Search Results

Search found 511 results on 21 pages for 'operational transformatio'.

Page 21/21 | < Previous Page | 17 18 19 20 21 

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 12, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 12, 2012Popular ReleasesSnmpMessenger: 0.1.1.1: Project Description SnmpMessenger, a messenger. Using the SNMP protocol to exchange messages. It's developed in C#. SnmpMessenger For .Net 4.0, Mono 2.8. Support SNMP V1, V2, V3. Features Send get, set and other requests and get the response. Send and receive traps. Handle requests and return the response. Note This library is compliant with the Common Language Specification(CLS). The latest version is 0.1.1.1. It is only a messenger, does not involve VACM. Any problems, Please mailto: wa...Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.1.1: We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 1.1.1. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including: • Supports CPython and IronPython • Python editor with advanced member and signature intellisense • Code navigation: “Find all refs”, goto definition, and object browser • Local and remote debugging • Profiling with multiple view...Supporting Guidance and Whitepapers: v1 - Team Foundation Service Whitepapers: Welcome to the BETA release of the Team Foundation Service Whitepapers preview As this is a BETA release and the quality bar for the final Release has not been achieved, we value your candid feedback and recommend that you do not use or deploy these BETA artifacts in a production environment. Quality-Bar Details Documentation has been reviewed by Visual Studio ALM Rangers Documentation has been through an independent technical review All critical bugs have been resolved Known Issue...Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer: .NET Gadgeteer Core 2.42.550 (BETA): Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer Core RELEASE NOTES Version 2.42.550 11 April 2012 BETA VERSION WARNING: This is a beta version! Please note: - API changes may be made before the next version (2.42.600) - The designer will not show modules/mainboards for NETMF 4.2 until you get upgraded libraries from the module/mainboard vendors - Install NETMF 4.2 (see link below) to use the new features of this release That warning aside, this version should continue to sup...DISM GUI: DISM GUI 3.1.1: Fixes - Fixed a bug in the Delete Driver function - The Index field is now auto populated with the number 1LINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter Beta v2.0.24: Supports .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, Silverlight 4.0, Windows Phone 7.1, and Client Profile. 100% Twitter API coverage. Also available via NuGet.Kendo UI ASP.NET Sample Applications: Sample Applications (2012-04-11): Sample application(s) demonstrating the use of Kendo UI in ASP.NET applications.Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 2: New feature - Added support for the SerializableAttribute and serializing a type's internal fields New feature - Added MaxDepth to JsonReader/JsonSerializer/JsonSerializerSettings New feature - Added support for ignoring properties with the NonSerializableAttribute Fix - Fixed deserializing a null string throwing a NullReferenceException Fix - Fixed JsonTextReader reading from a slow stream Fix - Fixed CultureInfo not being overridden on JsonSerializerProxy Fix - Fixed full trust ...SCCM Client Actions Tool: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.12: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.12 is the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Improved WMI date conversion to be aware of timezone differences and DST. Fixed new version check. The tool is downloadable as a ZIP file that contains four files: ClientActionsTool.hta – The tool itself. Cmdkey.exe – command line tool for managing cached credentials. This is needed for alternate credentials feature when running the HTA on Windows XP. Cmdkey.exe is natively availab...Dual Browsing: Dual Browser: Please note the following: I setup the address bar temporarily to only accepts http:// .com addresses. Just type in the name of the website excluding: http://, www., and .com; (Ex: for www.youtube.com just type: youtube then click OK). The page splitter can be grabbed by holding down your left mouse button and move left or right. By right clicking on the page background, you can choose to refresh, go back a page and so on. Demo video: http://youtu.be/L7NTFVM3JUYCslaGenFork: Rules sample v.1.1.0: On projects for CSLA v.4.2.2, added 5 new Business Rules: - DependencyFrom - RequiredWhenCanWrite - RequiredWhenIsNotNew - RequiredWhenNew - StopIfNotFieldExists Added new projects for CSLA v.4.3.10 with 6 new Business Rules: - DependencyFrom - FieldExists - RequiredWhenCanWrite - RequiredWhenIsNotNew - RequiredWhenNew - StopIfNotFieldExists Following CSLA convention, SL stands for Silverligth 5 and SL4 stands for Silverlight 4. NOTE - Although the projects for CSLA v.4.1.0 still exist, thi...Multiwfn: Multiwfn 2.3.3: Multiwfn 2.3.3Liberty: v3.2.0.1 Release 9th April 2012: Change Log-Fixed -Reach Fixed a bug where the object editor did not work on non-English operating systemsCommonData - Common Functions for ASP.NET projects: CommonData 0.3L: Common Data has been updated to the latest NUnit (2.6.0) The demo project has been updated with an example on how to correctly compare a floating point value.ASP.Net MVC Dynamic JS/CSS Script Compression Framework: Initial Stable: Initial Stable Version Contains Source for Compression Library and example for usage in web application.Path Copy Copy: 10.1: This release addresses the following work items: 11357 11358 11359 This release is a recommended upgrade, especially for users who didn't install the 10.0.1 version.ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.3: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://extasp.net/ ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-04-08 v3.1.3 -??Language="zh_TW"?JS???BUG（??）。 +?D...Coding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.5.5: New Controls ChatBubble ChatBubbleTextBox OpacityToggleButton New Stuff TimeSpan languages added: RU, SK, CS Expose the physics math from TimeSpanPicker Image Stretch now on buttons Bug Fixes Layout fix so RoundToggleButton and RoundButton are exactly the same Fix for ColorPicker when set via code behind ToastPrompt bug fix with OnNavigatedTo Toast now adjusts its layout if the SIP is up Fixed some issues with Expression Blend supportHarness - Internet Explorer Automation: Harness 2.0.3: support the operation fo frameset, frame and iframe Add commands SwitchFrame GetUrl GoBack GoForward Refresh SetTimeout GetTimeout Rename commands GetActiveWindow to GetActiveBrowser SetActiveWindow to SetActiveBrowser FindWindowAll to FindBrowser NewWindow to NewBrowser GetMajorVersion to GetVersionBetter Explorer: Better Explorer 2.0.0.861 Alpha: - fixed new folder button operation not work well in some situations - removed some unnecessary code like subclassing that is not needed anymore - Added option to make Better Exlorer default (at least for WIN+E operations) - Added option to enable file operation replacements (like Terracopy) to work with Better Explorer - Added some basic usability to "Share" button - Other fixesNew ProjectsAzure Diagnostics Monitor: Just another tool to monitor the Windows Azure Diagnostics logs. The tool runs on Windows and requires .NET Framework 4.0.BSF - Business solution framework: BSF covers components and patterns that span from server to client side. It focuses on developer's productivity and rich configurable operational support. Its main goal is to streamline business solution development letting developers focus on business requirements.ceshi: makes it easier for cms cmdb hierarquico: CMDB leve organizado de forma hierárquica, e com opção para ter informações criptografadas CRCMS: CRCMS PhoenixFong Plugin Engine: This is a basic plugin engine that was written in Visual Basic.NET. It can be placed in applications so that they can easily be extended.Golabetoon: This is my AI Project trying to change Finglish writing to FarsiHomeProjects: Collection of Many "Home" ProjectsHyper-V Management Library in C#: A C# library to manage Hyper-V server (network switch settings, VM configurations, etc.) via WMI APIsIQ.DbA: IQ.DbA is a light weight database management tool. - Easily browse through your table's data, run queries. - Compare schema / meta data. - Compare & synchronize table data (schema must be the same). - Create, Backup & Restore Db. - View & kill connections.JavaProjects: Proyectos en javaLLBLGen Pro LINQPad Driver: LINQPad driver for LLBLGen Pro v3.5 or higher. The LLBLGen Pro v3.5 LINQPad driver is the official LINQPad driver for LLBLGen Pro v3.5 from Solutions Design bv. It contains all the features necessary to use your generated code assemblies (adapter or selfservicing) directly onto your database using Linq, QuerySpec or the low-level query api. Developed by Solutions Design and Jeremy Thomas.Mini-C#: Interactive C# interpreter using Roslyn.Orchard HTML KickStart: This Orchard CMS module allows you to activate the HTML KickStart scripts and stylesheets without changing your existing theme. The HTML KickStart scripts and stylesheets can be turned on through settings.persistance_personnels_elabouyi: Projet d'étude test TFSqBugger: Powered by qSoftware the fast ajax Professional Issue Tracker.Realm Offline Server: Nonesaleprice: This project is about sale systemScrum Factory 2012: This is the newest and improved version of The Scrum Factory. Scrum Factory is a client-server application that helps teams to conduct software development projects using Scrum methodology. SQL Server Error Log Parsing module: The SQL Server Error Log Parsing module enables efficient analysis of SQL Server's error log (ERRORLOG). This binary PowerShell module parses the ERRORLOG text file and returns the corresponding message IDs and message parameters.Sql Team Server: Sql Team Server aims to provide database compare and synchronization across project teams and members.T4MVC: T4MVC is a T4 template for ASP.NET MVC apps that creates strongly typed helpers that eliminate the use of literal strings when referring the controllers, actions and views.The HTTP Web Server: The HTTP Web Server is an easy-to-use, FAST web hosting server that is written in C#. It has a built-in Install/Uninstall menu and is console based.The Uncle Tony Project: We're going to test the team explorer thing.tigera: a source depot from 2007-now I had written. + ---- exchanges api & framework VxiChat: P2P chatingWCF Data Services Action Provider for Entity Framework: This is a sample implementation of a WCF Data Services IDataServiceActionProvider for the Entity FrameworkWindows Phone SSLStream: WIPWorld of Warcraft Backit up(wow backit up): a project that helps you backup and restore your settings in wow easilyWT Analyse: A GUI Front end for FAST, using XFOIL, utilising AirfoilPrep Code. Written in C#.wuhua tutorial: wuhuaXSockets.WebRTC.Prototype: This example project of XSockets.NET WebRTC Support using WebSockets, PeerConnection, getUserMedia and more is built to show you how we can put together powerfull Realtime audio/video chats just using the browser.????SDK: Help people find your project. Write a concise, reader-focused summary.

  Read the article

• How to safely reboot via First Boot script

  - by unixman

  With the cost and performance benefits of the SPARC T4 and SPARC T5 systems undeniably validated, the banking sector is actively moving to Solaris 11.  I was recently asked to help a banking customer of ours look at migrating some of their Solaris 10 logic over to Solaris 11.  While we've introduced a number of holistic improvements in Solaris 11, in terms of how we ease long-term software lifecycle management, it is important to appreciate that customers may not be able to move all of their Solaris 10 scripts and procedures at once; there are years of scripts that reflect fine-tuned requirements of proprietary banking software that gets layered on top of the operating system. One of these requirements is to go through a cycle of reboots, after the system is installed, in order to ensure appropriate software dependencies and various configuration files are in-place. While Solaris 10 introduced a facility that aids here, namely SMF, many of our customers simply haven't yet taken the time to take advantage of this - proceeding with logic that, while functional, without further analysis has an appearance of not being optimal in terms of taking advantage of all the niceties bundled in Solaris 11 at no extra cost. When looking at Solaris 11, we recognize that one of the vehicles that bridges the gap between getting the operating system image payload delivered, and the customized banking software installed, is a notion of a First Boot script.  I had a working example of this at one of the Oracle OpenWorld sessions a few years ago - we've since improved our documentation and have introduced sections where this is described in better detail.   If you're looking at this for the first time and you've not worked with IPS and SMF previously, you might get the sense that the tasks are daunting.   There is a set of technologies involved that are jointly engineered in order to make the process reliable, predictable and extensible. As you go down the path of writing your first boot script, you'll be faced with a need to wrap it into a SMF service and then packaged into a IPS package. The IPS package would then need to be placed onto your IPS repository, in order to subsequently be made available to all of your AI (Automated Install) clients (i.e. the systems that you're installing Solaris and your software onto).     With this blog post, I wanted to create a single place that outlines the entire process (simplistically), and provide a hint of how a good old "at" command may make the requirement of forcing an initial reboot handy. The syntax and references to commands here is based on running this on a version of Solaris 11 that has been updated since its initial release in 2011 (i.e. I am writing this on Solaris 11.1) Assuming you've built an AI server (see this How To article for an example), you might be asking yourself: "Ok, I've got some logic that I need executed AFTER Solaris is deployed and I need my own little script that would make that happen. How do I go about hooking that script into the Solaris 11 AI framework?"  You might start here, in Chapter 13 of the "Installing Oracle Solaris 11.1 Systems" guide, which talks about "Running a Custom Script During First Boot".  And as you do, you'll be confronted with command that might be unfamiliar to you if you're new to Solaris 11, like our dear new friend: svcbundle svcbundle is an aide to creating manifests and profiles.  It is awesome, but don't let its awesomeness overwhelm you. (See this How To article by my colleague Glynn Foster for a nice working example).  In order to get your script's logic integrated into the Solaris 11 deployment process, you need to wrap your (shell) script into 2 manifests -  a SMF service manifest and a IPS package manifest.  ....and if you're new to XML, well then -- buckle up We have some examples of small first boot scripts shown here, as templates to build upon. Necessary structure of the script, particularly in leveraging SMF interfaces, is key. I won't go into that here as that is covered nicely in the doc link above.    Let's say your script ends up looking like this (btw: if things appear to be cut-off in your browser, just select them, copy and paste into your editor and it'll be grabbed - the source gets captured eventhough the browser may not render it "correctly" - ah, computers). #!/bin/sh # Load SMF shell support definitions . /lib/svc/share/smf_include.sh # If nothing to do, exit with temporary disable completed=`svcprop -p config/completed site/first-boot-script-svc:default` [ "${completed}" = "true" ] && \ smf_method_exit $SMF_EXIT_TEMP_DISABLE completed "Configuration completed" # Obtain the active BE name from beadm: The active BE on reboot has an R in # the third column of 'beadm list' output. Its name is in column one. bename=`beadm list -Hd|nawk -F ';' '$3 ~ /R/ {print $1}'` beadm create ${bename}.orig echo "Original boot environment saved as ${bename}.orig" # ---- Place your one-time configuration tasks here ---- # For example, if you have to pull some files from your own pre-existing system: /usr/bin/wget -P /var/tmp/ $PULL_DOWN_ADDITIONAL_SCRIPTS_FROM_A_CORPORATE_SYSTEM /usr/bin/chmod 755 /var/tmp/$SCRIPTS_THAT_GOT_PULLED_DOWN_IN_STEP_ABOVE # Clearly the above 2 lines represent some logic that you'd have to customize to fit your needs. # # Perhaps additional things you may want to do here might be of use, like # (gasp!) configuring ssh server for root login and X11 forwarding (for testing), and the like... # # Oh and by the way, after we're done executing all of our proprietary scripts we need to reboot # the system in accordance with our operational software requirements to ensure all layered bits # get initialized properly and pull-in their own modules and components in the right sequence, # subsequently. # We need to set a "time bomb" reboot, that would take place upon completion of this script. # We already know that *this* script depends on multi-user-server SMF milestone, so it should be # safe for us to schedule a reboot for 5 minutes from now. The "at" job get scheduled in the queue # while our little script continues thru the rest of the logic. /usr/bin/at now + 5 minutes <<REBOOT /usr/bin/sync /usr/sbin/reboot REBOOT # ---- End of your customizations ---- # Record that this script's work is done svccfg -s site/first-boot-script-svc:default setprop config/completed = true svcadm refresh site/first-boot-script-svc:default smf_method_exit $SMF_EXIT_TEMP_DISABLE method_completed "Configuration completed"  ...and you're happy with it and are ready to move on. Where do you go and what do you do? The next step is creating the IPS package for your script. Since running the logic of your script constitutes a service, you need to create a service manifest. This is described here, in the middle of Chapter 13 of "Creating an IPS package for the script and service".  Assuming the name of your shell script is first-boot-script.sh, you could end up doing the following: $ cd some_working_directory_for_this_project$ mkdir -p proto/lib/svc/manifest/site$ mkdir -p proto/opt/site $ cp first-boot-script.sh proto/opt/site  Then you would create the service manifest  file like so: $ svcbundle -s service-name=site/first-boot-script-svc \ -s start-method=/opt/site/first-boot-script.sh \ -s instance-property=config:completed:boolean:false -o \ first-boot-script-svc-manifest.xml   ...as described here, and place it into the directory hierarchy above. But before you place it into the directory, make sure to inspect the manifest and adjust the appropriate service dependencies.  That is to say, you want to properly specify what milestone should be reached before your service runs.  There's a <dependency> section that looks like this, before you modify it: <dependency restart_on="none" type="service" name="multi_user_dependency" grouping="require_all"> <service_fmri value="svc:/milestone/multi-user"/>  </dependency>  So if you'd like to have your service run AFTER the multi-user-server milestone has been reached (i.e. later, as multi-user-server has more dependencies then multi-user and our intent to reboot the system may have significant ramifications if done prematurely), you would modify that section to read:  <dependency restart_on="none" type="service" name="multi_user_server_dependency" grouping="require_all"> <service_fmri value="svc:/milestone/multi-user-server"/>  </dependency> Save the file and validate it: $ svccfg validate first-boot-script-svc-manifest.xml Assuming there are no errors returned, copy the file over into the directory hierarchy: $ cp first-boot-script-svc-manifest.xml proto/lib/svc/manifest/site Now that we've created the service manifest (.xml), create the package manifest (.p5m) file named: first-boot-script.p5m.  Populate it as follows: set name=pkg.fmri value=first-boot-script-AT-1-DOT-0,5.11-0 set name=pkg.summary value="AI first-boot script" set name=pkg.description value="Script that runs at first boot after AI installation" set name=info.classification value=\ "org.opensolaris.category.2008:System/Administration and Configuration" file lib/svc/manifest/site/first-boot-script-svc-manifest.xml \ path=lib/svc/manifest/site/first-boot-script-svc-manifest.xml owner=root \ group=sys mode=0444 dir path=opt/site owner=root group=sys mode=0755 file opt/site/first-boot-script.sh path=opt/site/first-boot-script.sh \ owner=root group=sys mode=0555 Now we are going to publish this package into a IPS repository. If you don't have one yet, don't worry. You have 2 choices: You can either  publish this package into your mirror of the Oracle Solaris IPS repo or create your own customized repo.  The best practice is to create your own customized repo, leaving your mirror of the Oracle Solaris IPS repo untouched.  From this point, you have 2 choices as well - you can either create a repo that will be accessible by your clients via HTTP or via NFS.  Since HTTP is how the default Solaris repo is accessed, we'll go with HTTP for your own IPS repo.   This nice and comprehensive How To by Albert White describes how to create multiple internal IPS repos for Solaris 11. We'll zero in on the basic elements for our needs here: We'll create the IPS repo directory structure hanging off a separate ZFS file system, and we'll tie it into an instance of pkg.depotd. We do this because we want our IPS repo to be accessible to our AI clients through HTTP, and the pkg.depotd SMF service bundled in Solaris 11 can help us do this. We proceed as follows: # zfs create rpool/export/MyIPSrepo # pkgrepo create /export/MyIPSrepo # svccfg -s pkg/server add MyIPSrepo # svccfg -s pkg/server:MyIPSrepo addpg pkg application # svccfg -s pkg/server:MyIPSrepo setprop pkg/port=10081 # svccfg -s pkg/server:MyIPSrepo setprop pkg/inst_root=/export/MyIPSrepo # svccfg -s pkg/server:MyIPSrepo addpg general framework # svccfg -s pkg/server:MyIPSrepo addpropvalue general/complete astring: MyIPSrepo # svccfg -s pkg/server:MyIPSrepo addpropvalue general/enabled boolean: true # svccfg -s pkg/server:MyIPSrepo setprop pkg/readonly=true # svccfg -s pkg/server:MyIPSrepo setprop pkg/proxy_base = astring: http://your_internal_websrvr/MyIPSrepo # svccfg -s pkg/server:MyIPSrepo setprop pkg/threads = 200 # svcadm refresh application/pkg/server:MyIPSrepo # svcadm enable application/pkg/server:MyIPSrepo Now that the IPS repo is created, we need to publish our package into it: # pkgsend publish -d ./proto -s /export/MyIPSrepo first-boot-script.p5m If you find yourself making changes to your script, remember to up-rev the version in the .p5m file (which is your IPS package manifest), and re-publish the IPS package. Next, you need to go to your AI install server (which might be the same machine) and modify the AI manifest to include a reference to your newly created package.  We do that by listing an additional publisher, which would look like this (replacing the IP address and port with your own, from the "svccfg" commands up above): <publisher name="firstboot"> <origin name="http://192.168.1.222:10081"/> </publisher>  Further down, in the  <software_data action="install">  section add: <name>pkg:/first-boot-script</name> Make sure to update your Automated Install service with the new AI manifest via installadm update-manifest command.  Don't forget to boot your client from the network to watch the entire process unfold and your script get tested.  Once the system makes the initial reboot, the first boot script will be executed and whatever logic you've specified in it should be executed, too, followed by a nice reboot. When the system comes up, your service should stay in a disabled state, as specified by the tailing lines of your SMF script - this is normal and should be left as is as it helps provide an auditing trail for you.   Because the reboot is quite a significant action for the system, you may want to add additional logic to the script that actually places and then checks for presence of certain lock files in order to avoid doing a reboot unnecessarily. You may also want to, alternatively, remove the SMF service entirely - if you're unsure of the potential for someone to try and accidentally enable that service -- eventhough its role in life is to only run once upon the system's first boot. That is how I spent a good chunk of my pre-Halloween time this week, hope yours was just as SPARCkly^H^H^H^H fun!    

  Read the article

• Why is Java EE 6 better than Spring ?

