility includes access to the latest technology and experts without making significant up front investments.   While Cloud Computing is certainly very alluring with a clear value proposition, it is not without its challenges. An IDC survey of 244 IT executives/CIOs and their line-of-business (LOB) colleagues identified a number of issues:   Security - 74% identified security as an issue involving data privacy and resource access control. Integration - 61% found that it is hard to integrate Cloud Apps with in-house applications. Operational Costs - 50% are worried that On Demand will actually cost more given the impact of poor data quality on the rest of the enterprise. Compliance - 49% felt that compliance with required regulatory, legal and general industry requirements (such as PCI, HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley) would be a major issue. When control is lost, the ability of a provider to directly manage how and where data is deployed, used and destroyed is negatively impacted.  There are others, but I singled out these four top issues because Master Data Management, properly incorporated into a Cloud Computing infrastructure, can significantly ameliorate all of these problems. Cloud Computing can literally rain raw data across the enterprise.   According to fellow blogger, Mike Ferguson, "the fracturing of data caused by the adoption of cloud computing raises the importance of MDM in keeping disparate data synchronized."   David Linthicum, CTO Blue Mountain Labs blogs that "the lack of MDM will become more of an issue as cloud computing rises. We're moving from complex federated on-premise systems, to complex federated on-premise and cloud-delivered systems."    Left unmanaged, non-standard, inconsistent, ungoverned data with questionable quality can pollute analytical systems, increase operational costs, and reduce the ROI in Cloud and On-Premise applications. As cloud computing becomes more relevant, and more data, applications, services, and processes are moved out to cloud computing platforms, the need for MDM becomes ever more important. Oracle's MDM suite is designed to deal with all four of the above Cloud issues listed in the IDC survey.   Security - MDM manages all master data attribute privacy and resource access control issues. Integration - MDM pre-integrates Cloud Apps with each other and with On Premise applications at the data level. Operational Costs - MDM significantly reduces operational costs by increasing data quality, thereby improving enterprise business processes efficiency. Compliance - MDM, with its built in Data Governance capabilities, insures that the data is governed according to organizational standards. This facilitates rapid and accurate reporting for compliance purposes. Oracle MDM creates governed high quality master data. A unified cleansed and standardized data view is produced. The Oracle Customer Hub creates a single view of the customer. The Oracle Product Hub creates high quality product data designed to support all go-to-market processes. Oracle Supplier Hub dramatically reduces the chances of 'supplier exceptions'. Oracle Site Hub masters locations. And Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management masters financial reference data and manages enterprise hierarchies across operational areas from ERP to EPM and CRM to SCM. Oracle Fusion Middleware connects Cloud and On Premise applications to MDM Hubs and brings high quality master data to your enterprise business processes.   An independent analyst once said "Poor data quality is like dirt on the windshield. You may be able to drive for a long time with slowly degrading vision, but at some point, you either have to stop and clear the windshield or risk everything."  Cloud Computing has the potential to significantly degrade data quality across the enterprise over time. Deploying a Master Data Management solution prior to or in conjunction with a move to the Cloud can insure that the data flowing into the enterprise from the Cloud is clean and governed. This will in turn insure that expected returns on the investment in Cloud Computing will be realized.       Oracle MDM has proven its metal in this area and has the customers to back that up. In fact, I will be hosting a webcast on Tuesday, April 10th at 10 am PT with one of our top Cloud customers, the Church Pension Group. They have moved all mainline applications to a hosted model and use Oracle MDM to insure the master data is managed and cleansed before it is propagated to other cloud and internal systems. I invite you join Martin Hossfeld, VP, IT Operations, and Danette Patterson, Enterprise Data Manager as they review business drivers for MDM and hosted applications, how they did it, the benefits achieved, and lessons learned. You can register for this free webcast here.  Hope to see you there.

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