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• How can I map "insert='false' update='false'" on a composite-id key-property which is also used in a one-to-many FK?

  - by Gweebz

  I am working on a legacy code base with an existing DB schema. The existing code uses SQL and PL/SQL to execute queries on the DB. We have been tasked with making a small part of the project database-engine agnostic (at first, change everything eventually). We have chosen to use Hibernate 3.3.2.GA and "*.hbm.xml" mapping files (as opposed to annotations). Unfortunately, it is not feasible to change the existing schema because we cannot regress any legacy features. The problem I am encountering is when I am trying to map a uni-directional, one-to-many relationship where the FK is also part of a composite PK. Here are the classes and mapping file... CompanyEntity.java public class CompanyEntity { private Integer id; private Set<CompanyNameEntity> names; ... } CompanyNameEntity.java public class CompanyNameEntity implements Serializable { private Integer id; private String languageId; private String name; ... } CompanyNameEntity.hbm.xml <?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 3.0//EN" "http://www.jboss.org/dtd/hibernate/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd"> <hibernate-mapping package="com.example"> <class name="com.example.CompanyEntity" table="COMPANY"> <id name="id" column="COMPANY_ID"/> <set name="names" table="COMPANY_NAME" cascade="all-delete-orphan" fetch="join" batch-size="1" lazy="false"> <key column="COMPANY_ID"/> <one-to-many entity-name="vendorName"/> </set> </class> <class entity-name="companyName" name="com.example.CompanyNameEntity" table="COMPANY_NAME"> <composite-id> <key-property name="id" column="COMPANY_ID"/> <key-property name="languageId" column="LANGUAGE_ID"/> </composite-id> <property name="name" column="NAME" length="255"/> </class> </hibernate-mapping> This code works just fine for SELECT and INSERT of a Company with names. I encountered a problem when I tried to update and existing record. I received a BatchUpdateException and after looking through the SQL logs I saw Hibernate was trying to do something stupid... update COMPANY_NAME set COMPANY_ID=null where COMPANY_ID=? Hibernate was trying to dis-associate child records before updating them. The problem is that this field is part of the PK and not-nullable. I found the quick solution to make Hibernate not do this is to add "not-null='true'" to the "key" element in the parent mapping. SO now may mapping looks like this... CompanyNameEntity.hbm.xml <?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 3.0//EN" "http://www.jboss.org/dtd/hibernate/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd"> <hibernate-mapping package="com.example"> <class name="com.example.CompanyEntity" table="COMPANY"> <id name="id" column="COMPANY_ID"/> <set name="names" table="COMPANY_NAME" cascade="all-delete-orphan" fetch="join" batch-size="1" lazy="false"> <key column="COMPANY_ID" not-null="true"/> <one-to-many entity-name="vendorName"/> </set> </class> <class entity-name="companyName" name="com.example.CompanyNameEntity" table="COMPANY_NAME"> <composite-id> <key-property name="id" column="COMPANY_ID"/> <key-property name="languageId" column="LANGUAGE_ID"/> </composite-id> <property name="name" column="NAME" length="255"/> </class> </hibernate-mapping> This mapping gives the exception... org.hibernate.MappingException: Repeated column in mapping for entity: companyName column: COMPANY_ID (should be mapped with insert="false" update="false") My problem now is that I have tryed to add these attributes to the key-property element but that is not supported by the DTD. I have also tryed changing it to a key-many-to-one element but that didn't work either. So... How can I map "insert='false' update='false'" on a composite-id key-property which is also used in a one-to-many FK?

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• trying to make an accordion menu from a list - jquery indexhibit

  - by orionrush

  Hello - Im teaching my self javascript & jquery so this might be a bit of a low brow question or entirely too much code for anyone to wade through, but Im hoping for some feedback. I have looked around and haven't found a thread that looks like it will deals neatly with my question. Im using the cms indexhibit (cant create a new tag!) and trying to create an accordion style menu from the menu list it generates. I basically have the behaviour Im after, modifying an existing bit of work but there are quite a few foibles, which are no doubt a conflict between the .click and .toggle and a confused use if statements. I basically want to start from scratch and redo this so I can a) learn from my mistakes b) understand what's happening. Im having trouble now because I dont know where to go from here, or how to trouble shoot it. Can anyone give me a quick analysis how the the script in the head of the document work together? Also any insight into the nature of the conflicts Im seeing and what approach might take to remedy them? If you were going to start afresh what would be your approach? Here is a test to see it in action (warts and all): http://stillstatic.nfshost.com/ This script goes into the document head: <script type='text/javascript'> //im not entirely clear as to what this achieves path = 'path/to/script/'; $(document).ready(function() { setTimeout('move_up()', 1); expandingMenu(0); expandingMenu(1); expandingMenu(2); expandingMenu(3); expandingMenu(4); //etc }); </script> the generated list: <ul> <li class='section-title active_menu'>blogs</li> <li><a class="active" href='#' onclick="do_click();">3</a></li> </ul> <ul> //this menu section dose not have a label: class .section-title <li><a href='#' onclick="do_click();">1</a></li> <li><a href='#' onclick="do_click();">2</a></li> </ul> <ul> //this menu section is not the 'active menu' this is achieved by the jquery script <li class='section-title'>writing</li> <li><a href='#' onclick="do_click();">4</a></li> <li><a href='#' onclick="do_click();">5</a></li> </ul> The meat of in an external script: function expandingMenu(num) { var speed = 500; var menu_title = $("#menu ul").eq(num).children(":first"); // ie. first child be the title with the class .section-title unless the user turned it off var menu_items = $("#menu ul").eq(num).children().filter(function (index) { return index 0; }); // ie. any li NOT in position 0, below li.section-title if (menu_items.is(".active") == true) { menu_title.addClass("active_menu"); //Add a class to the active list so we can style it. } if (menu_title.is(".section-title") == true){ // this if prevents interference with users who turn off the section titling if ((menu_items.is(".active") == false) && (menu_items.is(":visible")) ) { menu_items.hide(0);// first we hide the inactive exhibits } $('li').click(function (){ if ( (menu_title.is(":visible") == true) ){ menu_items.hide(speed); } if ( (menu_items.is(":hidden") == true ) && (('')) ){// ?! without this second condition things break down. . . menu_items.show(speed); } }) menu_title.css({cursor:"pointer"}).toggle( // add click functions + pointer to menu_title function () { menu_items.show(speed);//Open it up }, function () { // this function could even be empty but without the if things get weird if (menu_items.is(".xx")) menu_items.hide(speed); //Take the menu item off of active duty! } ) } }