  - by arungupta

  Java EE 6 was released over 2 years ago and now there are 14 compliant application servers. In all my talks around the world, a question that is frequently asked is Why should I use Java EE 6 instead of Spring ? There are already several blogs covering that topic: Java EE wins over Spring by Bill Burke Why will I use Java EE instead of Spring in new Enterprise Java projects in 2012 ? by Kai Waehner (more discussion on TSS) Spring to Java EE migration (Part 1 and 2, 3 and 4 coming as well) by David Heffelfinger Spring to Java EE - A Migration Experience by Lincoln Baxter Migrating Spring to Java EE 6 by Bert Ertman and Paul Bakker at NLJUG Moving from Spring to Java EE 6 - The Age of Frameworks is Over at TSS Java EE vs Spring Shootout by Rohit Kelapure and Reza Rehman at JavaOne 2011 Java EE 6 and the Ewoks by Murat Yener Definite excuse to avoid Spring forever - Bert Ertman and Arun Gupta I will try to share my perspective in this blog. First of all, I'd like to start with a note: Thank you Spring framework for filling the interim gap and providing functionality that is now included in the mainstream Java EE 6 application servers. The Java EE platform has evolved over the years learning from frameworks like Spring and provides all the functionality to build an enterprise application. Thank you very much Spring framework! While Spring was revolutionary in its time and is still very popular and quite main stream in the same way Struts was circa 2003, it really is last generation's framework - some people are even calling it legacy. However my theory is "code is king". So my approach is to build/take a simple Hello World CRUD application in Java EE 6 and Spring and compare the deployable artifacts. I started looking at the official tutorial Developing a Spring Framework MVC Application Step-by-Step but it is using the older version 2.5. I wasn't able to find any updated version in the current 3.1 release. Next, I downloaded Spring Tool Suite and thought that would provide some template samples to get started. A least a quick search did not show any handy tutorials - either video or text-based. So I searched and found a link to their SVN repository at src.springframework.org/svn/spring-samples/. I tried the "mvc-basic" sample and the generated WAR file was 4.43 MB. While it was named a "basic" sample it seemed to come with 19 different libraries bundled but it was what I could find: ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.1.0.Final.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jcl-over-slf4j-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-1.6.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-jsptags-1.0.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar And it is not even using any database! The app deployed fine on GlassFish 3.1.2 but the "@Controller Example" link did not work as it was missing the context root. With a bit of tweaking I could deploy the application and assume that the account got created because no error was displayed in the browser or server log. Next I generated the WAR for "mvc-ajax" and the 5.1 MB WAR had 20 JARs (1 removed, 2 added): ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.1.0.Final.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-core-asl-1.6.4.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.6.4.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jcl-over-slf4j-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-1.6.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar 2 more JARs for just doing Ajax. Anyway, deploying this application gave the following error: Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializationConfig.<init>(Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/ClassIntrospector;Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/AnnotationIntrospector;Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/introspect/VisibilityChecker;Lorg/codehaus/jackson/map/jsontype/SubtypeResolver;)V    at org.springframework.samples.mvc.ajax.json.ConversionServiceAwareObjectMapper.<init>(ConversionServiceAwareObjectMapper.java:20)    at org.springframework.samples.mvc.ajax.json.JacksonConversionServiceConfigurer.postProcessAfterInitialization(JacksonConversionServiceConfigurer.java:40)    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyBeanPostProcessorsAfterInitialization(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:407) Seems like some incorrect repos in the "pom.xml". Next one is "mvc-showcase" and the 6.49 MB WAR now has 28 JARs as shown below: ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/aspectjrt-1.6.10.jar./WEB-INF/lib/commons-fileupload-1.2.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/commons-io-2.0.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/el-api-2.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.1.0.Final.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-core-asl-1.8.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.8.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/javax.inject-1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jcl-over-slf4j-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jdom-1.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/joda-time-1.6.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-api-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-impl-1.2.jar./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar./WEB-INF/lib/rome-1.0.0.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.1.0.RELEASE.jar./WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar The app at least deployed and showed results this time. But still no database! Next I tried building "jpetstore" and got the error: [ERROR] Failed to execute goal on project org.springframework.samples.jpetstore:Could not resolve dependencies for project org.springframework.samples:org.springframework.samples.jpetstore:war:1.0.0-SNAPSHOT: Failed to collect dependencies for [commons-fileupload:commons-fileupload:jar:1.2.1 (compile), org.apache.struts:com.springsource.org.apache.struts:jar:1.2.9 (compile), javax.xml.rpc:com.springsource.javax.xml.rpc:jar:1.1.0 (compile), org.apache.commons:com.springsource.org.apache.commons.dbcp:jar:1.2.2.osgi (compile), commons-io:commons-io:jar:1.3.2 (compile), hsqldb:hsqldb:jar:1.8.0.7 (compile), org.apache.tiles:tiles-core:jar:2.2.0 (compile), org.apache.tiles:tiles-jsp:jar:2.2.0 (compile), org.tuckey:urlrewritefilter:jar:3.1.0 (compile), org.springframework:spring-webmvc:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT (compile), org.springframework:spring-orm:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT (compile), org.springframework:spring-context-support:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT (compile), org.springframework.webflow:spring-js:jar:2.0.7.RELEASE (compile), org.apache.ibatis:com.springsource.com.ibatis:jar:2.3.4.726 (runtime), com.caucho:com.springsource.com.caucho:jar:3.2.1 (compile), org.apache.axis:com.springsource.org.apache.axis:jar:1.4.0 (compile), javax.wsdl:com.springsource.javax.wsdl:jar:1.6.1 (compile), javax.servlet:jstl:jar:1.2 (runtime), org.aspectj:aspectjweaver:jar:1.6.5 (compile), javax.servlet:servlet-api:jar:2.5 (provided), javax.servlet.jsp:jsp-api:jar:2.1 (provided), junit:junit:jar:4.6 (test)]: Failed to read artifact descriptor for org.springframework:spring-webmvc:jar:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT: Could not transfer artifact org.springframework:spring-webmvc:pom:3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT from/to JBoss repository (http://repository.jboss.com/maven2): Access denied to: http://repository.jboss.com/maven2/org/springframework/spring-webmvc/3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT/spring-webmvc-3.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.pom It appears the sample is broken - maybe I was pulling from the wrong repository - would be great if someone were to point me at a good target to use here. With a 50% hit on samples in this repository, I started searching through numerous blogs, most of which have either outdated information (using XML-heavy Spring 2.5), some piece of configuration (which is a typical "feature" of Spring) is missing, or too much complexity in the sample. I finally found this blog that worked like a charm. This blog creates a trivial Spring MVC 3 application using Hibernate and MySQL. This application performs CRUD operations on a single table in a database using typical Spring technologies.  I downloaded the sample code from the blog, deployed it on GlassFish 3.1.2 and could CRUD the "person" entity. The source code for this application can be downloaded here. More details on the application statistics below. And then I built a similar CRUD application in Java EE 6 using NetBeans wizards in a couple of minutes. The source code for the application can be downloaded here and the WAR here. The Spring Source Tool Suite may also offer similar wizard-driven capabilities but this blog focus primarily on comparing the runtimes. The lack of STS tutorials was slightly disappointing as well. NetBeans however has tons of text-based and video tutorials and tons of material even by the community. One more bit on the download size of tools bundle ... NetBeans 7.1.1 "All" is 211 MB (which includes GlassFish and Tomcat) Spring Tool Suite  2.9.0 is 347 MB (~ 65% bigger) This blog is not about the tooling comparison so back to the Java EE 6 version of the application .... In order to run the Java EE version on GlassFish, copy the MySQL Connector/J to glassfish3/glassfish/domains/domain1/lib/ext directory and create a JDBC connection pool and JDBC resource as: ./bin/asadmin create-jdbc-connection-pool --datasourceclassname \\ com.mysql.jdbc.jdbc2.optional.MysqlDataSource --restype \\ javax.sql.DataSource --property \\ portNumber=3306:user=mysql:password=mysql:databaseName=mydatabase \\ myConnectionPool ./bin/asadmin create-jdbc-resource --connectionpoolid myConnectionPool jdbc/myDataSource I generated WARs for the two projects and the table below highlights some differences between them: Java EE 6 Spring WAR File Size 0.021030 MB 10.87 MB (~516x) Number of files 20 53 (> 2.5x) Bundled libraries 0 36 Total size of libraries 0 12.1 MB XML files 3 5 LoC in XML files 50 (11 + 15 + 24) 129 (27 + 46 + 16 + 11 + 19) (~ 2.5x) Total .properties files 1 Bundle.properties 2 spring.properties, log4j.properties Cold Deploy 5,339 ms 11,724 ms Second Deploy 481 ms 6,261 ms Third Deploy 528 ms 5,484 ms Fourth Deploy 484 ms 5,576 ms Runtime memory ~73 MB ~101 MB Some points worth highlighting from the table ... 516x WAR file, 10x deployment time - With 12.1 MB of libraries (for a very basic application) bundled in your application, the WAR file size and the deployment time will naturally go higher. The WAR file for Spring-based application is 516x bigger and the deployment time is double during the first deployment and ~ 10x during subsequent deployments. The Java EE 6 application is fully portable and will run on any Java EE 6 compliant application server. 36 libraries in the WAR - There are 14 Java EE 6 compliant application servers today. Each of those servers provide all the functionality like transactions, dependency injection, security, persistence, etc typically required of an enterprise or web application. There is no need to bundle 36 libraries worth 12.1 MB for a trivial CRUD application. These 14 compliant application servers provide all the functionality baked in. Now you can also deploy these libraries in the container but then you don't get the "portability" offered by Spring in that case. Does your typical Spring deployment actually do that ? 3x LoC in XML - The number of XML files is about 1.6x and the LoC is ~ 2.5x. So much XML seems circa 2003 when the Java language had no annotations. The XML files can be further reduced, e.g. faces-config.xml can be replaced without providing i18n, but I just want to compare stock applications. Memory usage - Both the applications were deployed on default GlassFish 3.1.2 installation and any additional memory consumed as part of deployment/access was attributed to the application. This is by no means scientific but at least provides an initial ballpark. This area definitely needs more investigation. Another table that compares typical Java EE 6 compliant application servers and the custom-stack created for a Spring application ... Java EE 6 Spring Web Container ? 53 MB (tcServer 2.6.3 Developer Edition) Security ? 12 MB (Spring Security 3.1.0) Persistence ? 6.3 MB (Hibernate 4.1.0, required) Dependency Injection ? 5.3 MB (Framework) Web Services ? 796 KB (Spring WS 2.0.4) Messaging ? 3.4 MB (RabbitMQ Server 2.7.1) 936 KB (Java client 936) OSGi ? 1.3 MB (Spring OSGi 1.2.1) GlassFish and WebLogic (starting at 33 MB) 83.3 MB There are differentiating factors on both the stacks. But most of the functionality like security, persistence, and dependency injection is baked in a Java EE 6 compliant application server but needs to be individually managed and patched for a Spring application. This very quickly leads to a "stack explosion". The Java EE 6 servers are tested extensively on a variety of platforms in different combinations whereas a Spring application developer is responsible for testing with different JDKs, Operating Systems, Versions, Patches, etc. Oracle has both the leading OSS lightweight server with GlassFish and the leading enterprise Java server with WebLogic Server, both Java EE 6 and both with lightweight deployment options. The Web Container offered as part of a Java EE 6 application server not only deploys your enterprise Java applications but also provide operational management, diagnostics, and mission-critical capabilities required by your applications. The Java EE 6 platform also introduced the Web Profile which is a subset of the specifications from the entire platform. It is targeted at developers of modern web applications offering a reasonably complete stack, composed of standard APIs, and is capable out-of-the-box of addressing the needs of a large class of Web applications. As your applications grow, the stack can grow to the full Java EE 6 platform. The GlassFish Server Web Profile starting at 33MB (smaller than just the non-standard tcServer) provides most of the functionality typically required by a web application. WebLogic provides battle-tested functionality for a high throughput, low latency, and enterprise grade web application. No individual managing or patching, all tested and commercially supported for you! Note that VMWare does have a server, tcServer, but it is non-standard and not even certified to the level of the standard Web Profile most customers expect these days. Customers who choose this risk proprietary lock-in since VMWare does not seem to want to formally certify with either Java EE 6 Enterprise Platform or with Java EE 6 Web Profile but of course it would be great if they were to join the community and help their customers reduce the risk of deploying on VMWare software. Some more points to help you decide choose between Java EE 6 and Spring ... Freedom to choose container - There are 14 Java EE 6 compliant application servers today, with a variety of open source and commercial offerings. A Java EE 6 application can be deployed on any of those containers. So if you deployed your application on GlassFish today and would like to scale up with your demands then you can deploy the same application to WebLogic. And because of the portability of a Java EE 6 application, you can even take it a different vendor altogether. Spring requires a runtime which could be any of these app servers as well. But why use Spring when all the required functionality is already baked into the application server itself ? Spring also has a different definition of portability where they claim to bundle all the libraries in the WAR file and move to any application server. But we saw earlier how bloated that archive could be. The equivalent features in Spring runtime offerings (mainly tcServer) are not all open source, not as mature, and often require manual assembly.  Vendor choice - The Java EE 6 platform is created using the Java Community Process where all the big players like Oracle, IBM, RedHat, and Apache are conritbuting to make the platform successful. Each application server provides the basic Java EE 6 platform compliance and has its own competitive offerings. This allows you to choose an application server for deploying your Java EE 6 applications. If you are not happy with the support or feature of one vendor then you can move your application to a different vendor because of the portability promise offered by the platform. Spring is a set of products from a single company, one price book, one support organization, one sustaining organization, one sales organization, etc. If any of those cause a customer headache, where do you go ? Java EE, backed by multiple vendors, is a safer bet for those that are risk averse. Production support - With Spring, typically you need to get support from two vendors - VMWare and the container provider. With Java EE 6, all of this is typically provided by one vendor. For example, Oracle offers commercial support from systems, operating systems, JDK, application server, and applications on top of them. VMWare certainly offers complete production support but do you really want to put all your eggs in one basket ? Do you really use tcServer ? ;-) Maintainability - With Spring, you are likely building your own distribution with multiple JAR files, integrating, patching, versioning, etc of all those components. Spring's claim is that multiple JAR files allow you to go à la carte and pick the latest versions of different components. But who is responsible for testing whether all these versions work together ? Yep, you got it, its YOU! If something does not work, who patches and maintains the JARs ? Of course, you! Commercial support for such a configuration ? On your own! The Java EE application servers manage all of this for you and provide a well-tested and commercially supported bundle. While it is always good to realize that there is something new and improved that updates and replaces older frameworks like Spring, the good news is not only does a Java EE 6 container offer what is described here, most also will let you deploy and run your Spring applications on them while you go through an upgrade to a more modern architecture. End result, you get the best of both worlds - keeping your legacy investment but moving to a more agile, lightweight world of Java EE 6. A message to the Spring lovers ... The complexity in J2EE 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 led to the genesis of Spring but that was in 2004. This is 2012 and the name has changed to "Java EE 6" :-) There are tons of improvements in the Java EE platform to make it easy-to-use and powerful. Some examples: Adding @Stateless on a POJO makes it an EJB EJBs can be packaged in a WAR with no special packaging or deployment descriptors "web.xml" and "faces-config.xml" are optional in most of the common cases Typesafe dependency injection is now part of the Java EE platform Add @Path on a POJO allows you to publish it as a RESTful resource EJBs can be used as backing beans for Facelets-driven JSF pages providing full MVC Java EE 6 WARs are known to be kilobytes in size and deployed in milliseconds Tons of other simplifications in the platform and application servers So if you moved away from J2EE to Spring many years ago and have not looked at Java EE 6 (which has been out since Dec 2009) then you should definitely try it out. Just be at least aware of what other alternatives are available instead of restricting yourself to one stack. Here are some workshops and screencasts worth trying: screencast #37 shows how to build an end-to-end application using NetBeans screencast #36 builds the same application using Eclipse javaee-lab-feb2012.pdf is a 3-4 hours self-paced hands-on workshop that guides you to build a comprehensive Java EE 6 application using NetBeans Each city generally has a "spring cleanup" program every year. It allows you to clean up the mess from your house. For your software projects, you don't need to wait for an annual event, just get started and reduce the technical debt now! Move away from your legacy Spring-based applications to a lighter and more modern approach of building enterprise Java applications using Java EE 6. Watch this beautiful presentation that explains how to migrate from Spring -> Java EE 6: List of files in the Java EE 6 project: ./index.xhtml./META-INF./person./person/Create.xhtml./person/Edit.xhtml./person/List.xhtml./person/View.xhtml./resources./resources/css./resources/css/jsfcrud.css./template.xhtml./WEB-INF./WEB-INF/classes./WEB-INF/classes/Bundle.properties./WEB-INF/classes/META-INF./WEB-INF/classes/META-INF/persistence.xml./WEB-INF/classes/org./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/AbstractFacade.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/Person.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/Person_.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonController$1.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonController$PersonControllerConverter.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonController.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/PersonFacade.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/util./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/util/JsfUtil.class./WEB-INF/classes/org/javaee/javaeemysql/util/PaginationHelper.class./WEB-INF/faces-config.xml./WEB-INF/web.xml List of files in the Spring 3.x project: ./META-INF ./META-INF/MANIFEST.MF./WEB-INF./WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml./WEB-INF/classes./WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties./WEB-INF/classes/org./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/controller ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/controller/MainController.class ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/domain ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/domain/Person.class ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/service ./WEB-INF/classes/org/krams/tutorial/service/PersonService.class ./WEB-INF/hibernate-context.xml ./WEB-INF/hibernate.cfg.xml ./WEB-INF/jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/addedpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/addpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/deletedpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/editedpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/editpage.jsp ./WEB-INF/jsp/personspage.jsp ./WEB-INF/lib ./WEB-INF/lib/antlr-2.7.6.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/c3p0-0.9.1.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/cglib-nodep-2.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-beanutils-1.8.3.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-collections-3.2.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-digester-2.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/dom4j-1.6.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/ejb3-persistence-1.0.2.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-annotations-3.4.0.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-commons-annotations-3.1.0.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-core-3.3.2.GA.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/javassist-3.7.ga.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.1.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/jta-1.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/junit-4.8.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.14.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/mysql-connector-java-5.1.14.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/persistence-api-1.0.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-jdbc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-orm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-tx-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/standard-1.1.2.jar ./WEB-INF/lib/xml-apis-1.0.b2.jar ./WEB-INF/spring-servlet.xml ./WEB-INF/spring.properties ./WEB-INF/web.xml So, are you excited about Java EE 6 ? Want to get started now ? Here are some resources: Java EE 6 SDK (including runtime, samples, tutorials etc) GlassFish Server Open Source Edition 3.1.2 (Community) Oracle GlassFish Server 3.1.2 (Commercial) Java EE 6 using WebLogic 12c and NetBeans (Video) Java EE 6 with NetBeans and GlassFish (Video) Java EE with Eclipse and GlassFish (Video)

  Read the article

• E-Business Suite Technology Sessions at OpenWorld 2012

  - by Max Arderius

  Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is almost here! We're looking forward to updating you on our products, strategy, and roadmaps. This year, the E-Business Suite Applications Technology Group (ATG) will participate in 25 speaker sessions, two Meet the Experts round-table discussions, five demoground booths and seven Special Interest Group meetings as guest speakers. We hope to see you at our sessions.  Please join us to hear the latest news and connect with senior ATG development staff. Here's a downloadable listing of all Applications Technology Group-related sessions with times and locations: FOCUS ON Oracle E-Business Suite - Applications Tools and Technology (PDF) General Sessions GEN8474 - Oracle E-Business Suite - Strategy, Update, and RoadmapCliff Godwin, SVP, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM - Moscone West 2002/2004 In this session, hear Oracle E-Business Suite General Manager Cliff Godwin deliver an update on the Oracle E-Business Suite product line. This session covers the value delivered by the current release of Oracle E-Business Suite, the momentum, and how Oracle E-Business Suite applications integrate into Oracle’s overall applications strategy. You’ll come away with an understanding of the value Oracle E-Business Suite applications deliver now and will deliver in the future. GEN9173 - Optimize and Extend Oracle Applications - The Path to Oracle Fusion ApplicationsNadia Bendjedou, Oracle; Corre Curtice, Bhavish Madurai (CSC) Tuesday, Oct 2, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 3002/3004 One of the main objectives of this session is to help organizations build their IT roadmap for the next five years and be aligned with the Oracle Applications strategy in general and the Oracle Fusion Applications strategy in particular. Come hear about some of the common sense, practical steps you can take to optimize the performance of your Oracle Applications today and prepare your path to Oracle Fusion Applications for when your organization is ready to embrace them. Each step you take in adopting Oracle Fusion technology gets you partway to Oracle Fusion Applications. Conference Sessions CON9024 - Oracle E-Business Suite Technology: Latest Features and Roadmap Lisa Parekh, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session provides a comprehensive overview of Oracle’s product strategy for Oracle E-Business Suite technology, the capabilities and associated business benefits of recent releases, and a review of capabilities on the product roadmap. This is the cornerstone session for the Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack. Come hear about the latest new usability enhancements of the user interface; systems administration and configuration management tools; security-related updates; and tools and options for extending, customizing, and integrating Oracle E-Business Suite with other applications. CON9021 - Oracle E-Business Suite Future Directions: Deployment and System AdministrationMax Arderius, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM - Moscone West 2016  What’s coming in the next major version of Oracle E-Business Suite 12? This Oracle Development session covers the latest technology stack, including the use of Oracle WebLogic Server (Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g) and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2). Topics include an architectural overview of the latest updates, installation and upgrade options, new configuration options, and new tools for hot cloning and automated “lights-out” cloning. Come learn how online patching (based on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Edition-Based Redefinition feature) will reduce your database patching downtimes to however long it takes to bounce your database server. CON9017 - Desktop Integration in Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Padmaprabodh Ambale, Gustavo Jimenez, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 4:45 PM - 5:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 This presentation covers the latest functional enhancements in Oracle Web Applications Desktop Integrator and Oracle Report Manager, enhanced Microsoft Office support, and greater support for building custom desktop integration solutions. The session also presents tips and tricks for upgrading from Oracle Applications Desktop Integrator to Oracle Web Applications Desktop Integrator and Oracle Report Manager. CON9023 - Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Certification Primer and Roadmap Steven Chan, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 2016  Is your Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack up to date? Are you taking advantage of all the latest options and capabilities? This Oracle development session summarizes the latest certifications and roadmap for the Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack, including elements such as database releases and options, Java, Oracle Forms, Oracle Containers for J2EE, desktop operating systems, browsers, JRE releases, development and Web authoring tools, user authentication and management, business intelligence, Oracle Application Management Packs, security options, clouds, Oracle VM, and virtualization. The session also covers the most commonly asked questions about tech stack component support dates and upgrade implications. CON9028 - Minimizing Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance DowntimesSantiago Bastidas, Elke Phelps, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session features a survey of the best techniques sysadmins can use to minimize patching downtimes. It starts with an architectural-level review of Oracle E-Business Suite fundamentals and then moves to a practical view of the various tools and approaches for downtimes. Topics include patching shortcuts, merging patches, distributing worker processes across multiple servers, running ADPatch in noninteractive mode, staged APPL_TOPs, shared file systems, deferring systemwide database tasks, avoiding resource bottlenecks, and more. An added bonus: hear about the upcoming Oracle E-Business Suite 12 online patching capabilities based on the groundbreaking Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Edition-Based Redefinition feature. CON9116 - Extending the Use of Oracle E-Business Suite with the Oracle Endeca PlatformOsama Elkady, Muhannad Obeidat, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West 2018 The Oracle Endeca platform includes a leading unstructured data correlation and analytics engine, together with a best-in class catalog search and guided navigation solution, to improve the productivity of all types of users in your enterprise. This development session focuses on the details behind the Oracle Endeca platform’s integration into Oracle E-Business Suite. It demonstrates how easily you can extend the use of the Oracle Endeca platform into other areas of Oracle E-Business Suite and how you can bring in your own data and build new Oracle Endeca applications for Oracle E-Business Suite. CON9005 - Oracle E-Business Suite Integration Best PracticesVeshaal Singh, Oracle, Jeffrey Hand, Zebra Technologies Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 Oracle is investing across applications and technologies to make the application integration experience easier for customers. Today Oracle has certified Oracle E-Business Suite on Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and provides a comprehensive set of integration technologies. Learn about Oracle’s integration offering across data- and process-centric integrations. These technologies can be used to address various application integration challenges and styles. In this session, you will get an understanding of how, when, and where you can leverage Oracle’s integration technologies to connect end-to-end business processes across your enterprise, including your Oracle Applications portfolio.  CON9026 - Latest Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 User Interface and Usability EnhancementsPadmaprabodh Ambale, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session details the latest UI enhancements to Oracle Application Framework in Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1. Developers will get a detailed look at new features to enhance usability, offer more capabilities for personalization and extensions, and support the development and use of dashboards and Web services. Topics include new rich UI capabilities such as new home page features, Navigator and Favorites pull-down menus, REST interface, embedded widgets for analytics content, Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) task flows, third-party widgets, a look-ahead list of values, inline attachments, pop-ups, personalization and extensibility enhancements, business layer extensions, Oracle ADF integration, and mobile devices. CON8805 - Planning Your Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade from 11i to Release 12.1 and BeyondAnne Carlson, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West 3002/3004 Attend this session to hear the latest Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 upgrade planning tips from Oracle’s support, consulting, development, and IT organizations. You’ll get specific cross-product advice on how to understand the factors that affect your project’s duration, decide on your project’s scope, develop a robust testing strategy, leverage Oracle Support resources, and more. In a nutshell, this session tells you things you need to know before embarking upon your Release 12.1 upgrade project. CON9053 - Advanced Management of Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle Enterprise ManagerAngelo Rosado, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West 2016 The task of managing and monitoring Oracle E-Business Suite environments can be very challenging. Oracle Enterprise Manager is the only product on the market that is designed to monitor and manage all the different technologies that constitute Oracle E-Business Suite applications, including end user, midtier, configuration, host, and database management—to name just a few. Customers that have implemented Oracle Enterprise Manager have experienced dramatic improvements in system visibility and diagnostic capability as well as administrator productivity. The purpose of this session is to highlight the key features and benefits of Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite. CON8809 - Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Upgrade Best Practices: Technical InsightIsam Alyousfi, Udayan Parvate, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 3011 This session is ideal for organizations thinking about upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1. It covers the fundamentals of upgrading to Release 12.1, including the technology stack components and supported upgrade paths. Hear from Oracle Development about the set of best practices for patching in general and executing the Release 12.1 technical upgrade, with special considerations for minimizing your downtime. Also get to know about relatively recent upgrade resources. CON9032 - Upgrading Your Customizations of Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1Sara Woodhull, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 2016 Have you personalized Oracle Forms or Oracle Application Framework screens in Oracle E-Business Suite? Have you used mod_plsql in Release 11i? Have you extended or customized your Release 11i environment with other tools? The technical options for upgrading these customizations as part of your Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 upgrade can be bewildering. Come to this Oracle development session to learn about selecting the best upgrade approach for your existing customizations. The session will help you understand customization scenarios and use cases, tools, and technologies to ensure that your Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 environment fits your users’ needs closely and that any future customizations will be easy to upgrade. CON9259 - Oracle E-Business Suite Internationalization and Multilingual FeaturesMaher Al-Nubani, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 2018 Oracle E-Business Suite supports more countries, languages, and regions than ever. Come to this Oracle development session to get an overview of internationalization features and capabilities and see new Release 12 features such as calendar support for Hijra and Thai, new group separators, lightweight multilingual support (MLS) setup, new character sets such as AL32UTF, newly supported languages, Mac certifications, Oracle iSetup support for moving MLS setups, new file export options for Unicode, new MLS number spelling options, and more. CON7188 - Mobile Apps for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle ADF Mobile and Oracle SOA SuiteSrikant Subramaniam, Joe Huang, Veshaal Singh, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 3001 Follow your mobile customers, employees, and partners with Oracle Fusion Middleware. See how native iPhone and iPad applications can easily be built for Oracle E-Business Suite with the new Oracle ADF Mobile and Oracle SOA Suite. Using Oracle ADF Mobile, developers can quickly develop native applications for Apple iOS and other mobile platforms. The Oracle SOA Suite/Oracle ADF Mobile combination can execute business transactions on Oracle E-Business Suite. This session includes a demo in which a mobile user approves a business transaction in Oracle E-Business Suite and a demo of the tools used to build a native on-device solution. These concepts for mobile applications also apply to other Oracle applications.CON9029 - Oracle E-Business Suite Directions: Slashing Downtimes with Online PatchingKevin Hudson, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 Oracle E-Business Suite will soon include online patching (based on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Edition-Based Redefinition feature), which will reduce your database patching downtimes to however long it takes to bounce your database server. This Oracle development session details how online patching works, with special attention to what’s happening at a database object level when database patches are applied to an Oracle E-Business Suite environment that’s still running. Come learn about the operational and system management implications for minimizing maintenance downtimes when applying database patches with this new technology and the related impact on customizations you might have built on top of Oracle E-Business Suite. CON8806 - Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1: Technical and Functional PanelAndrew Katz, Komori America Corporation; Sandra Vucinic, VLAD Group, Inc. ;Srini Chavali, Cummins Inc.; Amrita Mehrok, Nadia Bendjedou, Anne Carlson Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 In this panel discussion, Oracle experts, customers, and partners share their experiences in upgrading to the latest release of Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12.1. The panelists cover aspects of a typical Release 12 upgrade, technical (upgrading the technical infrastructure) as well as functional (upgrading to the new financial infrastructure). Hear directly from the experts who either develop the product or support, implement, or upgrade it, and find out how to apply their lessons learned to your organization. CON9027 - Personalize and Extend Oracle E-Business Suite Applications with Rich MashupsGustavo Jimenez, Padmaprabodh Ambale, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This session covers the use of several Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies to personalize and extend your existing Oracle E-Business Suite applications. The Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies covered include Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF), Oracle WebCenter, Oracle Endeca applications, and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition with Oracle E-Business Suite Oracle Application Framework applications. CON9036 - Advanced Oracle E-Business Suite Architectures: Maximum Availability, Security, and MoreElke Phelps, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM - Moscone West 2016 This session includes architecture diagrams and configuration instructions for building a maximum availability architecture (MAA) that will help you design a disaster recovery solution that fits the needs of your business. Database and application high-availability features it describes include Oracle Data Guard, Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC), Oracle Active Data Guard, load-balancing Web and forms services, parallel concurrent processing, and the use of Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata to provide a highly available environment. The session also covers the latest updates to systems management tools, AutoConfig, cloud computing, virtualization, and Oracle WebLogic Server and provides sneak previews of upcoming functionality. CON9047 - Efficiently Scaling Oracle E-Business Suite on Oracle Exadata and Oracle ExalogicIsam Alyousfi, Nishit Rao, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West 2016 Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic are designed from the ground up with optimizations in software and hardware to deliver superfast performance for mission-critical applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite. Oracle E-Business Suite applications run three to eight times as fast on the Oracle Exadata/Oracle Exalogic platform in standard benchmark tests. Besides performance, customers benefit from simplified support, enhanced manageability, and the ability to consolidate multiple Oracle E-Business Suite instances. Attend this session to understand best practices for Oracle E-Business Suite deployment on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata through customer case studies. Learn how adopting the Exa* platform increases efficiency, simplifies scaling, and boosts performance for peak loads. CON8716 - Web Services and SOA Integration Options for Oracle E-Business SuiteRekha Ayothi, Veshaal Singh, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session provides a deep dive into a subset of the Web services and SOA-related integration options available to Oracle E-Business Suite systems integrators. It offers a technical look at Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Application Adapters for Data Integration for Oracle E-Business Suite, and other Web services options for integrating Oracle E-Business Suite with other applications. Systems integrators and developers will get an overview of the latest integration capabilities and technologies available out of the box with Oracle E-Business Suite and possibly a sneak preview of upcoming functionality and features. CON9030 - Recommendations for Oracle E-Business Suite Performance TuningIsam Alyousfi, Samer Barakat, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 Need to squeeze more performance out of your existing servers? This packed Oracle development session summarizes practical tips and lessons learned from performance-tuning and benchmarking the world’s largest Oracle E-Business Suite environments. Apps sysadmins will learn concrete tips and techniques for identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks on all layers, with special attention to application- and database-tier servers. Learn about tuning Oracle Forms, Oracle Concurrent Manager, Apache, and Oracle Discoverer. Track down memory leaks and other issues at the Java and JVM layers. The session also covers Oracle E-Business Suite product-level tuning, including Oracle Workflow, Oracle Order Management, Oracle Payroll, and other modules. CON3429 - Using Oracle ADF with Oracle E-Business Suite: The Full Integration ViewSiva Puthurkattil, Lake County; Juan Camilo Ruiz, Sara Woodhull, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM - Moscone West 3003 Oracle E-Business Suite delivers functionality for handling the core business of your organization. However, user requirements and new technologies are driving an emerging need to implement new types of user interfaces for these applications. This session provides an overview of how to use Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) to deliver cutting-edge Web 2.0 and mobile rich user interfaces that front existing Oracle E-Business Suite processes, and it also explores all the existing types of integration between the two worlds. CON9020 - Integrating Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle Identity Management SolutionsSunil Ghosh, Elke Phelps, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 12:45 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 Need to integrate Oracle E-Business Suite with Microsoft Windows Kerberos, Active Directory, CA Netegrity SiteMinder, or other third-party authentication systems? Want to understand your options when Oracle Premier Support for Oracle Single Sign-On ends in December 2011? This Oracle Development session covers the latest certified integrations with Oracle Access Manager 11g and Oracle Internet Directory 11g, which can be used individually or as bridges for integrating with third-party authentication solutions. The session presents an architectural overview of how Oracle Access Manager, its WebGate and AccessGate components, and Oracle Internet Directory work together, with implications for Oracle Discoverer, Oracle Portal, and other Oracle Fusion identity management products. CON9019 - Troubleshooting, Diagnosing, and Optimizing Oracle E-Business Suite TechnologyGustavo Jimenez, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This session covers how you can proactively diagnose Oracle E-Business Suite applications, including extensions built with Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies such as Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) and Oracle WebCenter to catch potential issues in the middle tier before they become more serious. Topics include debugging, logging infrastructure, warning signs, performance tuning, information required when logging service requests, general JVM optimization, and an overall picture of all the moving parts that make it possible for Oracle E-Business Suite to isolate and fix problems. Also learn how Oracle Diagnostics Framework will help prevent downtime caused by failures. CON9031 - The Top 10 Things You Can Do to Secure Your Oracle E-Business Suite InstanceEric Bing, Erik Graversen, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 Learn the top 10 things you can do to secure your applications and your sensitive data. This Oracle development session for system administrators and security professionals explores some of the most important and overlooked things you can do to secure your Oracle E-Business Suite instance. It also covers data masking and other mechanisms for protecting sensitive data. Special Interest Groups (SIG) Some of our most senior staff have been invited to participate on the following SIG meetings as guest speakers: SIG10525 - OAUG - Archive & Purge SIGBrian Bent - Pre-Sales Engineer, TierData, Inc. Sunday, Sep 30, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Moscone West 3011 The Archive and Purge SIG is an organization in which users can share their experiences and solicit functional and technical advice on archiving and purging data in Oracle E-Business Suite. This session provides an opportunity for users to network and share best practices, tips, and tricks. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Database Performance, Archive & Purging - Q&A SessionIsam Alyousfi, Senior Director, Applications Performance, Oracle SIG10547 - OAUG - Oracle E-Business (EBS) Applications Technology SIGSrini Chavali - IT Director, Cummins Inc Sunday, Sep 30, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Moscone West 3018 The general purpose of the EBS Applications Technology SIG is to inform and educate its members about current and future components of the tech stack as they relate to Oracle E-Business Suite. Attend this meeting for networking and education and to share best practices. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Certification Roadmap - Presentation and Q&ASteven Chan, Sr. Director, Applications Technology Group, Oracle SIG10559 - OAUG - User Management SIGSusan Behn - VP of Oracle Delivery, Infosemantics, Inc. Sunday, Sep 30, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Moscone West 3024 The E-Business Suite User Management SIG focuses on the components of user management that enable Oracle E-Business Suite users to define administrative functions and manage users’ access to functions and data based on roles within an organization—rather than the user’s individual identity—which is referred to as role-based access control (RBAC). This meeting includes an introduction to Oracle User Management that covers the Oracle User Management building blocks and presents an example of creating a security policy.Guest: Security and User Management - Q&A SessionEric Bing, Sr. Director, EBS Security, OracleSara Woodhull, Principal Product Manager, Applications Technology Group, Oracle SIG10515 - OAUG – Upgrade SIGBarbara Matthews - Consultant, On Call DBASandra Vucinic, VLAD Group, Inc. Sunday, Sep 30, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM - Moscone West 3009 This Upgrade SIG session starts with a business meeting and then features a Q&A panel discussion on Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade topics. The session• Reviews Upgrade SIG goals and objectives• Provides answers, during the Q&A session, to questions related to Oracle E-Business Suite upgrades• Shares “real world” experiences, tips, and techniques for Oracle E-Business Suite upgrades to Release 12.1. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade - Q&A SessionAnne Carlson - Sr. Director, Oracle E-Business Suite Product Strategy, OracleUdayan Parvate - Director, EBS Release Engineering, OracleSuzana Ferrari, Sr. Principal Consultant, OracleIsam Alyousfi, Sr. Director, Applications Performance, Oracle SIG10552 - OAUG - Oracle E-Business Suite SIGDonna Rosentrater - Manager, Global Sourcing & Procurement Systems, TJX Sunday, Sep 30, 12:15 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West 3020 The E-Business Suite SIG, affiliated with OAUG, supports Oracle E-Business Suite users through networking, education, and sharing of best practices. This SIG meeting will feature a general discussion of Oracle E-Business Suite product strategies in Release 12 and migration to Oracle Fusion Applications. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite - Q&A SessionJeanne Lowell, Vice President, EBS Product Strategy, OracleNadia Bendjedou, Sr. Director, Product Strategy, Oracle SIG10556 - OAUG - SysAdmin SIGRandy Giefer - Sr Systems and Security Architect, Solution Beacon, LLC Sunday, Sep 30, 12:15 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West 3022 The SysAdmin SIG provides a forum in which OAUG members and participants can share updates, tips, and successful practices relating to system administration in an Oracle applications environment. The SysAdmin SIG strives to enable system administrators to become more effective and efficient in their jobs by providing them with access to people and information that can increase their system administration knowledge and experience. Attend this meeting to network, share best practices, and benefit from educational content. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2 Online Patching- Presentation and Q&AKevin Hudson, Sr. Director, Applications Technology Group, Oracle SIG10553 - OAUG - Database SIGMichael Brown - Senior DBA, COLIBRI LTD LC Sunday, Sep 30, 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West 3020 The OAUG Database SIG provides an opportunity for applications database administrators to learn from and share their experiences with supporting the various Oracle applications environments. This session will include a brief business meeting followed by a short presentation. It will end with an open discussion among the attendees about items of interest to those present. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Database Performance - Presentation and Q&AIsam Alyousfi, Sr. Director, Applications Performance, Oracle Meet the Experts We're planning two round-table discussions where you can review your questions with senior E-Business Suite ATG staff: MTE9648 - Meet the Experts for Oracle E-Business Suite: Planning Your Upgrade Jeanne Lowell - VP, EBS Product Strategy, Oracle John Abraham - Sr. Principal Product Manager, Oracle Nadia Bendjedou - Sr. Director - Product Strategy, Oracle Anne Carlson - Sr. Director, Applications Technology Group, Oracle Udayan Parvate - Director, EBS Release Engineering, Oracle Isam Alyousfi, Sr. Director, Applications Performance, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM - Moscone West 2001A Don’t miss this Oracle Applications Meet the Experts session with experts who specialize in Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade best practices. This is the place where attendees can have informal and semistructured but open one-on-one discussions with Strategy and Development regarding Oracle Applications strategy and your specific business and IT strategy. The experts will be available to discuss the value of the latest releases and share insights into the best path for your enterprise, so come ready with your questions. Space is limited, so make sure you register. MTE9649 - Meet the Oracle E-Business Suite Tools and Technology Experts Lisa Parekh - Vice President, Technology Integration, Oracle Steven Chan - Sr. Director, Oracle Elke Phelps - Sr. Principal Product Manager, Applications Technology Group, Oracle Max Arderius - Manager, Applications Technology Group, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2001A Don’t miss this Oracle Applications Meet the Experts session with experts who specialize in Oracle E-Business Suite technology. This is the place where attendees can have informal and semistructured but open one-on-one discussions with Strategy and Development regarding Oracle Applications strategy and your specific business and IT strategy. The experts will be available to discuss the value of the latest releases and share insights into the best path for your enterprise, so come ready with your questions. Space is limited, so make sure you register. Demos We have five booths in the exhibition demogrounds this year, where you can try ATG technologies firsthand and get your questions answered. Please stop by and meet our staff at the following locations: Advanced Architecture and Technology Stack for Oracle E-Business Suite (W-067) New User Productivity Capabilities in Oracle E-Business Suite (W-065) End-to-End Management of Oracle E-Business Suite (W-063) Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Technical Upgrade Best Practices (W-066) SOA-Based Integration for Oracle E-Business Suite (W-064)

  Read the article

• Rendering ASP.NET Script References into the Html Header

  - by Rick Strahl

  One thing that I’ve come to appreciate in control development in ASP.NET that use JavaScript is the ability to have more control over script and script include placement than ASP.NET provides natively. Specifically in ASP.NET you can use either the ClientScriptManager or ScriptManager to embed scripts and script references into pages via code. This works reasonably well, but the script references that get generated are generated into the HTML body and there’s very little operational control for placement of scripts. If you have multiple controls or several of the same control that need to place the same scripts onto the page it’s not difficult to end up with scripts that render in the wrong order and stop working correctly. This is especially critical if you load script libraries with dependencies either via resources or even if you are rendering referenced to CDN resources. Natively ASP.NET provides a host of methods that help embedding scripts into the page via either Page.ClientScript or the ASP.NET ScriptManager control (both with slightly different syntax): RegisterClientScriptBlock Renders a script block at the top of the HTML body and should be used for embedding callable functions/classes. RegisterStartupScript Renders a script block just prior to the </form> tag and should be used to for embedding code that should execute when the page is first loaded. Not recommended – use jQuery.ready() or equivalent load time routines. RegisterClientScriptInclude Embeds a reference to a script from a url into the page. RegisterClientScriptResource Embeds a reference to a Script from a resource file generating a long resource file string All 4 of these methods render their <script> tags into the HTML body. The script blocks give you a little bit of control by having a ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ of the document location which gives you some flexibility over script placement and precedence. Script includes and resource url unfortunately do not even get that much control – references are simply rendered into the page in the order of declaration. The ASP.NET ScriptManager control facilitates this task a little bit with the abililty to specify scripts in code and the ability to programmatically check what scripts have already been registered, but it doesn’t provide any more control over the script rendering process itself. Further the ScriptManager is a bear to deal with generically because generic code has to always check and see if it is actually present. Some time ago I posted a ClientScriptProxy class that helps with managing the latter process of sending script references either to ClientScript or ScriptManager if it’s available. Since I last posted about this there have been a number of improvements in this API, one of which is the ability to control placement of scripts and script includes in the page which I think is rather important and a missing feature in the ASP.NET native functionality. Handling ScriptRenderModes One of the big enhancements that I’ve come to rely on is the ability of the various script rendering functions described above to support rendering in multiple locations: /// <summary> /// Determines how scripts are included into the page /// </summary> public enum ScriptRenderModes { /// <summary> /// Inherits the setting from the control or from the ClientScript.DefaultScriptRenderMode /// </summary> Inherit, /// Renders the script include at the location of the control /// </summary> Inline, /// <summary> /// Renders the script include into the bottom of the header of the page /// </summary> Header, /// <summary> /// Renders the script include into the top of the header of the page /// </summary> HeaderTop, /// <summary> /// Uses ClientScript or ScriptManager to embed the script include to /// provide standard ASP.NET style rendering in the HTML body. /// </summary> Script, /// <summary> /// Renders script at the bottom of the page before the last Page.Controls /// literal control. Note this may result in unexpected behavior /// if /body and /html are not the last thing in the markup page. /// </summary> BottomOfPage } This enum is then applied to the various Register functions to allow more control over where scripts actually show up. Why is this useful? For me I often render scripts out of control resources and these scripts often include things like a JavaScript Library (jquery) and a few plug-ins. The order in which these can be loaded is critical so that jQuery.js always loads before any plug-in for example. Typically I end up with a general script layout like this: Core Libraries- HeaderTop Plug-ins: Header ScriptBlocks: Header or Script depending on other dependencies There’s also an option to render scripts and CSS at the very bottom of the page before the last Page control on the page which can be useful for speeding up page load when lots of scripts are loaded. The API syntax of the ClientScriptProxy methods is closely compatible with ScriptManager’s using static methods and control references to gain access to the page and embedding scripts. For example, to render some script into the current page in the header: // Create script block in header ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "hello_function", "function helloWorld() { alert('hello'); }", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); // Same again - shouldn't be rendered because it's the same id ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "hello_function", "function helloWorld() { alert('hello'); }", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); // Create a second script block in header ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "hello_function2", "function helloWorld2() { alert('hello2'); }", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); // This just calls ClientScript and renders into bottom of document ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterStartupScript(this,typeof(ControlResources), "call_hello", "helloWorld();helloWorld2();", true); which generates: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" > <head><title> </title> <script type="text/javascript"> function helloWorld() { alert('hello'); } </script> <script type="text/javascript"> function helloWorld2() { alert('hello2'); } </script> </head> <body> … <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ helloWorld();helloWorld2();//]]> </script> </form> </body> </html> Note that the scripts are generated into the header rather than the body except for the last script block which is the call to RegisterStartupScript. In general I wouldn’t recommend using RegisterStartupScript – ever. It’s a much better practice to use a script base load event to handle ‘startup’ code that should fire when the page first loads. So instead of the code above I’d actually recommend doing: ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "call_hello", "$().ready( function() { alert('hello2'); });", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); assuming you’re using jQuery on the page. For script includes from a Url the following demonstrates how to embed scripts into the header. This example injects a jQuery and jQuery.UI script reference from the Google CDN then checks each with a script block to ensure that it has loaded and if not loads it from a server local location: // load jquery from CDN ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptInclude(this, typeof(ControlResources), "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js", ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop); // check if jquery loaded - if it didn't we're not online string scriptCheck = @"if (typeof jQuery != 'object') document.write(unescape(""%3Cscript src='{0}' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E""));"; string jQueryUrl = ClientScriptProxy.Current.GetWebResourceUrl(this, typeof(ControlResources), ControlResources.JQUERY_SCRIPT_RESOURCE); ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "jquery_register", string.Format(scriptCheck,jQueryUrl),true, ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop); // Load jquery-ui from cdn ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptInclude(this, typeof(ControlResources), "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/jquery-ui.min.js", ScriptRenderModes.Header); // check if we need to load from local string jQueryUiUrl = ResolveUrl("~/scripts/jquery-ui-custom.min.js"); ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "jqueryui_register", string.Format(scriptCheck, jQueryUiUrl), true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); // Create script block in header ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "hello_function", "$().ready( function() { alert('hello'); });", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); which in turn generates this HTML: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" > <head> <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> if (typeof jQuery != 'object') document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='/WestWindWebToolkitWeb/WebResource.axd?d=DIykvYhJ_oXCr-TA_dr35i4AayJoV1mgnQAQGPaZsoPM2LCdvoD3cIsRRitHKlKJfV5K_jQvylK7tsqO3lQIFw2&t=633979863959332352' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <title> </title> <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/jquery-ui.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> if (typeof jQuery != 'object') document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='/WestWindWebToolkitWeb/scripts/jquery-ui-custom.min.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> $().ready(function() { alert('hello'); }); </script> </head> <body> …</body> </html> As you can see there’s a bit more control in this process as you can inject both script includes and script blocks into the document at the top or bottom of the header, plus if necessary at the usual body locations. This is quite useful especially if you create custom server controls that interoperate with script and have certain dependencies. The above is a good example of a useful switchable routine where you can switch where scripts load from by default – the above pulls from Google CDN but a configuration switch may automatically switch to pull from the local development copies if your doing development for example. How does it work? As mentioned the ClientScriptProxy object mimicks many of the ScriptManager script related methods and so provides close API compatibility with it although it contains many additional overloads that enhance functionality. It does however work against ScriptManager if it’s available on the page, or Page.ClientScript if it’s not so it provides a single unified frontend to script access. There are however many overloads of the original SM methods like the above to provide additional functionality. The implementation of script header rendering is pretty straight forward – as long as a server header (ie. it has to have runat=”server” set) is available. Otherwise these routines fall back to using the default document level insertions of ScriptManager/ClientScript. Given that there is a server header it’s relatively easy to generate the script tags and code and append them to the header either at the top or bottom. I suspect Microsoft didn’t provide header rendering functionality precisely because a runat=”server” header is not required by ASP.NET so behavior would be slightly unpredictable. That’s not really a problem for a custom implementation however. Here’s the RegisterClientScriptBlock implementation that takes a ScriptRenderModes parameter to allow header rendering: /// <summary> /// Renders client script block with the option of rendering the script block in /// the Html header /// /// For this to work Header must be defined as runat="server" /// </summary> /// <param name="control">any control that instance typically page</param> /// <param name="type">Type that identifies this rendering</param> /// <param name="key">unique script block id</param> /// <param name="script">The script code to render</param> /// <param name="addScriptTags">Ignored for header rendering used for all other insertions</param> /// <param name="renderMode">Where the block is rendered</param> public void RegisterClientScriptBlock(Control control, Type type, string key, string script, bool addScriptTags, ScriptRenderModes renderMode) { if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Inherit) renderMode = DefaultScriptRenderMode; if (control.Page.Header == null || renderMode != ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop && renderMode != ScriptRenderModes.Header && renderMode != ScriptRenderModes.BottomOfPage) { RegisterClientScriptBlock(control, type, key, script, addScriptTags); return; } // No dupes - ref script include only once const string identifier = "scriptblock_"; if (HttpContext.Current.Items.Contains(identifier + key)) return; HttpContext.Current.Items.Add(identifier + key, string.Empty); StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); // Embed in header sb.AppendLine("\r\n<script type=\"text/javascript\">"); sb.AppendLine(script); sb.AppendLine("</script>"); int? index = HttpContext.Current.Items["__ScriptResourceIndex"] as int?; if (index == null) index = 0; if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop) { control.Page.Header.Controls.AddAt(index.Value, new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); index++; } else if(renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Header) control.Page.Header.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); else if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.BottomOfPage) control.Page.Controls.AddAt(control.Page.Controls.Count-1,new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); HttpContext.Current.Items["__ScriptResourceIndex"] = index; } Note that the routine has to keep track of items inserted by id so that if the same item is added again with the same key it won’t generate two script entries. Additionally the code has to keep track of how many insertions have been made at the top of the document so that entries are added in the proper order. The RegisterScriptInclude method is similar but there’s some additional logic in here to deal with script file references and ClientScriptProxy’s (optional) custom resource handler that provides script compression /// <summary> /// Registers a client script reference into the page with the option to specify /// the script location in the page /// </summary> /// <param name="control">Any control instance - typically page</param> /// <param name="type">Type that acts as qualifier (uniqueness)</param> /// <param name="url">the Url to the script resource</param> /// <param name="ScriptRenderModes">Determines where the script is rendered</param> public void RegisterClientScriptInclude(Control control, Type type, string url, ScriptRenderModes renderMode) { const string STR_ScriptResourceIndex = "__ScriptResourceIndex"; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) return; if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Inherit) renderMode = DefaultScriptRenderMode; // Extract just the script filename string fileId = null; // Check resource IDs and try to match to mapped file resources // Used to allow scripts not to be loaded more than once whether // embedded manually (script tag) or via resources with ClientScriptProxy if (url.Contains(".axd?r=")) { string res = HttpUtility.UrlDecode( StringUtils.ExtractString(url, "?r=", "&", false, true) ); foreach (ScriptResourceAlias item in ScriptResourceAliases) { if (item.Resource == res) { fileId = item.Alias + ".js"; break; } } if (fileId == null) fileId = url.ToLower(); } else fileId = Path.GetFileName(url).ToLower(); // No dupes - ref script include only once const string identifier = "script_"; if (HttpContext.Current.Items.Contains( identifier + fileId ) ) return; HttpContext.Current.Items.Add(identifier + fileId, string.Empty); // just use script manager or ClientScriptManager if (control.Page.Header == null || renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Script || renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Inline) { RegisterClientScriptInclude(control, type,url, url); return; } // Retrieve script index in header int? index = HttpContext.Current.Items[STR_ScriptResourceIndex] as int?; if (index == null) index = 0; StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(256); url = WebUtils.ResolveUrl(url); // Embed in header sb.AppendLine("\r\n<script src=\"" + url + "\" type=\"text/javascript\"></script>"); if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop) { control.Page.Header.Controls.AddAt(index.Value, new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); index++; } else if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Header) control.Page.Header.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); else if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.BottomOfPage) control.Page.Controls.AddAt(control.Page.Controls.Count-1, new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); HttpContext.Current.Items[STR_ScriptResourceIndex] = index; } There’s a little more code here that deals with cleaning up the passed in Url and also some custom handling of script resources that run through the ScriptCompressionModule – any script resources loaded in this fashion are automatically cached based on the resource id. Raw urls extract just the filename from the URL and cache based on that. All of this to avoid doubling up of scripts if called multiple times by multiple instances of the same control for example or several controls that all load the same resources/includes. Finally RegisterClientScriptResource utilizes the previous method to wrap the WebResourceUrl as well as some custom functionality for the resource compression module: /// <summary> /// Returns a WebResource or ScriptResource URL for script resources that are to be /// embedded as script includes. /// </summary> /// <param name="control">Any control</param> /// <param name="type">A type in assembly where resources are located</param> /// <param name="resourceName">Name of the resource to load</param> /// <param name="renderMode">Determines where in the document the link is rendered</param> public void RegisterClientScriptResource(Control control, Type type, string resourceName, ScriptRenderModes renderMode) { string resourceUrl = GetClientScriptResourceUrl(control, type, resourceName); RegisterClientScriptInclude(control, type, resourceUrl, renderMode); } /// <summary> /// Works like GetWebResourceUrl but can be used with javascript resources /// to allow using of resource compression (if the module is loaded). /// </summary> /// <param name="control"></param> /// <param name="type"></param> /// <param name="resourceName"></param> /// <returns></returns> public string GetClientScriptResourceUrl(Control control, Type type, string resourceName) { #if IncludeScriptCompressionModuleSupport // If wwScriptCompression Module through Web.config is loaded use it to compress // script resources by using wcSC.axd Url the module intercepts if (ScriptCompressionModule.ScriptCompressionModuleActive) { string url = "~/wwSC.axd?r=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(resourceName); if (type.Assembly != GetType().Assembly) url += "&t=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(type.FullName); return WebUtils.ResolveUrl(url); } #endif return control.Page.ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl(type, resourceName); } This code merely retrieves the resource URL and then simply calls back to RegisterClientScriptInclude with the URL to be embedded which means there’s nothing specific to deal with other than the custom compression module logic which is nice and easy. What else is there in ClientScriptProxy? ClientscriptProxy also provides a few other useful services beyond what I’ve already covered here: Transparent ScriptManager and ClientScript calls ClientScriptProxy includes a host of routines that help figure out whether a script manager is available or not and all functions in this class call the appropriate object – ScriptManager or ClientScript – that is available in the current page to ensure that scripts get embedded into pages properly. This is especially useful for control development where controls have no control over the scripting environment in place on the page. RegisterCssLink and RegisterCssResource Much like the script embedding functions these two methods allow embedding of CSS links. CSS links are appended to the header or to a form declared with runat=”server”. LoadControlScript Is a high level resource loading routine that can be used to easily switch between different script linking modes. It supports loading from a WebResource, a url or not loading anything at all. This is very useful if you build controls that deal with specification of resource urls/ids in a standard way. Check out the full Code You can check out the full code to the ClientScriptProxyClass here: ClientScriptProxy.cs ClientScriptProxy Documentation (class reference) Note that the ClientScriptProxy has a few dependencies in the West Wind Web Toolkit of which it is part of. ControlResources holds a few standard constants and script resource links and the ScriptCompressionModule which is referenced in a few of the script inclusion methods. There’s also another useful ScriptContainer companion control  to the ClientScriptProxy that allows scripts to be placed onto the page’s markup including the ability to specify the script location and script minification options. You can find all the dependencies in the West Wind Web Toolkit repository: West Wind Web Toolkit Repository West Wind Web Toolkit Home Page© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  JavaScript  

  Read the article

• Toorcon14

  - by danx

  Toorcon 2012 Information Security Conference San Diego, CA, http://www.toorcon.org/ Dan Anderson, October 2012 It's almost Halloween, and we all know what that means—yes, of course, it's time for another Toorcon Conference! Toorcon is an annual conference for people interested in computer security. This includes the whole range of hackers, computer hobbyists, professionals, security consultants, press, law enforcement, prosecutors, FBI, etc. We're at Toorcon 14—see earlier blogs for some of the previous Toorcon's I've attended (back to 2003). This year's "con" was held at the Westin on Broadway in downtown San Diego, California. The following are not necessarily my views—I'm just the messenger—although I could have misquoted or misparaphrased the speakers. Also, I only reviewed some of the talks, below, which I attended and interested me. MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections, Aditya K. Sood Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata, Rebecca "bx" Shapiro Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules?, Valkyrie Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI, Dan Griffin You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program, Boris Sverdlik What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking, Dave Maas & Jason Leopold Accessibility and Security, Anna Shubina Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance, Adam Brand McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend, Jay James & Shane MacDougall MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections Aditya K. Sood, IOActive, Michigan State PhD candidate Aditya talked about Android smartphone malware. There's a lot of old Android software out there—over 50% Gingerbread (2.3.x)—and most have unpatched vulnerabilities. Of 9 Android vulnerabilities, 8 have known exploits (such as the old Gingerbread Global Object Table exploit). Android protection includes sandboxing, security scanner, app permissions, and screened Android app market. The Android permission checker has fine-grain resource control, policy enforcement. Android static analysis also includes a static analysis app checker (bouncer), and a vulnerablity checker. What security problems does Android have? User-centric security, which depends on the user to grant permission and make smart decisions. But users don't care or think about malware (the're not aware, not paranoid). All they want is functionality, extensibility, mobility Android had no "proper" encryption before Android 3.0 No built-in protection against social engineering and web tricks Alternative Android app markets are unsafe. Simply visiting some markets can infect Android Aditya classified Android Malware types as: Type A—Apps. These interact with the Android app framework. For example, a fake Netflix app. Or Android Gold Dream (game), which uploads user files stealthy manner to a remote location. Type K—Kernel. Exploits underlying Linux libraries or kernel Type H—Hybrid. These use multiple layers (app framework, libraries, kernel). These are most commonly used by Android botnets, which are popular with Chinese botnet authors What are the threats from Android malware? These incude leak info (contacts), banking fraud, corporate network attacks, malware advertising, malware "Hackivism" (the promotion of social causes. For example, promiting specific leaders of the Tunisian or Iranian revolutions. Android malware is frequently "masquerated". That is, repackaged inside a legit app with malware. To avoid detection, the hidden malware is not unwrapped until runtime. The malware payload can be hidden in, for example, PNG files. Less common are Android bootkits—there's not many around. What they do is hijack the Android init framework—alteering system programs and daemons, then deletes itself. For example, the DKF Bootkit (China). Android App Problems: no code signing! all self-signed native code execution permission sandbox — all or none alternate market places no robust Android malware detection at network level delayed patch process Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata Rebecca "bx" Shapiro, Dartmouth College, NH https://github.com/bx/elf-bf-tools @bxsays on twitter Definitions. "ELF" is an executable file format used in linking and loading executables (on UNIX/Linux-class machines). "Weird machine" uses undocumented computation sources (I think of them as unintended virtual machines). Some examples of "weird machines" are those that: return to weird location, does SQL injection, corrupts the heap. Bx then talked about using ELF metadata as (an uintended) "weird machine". Some ELF background: A compiler takes source code and generates a ELF object file (hello.o). A static linker makes an ELF executable from the object file. A runtime linker and loader takes ELF executable and loads and relocates it in memory. The ELF file has symbols to relocate functions and variables. ELF has two relocation tables—one at link time and another one at loading time: .rela.dyn (link time) and .dynsym (dynamic table). GOT: Global Offset Table of addresses for dynamically-linked functions. PLT: Procedure Linkage Tables—works with GOT. The memory layout of a process (not the ELF file) is, in order: program (+ heap), dynamic libraries, libc, ld.so, stack (which includes the dynamic table loaded into memory) For ELF, the "weird machine" is found and exploited in the loader. ELF can be crafted for executing viruses, by tricking runtime into executing interpreted "code" in the ELF symbol table. One can inject parasitic "code" without modifying the actual ELF code portions. Think of the ELF symbol table as an "assembly language" interpreter. It has these elements: instructions: Add, move, jump if not 0 (jnz) Think of symbol table entries as "registers" symbol table value is "contents" immediate values are constants direct values are addresses (e.g., 0xdeadbeef) move instruction: is a relocation table entry add instruction: relocation table "addend" entry jnz instruction: takes multiple relocation table entries The ELF weird machine exploits the loader by relocating relocation table entries. The loader will go on forever until told to stop. It stores state on stack at "end" and uses IFUNC table entries (containing function pointer address). The ELF weird machine, called "Brainfu*k" (BF) has: 8 instructions: pointer inc, dec, inc indirect, dec indirect, jump forward, jump backward, print. Three registers - 3 registers Bx showed example BF source code that implemented a Turing machine printing "hello, world". More interesting was the next demo, where bx modified ping. Ping runs suid as root, but quickly drops privilege. BF modified the loader to disable the library function call dropping privilege, so it remained as root. Then BF modified the ping -t argument to execute the -t filename as root. It's best to show what this modified ping does with an example: $ whoami bx $ ping localhost -t backdoor.sh # executes backdoor $ whoami root $ The modified code increased from 285948 bytes to 290209 bytes. A BF tool compiles "executable" by modifying the symbol table in an existing ELF executable. The tool modifies .dynsym and .rela.dyn table, but not code or data. Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules? "Valkyrie" (Christie Dudley, Santa Clara Law JD candidate) Valkyrie talked about mobile handset privacy. Some background: Senator Franken (also a comedian) became alarmed about CarrierIQ, where the carriers track their customers. Franken asked the FCC to find out what obligations carriers think they have to protect privacy. The carriers' response was that they are doing just fine with self-regulation—no worries! Carriers need to collect data, such as missed calls, to maintain network quality. But carriers also sell data for marketing. Verizon sells customer data and enables this with a narrow privacy policy (only 1 month to opt out, with difficulties). The data sold is not individually identifiable and is aggregated. But Verizon recommends, as an aggregation workaround to "recollate" data to other databases to identify customers indirectly. The FCC has regulated telephone privacy since 1934 and mobile network privacy since 2007. Also, the carriers say mobile phone privacy is a FTC responsibility (not FCC). FTC is trying to improve mobile app privacy, but FTC has no authority over carrier / customer relationships. As a side note, Apple iPhones are unique as carriers have extra control over iPhones they don't have with other smartphones. As a result iPhones may be more regulated. Who are the consumer advocates? Everyone knows EFF, but EPIC (Electrnic Privacy Info Center), although more obsecure, is more relevant. What to do? Carriers must be accountable. Opt-in and opt-out at any time. Carriers need incentive to grant users control for those who want it, by holding them liable and responsible for breeches on their clock. Location information should be added current CPNI privacy protection, and require "Pen/trap" judicial order to obtain (and would still be a lower standard than 4th Amendment). Politics are on a pro-privacy swing now, with many senators and the Whitehouse. There will probably be new regulation soon, and enforcement will be a problem, but consumers will still have some benefit. Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI Dan Griffin, JWSecure, Inc., Seattle, @JWSdan Dan talked about hacking measured UEFI boot. First some terms: UEFI is a boot technology that is replacing BIOS (has whitelisting and blacklisting). UEFI protects devices against rootkits. TPM - hardware security device to store hashs and hardware-protected keys "secure boot" can control at firmware level what boot images can boot "measured boot" OS feature that tracks hashes (from BIOS, boot loader, krnel, early drivers). "remote attestation" allows remote validation and control based on policy on a remote attestation server. Microsoft pushing TPM (Windows 8 required), but Google is not. Intel TianoCore is the only open source for UEFI. Dan has Measured Boot Tool at http://mbt.codeplex.com/ with a demo where you can also view TPM data. TPM support already on enterprise-class machines. UEFI Weaknesses. UEFI toolkits are evolving rapidly, but UEFI has weaknesses: assume user is an ally trust TPM implicitly, and attached to computer hibernate file is unprotected (disk encryption protects against this) protection migrating from hardware to firmware delays in patching and whitelist updates will UEFI really be adopted by the mainstream (smartphone hardware support, bank support, apathetic consumer support) You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program Boris Sverdlik, ISDPodcast.com co-host Boris talked about problems typical with current security audits. "IT Security" is an oxymoron—IT exists to enable buiness, uptime, utilization, reporting, but don't care about security—IT has conflict of interest. There's no Magic Bullet ("blinky box"), no one-size-fits-all solution (e.g., Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs)). Regulations don't make you secure. The cloud is not secure (because of shared data and admin access). Defense and pen testing is not sexy. Auditors are not solution (security not a checklist)—what's needed is experience and adaptability—need soft skills. Step 1: First thing is to Google and learn the company end-to-end before you start. Get to know the management team (not IT team), meet as many people as you can. Don't use arbitrary values such as CISSP scores. Quantitive risk assessment is a myth (e.g. AV*EF-SLE). Learn different Business Units, legal/regulatory obligations, learn the business and where the money is made, verify company is protected from script kiddies (easy), learn sensitive information (IP, internal use only), and start with low-hanging fruit (customer service reps and social engineering). Step 2: Policies. Keep policies short and relevant. Generic SANS "security" boilerplate policies don't make sense and are not followed. Focus on acceptable use, data usage, communications, physical security. Step 3: Implementation: keep it simple stupid. Open source, although useful, is not free (implementation cost). Access controls with authentication & authorization for local and remote access. MS Windows has it, otherwise use OpenLDAP, OpenIAM, etc. Application security Everyone tries to reinvent the wheel—use existing static analysis tools. Review high-risk apps and major revisions. Don't run different risk level apps on same system. Assume host/client compromised and use app-level security control. Network security VLAN != segregated because there's too many workarounds. Use explicit firwall rules, active and passive network monitoring (snort is free), disallow end user access to production environment, have a proxy instead of direct Internet access. Also, SSL certificates are not good two-factor auth and SSL does not mean "safe." Operational Controls Have change, patch, asset, & vulnerability management (OSSI is free). For change management, always review code before pushing to production For logging, have centralized security logging for business-critical systems, separate security logging from administrative/IT logging, and lock down log (as it has everything). Monitor with OSSIM (open source). Use intrusion detection, but not just to fulfill a checkbox: build rules from a whitelist perspective (snort). OSSEC has 95% of what you need. Vulnerability management is a QA function when done right: OpenVas and Seccubus are free. Security awareness The reality is users will always click everything. Build real awareness, not compliance driven checkbox, and have it integrated into the culture. Pen test by crowd sourcing—test with logging COSSP http://www.cossp.org/ - Comprehensive Open Source Security Project What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking Dave Maas, San Diego CityBeat Jason Leopold, Truthout.org The difference between hackers and investigative journalists: For hackers, the motivation varies, but method is same, technological specialties. For investigative journalists, it's about one thing—The Story, and they need broad info-gathering skills. J-School in 60 Seconds: Generic formula: Person or issue of pubic interest, new info, or angle. Generic criteria: proximity, prominence, timeliness, human interest, oddity, or consequence. Media awareness of hackers and trends: journalists becoming extremely aware of hackers with congressional debates (privacy, data breaches), demand for data-mining Journalists, use of coding and web development for Journalists, and Journalists busted for hacking (Murdock). Info gathering by investigative journalists include Public records laws. Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is good, but slow. California Public Records Act is a lot stronger. FOIA takes forever because of foot-dragging—it helps to be specific. Often need to sue (especially FBI). CPRA is faster, and requests can be vague. Dumps and leaks (a la Wikileaks) Journalists want: leads, protecting ourselves, our sources, and adapting tools for news gathering (Google hacking). Anonomity is important to whistleblowers. They want no digital footprint left behind (e.g., email, web log). They don't trust encryption, want to feel safe and secure. Whistleblower laws are very weak—there's no upside for whistleblowers—they have to be very passionate to do it. Accessibility and Security or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Halting Problem Anna Shubina, Dartmouth College Anna talked about how accessibility and security are related. Accessibility of digital content (not real world accessibility). mostly refers to blind users and screenreaders, for our purpose. Accessibility is about parsing documents, as are many security issues. "Rich" executable content causes accessibility to fail, and often causes security to fail. For example MS Word has executable format—it's not a document exchange format—more dangerous than PDF or HTML. Accessibility is often the first and maybe only sanity check with parsing. They have no choice because someone may want to read what you write. Google, for example, is very particular about web browser you use and are bad at supporting other browsers. Uses JavaScript instead of links, often requiring mouseover to display content. PDF is a security nightmare. Executible format, embedded flash, JavaScript, etc. 15 million lines of code. Google Chrome doesn't handle PDF correctly, causing several security bugs. PDF has an accessibility checker and PDF tagging, to help with accessibility. But no PDF checker checks for incorrect tags, untagged content, or validates lists or tables. None check executable content at all. The "Halting Problem" is: can one decide whether a program will ever stop? The answer, in general, is no (Rice's theorem). The same holds true for accessibility checkers. Language-theoretic Security says complicated data formats are hard to parse and cannot be solved due to the Halting Problem. W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines: "Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust" Not much help though, except for "Robust", but here's some gems: * all information should be parsable (paraphrasing) * if not parsable, cannot be converted to alternate formats * maximize compatibility in new document formats Executible webpages are bad for security and accessibility. They say it's for a better web experience. But is it necessary to stuff web pages with JavaScript for a better experience? A good example is The Drudge Report—it has hand-written HTML with no JavaScript, yet drives a lot of web traffic due to good content. A bad example is Google News—hidden scrollbars, guessing user input. Solutions: Accessibility and security problems come from same source Expose "better user experience" myth Keep your corner of Internet parsable Remember "Halting Problem"—recognize false solutions (checking and verifying tools) Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance Adam Brand, protiviti @adamrbrand, http://www.picfun.com/ Adam talked about PCI compliance for retail sales. Take an example: for PCI compliance, 50% of Brian's time (a IT guy), 960 hours/year was spent patching POSs in 850 restaurants. Often applying some patches make no sense (like fixing a browser vulnerability on a server). "Scanner worship" is overuse of vulnerability scanners—it gives a warm and fuzzy and it's simple (red or green results—fix reds). Scanners give a false sense of security. In reality, breeches from missing patches are uncommon—more common problems are: default passwords, cleartext authentication, misconfiguration (firewall ports open). Patching Myths: Myth 1: install within 30 days of patch release (but PCI §6.1 allows a "risk-based approach" instead). Myth 2: vendor decides what's critical (also PCI §6.1). But §6.2 requires user ranking of vulnerabilities instead. Myth 3: scan and rescan until it passes. But PCI §11.2.1b says this applies only to high-risk vulnerabilities. Adam says good recommendations come from NIST 800-40. Instead use sane patching and focus on what's really important. From NIST 800-40: Proactive: Use a proactive vulnerability management process: use change control, configuration management, monitor file integrity. Monitor: start with NVD and other vulnerability alerts, not scanner results. Evaluate: public-facing system? workstation? internal server? (risk rank) Decide:on action and timeline Test: pre-test patches (stability, functionality, rollback) for change control Install: notify, change control, tickets McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend Jay James, Shane MacDougall, Tactical Intelligence Inc., Canada "McAfee Secure Trustmark" is a website seal marketed by McAfee. A website gets this badge if they pass their remote scanning. The problem is a removal of trustmarks act as flags that you're vulnerable. Easy to view status change by viewing McAfee list on website or on Google. "Secure TrustGuard" is similar to McAfee. Jay and Shane wrote Perl scripts to gather sites from McAfee and search engines. If their certification image changes to a 1x1 pixel image, then they are longer certified. Their scripts take deltas of scans to see what changed daily. The bottom line is change in TrustGuard status is a flag for hackers to attack your site. Entire idea of seals is silly—you're raising a flag saying if you're vulnerable.

  Read the article

• Microsoft Introduces WebMatrix

  - by Rick Strahl

  originally published in CoDe Magazine Editorial Microsoft recently released the first CTP of a new development environment called WebMatrix, which along with some of its supporting technologies are squarely aimed at making the Microsoft Web Platform more approachable for first-time developers and hobbyists. But in the process, it also provides some updated technologies that can make life easier for existing .NET developers. Let’s face it: ASP.NET development isn’t exactly trivial unless you already have a fair bit of familiarity with sophisticated development practices. Stick a non-developer in front of Visual Studio .NET or even the Visual Web Developer Express edition and it’s not likely that the person in front of the screen will be very productive or feel inspired. Yet other technologies like PHP and even classic ASP did provide the ability for non-developers and hobbyists to become reasonably proficient in creating basic web content quickly and efficiently. WebMatrix appears to be Microsoft’s attempt to bring back some of that simplicity with a number of technologies and tools. The key is to provide a friendly and fully self-contained development environment that provides all the tools needed to build an application in one place, as well as tools that allow publishing of content and databases easily to the web server. WebMatrix is made up of several components and technologies: IIS Developer Express IIS Developer Express is a new, self-contained development web server that is fully compatible with IIS 7.5 and based on the same codebase that IIS 7.5 uses. This new development server replaces the much less compatible Cassini web server that’s been used in Visual Studio and the Express editions. IIS Express addresses a few shortcomings of the Cassini server such as the inability to serve custom ISAPI extensions (i.e., things like PHP or ASP classic for example), as well as not supporting advanced authentication. IIS Developer Express provides most of the IIS 7.5 feature set providing much better compatibility between development and live deployment scenarios. SQL Server Compact 4.0 Database access is a key component for most web-driven applications, but on the Microsoft stack this has mostly meant you have to use SQL Server or SQL Server Express. SQL Server Compact is not new-it’s been around for a few years, but it’s been severely hobbled in the past by terrible tool support and the inability to support more than a single connection in Microsoft’s attempt to avoid losing SQL Server licensing. The new release of SQL Server Compact 4.0 supports multiple connections and you can run it in ASP.NET web applications simply by installing an assembly into the bin folder of the web application. In effect, you don’t have to install a special system configuration to run SQL Compact as it is a drop-in database engine: Copy the small assembly into your BIN folder (or from the GAC if installed fully), create a connection string against a local file-based database file, and then start firing SQL requests. Additionally WebMatrix includes nice tools to edit the database tables and files, along with tools to easily upsize (and hopefully downsize in the future) to full SQL Server. This is a big win, pending compatibility and performance limits. In my simple testing the data engine performed well enough for small data sets. This is not only useful for web applications, but also for desktop applications for which a fully installed SQL engine like SQL Server would be overkill. Having a local data store in those applications that can potentially be accessed by multiple users is a welcome feature. ASP.NET Razor View Engine What? Yet another native ASP.NET view engine? We already have Web Forms and various different flavors of using that view engine with Web Forms and MVC. Do we really need another? Microsoft thinks so, and Razor is an implementation of a lightweight, script-only view engine. Unlike the Web Forms view engine, Razor works only with inline code, snippets, and markup; therefore, it is more in line with current thinking of what a view engine should represent. There’s no support for a “page model” or any of the other Web Forms features of the full-page framework, but just a lightweight scripting engine that works with plain markup plus embedded expressions and code. The markup syntax for Razor is geared for minimal typing, plus some progressive detection of where a script block/expression starts and ends. This results in a much leaner syntax than the typical ASP.NET Web Forms alligator (<% %>) tags. Razor uses the @ sign plus standard C# (or Visual Basic) block syntax to delineate code snippets and expressions. Here’s a very simple example of what Razor markup looks like along with some comment annotations: <!DOCTYPE html> <html>     <head>         <title></title>     </head>     <body>     <h1>Razor Test</h1>          <!-- simple expressions -->     @DateTime.Now     <hr />     <!-- method expressions -->     @DateTime.Now.ToString("T")          <!-- code blocks -->     @{         List<string> names = new List<string>();         names.Add("Rick");         names.Add("Markus");         names.Add("Claudio");         names.Add("Kevin");     }          <!-- structured block statements -->     <ul>     @foreach(string name in names){             <li>@name</li>     }     </ul>           <!-- Conditional code -->        @if(true) {                        <!-- Literal Text embedding in code -->        <text>         true        </text>;    }    else    {        <!-- Literal Text embedding in code -->       <text>       false       </text>;    }    </body> </html> Like the Web Forms view engine, Razor parses pages into code, and then executes that run-time compiled code. Effectively a “page” becomes a code file with markup becoming literal text written into the Response stream, code snippets becoming raw code, and expressions being written out with Response.Write(). The code generated from Razor doesn’t look much different from similar Web Forms code that only uses script tags; so although the syntax may look different, the operational model is fairly similar to the Web Forms engine minus the overhead of the large Page object model. However, there are differences: -Razor pages are based on a new base class, Microsoft.WebPages.WebPage, which is hosted in the Microsoft.WebPages assembly that houses all the Razor engine parsing and processing logic. Browsing through the assembly (in the generated ASP.NET Temporary Files folder or GAC) will give you a good idea of the functionality that Razor provides. If you look closely, a lot of the feature set matches ASP.NET MVC’s view implementation as well as many of the helper classes found in MVC. It’s not hard to guess the motivation for this sort of view engine: For beginning developers the simple markup syntax is easier to work with, although you obviously still need to have some understanding of the .NET Framework in order to create dynamic content. The syntax is easier to read and grok and much shorter to type than ASP.NET alligator tags (<% %>) and also easier to understand aesthetically what’s happening in the markup code. Razor also is a better fit for Microsoft’s vision of ASP.NET MVC: It’s a new view engine without the baggage of Web Forms attached to it. The engine is more lightweight since it doesn’t carry all the features and object model of Web Forms with it and it can be instantiated directly outside of the HTTP environment, which has been rather tricky to do for the Web Forms view engine. Having a standalone script parser is a huge win for other applications as well – it makes it much easier to create script or meta driven output generators for many types of applications from code/screen generators, to simple form letters to data merging applications with user customizability. For me personally this is very useful side effect and who knows maybe Microsoft will actually standardize they’re scripting engines (die T4 die!) on this engine. Razor also better fits the “view-based” approach where the view is supposed to be mostly a visual representation that doesn’t hold much, if any, code. While you can still use code, the code you do write has to be self-contained. Overall I wouldn’t be surprised if Razor will become the new standard view engine for MVC in the future – and in fact there have been announcements recently that Razor will become the default script engine in ASP.NET MVC 3.0. Razor can also be used in existing Web Forms and MVC applications, although that’s not working currently unless you manually configure the script mappings and add the appropriate assemblies. It’s possible to do it, but it’s probably better to wait until Microsoft releases official support for Razor scripts in Visual Studio. Once that happens, you can simply drop .cshtml and .vbhtml pages into an existing ASP.NET project and they will work side by side with classic ASP.NET pages. WebMatrix Development Environment To tie all of these three technologies together, Microsoft is shipping WebMatrix with an integrated development environment. An integrated gallery manager makes it easy to download and load existing projects, and then extend them with custom functionality. It seems to be a prominent goal to provide community-oriented content that can act as a starting point, be it via a custom templates or a complete standard application. The IDE includes a project manager that works with a single project and provides an integrated IDE/editor for editing the .cshtml and .vbhtml pages. A run button allows you to quickly run pages in the project manager in a variety of browsers. There’s no debugging support for code at this time. Note that Razor pages don’t require explicit compilation, so making a change, saving, and then refreshing your page in the browser is all that’s needed to see changes while testing an application locally. It’s essentially using the auto-compiling Web Project that was introduced with .NET 2.0. All code is compiled during run time into dynamically created assemblies in the ASP.NET temp folder. WebMatrix also has PHP Editing support with syntax highlighting. You can load various PHP-based applications from the WebMatrix Web Gallery directly into the IDE. Most of the Web Gallery applications are ready to install and run without further configuration, with Wizards taking you through installation of tools, dependencies, and configuration of the database as needed. WebMatrix leverages the Web Platform installer to pull the pieces down from websites in a tight integration of tools that worked nicely for the four or five applications I tried this out on. Click a couple of check boxes and fill in a few simple configuration options and you end up with a running application that’s ready to be customized. Nice! You can easily deploy completed applications via WebDeploy (to an IIS server) or FTP directly from within the development environment. The deploy tool also can handle automatically uploading and installing the database and all related assemblies required, making deployment a simple one-click install step. Simplified Database Access The IDE contains a database editor that can edit SQL Compact and SQL Server databases. There is also a Database helper class that facilitates database access by providing easy-to-use, high-level query execution and iteration methods: @{       var db = Database.OpenFile("FirstApp.sdf");     string sql = "select * from customers where Id > @0"; } <ul> @foreach(var row in db.Query(sql,1)){         <li>@row.FirstName @row.LastName</li> } </ul> The query function takes a SQL statement plus any number of positional (@0,@1 etc.) SQL parameters by simple values. The result is returned as a collection of rows which in turn have a row object with dynamic properties for each of the columns giving easy (though untyped) access to each of the fields. Likewise Execute and ExecuteNonQuery allow execution of more complex queries using similar parameter passing schemes. Note these queries use string-based queries rather than LINQ or Entity Framework’s strongly typed LINQ queries. While this may seem like a step back, it’s also in line with the expectations of non .NET script developers who are quite used to writing and using SQL strings in code rather than using OR/M frameworks. The only question is why was something not included from the beginning in .NET and Microsoft made developers build custom implementations of these basic building blocks. The implementation looks a lot like a DataTable-style data access mechanism, but to be fair, this is a common approach in scripting languages. This type of syntax that uses simple, static, data object methods to perform simple data tasks with one line of code are common in scripting languages and are a good match for folks working in PHP/Python, etc. Seems like Microsoft has taken great advantage of .NET 4.0’s dynamic typing to provide this sort of interface for row iteration where each row has properties for each field. FWIW, all the examples demonstrate using local SQL Compact files - I was unable to get a SQL Server connection string to work with the Database class (the connection string wasn’t accepted). However, since the code in the page is still plain old .NET, you can easily use standard ADO.NET code or even LINQ or Entity Framework models that are created outside of WebMatrix in separate assemblies as required. The good the bad the obnoxious - It’s still .NET The beauty (or curse depending on how you look at it :)) of Razor and the compilation model is that, behind it all, it’s still .NET. Although the syntax may look foreign, it’s still all .NET behind the scenes. You can easily access existing tools, helpers, and utilities simply by adding them to the project as references or to the bin folder. Razor automatically recognizes any assembly reference from assemblies in the bin folder. In the default configuration, Microsoft provides a host of helper functions in a Microsoft.WebPages assembly (check it out in the ASP.NET temp folder for your application), which includes a host of HTML Helpers. If you’ve used ASP.NET MVC before, a lot of the helpers should look familiar. Documentation at the moment is sketchy-there’s a very rough API reference you can check out here: http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/tutorials/asp-net-web-pages-api-reference Who needs WebMatrix? Uhm… good Question Clearly Microsoft is trying hard to create an environment with WebMatrix that is easy to use for newbie developers. The goal seems to be simplicity in providing a minimal development environment and an easy-to-use script engine/language that makes it easy to get started with. There’s also some focus on community features that can be used as starting points, such as Web Gallery applications and templates. The community features in particular are very nice and something that would be nice to eventually see in Visual Studio as well. The question is whether this is too little too late. Developers who have been clamoring for a simpler development environment on the .NET stack have mostly left for other simpler platforms like PHP or Python which are catering to the down and dirty developer. Microsoft will be hard pressed to win those folks-and other hardcore PHP developers-back. Regardless of how much you dress up a script engine fronted by the .NET Framework, it’s still the .NET Framework and all the complexity that drives it. While .NET is a fine solution in its breadth and features once you get a basic handle on the core features, the bar of entry to being productive with the .NET Framework is still pretty high. The MVC style helpers Microsoft provides are a good step in the right direction, but I suspect it’s not enough to shield new developers from having to delve much deeper into the Framework to get even basic applications built. Razor and its helpers is trying to make .NET more accessible but the reality is that in order to do useful stuff that goes beyond the handful of simple helpers you still are going to have to write some C# or VB or other .NET code. If the target is a hobby/amateur/non-programmer the learning curve isn’t made any easier by WebMatrix it’s just been shifted a tad bit further along in your development endeavor when you run out of canned components that are supplied either by Microsoft or the community. The database helpers are interesting and actually I’ve heard a lot of discussion from various developers who’ve been resisting .NET for a really long time perking up at the prospect of easier data access in .NET than the ridiculous amount of code it takes to do even simple data access with raw ADO.NET. It seems sad that such a simple concept and implementation should trigger this sort of response (especially since it’s practically trivial to create helpers like these or pick them up from countless libraries available), but there it is. It also shows that there are plenty of developers out there who are more interested in ‘getting stuff done’ easily than necessarily following the latest and greatest practices which are overkill for many development scenarios. Sometimes it seems that all of .NET is focused on the big life changing issues of development, rather than the bread and butter scenarios that many developers are interested in to get their work accomplished. And that in the end may be WebMatrix’s main raison d'être: To bring some focus back at Microsoft that simpler and more high level solutions are actually needed to appeal to the non-high end developers as well as providing the necessary tools for the high end developers who want to follow the latest and greatest trends. The current version of WebMatrix hits many sweet spots, but it also feels like it has a long way to go before it really can be a tool that a beginning developer or an accomplished developer can feel comfortable with. Although there are some really good ideas in the environment (like the gallery for downloading apps and components) which would be a great addition for Visual Studio as well, the rest of the development environment just feels like crippleware with required functionality missing especially debugging and Intellisense, but also general editor support. It’s not clear whether these are because the product is still in an early alpha release or whether it’s simply designed that way to be a really limited development environment. While simple can be good, nobody wants to feel left out when it comes to necessary tool support and WebMatrix just has that left out feeling to it. If anything WebMatrix’s technology pieces (which are really independent of the WebMatrix product) are what are interesting to developers in general. The compact IIS implementation is a nice improvement for development scenarios and SQL Compact 4.0 seems to address a lot of concerns that people have had and have complained about for some time with previous SQL Compact implementations. By far the most interesting and useful technology though seems to be the Razor view engine for its light weight implementation and it’s decoupling from the ASP.NET/HTTP pipeline to provide a standalone scripting/view engine that is pluggable. The first winner of this is going to be ASP.NET MVC which can now have a cleaner view model that isn’t inconsistent due to the baggage of non-implemented WebForms features that don’t work in MVC. But I expect that Razor will end up in many other applications as a scripting and code generation engine eventually. Visual Studio integration for Razor is currently missing, but is promised for a later release. The ASP.NET MVC team has already mentioned that Razor will eventually become the default MVC view engine, which will guarantee continued growth and development of this tool along those lines. And the Razor engine and support tools actually inherit many of the features that MVC pioneered, so there’s some synergy flowing both ways between Razor and MVC. As an existing ASP.NET developer who’s already familiar with Visual Studio and ASP.NET development, the WebMatrix IDE doesn’t give you anything that you want. The tools provided are minimal and provide nothing that you can’t get in Visual Studio today, except the minimal Razor syntax highlighting, so there’s little need to take a step back. With Visual Studio integration coming later there’s little reason to look at WebMatrix for tooling. It’s good to see that Microsoft is giving some thought about the ease of use of .NET as a platform For so many years, we’ve been piling on more and more new features without trying to take a step back and see how complicated the development/configuration/deployment process has become. Sometimes it’s good to take a step - or several steps - back and take another look and realize just how far we’ve come. WebMatrix is one of those reminders and one that likely will result in some positive changes on the platform as a whole. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET   IIS7  

  Read the article

• Issue 15: Oracle Exadata Marketing Campaigns

  - by rituchhibber

       PARTNER FOCUS Oracle ExadataMarketing Campaign Steve McNickleVP Europe, cVidya Steve McNickle is VP Europe for cVidya, an innovative provider of revenue intelligence solutions for telecom, media and entertainment service providers including AT&T, BT, Deutsche Telecom and Vodafone. The company's product portfolio helps operators and service providers maximise margins, improve customer experience and optimise ecosystem relationships through revenue assurance, fraud and security management, sales performance management, pricing analytics, and inter-carrier services. cVidya has partnered with Oracle for more than a decade. RESOURCES -- Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Oracle Exastack Program Oracle Exastack Optimized Oracle Exastack Labs and Enablement Resources Oracle Engineered Systems Oracle Communications cVidya SUBSCRIBE FEEDBACK PREVIOUS ISSUES Are you ready for Oracle OpenWorld this October? -- -- Please could you tell us a little about cVidya's partnering history with Oracle, and expand on your Oracle Exastack accreditations? "cVidya was established just over ten years ago and we've had a strong relationship with Oracle almost since the very beginning. Through our Revenue Intelligence work with some of the world's largest service providers we collect tremendous amounts of information, amounting to billions of records per day. We help our clients to collect, store and analyse that data to ensure that their end customers are getting the best levels of service, are billed correctly, and are happy that they are on the correct price plan. We have been an Oracle Gold level partner for seven years, and crucially just two months ago we were also accredited as Oracle Exastack Optimized for MoneyMap, our core Revenue Assurance solution. Very soon we also expect to be Oracle Exastack Optimized DRMap, our Data Retention solution." What unique capabilities and customer benefits does Oracle Exastack add to your applications? "Oracle Exastack enables us to deliver radical benefits to our customers. A typical mobile operator in the UK might handle between 500 million and two billion call data record details daily. Each transaction needs to be validated, billed correctly and fraud checked. Because of the enormous volumes involved, our clients demand scalable infrastructure that allows them to efficiently acquire, store and process all that data within controlled cost, space and environmental constraints. We have proved that the Oracle Exadata system can process data up to seven times faster and load it as much as 20 times faster than other standard best-of-breed server approaches. With the Oracle Exadata Database Machine they can reduce their datacentre equipment from say, the six or seven cabinets that they needed in the past, down to just one. This dramatic simplification delivers incredible value to the customer by cutting down enormously on all of their significant cost, space, energy, cooling and maintenance overheads." "The Oracle Exastack Program has given our clients the ability to switch their focus from reactive to proactive. Traditionally they may have spent 80 percent of their day processing, and just 20 percent enabling end customers to see advanced analytics, and avoiding issues before they occur. With our solutions and Oracle Exadata they can now switch that balance around entirely, resulting not only in reduced revenue leakage, but a far higher focus on proactive leakage prevention. How has the Oracle Exastack Program transformed your customer business? "We can already see the impact. Oracle solutions allow our delivery teams to achieve successful deployments, happy customers and self-satisfaction, and the power of Oracle's Exa solutions is easy to measure in terms of their transformational ability. We gained our first sale into a major European telco by demonstrating the major performance gains that would transform their business. Clients can measure the ease of organisational change, the early prevention of business issues, the reduction in manpower required to provide protection and coverage across all their products and services, plus of course end customer satisfaction. If customers know that that service is provided accurately and that their bills are calculated correctly, then over time this satisfaction can be attributed to revenue intelligence and the underlying systems which provide it. Combine this with the further integration we have with the other layers of the Oracle stack, including the telecommunications offerings such as NCC, OCDM and BRM, and the result is even greater customer value—not to mention the increased speed to market and the reduced project risk." What does the Oracle Exastack community bring to cVidya, both in terms of general benefits, and also tangible new opportunities and partnerships? "A great deal. We have participated in the Oracle Exastack community heavily over the past year, and have had lots of meetings with Oracle and our peers around the globe. It brings us into contact with like-minded, innovative partners, who like us are not happy to just stand still and want to take fresh technology to their customer base in order to gain enhanced value. We identified three new partnerships in each of two recent meetings, and hope these will open up new opportunities, not only in areas that exactly match where we operate today, but also in some new associative areas that will expand our reach into new business sectors. Notably, thanks to the Exastack community we were invited on stage at last year's Oracle OpenWorld conference. Appearing so publically with Oracle senior VP Judson Althoff elevated awareness and visibility of cVidya and has enabled us to participate in a number of other events with Oracle over the past eight months. We've been involved in speaking opportunities, forums and exhibitions, providing us with invaluable opportunities that we wouldn't otherwise have got close to." How has Exastack differentiated cVidya as an ISV, and helped you to evolve your business to the next level? "When we are selling to our core customer base of Tier 1 telecommunications providers, we know that they want more than just software. They want an enduring partnership that will last many years, they want innovation, and a forward thinking partner who knows how to guide them on where they need to be to meet market demand three, five or seven years down the line. Membership of respected global bodies, such as the Telemanagement Forum enables us to lead standard adherence in our area of business, giving us a lot of credibility, but Oracle is also involved in this forum with its own telecommunications portfolio, strengthening our position still further. When we approach CEOs, CTOs and CIOs at the very largest Tier 1 operators, not only can we easily show them that our technology is fantastic, we can also talk about our strong partnership with Oracle, and our joint embracing of today's standards and tomorrow's innovation." Where would you like cVidya to be in one year's time? "We want to get all of our relevant products Oracle Exastack Optimized. Our MoneyMap Revenue Assurance solution is already Exastack Optimised, our DRMAP Data Retention Solution should be Exastack Optimised within the next month, and our FraudView Fraud Management solution within the next two to three months. We'd then like to extend our Oracle accreditation out to include other members of the Oracle Engineered Systems family. We are moving into the 'Big Data' space, and so we're obviously very keen to work closely with Oracle to conduct pilots, map new technologies onto Oracle Big Data platforms, and embrace and measure the benefits of other Oracle systems, namely Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, the Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine and the Oracle SPARC SuperCluster. We would also like to examine how the Oracle Database Appliance might benefit our Tier 2 service provider customers. Finally, we'd also like to continue working with the Oracle Communications Global Business Unit (CGBU), furthering our integration with Oracle billing products so that we are able to quickly deploy fraud solutions into Oracle's Engineered System stack, give operational benefits to our clients that are pre-integrated, more cost-effective, and can be rapidly deployed rapidly and producing benefits in three months, not nine months." Chris Baker ,Senior Vice President, Oracle Worldwide ISV-OEM-Java Sales Chris Baker is the Global Head of ISV/OEM Sales responsible for working with ISV/OEM partners to maximise Oracle's business through those partners, whilst maximising those partners' business to their end users. Chris works with partners, customers, innovators, investors and employees to develop innovative business solutions using Oracle products, services and skills. Firstly, could you please explain Oracle's current strategy for ISV partners, globally and in EMEA? "Oracle customers use independent software vendor (ISV) applications to run their businesses. They use them to generate revenue and to fulfil obligations to their own customers. Our strategy is very straight-forward. We want all of our ISV partners and OEMs to concentrate on the things that they do the best – building applications to meet the unique industry and functional requirements of their customer. We want to ensure that we deliver a best in class application platform so the ISV is free to concentrate their effort on their application functionality and user experience We invest over four billion dollars in research and development every year, and we want our ISVs to benefit from all of that investment in operating systems, virtualisation, databases, middleware, engineered systems, and other hardware. By doing this, we help them to reduce their costs, gain more consistency and agility for quicker implementations, and also rapidly differentiate themselves from other application vendors. It's all about simplification because we believe that around 25 to 30 percent of the development costs incurred by many ISVs are caused by customising infrastructure and have nothing to do with their applications. Our strategy is to enable our ISV partners to standardise their application platform using engineered architecture, so they can write once to the Oracle stack and deploy seamlessly in the cloud, on-premise, or in hybrid deployments. It's really important that architecture is the same in order to keep cost and time overheads at a minimum, so we provide standardisation and an environment that enables our ISVs to concentrate on the core business that makes them the most money and brings them success." How do you believe this strategy is helping the ISVs to work hand-in-hand with Oracle to ensure that end customers get the industry-leading solutions that they need? "We work with our ISVs not just to help them be successful, but also to help them market themselves. We have something called the 'Oracle Exastack Ready Program', which enables ISVs to publicise themselves as 'Ready' to run the core software platforms that run on Oracle's engineered systems including Exadata and Exalogic. So, for example, they can become 'Database Ready' which means that they use the latest version of Oracle Database and therefore can run their application without modification on Exadata or the Oracle Database Appliance. Alternatively, they can become WebLogic Ready, Oracle Linux Ready and Oracle Solaris Ready which means they run on the latest release and therefore can run their application, with no new porting work, on Oracle Exalogic. Those 'Ready' logos are important in helping ISVs advertise to their customers that they are using the latest technologies which have been fully tested. We now also have Exadata Ready and Exalogic Ready programmes which allow ISVs to promote the certification of their applications on these platforms. This highlights these partners to Oracle customers as having solutions that run fluently on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud or one of our other engineered systems. This makes it easy for customers to identify solutions and provides ISVs with an avenue to connect with Oracle customers who are rapidly adopting engineered systems. We have also taken this programme to the next level in the shape of 'Oracle Exastack Optimized' for partners whose applications run best on the Oracle stack and have invested the time to fully optimise application performance. We ensure that Exastack Optimized partner status is promoted and supported by press releases, and we help our ISVs go to market and differentiate themselves through the use our technology and the standardisation it delivers. To date we have had several hundred organisations successfully work through our Exastack Optimized programme." How does Oracle's strategy of offering pre-integrated open platform software and hardware allow ISVs to bring their products to market more quickly? "One of the problems for many ISVs is that they have to think very carefully about the technology on which their solutions will be deployed, particularly in the cloud or hosted environments. They have to think hard about how they secure these environments, whether the concern is, for example, middleware, identity management, or securing personal data. If they don't use the technology that we build-in to our products to help them to fulfil these roles, they then have to build it themselves. This takes time, requires testing, and must be maintained. By taking advantage of our technology, partners will now know that they have a standard platform. They will know that they can confidently talk about implementation being the same every time they do it. Very large ISV applications could once take a year or two to be implemented at an on-premise environment. But it wasn't just the configuration of the application that took the time, it was actually the infrastructure - the different hardware configurations, operating systems and configurations of databases and middleware. Now we strongly believe that it's all about standardisation and repeatability. It's about making sure that our partners can do it once and are then able to roll it out many different times using standard componentry." What actions would you recommend for existing ISV partners that are looking to do more business with Oracle and its customer base, not only to maximise benefits, but also to maximise partner relationships? "My team, around the world and in the EMEA region, is available and ready to talk to any of our ISVs and to explore the possibilities together. We run programmes like 'Excite' and 'Insight' to help us to understand how we can help ISVs with architecture and widen their environments. But we also want to work with, and look at, new opportunities - for example, the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market or 'The Internet of Things'. Over the next few years, many millions, indeed billions of devices will be collecting massive amounts of data and communicating it back to the central systems where ISVs will be running their applications. The only way that our partners will be able to provide a single vendor 'end-to-end' solution is to use Oracle integrated systems at the back end and Java on the 'smart' devices collecting the data – a complete solution from device to data centre. So there are huge opportunities to work closely with our ISVs, using Oracle's complete M2M platform, to provide the infrastructure that enables them to extract maximum value from the data collected. If any partners don't know where to start or who to contact, then they can contact me directly at [email protected] or indeed any of our teams across the EMEA region. We want to work with ISVs to help them to be as successful as they possibly can through simplification and speed to market, and we also want all of the top ISVs in the world based on Oracle." What opportunities are immediately opened to new ISV partners joining the OPN? "As you know OPN is very, very important. New members will discover a huge amount of content that instantly becomes accessible to them. They can access a wealth of no-cost training and enablement materials to build their expertise in Oracle technology. They can download Oracle software and use it for development projects. They can help themselves become more competent by becoming part of a true community and uncovering new opportunities by working with Oracle and their peers in the Oracle Partner Network. As well as publishing massive amounts of information on OPN, we also hold our global Oracle OpenWorld event, at which partners play a huge role. This takes place at the end of September and the beginning of October in San Francisco. Attending ISV partners have an unrivalled opportunity to contribute to elements such as the OpenWorld / OPN Exchange, at which they can talk to other partners and really begin thinking about how they can move their businesses on and play key roles in a very large ecosystem which revolves around technology and standardisation." Finally, are there any other messages that you would like to share with the Oracle ISV community? "The crucial message that I always like to reinforce is architecture, architecture and architecture! The key opportunities that ISVs have today revolve around standardising their architectures so that they can confidently think: “I will I be able to do exactly the same thing whenever a customer is looking to deploy on-premise, hosted or in the cloud”. The right architecture is critical to being competitive and to really start changing the game. We want to help our ISV partners to do just that; to establish standard architecture and to seize the opportunities it opens up for them. New market opportunities like M2M are enormous - just look at how many devices are all around you right now. We can help our partners to interface with these devices more effectively while thinking about their entire ecosystem, rather than just the piece that they have traditionally focused upon. With standardised architecture, we can help people dramatically improve their speed, reach, agility and delivery of enhanced customer satisfaction and value all the way from the Java side to their centralised systems. All Oracle ISV partners must take advantage of these opportunities, which is why Oracle will continue to invest in and support them." -- Gergely Strbik is Oracle Hardware and Software Product Manager for Avnet in Hungary. Avnet Technology Solutions is an OracleValue Added Distributor focused on the development of the existing Oracle channel. This includes the recruitment and enablement of Oracle partners as well as driving deeper adoption of Oracle's technology and application products within the IT channel. "The main business benefits of ODA for our customers and partners are scalability, flexibility, a great price point for the high performance delivered, and the easily configurable embedded Linux operating system. People welcome a lower point of entry and the ability to grow capacity on demand as their business expands." "Marketing and selling the ODA requires another way of thinking because it is an appliance. We have to transform the ways in which our partners and customers think from buying hardware and software independently to buying complete solutions. Successful early adopters and satisfied customer reactions will certainly help us to sell the ODA. We will have more experience with the product after the first deliveries and installations—end users need to see the power and benefits for themselves." "Our typical ODA customers will be those looking for complete solutions from a single reseller partner who is also able to manage the appliance. They will have enjoyed using Oracle Database but now want a new product that is able to unlock new levels of performance. A higher proportion of potential customers will come from our existing Oracle base, with around 30% from new business, but we intend to evangelise the ODA on the market to see how we can change this balance as all our customers adjust to the concept of 'Hardware and Software, Engineered to Work Together'. -- Back to the welcome page

  Read the article

• Red Gate Coder interviews: Alex Davies

  - by Michael Williamson

  Alex Davies has been a software engineer at Red Gate since graduating from university, and is currently busy working on .NET Demon. We talked about tackling parallel programming with his actors framework, a scientific approach to debugging, and how JavaScript is going to affect the programming languages we use in years to come. So, if we start at the start, how did you get started in programming? When I was seven or eight, I was given a BBC Micro for Christmas. I had asked for a Game Boy, but my dad thought it would be better to give me a proper computer. For a year or so, I only played games on it, but then I found the user guide for writing programs in it. I gradually started doing more stuff on it and found it fun. I liked creating. As I went into senior school I continued to write stuff on there, trying to write games that weren’t very good. I got a real computer when I was fourteen and found ways to write BASIC on it. Visual Basic to start with, and then something more interesting than that. How did you learn to program? Was there someone helping you out? Absolutely not! I learnt out of a book, or by experimenting. I remember the first time I found a loop, I was like “Oh my God! I don’t have to write out the same line over and over and over again any more. It’s amazing!” When did you think this might be something that you actually wanted to do as a career? For a long time, I thought it wasn’t something that you would do as a career, because it was too much fun to be a career. I thought I’d do chemistry at university and some kind of career based on chemical engineering. And then I went to a careers fair at school when I was seventeen or eighteen, and it just didn’t interest me whatsoever. I thought “I could be a programmer, and there’s loads of money there, and I’m good at it, and it’s fun”, but also that I shouldn’t spoil my hobby. Now I don’t really program in my spare time any more, which is a bit of a shame, but I program all the rest of the time, so I can live with it. Do you think you learnt much about programming at university? Yes, definitely! I went into university knowing how to make computers do anything I wanted them to do. However, I didn’t have the language to talk about algorithms, so the algorithms course in my first year was massively important. Learning other language paradigms like functional programming was really good for breadth of understanding. Functional programming influences normal programming through design rather than actually using it all the time. I draw inspiration from it to write imperative programs which I think is actually becoming really fashionable now, but I’ve been doing it for ages. I did it first! There were also some courses on really odd programming languages, a bit of Prolog, a little bit of C. Having a little bit of each of those is something that I would have never done on my own, so it was important. And then there are knowledge-based courses which are about not programming itself but things that have been programmed like TCP. Those are really important for examples for how to approach things. Did you do any internships while you were at university? Yeah, I spent both of my summers at the same company. I thought I could code well before I went there. Looking back at the crap that I produced, it was only surpassed in its crappiness by all of the other code already in that company. I’m so much better at writing nice code now than I used to be back then. Was there just not a culture of looking after your code? There was, they just didn’t hire people for their abilities in that area. They hired people for raw IQ. The first indicator of it going wrong was that they didn’t have any computer scientists, which is a bit odd in a programming company. But even beyond that they didn’t have people who learnt architecture from anyone else. Most of them had started straight out of university, so never really had experience or mentors to learn from. There wasn’t the experience to draw from to teach each other. In the second half of my second internship, I was being given tasks like looking at new technologies and teaching people stuff. Interns shouldn’t be teaching people how to do their jobs! All interns are going to have little nuggets of things that you don’t know about, but they shouldn’t consistently be the ones who know the most. It’s not a good environment to learn. I was going to ask how you found working with people who were more experienced than you… When I reached Red Gate, I found some people who were more experienced programmers than me, and that was difficult. I’ve been coding since I was tiny. At university there were people who were cleverer than me, but there weren’t very many who were more experienced programmers than me. During my internship, I didn’t find anyone who I classed as being a noticeably more experienced programmer than me. So, it was a shock to the system to have valid criticisms rather than just formatting criticisms. However, Red Gate’s not so big on the actual code review, at least it wasn’t when I started. We did an entire product release and then somebody looked over all of the UI of that product which I’d written and say what they didn’t like. By that point, it was way too late and I’d disagree with them. Do you think the lack of code reviews was a bad thing? I think if there’s going to be any oversight of new people, then it should be continuous rather than chunky. For me I don’t mind too much, I could go out and get oversight if I wanted it, and in those situations I felt comfortable without it. If I was managing the new person, then maybe I’d be keener on oversight and then the right way to do it is continuously and in very, very small chunks. Have you had any significant projects you’ve worked on outside of a job? When I was a teenager I wrote all sorts of stuff. I used to write games, I derived how to do isomorphic projections myself once. I didn’t know what the word was so I couldn’t Google for it, so I worked it out myself. It was horrifically complicated. But it sort of tailed off when I started at university, and is now basically zero. If I do side-projects now, they tend to be work-related side projects like my actors framework, NAct, which I started in a down tools week. Could you explain a little more about NAct? It is a little C# framework for writing parallel code more easily. Parallel programming is difficult when you need to write to shared data. Sometimes parallel programming is easy because you don’t need to write to shared data. When you do need to access shared data, you could just have your threads pile in and do their work, but then you would screw up the data because the threads would trample on each other’s toes. You could lock, but locks are really dangerous if you’re using more than one of them. You get interactions like deadlocks, and that’s just nasty. Actors instead allows you to say this piece of data belongs to this thread of execution, and nobody else can read it. If you want to read it, then ask that thread of execution for a piece of it by sending a message, and it will send the data back by a message. And that avoids deadlocks as long as you follow some obvious rules about not making your actors sit around waiting for other actors to do something. There are lots of ways to write actors, NAct allows you to do it as if it was method calls on other objects, which means you get all the strong type-safety that C# programmers like. Do you think that this is suitable for the majority of parallel programming, or do you think it’s only suitable for specific cases? It’s suitable for most difficult parallel programming. If you’ve just got a hundred web requests which are all independent of each other, then I wouldn’t bother because it’s easier to just spin them up in separate threads and they can proceed independently of each other. But where you’ve got difficult parallel programming, where you’ve got multiple threads accessing multiple bits of data in multiple ways at different times, then actors is at least as good as all other ways, and is, I reckon, easier to think about. When you’re using actors, you presumably still have to write your code in a different way from you would otherwise using single-threaded code. You can’t use actors with any methods that have return types, because you’re not allowed to call into another actor and wait for it. If you want to get a piece of data out of another actor, then you’ve got to use tasks so that you can use “async” and “await” to await asynchronously for it. But other than that, you can still stick things in classes so it’s not too different really. Rather than having thousands of objects with mutable state, you can use component-orientated design, where there are only a few mutable classes which each have a small number of instances. Then there can be thousands of immutable objects. If you tend to do that anyway, then actors isn’t much of a jump. If I’ve already built my system without any parallelism, how hard is it to add actors to exploit all eight cores on my desktop? Usually pretty easy. If you can identify even one boundary where things look like messages and you have components where some objects live on one side and these other objects live on the other side, then you can have a granddaddy object on one side be an actor and it will parallelise as it goes across that boundary. Not too difficult. If we do get 1000-core desktop PCs, do you think actors will scale up? It’s hard. There are always in the order of twenty to fifty actors in my whole program because I tend to write each component as actors, and I tend to have one instance of each component. So this won’t scale to a thousand cores. What you can do is write data structures out of actors. I use dictionaries all over the place, and if you need a dictionary that is going to be accessed concurrently, then you could build one of those out of actors in no time. You can use queuing to marshal requests between different slices of the dictionary which are living on different threads. So it’s like a distributed hash table but all of the chunks of it are on the same machine. That means that each of these thousand processors has cached one small piece of the dictionary. I reckon it wouldn’t be too big a leap to start doing proper parallelism. Do you think it helps if actors get baked into the language, similarly to Erlang? Erlang is excellent in that it has thread-local garbage collection. C# doesn’t, so there’s a limit to how well C# actors can possibly scale because there’s a single garbage collected heap shared between all of them. When you do a global garbage collection, you’ve got to stop all of the actors, which is seriously expensive, whereas in Erlang garbage collections happen per-actor, so they’re insanely cheap. However, Erlang deviated from all the sensible language design that people have used recently and has just come up with crazy stuff. You can definitely retrofit thread-local garbage collection to .NET, and then it’s quite well-suited to support actors, even if it’s not baked into the language. Speaking of language design, do you have a favourite programming language? I’ll choose a language which I’ve never written before. I like the idea of Scala. It sounds like C#, only with some of the niggles gone. I enjoy writing static types. It means you don’t have to writing tests so much. When you say it doesn’t have some of the niggles? C# doesn’t allow the use of a property as a method group. It doesn’t have Scala case classes, or sum types, where you can do a switch statement and the compiler checks that you’ve checked all the cases, which is really useful in functional-style programming. Pattern-matching, in other words. That’s actually the major niggle. C# is pretty good, and I’m quite happy with C#. And what about going even further with the type system to remove the need for tests to something like Haskell? Or is that a step too far? I’m quite a pragmatist, I don’t think I could deal with trying to write big systems in languages with too few other users, especially when learning how to structure things. I just don’t know anyone who can teach me, and the Internet won’t teach me. That’s the main reason I wouldn’t use it. If I turned up at a company that writes big systems in Haskell, I would have no objection to that, but I wouldn’t instigate it. What about things in C#? For instance, there’s contracts in C#, so you can try to statically verify a bit more about your code. Do you think that’s useful, or just not worthwhile? I’ve not really tried it. My hunch is that it needs to be built into the language and be quite mathematical for it to work in real life, and that doesn’t seem to have ended up true for C# contracts. I don’t think anyone who’s tried them thinks they’re any good. I might be wrong. On a slightly different note, how do you like to debug code? I think I’m quite an odd debugger. I use guesswork extremely rarely, especially if something seems quite difficult to debug. I’ve been bitten spending hours and hours on guesswork and not being scientific about debugging in the past, so now I’m scientific to a fault. What I want is to see the bug happening in the debugger, to step through the bug happening. To watch the program going from a valid state to an invalid state. When there’s a bug and I can’t work out why it’s happening, I try to find some piece of evidence which places the bug in one section of the code. From that experiment, I binary chop on the possible causes of the bug. I suppose that means binary chopping on places in the code, or binary chopping on a stage through a processing cycle. Basically, I’m very stupid about how I debug. I won’t make any guesses, I won’t use any intuition, I will only identify the experiment that’s going to binary chop most effectively and repeat rather than trying to guess anything. I suppose it’s quite top-down. Is most of the time then spent in the debugger? Absolutely, if at all possible I will never debug using print statements or logs. I don’t really hold much stock in outputting logs. If there’s any bug which can be reproduced locally, I’d rather do it in the debugger than outputting logs. And with SmartAssembly error reporting, there’s not a lot that can’t be either observed in an error report and just fixed, or reproduced locally. And in those other situations, maybe I’ll use logs. But I hate using logs. You stare at the log, trying to guess what’s going on, and that’s exactly what I don’t like doing. You have to just look at it and see does this look right or wrong. We’ve covered how you get to grip with bugs. How do you get to grips with an entire codebase? I watch it in the debugger. I find little bugs and then try to fix them, and mostly do it by watching them in the debugger and gradually getting an understanding of how the code works using my process of binary chopping. I have to do a lot of reading and watching code to choose where my slicing-in-half experiment is going to be. The last time I did it was SmartAssembly. The old code was a complete mess, but at least it did things top to bottom. There wasn’t too much of some of the big abstractions where flow of control goes all over the place, into a base class and back again. Code’s really hard to understand when that happens. So I like to choose a little bug and try to fix it, and choose a bigger bug and try to fix it. Definitely learn by doing. I want to always have an aim so that I get a little achievement after every few hours of debugging. Once I’ve learnt the codebase I might be able to fix all the bugs in an hour, but I’d rather be using them as an aim while I’m learning the codebase. If I was a maintainer of a codebase, what should I do to make it as easy as possible for you to understand? Keep distinct concepts in different places. And name your stuff so that it’s obvious which concepts live there. You shouldn’t have some variable that gets set miles up the top of somewhere, and then is read miles down to choose some later behaviour. I’m talking from a very much SmartAssembly point of view because the old SmartAssembly codebase had tons and tons of these things, where it would read some property of the code and then deal with it later. Just thousands of variables in scope. Loads of things to think about. If you can keep concepts separate, then it aids me in my process of fixing bugs one at a time, because each bug is going to more or less be understandable in the one place where it is. And what about tests? Do you think they help at all? I’ve never had the opportunity to learn a codebase which has had tests, I don’t know what it’s like! What about when you’re actually developing? How useful do you find tests in finding bugs or regressions? Finding regressions, absolutely. Running bits of code that would be quite hard to run otherwise, definitely. It doesn’t happen very often that a test finds a bug in the first place. I don’t really buy nebulous promises like tests being a good way to think about the spec of the code. My thinking goes something like “This code works at the moment, great, ship it! Ah, there’s a way that this code doesn’t work. Okay, write a test, demonstrate that it doesn’t work, fix it, use the test to demonstrate that it’s now fixed, and keep the test for future regressions.” The most valuable tests are for bugs that have actually happened at some point, because bugs that have actually happened at some point, despite the fact that you think you’ve fixed them, are way more likely to appear again than new bugs are. Does that mean that when you write your code the first time, there are no tests? Often. The chance of there being a bug in a new feature is relatively unaffected by whether I’ve written a test for that new feature because I’m not good enough at writing tests to think of bugs that I would have written into the code. So not writing regression tests for all of your code hasn’t affected you too badly? There are different kinds of features. Some of them just always work, and are just not flaky, they just continue working whatever you throw at them. Maybe because the type-checker is particularly effective around them. Writing tests for those features which just tend to always work is a waste of time. And because it’s a waste of time I’ll tend to wait until a feature has demonstrated its flakiness by having bugs in it before I start trying to test it. You can get a feel for whether it’s going to be flaky code as you’re writing it. I try to write it to make it not flaky, but there are some things that are just inherently flaky. And very occasionally, I’ll think “this is going to be flaky” as I’m writing, and then maybe do a test, but not most of the time. How do you think your programming style has changed over time? I’ve got clearer about what the right way of doing things is. I used to flip-flop a lot between different ideas. Five years ago I came up with some really good ideas and some really terrible ideas. All of them seemed great when I thought of them, but they were quite diverse ideas, whereas now I have a smaller set of reliable ideas that are actually good for structuring code. So my code is probably more similar to itself than it used to be back in the day, when I was trying stuff out. I’ve got more disciplined about encapsulation, I think. There are operational things like I use actors more now than I used to, and that forces me to use immutability more than I used to. The first code that I wrote in Red Gate was the memory profiler UI, and that was an actor, I just didn’t know the name of it at the time. I don’t really use object-orientation. By object-orientation, I mean having n objects of the same type which are mutable. I want a constant number of objects that are mutable, and they should be different types. I stick stuff in dictionaries and then have one thing that owns the dictionary and puts stuff in and out of it. That’s definitely a pattern that I’ve seen recently. I think maybe I’m doing functional programming. Possibly. It’s plausible. If you had to summarise the essence of programming in a pithy sentence, how would you do it? Programming is the form of art that, without losing any of the beauty of architecture or fine art, allows you to produce things that people love and you make money from. So you think it’s an art rather than a science? It’s a little bit of engineering, a smidgeon of maths, but it’s not science. Like architecture, programming is on that boundary between art and engineering. If you want to do it really nicely, it’s mostly art. You can get away with doing architecture and programming entirely by having a good engineering mind, but you’re not going to produce anything nice. You’re not going to have joy doing it if you’re an engineering mind. Architects who are just engineering minds are not going to enjoy their job. I suppose engineering is the foundation on which you build the art. Exactly. How do you think programming is going to change over the next ten years? There will be an unfortunate shift towards dynamically-typed languages, because of JavaScript. JavaScript has an unfair advantage. JavaScript’s unfair advantage will cause more people to be exposed to dynamically-typed languages, which means other dynamically-typed languages crop up and the best features go into dynamically-typed languages. Then people conflate the good features with the fact that it’s dynamically-typed, and more investment goes into dynamically-typed languages. They end up better, so people use them. What about the idea of compiling other languages, possibly statically-typed, to JavaScript? It’s a reasonable idea. I would like to do it, but I don’t think enough people in the world are going to do it to make it pick up. The hordes of beginners are the lifeblood of a language community. They are what makes there be good tools and what makes there be vibrant community websites. And any particular thing which is the same as JavaScript only with extra stuff added to it, although it might be technically great, is not going to have the hordes of beginners. JavaScript is always to be quickest and easiest way for a beginner to start programming in the browser. And dynamically-typed languages are great for beginners. Compilers are pretty scary and beginners don’t write big code. And having your errors come up in the same place, whether they’re statically checkable errors or not, is quite nice for a beginner. If someone asked me to teach them some programming, I’d teach them JavaScript. If dynamically-typed languages are great for beginners, when do you think the benefits of static typing start to kick in? The value of having a statically typed program is in the tools that rely on the static types to produce a smooth IDE experience rather than actually telling me my compile errors. And only once you’re experienced enough a programmer that having a really smooth IDE experience makes a blind bit of difference, does static typing make a blind bit of difference. So it’s not really about size of codebase. If I go and write up a tiny program, I’m still going to get value out of writing it in C# using ReSharper because I’m experienced with C# and ReSharper enough to be able to write code five times faster if I have that help. Any other visions of the future? Nobody’s going to use actors. Because everyone’s going to be running on single-core VMs connected over network-ready protocols like JSON over HTTP. So, parallelism within one operating system is going to die. But until then, you should use actors. More Red Gater Coder interviews

  Read the article

• A way of doing real-world test-driven development (and some thoughts about it)

  - by Thomas Weller

  Lately, I exchanged some arguments with Derick Bailey about some details of the red-green-refactor cycle of the Test-driven development process. In short, the issue revolved around the fact that it’s not enough to have a test red or green, but it’s also important to have it red or green for the right reasons. While for me, it’s sufficient to initially have a NotImplementedException in place, Derick argues that this is not totally correct (see these two posts: Red/Green/Refactor, For The Right Reasons and Red For The Right Reason: Fail By Assertion, Not By Anything Else). And he’s right. But on the other hand, I had no idea how his insights could have any practical consequence for my own individual interpretation of the red-green-refactor cycle (which is not really red-green-refactor, at least not in its pure sense, see the rest of this article). This made me think deeply for some days now. In the end I found out that the ‘right reason’ changes in my understanding depending on what development phase I’m in. To make this clear (at least I hope it becomes clear…) I started to describe my way of working in some detail, and then something strange happened: The scope of the article slightly shifted from focusing ‘only’ on the ‘right reason’ issue to something more general, which you might describe as something like  'Doing real-world TDD in .NET , with massive use of third-party add-ins’. This is because I feel that there is a more general statement about Test-driven development to make:  It’s high time to speak about the ‘How’ of TDD, not always only the ‘Why’. Much has been said about this, and me myself also contributed to that (see here: TDD is not about testing, it's about how we develop software). But always justifying what you do is very unsatisfying in the long run, it is inherently defensive, and it costs time and effort that could be used for better and more important things. And frankly: I’m somewhat sick and tired of repeating time and again that the test-driven way of software development is highly preferable for many reasons - I don’t want to spent my time exclusively on stating the obvious… So, again, let’s say it clearly: TDD is programming, and programming is TDD. Other ways of programming (code-first, sometimes called cowboy-coding) are exceptional and need justification. – I know that there are many people out there who will disagree with this radical statement, and I also know that it’s not a description of the real world but more of a mission statement or something. But nevertheless I’m absolutely sure that in some years this statement will be nothing but a platitude. Side note: Some parts of this post read as if I were paid by Jetbrains (the manufacturer of the ReSharper add-in – R#), but I swear I’m not. Rather I think that Visual Studio is just not production-complete without it, and I wouldn’t even consider to do professional work without having this add-in installed... The three parts of a software component Before I go into some details, I first should describe my understanding of what belongs to a software component (assembly, type, or method) during the production process (i.e. the coding phase). Roughly, I come up with the three parts shown below:   First, we need to have some initial sort of requirement. This can be a multi-page formal document, a vague idea in some programmer’s brain of what might be needed, or anything in between. In either way, there has to be some sort of requirement, be it explicit or not. – At the C# micro-level, the best way that I found to formulate that is to define interfaces for just about everything, even for internal classes, and to provide them with exhaustive xml comments. The next step then is to re-formulate these requirements in an executable form. This is specific to the respective programming language. - For C#/.NET, the Gallio framework (which includes MbUnit) in conjunction with the ReSharper add-in for Visual Studio is my toolset of choice. The third part then finally is the production code itself. It’s development is entirely driven by the requirements and their executable formulation. This is the delivery, the two other parts are ‘only’ there to make its production possible, to give it a decent quality and reliability, and to significantly reduce related costs down the maintenance timeline. So while the first two parts are not really relevant for the customer, they are very important for the developer. The customer (or in Scrum terms: the Product Owner) is not interested at all in how  the product is developed, he is only interested in the fact that it is developed as cost-effective as possible, and that it meets his functional and non-functional requirements. The rest is solely a matter of the developer’s craftsmanship, and this is what I want to talk about during the remainder of this article… An example To demonstrate my way of doing real-world TDD, I decided to show the development of a (very) simple Calculator component. The example is deliberately trivial and silly, as examples always are. I am totally aware of the fact that real life is never that simple, but I only want to show some development principles here… The requirement As already said above, I start with writing down some words on the initial requirement, and I normally use interfaces for that, even for internal classes - the typical question “intf or not” doesn’t even come to mind. I need them for my usual workflow and using them automatically produces high componentized and testable code anyway. To think about their usage in every single situation would slow down the production process unnecessarily. So this is what I begin with: namespace Calculator {     /// <summary>     /// Defines a very simple calculator component for demo purposes.     /// </summary>     public interface ICalculator     {         /// <summary>         /// Gets the result of the last successful operation.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The last result.</value>         /// <remarks>         /// Will be <see langword="null" /> before the first successful operation.         /// </remarks>         double? LastResult { get; }       } // interface ICalculator   } // namespace Calculator So, I’m not beginning with a test, but with a sort of code declaration - and still I insist on being 100% test-driven. There are three important things here: Starting this way gives me a method signature, which allows to use IntelliSense and AutoCompletion and thus eliminates the danger of typos - one of the most regular, annoying, time-consuming, and therefore expensive sources of error in the development process. In my understanding, the interface definition as a whole is more of a readable requirement document and technical documentation than anything else. So this is at least as much about documentation than about coding. The documentation must completely describe the behavior of the documented element. I normally use an IoC container or some sort of self-written provider-like model in my architecture. In either case, I need my components defined via service interfaces anyway. - I will use the LinFu IoC framework here, for no other reason as that is is very simple to use. The ‘Red’ (pt. 1)   First I create a folder for the project’s third-party libraries and put the LinFu.Core dll there. Then I set up a test project (via a Gallio project template), and add references to the Calculator project and the LinFu dll. Finally I’m ready to write the first test, which will look like the following: namespace Calculator.Test {     [TestFixture]     public class CalculatorTest     {         private readonly ServiceContainer container = new ServiceContainer();           [Test]         public void CalculatorLastResultIsInitiallyNull()         {             ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();               Assert.IsNull(calculator.LastResult);         }       } // class CalculatorTest   } // namespace Calculator.Test       This is basically the executable formulation of what the interface definition states (part of). Side note: There’s one principle of TDD that is just plain wrong in my eyes: I’m talking about the Red is 'does not compile' thing. How could a compiler error ever be interpreted as a valid test outcome? I never understood that, it just makes no sense to me. (Or, in Derick’s terms: this reason is as wrong as a reason ever could be…) A compiler error tells me: Your code is incorrect, but nothing more.  Instead, the ‘Red’ part of the red-green-refactor cycle has a clearly defined meaning to me: It means that the test works as intended and fails only if its assumptions are not met for some reason. Back to our Calculator. When I execute the above test with R#, the Gallio plugin will give me this output: So this tells me that the test is red for the wrong reason: There’s no implementation that the IoC-container could load, of course. So let’s fix that. With R#, this is very easy: First, create an ICalculator - derived type:        Next, implement the interface members: And finally, move the new class to its own file: So far my ‘work’ was six mouse clicks long, the only thing that’s left to do manually here, is to add the Ioc-specific wiring-declaration and also to make the respective class non-public, which I regularly do to force my components to communicate exclusively via interfaces: This is what my Calculator class looks like as of now: using System; using LinFu.IoC.Configuration;   namespace Calculator {     [Implements(typeof(ICalculator))]     internal class Calculator : ICalculator     {         public double? LastResult         {             get             {                 throw new NotImplementedException();             }         }     } } Back to the test fixture, we have to put our IoC container to work: [TestFixture] public class CalculatorTest {     #region Fields       private readonly ServiceContainer container = new ServiceContainer();       #endregion // Fields       #region Setup/TearDown       [FixtureSetUp]     public void FixtureSetUp()     {        container.LoadFrom(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "Calculator.dll");     }       ... Because I have a R# live template defined for the setup/teardown method skeleton as well, the only manual coding here again is the IoC-specific stuff: two lines, not more… The ‘Red’ (pt. 2) Now, the execution of the above test gives the following result: This time, the test outcome tells me that the method under test is called. And this is the point, where Derick and I seem to have somewhat different views on the subject: Of course, the test still is worthless regarding the red/green outcome (or: it’s still red for the wrong reasons, in that it gives a false negative). But as far as I am concerned, I’m not really interested in the test outcome at this point of the red-green-refactor cycle. Rather, I only want to assert that my test actually calls the right method. If that’s the case, I will happily go on to the ‘Green’ part… The ‘Green’ Making the test green is quite trivial. Just make LastResult an automatic property:     [Implements(typeof(ICalculator))]     internal class Calculator : ICalculator     {         public double? LastResult { get; private set; }     }         One more round… Now on to something slightly more demanding (cough…). Let’s state that our Calculator exposes an Add() method:         ...   /// <summary>         /// Adds the specified operands.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="operand1">The operand1.</param>         /// <param name="operand2">The operand2.</param>         /// <returns>The result of the additon.</returns>         /// <exception cref="ArgumentException">         /// Argument <paramref name="operand1"/> is &lt; 0.<br/>         /// -- or --<br/>         /// Argument <paramref name="operand2"/> is &lt; 0.         /// </exception>         double Add(double operand1, double operand2);       } // interface ICalculator A remark: I sometimes hear the complaint that xml comment stuff like the above is hard to read. That’s certainly true, but irrelevant to me, because I read xml code comments with the CR_Documentor tool window. And using that, it looks like this:   Apart from that, I’m heavily using xml code comments (see e.g. here for a detailed guide) because there is the possibility of automating help generation with nightly CI builds (using MS Sandcastle and the Sandcastle Help File Builder), and then publishing the results to some intranet location.  This way, a team always has first class, up-to-date technical documentation at hand about the current codebase. (And, also very important for speeding up things and avoiding typos: You have IntelliSense/AutoCompletion and R# support, and the comments are subject to compiler checking…).     Back to our Calculator again: Two more R# – clicks implement the Add() skeleton:         ...           public double Add(double operand1, double operand2)         {             throw new NotImplementedException();         }       } // class Calculator As we have stated in the interface definition (which actually serves as our requirement document!), the operands are not allowed to be negative. So let’s start implementing that. Here’s the test: [Test] [Row(-0.5, 2)] public void AddThrowsOnNegativeOperands(double operand1, double operand2) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       Assert.Throws<ArgumentException>(() => calculator.Add(operand1, operand2)); } As you can see, I’m using a data-driven unit test method here, mainly for these two reasons: Because I know that I will have to do the same test for the second operand in a few seconds, I save myself from implementing another test method for this purpose. Rather, I only will have to add another Row attribute to the existing one. From the test report below, you can see that the argument values are explicitly printed out. This can be a valuable documentation feature even when everything is green: One can quickly review what values were tested exactly - the complete Gallio HTML-report (as it will be produced by the Continuous Integration runs) shows these values in a quite clear format (see below for an example). Back to our Calculator development again, this is what the test result tells us at the moment: So we’re red again, because there is not yet an implementation… Next we go on and implement the necessary parameter verification to become green again, and then we do the same thing for the second operand. To make a long story short, here’s the test and the method implementation at the end of the second cycle: // in CalculatorTest:   [Test] [Row(-0.5, 2)] [Row(295, -123)] public void AddThrowsOnNegativeOperands(double operand1, double operand2) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       Assert.Throws<ArgumentException>(() => calculator.Add(operand1, operand2)); }   // in Calculator: public double Add(double operand1, double operand2) {     if (operand1 < 0.0)     {         throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand1");     }     if (operand2 < 0.0)     {         throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand2");     }     throw new NotImplementedException(); } So far, we have sheltered our method from unwanted input, and now we can safely operate on the parameters without further caring about their validity (this is my interpretation of the Fail Fast principle, which is regarded here in more detail). Now we can think about the method’s successful outcomes. First let’s write another test for that: [Test] [Row(1, 1, 2)] public void TestAdd(double operand1, double operand2, double expectedResult) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       double result = calculator.Add(operand1, operand2);       Assert.AreEqual(expectedResult, result); } Again, I’m regularly using row based test methods for these kinds of unit tests. The above shown pattern proved to be extremely helpful for my development work, I call it the Defined-Input/Expected-Output test idiom: You define your input arguments together with the expected method result. There are two major benefits from that way of testing: In the course of refining a method, it’s very likely to come up with additional test cases. In our case, we might add tests for some edge cases like ‘one of the operands is zero’ or ‘the sum of the two operands causes an overflow’, or maybe there’s an external test protocol that has to be fulfilled (e.g. an ISO norm for medical software), and this results in the need of testing against additional values. In all these scenarios we only have to add another Row attribute to the test. Remember that the argument values are written to the test report, so as a side-effect this produces valuable documentation. (This can become especially important if the fulfillment of some sort of external requirements has to be proven). So your test method might look something like that in the end: [Test, Description("Arguments: operand1, operand2, expectedResult")] [Row(1, 1, 2)] [Row(0, 999999999, 999999999)] [Row(0, 0, 0)] [Row(0, double.MaxValue, double.MaxValue)] [Row(4, double.MaxValue - 2.5, double.MaxValue)] public void TestAdd(double operand1, double operand2, double expectedResult) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       double result = calculator.Add(operand1, operand2);       Assert.AreEqual(expectedResult, result); } And this will produce the following HTML report (with Gallio):   Not bad for the amount of work we invested in it, huh? - There might be scenarios where reports like that can be useful for demonstration purposes during a Scrum sprint review… The last requirement to fulfill is that the LastResult property is expected to store the result of the last operation. I don’t show this here, it’s trivial enough and brings nothing new… And finally: Refactor (for the right reasons) To demonstrate my way of going through the refactoring portion of the red-green-refactor cycle, I added another method to our Calculator component, namely Subtract(). Here’s the code (tests and production): // CalculatorTest.cs:   [Test, Description("Arguments: operand1, operand2, expectedResult")] [Row(1, 1, 0)] [Row(0, 999999999, -999999999)] [Row(0, 0, 0)] [Row(0, double.MaxValue, -double.MaxValue)] [Row(4, double.MaxValue - 2.5, -double.MaxValue)] public void TestSubtract(double operand1, double operand2, double expectedResult) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       double result = calculator.Subtract(operand1, operand2);       Assert.AreEqual(expectedResult, result); }   [Test, Description("Arguments: operand1, operand2, expectedResult")] [Row(1, 1, 0)] [Row(0, 999999999, -999999999)] [Row(0, 0, 0)] [Row(0, double.MaxValue, -double.MaxValue)] [Row(4, double.MaxValue - 2.5, -double.MaxValue)] public void TestSubtractGivesExpectedLastResult(double operand1, double operand2, double expectedResult) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       calculator.Subtract(operand1, operand2);       Assert.AreEqual(expectedResult, calculator.LastResult); }   ...   // ICalculator.cs: /// <summary> /// Subtracts the specified operands. /// </summary> /// <param name="operand1">The operand1.</param> /// <param name="operand2">The operand2.</param> /// <returns>The result of the subtraction.</returns> /// <exception cref="ArgumentException"> /// Argument <paramref name="operand1"/> is &lt; 0.<br/> /// -- or --<br/> /// Argument <paramref name="operand2"/> is &lt; 0. /// </exception> double Subtract(double operand1, double operand2);   ...   // Calculator.cs:   public double Subtract(double operand1, double operand2) {     if (operand1 < 0.0)     {         throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand1");     }       if (operand2 < 0.0)     {         throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand2");     }       return (this.LastResult = operand1 - operand2).Value; }   Obviously, the argument validation stuff that was produced during the red-green part of our cycle duplicates the code from the previous Add() method. So, to avoid code duplication and minimize the number of code lines of the production code, we do an Extract Method refactoring. One more time, this is only a matter of a few mouse clicks (and giving the new method a name) with R#: Having done that, our production code finally looks like that: using System; using LinFu.IoC.Configuration;   namespace Calculator {     [Implements(typeof(ICalculator))]     internal class Calculator : ICalculator     {         #region ICalculator           public double? LastResult { get; private set; }           public double Add(double operand1, double operand2)         {             ThrowIfOneOperandIsInvalid(operand1, operand2);               return (this.LastResult = operand1 + operand2).Value;         }           public double Subtract(double operand1, double operand2)         {             ThrowIfOneOperandIsInvalid(operand1, operand2);               return (this.LastResult = operand1 - operand2).Value;         }           #endregion // ICalculator           #region Implementation (Helper)           private static void ThrowIfOneOperandIsInvalid(double operand1, double operand2)         {             if (operand1 < 0.0)             {                 throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand1");             }               if (operand2 < 0.0)             {                 throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand2");             }         }           #endregion // Implementation (Helper)       } // class Calculator   } // namespace Calculator But is the above worth the effort at all? It’s obviously trivial and not very impressive. All our tests were green (for the right reasons), and refactoring the code did not change anything. It’s not immediately clear how this refactoring work adds value to the project. Derick puts it like this: STOP! Hold on a second… before you go any further and before you even think about refactoring what you just wrote to make your test pass, you need to understand something: if your done with your requirements after making the test green, you are not required to refactor the code. I know… I’m speaking heresy, here. Toss me to the wolves, I’ve gone over to the dark side! Seriously, though… if your test is passing for the right reasons, and you do not need to write any test or any more code for you class at this point, what value does refactoring add? Derick immediately answers his own question: So why should you follow the refactor portion of red/green/refactor? When you have added code that makes the system less readable, less understandable, less expressive of the domain or concern’s intentions, less architecturally sound, less DRY, etc, then you should refactor it. I couldn’t state it more precise. From my personal perspective, I’d add the following: You have to keep in mind that real-world software systems are usually quite large and there are dozens or even hundreds of occasions where micro-refactorings like the above can be applied. It’s the sum of them all that counts. And to have a good overall quality of the system (e.g. in terms of the Code Duplication Percentage metric) you have to be pedantic on the individual, seemingly trivial cases. My job regularly requires the reading and understanding of ‘foreign’ code. So code quality/readability really makes a HUGE difference for me – sometimes it can be even the difference between project success and failure… Conclusions The above described development process emerged over the years, and there were mainly two things that guided its evolution (you might call it eternal principles, personal beliefs, or anything in between): Test-driven development is the normal, natural way of writing software, code-first is exceptional. So ‘doing TDD or not’ is not a question. And good, stable code can only reliably be produced by doing TDD (yes, I know: many will strongly disagree here again, but I’ve never seen high-quality code – and high-quality code is code that stood the test of time and causes low maintenance costs – that was produced code-first…) It’s the production code that pays our bills in the end. (Though I have seen customers these days who demand an acceptance test battery as part of the final delivery. Things seem to go into the right direction…). The test code serves ‘only’ to make the production code work. But it’s the number of delivered features which solely counts at the end of the day - no matter how much test code you wrote or how good it is. With these two things in mind, I tried to optimize my coding process for coding speed – or, in business terms: productivity - without sacrificing the principles of TDD (more than I’d do either way…).  As a result, I consider a ratio of about 3-5/1 for test code vs. production code as normal and desirable. In other words: roughly 60-80% of my code is test code (This might sound heavy, but that is mainly due to the fact that software development standards only begin to evolve. The entire software development profession is very young, historically seen; only at the very beginning, and there are no viable standards yet. If you think about software development as a kind of casting process, where the test code is the mold and the resulting production code is the final product, then the above ratio sounds no longer extraordinary…) Although the above might look like very much unnecessary work at first sight, it’s not. With the aid of the mentioned add-ins, doing all the above is a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds (while writing this post took hours and days…). The most important thing is to have the right tools at hand. Slow developer machines or the lack of a tool or something like that - for ‘saving’ a few 100 bucks -  is just not acceptable and a very bad decision in business terms (though I quite some times have seen and heard that…). Production of high-quality products needs the usage of high-quality tools. This is a platitude that every craftsman knows… The here described round-trip will take me about five to ten minutes in my real-world development practice. I guess it’s about 30% more time compared to developing the ‘traditional’ (code-first) way. But the so manufactured ‘product’ is of much higher quality and massively reduces maintenance costs, which is by far the single biggest cost factor, as I showed in this previous post: It's the maintenance, stupid! (or: Something is rotten in developerland.). In the end, this is a highly cost-effective way of software development… But on the other hand, there clearly is a trade-off here: coding speed vs. code quality/later maintenance costs. The here described development method might be a perfect fit for the overwhelming majority of software projects, but there certainly are some scenarios where it’s not - e.g. if time-to-market is crucial for a software project. So this is a business decision in the end. It’s just that you have to know what you’re doing and what consequences this might have… Some last words First, I’d like to thank Derick Bailey again. His two aforementioned posts (which I strongly recommend for reading) inspired me to think deeply about my own personal way of doing TDD and to clarify my thoughts about it. I wouldn’t have done that without this inspiration. I really enjoy that kind of discussions… I agree with him in all respects. But I don’t know (yet?) how to bring his insights into the described production process without slowing things down. The above described method proved to be very “good enough” in my practical experience. But of course, I’m open to suggestions here… My rationale for now is: If the test is initially red during the red-green-refactor cycle, the ‘right reason’ is: it actually calls the right method, but this method is not yet operational. Later on, when the cycle is finished and the tests become part of the regular, automated Continuous Integration process, ‘red’ certainly must occur for the ‘right reason’: in this phase, ‘red’ MUST mean nothing but an unfulfilled assertion - Fail By Assertion, Not By Anything Else!

  Read the article

• Why should you choose Oracle WebLogic 12c instead of JBoss EAP 6?

  - by Ricardo Ferreira

  In this post, I will cover some technical differences between Oracle WebLogic 12c and JBoss EAP 6, which was released a couple days ago from Red Hat. This article claims to help you in the evaluation of key points that you should consider when choosing for an Java EE application server. In the following sections, I will present to you some important aspects that most customers ask us when they are seriously evaluating for an middleware infrastructure, specially if you are considering JBoss for some reason. I would suggest that you keep the following question in mind while you are reading the points: "Why should I choose JBoss instead of WebLogic?" 1) Multi Datacenter Deployment and Clustering - D/R ("Disaster & Recovery") architecture support is embedded on the WebLogic Server 12c product. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct D/R support included, Red Hat relies on third-part tools with higher prices. When you consider a middleware solution to host your business critical application, you should worry with every architectural aspect that are related with the solution. Fail-over support is one little aspect of a truly reliable solution. If you do not worry about D/R, your solution will not be reliable. Having said that, with Red Hat and JBoss EAP 6, you have this extra cost that will increase considerably the total cost of ownership of the solution. As we commonly hear from analysts, open-source are not so cheaper when you start seeing the big picture. - WebLogic Server 12c supports advanced LAN clustering, detection of death servers and have a common alert framework. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has limited LAN clustering support with no server death detection. They do not generate any alerts when servers goes down (only if you buy JBoss ON which is a separated technology, but until now does not support JBoss EAP 6) and manual intervention are required when servers goes down. In most cases, admin people must rely on "kill -9", "tail -f someFile.log" and "ps ax | grep java" commands to manage failures and clustering anomalies. - WebLogic Server 12c supports the concept of Node Manager, which is a separated process that runs on the physical | virtual servers that allows extend the administration of the cluster to WebLogic managed servers that are often distributed across multiple machines and geographic locations. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no equivalent technology. Whole server instances must be managed individually. - WebLogic Server 12c Node Manager supports Coherence to boost performance when managing servers. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no similar technology. There is no way to coordinate JBoss and infiniband instances provided by JBoss using high throughput and low latency protocols like InfiniBand. The Node Manager feature also allows another very important feature that JBoss EAP lacks: secure the administration. When using WebLogic Node Manager, all the administration tasks are sent to the managed servers in a secure tunel protected by a certificate, which means that the transport layer that separates the WebLogic administration console from the managed servers are secured by SSL. - WebLogic Server 12c are now integrated with OTD ("Oracle Traffic Director") which is a web server technology derived from the former Sun iPlanet Web Server. This software complements the web server support offered by OHS ("Oracle HTTP Server"). Using OTD, WebLogic instances are load-balanced by a high powerful software that knows how to handle SDP ("Socket Direct Protocol") over InfiniBand, which boost performance when used with engineered systems technologies like Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand only offers support to Apache Web Server with custom modules created to deal with JBoss clusters, but only across standard TCP/IP networks.  2) Application and Runtime Diagnostics - WebLogic Server 12c have diagnostics capabilities embedded on the server called WLDF ("WebLogic Diagnostic Framework") so there is no need to rely on third-part tools. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no diagnostics capabilities. Their only diagnostics tool is the log generated by the application server. Admin people are encouraged to analyse thousands of log lines to find out what is going on. - WebLogic Server 12c complement WLDF with JRockit MC ("Mission Control"), which provides to administrators and developers a complete insight about the JVM performance, behavior and possible bottlenecks. WebLogic Server 12c also have an classloader analysis tool embedded, and even a log analyzer tool that enables administrators and developers to view logs of multiple servers at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand relies on third-part tools to do something similar. Again, only log searching are offered to find out whats going on. - WebLogic Server 12c offers end-to-end traceability and monitoring available through Oracle EM ("Enterprise Manager"), including monitoring of business transactions that flows through web servers, ESBs, application servers and database servers, all of this with high deep JVM analysis and diagnostics. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand, even using JBoss ON ("Operations Network"), which is a separated technology, does not support those features. Red Hat relies on third-part tools to provide direct Oracle database traceability across JVMs. One of those tools are Oracle EM for non-Oracle middleware that manage JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere and IIS transparently. - WebLogic Server 12c with their JRockit support offers a tool called JRockit Flight Recorder, which can give developers a complete visibility of a certain period of application production monitoring with zero extra overhead. This automatic recording allows you to deep analyse threads latency, memory leaks, thread contention, resource utilization, stack overflow damages and GC ("Garbage Collection") cycles, to observe in real time stop-the-world phenomenons, generational, reference count and parallel collects and mutator threads analysis. JBoss EAP 6 don't even dream to support something similar, even because they don't have their own JVM. 3) Application Server Administration - WebLogic Server 12c offers a complete administration console complemented with scripting and macro-like recording capabilities. A single WebLogic console can managed up to hundreds of WebLogic servers belonging to the same domain. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited console and provides a XML centric administration. JBoss, after ten years, started the development of a rudimentary centralized administration that still leave a lot of administration tasks aside, so admin people and developers must touch scripts and XML configuration files for most advanced and even simple administration tasks. This lead applications to error prone and risky deployments. Even using JBoss ON, JBoss EAP are not able to offer decent administration features for admin people which must be high skilled in JBoss internal architecture and its managing capabilities. - Oracle EM is available to manage multiple domains, databases, application servers, operating systems and virtualization, with a complete end-to-end visibility. JBoss ON does not provide management capabilities across the complete architecture, only basic monitoring. Even deployment must be done aside JBoss ON which does no integrate well with others softwares than JBoss. Until now, JBoss ON does not supports JBoss EAP 6, so even their minimal support for JBoss are not available for JBoss EAP 6 leaving customers uncovered and subject to high skilled JBoss admin people. - WebLogic Server 12c has the same administration model whatever is the topology selected by the customer. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand differentiates between two operational models: standalone-mode and domain-mode, that are not consistent with each other. Depending on the mode used, the administration skill is different. - WebLogic Server 12c has no point-of-failures processes, and it does not need to define any specialized server. Domain model in WebLogic is available for years (at least ten years or more) and is production proven. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand needs special processes to garantee JBoss integrity, the PC ("Process-Controller") and the HC ("Host-Controller"). Different from WebLogic, the domain model in JBoss is quite new (one year at tops) of maturity, and need to mature considerably until start doing things like WebLogic domain model does. - WebLogic Server 12c supports parallel deployment model which enables some artifacts being deployed at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have any similar feature. Every deployment are done atomically in the containers. This means that if you have a huge EAR (an EAR of 120 MB of size for instance) and deploy onto JBoss EAP 6, this EAR will take some minutes in order to starting accept thread requests. The same EAR deployed onto WebLogic Server 12c will reduce the deployment time at least in 2X compared to JBoss. 4) Support and Upgrades - WebLogic Server 12c has patch management available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no patch management available, each JBoss EAP instance should be patched manually. To achieve such feature, you need to buy a separated technology called JBoss ON ("Operations Network") that manage this type of stuff. But until now, JBoss ON does not support JBoss EAP 6 so, in practice, JBoss EAP 6 does not have this feature. - WebLogic Server 12c supports previuous WebLogic domains without any reconfiguration since its kernel is robust and mature since its creation in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a proven lack of supportability between JBoss AS 4, 5, 6 and 7. Different kernels and messaging engines were implemented in JBoss stack in the last five years reveling their incapacity to create a well architected and proven middleware technology. - WebLogic Server 12c has patch prescription based on customer configuration. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such capability. People need to create ticket supports and have their installations revised by Red Hat support guys to gain some patch prescription from them. - Oracle WebLogic Server independent of the version has 8 years of support of new patches and has lifetime release of existing patches beyond that. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand provides patches for a specific application server version up to 5 years after the release date. JBoss EAP 4 and previous versions had only 4 years. A good question that Red Hat will argue to answer is: "what happens when you find issues after year 5"?  5) RAC ("Real Application Clusters") Support - WebLogic Server 12c ships with a specific JDBC driver to leverage Oracle RAC clustering capabilities (Fast-Application-Notification, Transaction Affinity, Fast-Connection-Failover, etc). Oracle JDBC thin driver are also available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand ships only the standard Oracle JDBC thin driver. Load balancing with Oracle RAC are not supported. Manual intervention in case of planned or unplanned RAC downtime are necessary. In JBoss EAP 6, situation does not reestablish automatically after downtime. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called Active GridLink for Oracle RAC which provides up to 3X performance on OLTP applications. This seamless integration between WebLogic and Oracle database enable more value added to critical business applications leveraging their investments in Oracle database technology and Oracle middleware. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no performance gains at all, even when admin people implement some kind of connection-pooling tuning. - WebLogic Server 12c also supports transaction and web session affinity to the Oracle RAC, which provides aditional gains of performance. This is particularly interesting if you are creating a reliable solution that are distributed not only in an LAN cluster, but into a different data center. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. 6) Standards and Technology Support - WebLogic Server 12c is fully Java EE 6 compatible and production ready since december of 2011. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand became fully compatible with Java EE 6 only in the community version after three months, and production ready only in a few days considering that this article was written in June of 2012. Red Hat says that they are the masters of innovation and technology proliferation, but compared with Oracle and even other proprietary vendors like IBM, they historically speaking are lazy to deliver the most newest technologies and standards adherence. - Oracle is the steward of Java, driving innovation into the platform from commercial and open-source vendors. Red Hat on the other hand does not have its own JVM and relies on third-part JVMs to complete their application server offer. 95% of Red Hat customers are using Oracle HotSpot as JVM, which means that without Oracle involvement, their support are limited exclusively to the application server layer and we all know that most problems are happens in the JVM layer. - WebLogic Server 12c supports natively JDK 7, which empower developers to explore the maximum of the Java platform productivity when writing code. This feature differentiate WebLogic from others application servers (except GlassFish that are also managed by Oracle) because the usage of JDK 7 introduce such remarkable productivity features like the "try-with-resources" enhancement, catching multiple exceptions with one try block, Strings in the switch statements, JVM improvements in terms of JDBC, I/O, networking, security, concurrency and of course, the most important feature of Java 7: native support for multiple non-Java languages. More features regarding JDK 7 can be found here. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not support JDK 7 officially, they comment in their community version that "Java SE 7 can be used with JBoss 7" which does not gives you any guarantees of enterprise support for JDK 7. - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c supports integration with Spring framework allowing Spring applications to use WebLogic special transaction manager, exposing bean interfaces to WebLogic MBeans to take advantage of all WebLogic monitoring and administration advantages. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no special integration with Spring. In fact, Red Hat offers a suspicious package called "JBoss Web Platform" that in theory supports Spring, but in practice this package does not offers any special integration. It is just a facility for Red Hat customers to have support from both JBoss and Spring technology using the same customer support. 7) Lightweight Development - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c and Oracle GlassFish are completely integrated and can share applications without any modifications. Starting with the 12c version, WebLogic now understands natively GlassFish deployment descriptors and specific configurations in order to offer you a truly and reliable migration path from a community Java EE application server to a enterprise middleware product like WebLogic. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no support to natively reuse an existing (or still in development) application from JBoss AS community server. Users of JBoss suffer of critical issues during deployment time that includes: changing the libraries and dependencies of the application, patching the DTD or XSD deployment descriptors, refactoring of the application layers due classloading issues and anomalies, rebuilding of persistence, business and web layers due issues with "usage of the certified version of an certain dependency" or "frameworks that Red Hat potentially does not recommend" etc. If you have the culture or enterprise IT directive of developing Java EE applications using community middleware to in a certain future, transition to enterprise (supported by a vendor) middleware, Oracle WebLogic plus Oracle GlassFish offers you a more sustainable solution. - WebLogic Server 12c has a very light ZIP distribution (less than 165 MB). JBoss EAP 6 ZIP size is around 130 MB, together with JBoss ON you have more 100 MB resulting in a higher download footprint. This is particularly interesting if you plan to use automated setup of application server instances (for example, to rapidly setup a development or staging environment) using Maven or Hudson. - WebLogic Server 12c has a complete integration with Maven allowing developers to setup WebLogic domains with few commands. Tasks like downloading WebLogic, installation, domain creation, data sources deployment are completely integrated. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited offer integration with those tools.  - WebLogic Server 12c has a startup mode called WLX that turns-off EJB, JMS and JCA containers leaving enabled only the web container with Java EE 6 web profile. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such feature, you need to disable manually the containers that you do not want to use. - WebLogic Server 12c supports fastswap, which enables you to change classes without redeployment. This is particularly interesting if you are developing patches for the application that is already deployed and you do not want to redeploy the entire application. This is the same behavior that most application servers offers to JSP pages, but with WebLogic Server 12c, you have the same feature for Java classes in general. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. Even JBoss EAP 5 does not support this until now. 8) JMS and Messaging - WebLogic Server 12c has a proven and high scalable JMS implementation since its initial release in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a still immature technology called HornetQ, which was introduced in JBoss EAP 5 replacing everything that was implemented in the previous versions. Red Hat loves to introduce new technologies across JBoss versions, playing around with customers and their investments. And when they are asked about why they have changed the implementation and caused such a mess, their answer is always: "the previous implementation was inadequate and not aligned with the community strategy so we are creating a new a improved one". This Red Hat practice leads to uncomfortable investments that in a near future (sometimes less than a year) will be affected in someway. - WebLogic Server 12c has troubleshooting and monitoring features included on the WebLogic console and WLDF. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct monitoring on the console, activity is reflected only on the logs, no debug logs available in case of JMS issues. - WebLogic Server 12c has extremely good performance and scalability. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a JMS storage mechanism relying on Oracle database or MySQL. This means that if an issue in production happens and Red Hat affirms that an performance issue is happening due to database problems, they will not support you on the performance issue. They will orient you to call Oracle instead. - WebLogic Server 12c supports messaging enterprise features like SAF ("Store and Forward"), Distributed Queues/Topics and Foreign JMS providers support that leverage JMS implementations without compromise developer code making things completely transparent. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand do not even dream to support such features. 9) Caching and Grid - Coherence, which is the leading and most mature data grid technology from Oracle, is available since early 2000 and was integrated with WebLogic in 2009. Coherence and WebLogic clusters can be both managed from WebLogic administrative console. Even Node Manager supports Coherence. JBoss on the other hand discontinued JBoss Cache, which was their caching implementation just like they did with the messaging implementation (JBossMQ) which was a issue for long term customers. JBoss EAP 6 ships InfiniSpan version 1.0 which is immature and lack a proven record of successful cases and reliability. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called ActiveCache which uses Coherence to, without any code changes, replicate HTTP sessions from both WebLogic and other application servers like JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere, GlassFish and even Microsoft IIS. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does have such support and even when they do in the future, they probably will support only their own application server. - Coherence can be used to manage both L1 and L2 cache levels, providing support to Oracle TopLink and others JPA compliant implementations, even Hibernate. JBoss EAP 6 and Infinispan on the other hand supports only Hibernate. And most important of all: Infinispan does not have any successful case of L1 or L2 caching level support using Hibernate, which lead us to reflect about its viability. 10) Performance - WebLogic Server 12c is certified with Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and can run unchanged applications at this engineered system. This approach can benefit customers from Exalogic optimization's of both kernel and JVM layers to boost performance in terms of 10X for web, OLTP, JMS and grid applications. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no investment on engineered systems: customers do not have the choice to deploy on a Java ultra fast system if their project becomes relevant and performance issues are detected. - WebLogic Server 12c maintains a performance gain across each new release: starting on WebLogic 5.1, the overall performance gain has been close to 4X, which close to a 20% gain release by release. JBoss on the other hand does not provide SPECJAppServer or SPECJEnterprise performance benchmarks. Their so called "performance gains" remains hidden in their customer environments, which lead us to think if it is true or not since we will never get access to those environments. - WebLogic Server 12c has industry performance benchmarks with submissions across platforms and configurations leading SPECJ. Oracle WebLogic leads SPECJAppServer performance in multiple categories, fitting all customer topologies like: dual-node, single-node, multi-node and multi-node with RAC. JBoss... again, does not provide any SPECJAppServer performance benchmarks. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called work manager which allows your application to embrace new performance levels based on critical resource utilization of the CPUs usage. Work managers prioritizes work and allocates threads based on an execution model that takes into account administrator-defined parameters and actual run-time performance and throughput. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no compared feature and probably they never will. Not supporting such feature like work managers, JBoss EAP 6 forces admin people and specially developers to uncover performance gains in a intrusive way, rewriting the code and doing performance refactorings. 11) Professional Services Support - WebLogic Server 12c and any other technology sold by Oracle give customers the possibility of hire OCS ("Oracle Consulting Services") to manage critical scenarios, deployment assistance of new applications, high skilled consultancy of architecture, best practices and people allocation together with customer teams. All OCS services are available without any restrictions, having the customer bought software from Oracle or just starting their implementation before any acquisition. JBoss EAP 6 or Red Hat to be more specifically, only offers professional services if you buy subscriptions from them. If you are developing a new critical application for your business and need the help of Red Hat for a serious issue or architecture decision, they will probably say: "OK... I can help you but after you buy subscriptions from me". Red Hat also does not allows their professional services consultants to manage environments that uses community based software. They will probably force you to first buy a subscription, download their "enterprise" version and them, optionally hire their consultants. - Oracle provides you our university to educate your team into our technologies, including of course specialized trainings of WebLogic application server. At any time and location, you can hire Oracle to train your team so you get trustful knowledge according to your specific needs. Certifications for the products are also available if your technical people desire to differentiate themselves as professionals. Red Hat on the other hand have a limited pool of resources to train your team in their technologies. Basically they are selling training and certification for RHEL ("Red Hat Enterprise Linux") but if you demand more specialized training in JBoss middleware, they will probably connect you to some "certified" partner localized training since they are apparently discontinuing their education center, at least here in Brazil. They were not able to reproduce their success with RHEL education to their middleware division since they need first sell the subscriptions to after gives you specialized training. And again, they only offer you specialized training based on their enterprise version (EAP in the case of JBoss) which means that the courses will be a quite outdated. There are reports of developers that took official training's from Red Hat at this year (2012) and in a certain JBoss advanced course, Red Hat supposedly covered JBossMQ as the messaging subsystem, and even the printed material provided was based on JBossMQ since the training was created for JBoss EAP 4.3. 12) Encouraging Transparency without Ulterior Motives - WebLogic Server 12c like any other software from Oracle can be downloaded any time from anywhere, you should only possess an OTN ("Oracle Technology Network") credential and you can download any enterprise software how many times you want. And is not some kind of "trial" version. It is the official binaries that will be running for ever in your data center. Oracle does not encourages the usage of "specific versions" of our software. The binaries you buy from Oracle are the same binaries anyone in the world could download and use for testing and personal education. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand are not available for download unless you buy a subscription and get access to the Red Hat enterprise repositories. If you need to test, learn or just start creating your application using Red Hat's middleware software, you should download it from the community website. You are not allowed to download the enterprise version that, according to Red Hat are more secure, reliable and robust. But no one of us want to start the development of a software with an unsecured, unreliable and not scalable middleware right? So what you do? You are "invited" by Red Hat to buy subscriptions from them to get access to the "cool" version of the software. - WebLogic Server 12c prices are publicly available in the Oracle website. If you want to know right now how much WebLogic will cost to your organization, just click here and get access to our price list. In the case of WebLogic, check out the "US Oracle Technology Commercial Price List". Oracle also encourages you to get in touch with a sales representative to discuss discounts that would make possible the investment into our technology. But you are not required to do this, only if you are interested in buying our technology or maybe you want to discuss some discount scenarios. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have its cost publicly available in Red Hat's website or in any other media, at least is not so easy to get such information. The only link you will possibly find in their website is a "Contact a Sales Representative" link. This is not a very good relationship between an customer and an vendor. This is not an example of transparency, mainly when the software are sold as open. In this situations, customers expects to see the software prices publicly available, so they can have the chance to decide, based on the existing features of the software, if the cost is fair or not. Conclusion Oracle WebLogic is the most mature, secure, reliable and scalable Java EE application server of the market, and have a proven record of success around the globe to prove it's majority. Don't lose the chance to discover today how WebLogic could fit your needs and sustain your global IT middleware strategy, no matter if your strategy are completely based on the Cloud or not.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 17 18 19 20 21