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• listbox isSelected databinding in DataTemplate

  - by Kinmarui

  I try to simply databind IsSelected property with IsSelected field in my class. But after I change the value in code its doesn't change the property, neither does clicking on ListBoxItem change the field value. XAML: <FlipView ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource itemsViewSource}}" ... > <FlipView.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <UserControl Loaded="StartLayoutUpdates" Unloaded="StopLayoutUpdates"> <!-- other controls --> <ListBox Grid.Row="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" SelectionMode="Multiple" VerticalAlignment="Center" ItemsSource="{Binding Answers}"> <ListBox.Resources> <local:LogicToText x:Key="logToText" /> </ListBox.Resources> <!-- bind IsSelected only in one way from code to content --> <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <ListBoxItem IsSelected="{Binding IsSelected, Mode=TwoWay, Converter={StaticResource logToText}}" Content="{Binding IsSelected, Mode=TwoWay, Converter={StaticResource logToText}}"> </ListBoxItem> </DataTemplate> </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate> <!-- not working at all <ListBox.Resources> <Style TargetType="ListBoxItem"> <Setter Property="IsSelected" Value="{Binding IsSelected, Mode=TwoWay}"/> <Setter Property="Content" Value="{Binding IsSelected, Mode=TwoWay}"/> </Style> </ListBox.Resources>--> </ListBox> </UserControl> </DataTemplate> </FlipView.ItemTemplate> </FlipView> Code: Answers private ObservableCollection<PrawoJazdyDataAnswer> _answers = new ObservableCollection<PrawoJazdyDataAnswer>(); public ObservableCollection<PrawoJazdyDataAnswer> Answers { get { return this._answers; } } Single item(Answer) public class PrawoJazdyDataAnswer : NPCHelper// PrawoJazdy.Common.BindableBase { public PrawoJazdyDataAnswer(String ans, bool ansb) { this._ans = ans; this._isSelected = ansb; } public override string ToString() { return _isSelected.ToString(); } //Only For debug purposes normally return _ans; private string _ans; public string Ans { get { return this._ans; } //set { this.SetProperty(ref this._ans, value); } } private bool _isSelected; public bool IsSelected { get { return this._isSelected; } set { _isSelected = value; FirePropertyChanged("IsSelected"); //this.SetProperty(ref this._isSelected, value); } } } FirePropertyChanged public class NPCHelper : INotifyPropertyChanged { public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; public void FirePropertyChanged(string prop) { if (PropertyChanged != null) PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(prop)); } } Converter(which sometimes seems to be needed and others not..., I tried ~10 approaches from different tutorials/examples) public class LogicToText : IValueConverter { /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, string language) { //if (value == null || (bool)value == false) // return "False"; return value.ToString(); } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, string language) { return value.ToString().Contains("True") ? true : false; } Thanks in advance, and sorry for my English(still learning). @edit Thanks for quick reply. For test purposes i created a button and text block: It's in other controls part (above list box, but in FlipView) <Button Click="spr" >Sprawdz</Button> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Answers[0].IsSelected, Mode=TwoWay}" > </TextBlock> Click method private void spr(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { var ans = ((PrawoJazdyDataQuestion)this.flipView.SelectedItem).Answers; foreach (var item in ans) item.IsSelected = item.IsSelected ? false : true; } As I wrote when i'm changing data from code side its change text, but not appearance of ListBoxItem, and if i just select it on ListBox its doesn't change the date i textblock neither in ListBox itself.

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• javax.servlet.ServletException: WriteText method cannot write null text

  - by Learner

  I have created a Web application using JSF+Icefaces+Richfaces+Primefaces.It is working great while I run it from eclipse as a project but When I created its WAR file and deployed in GlassFish Server then while rendering a page it is throwing this exception javax.servlet.ServletException: WriteText method cannot write null text I searched but didn't get any good solution.A quick help is highly appreciated Edit:1 I think this would be the relevant part for this <li class="page_item" id="liMasterSearch"> <!-- this is for hide (<li class="page_item hide" id="liMasterSearch"> applied to every class) --> <h:commandLink value="Search" action="#{masterRenderBean.showSimpleSearch}"></h:commandLink> </li> <li class="page_item" id="liAdvanceSearch"> <h:commandLink value="Advance Search" action="#{masterRenderBean.showADVS}"></h:commandLink> </li> Here you can see two links (1) Search and (2) Advance Search when I click on Search , It shows search page (By rendering-Actually I have included all pages in masterpage and render them on commandlink functions) <h:panelGroup rendered="#{not masterRenderBean.simpleSearch}"> <ui:include src="../../WebPages/SearchPages/MasterSearch.xhtml"></ui:include> </h:panelGroup> But When I click on Advance Search link (on which this part should render) <h:panelGroup rendered="#{not masterRenderBean.advs}"> <ui:include src="../../WebPages/SearchPages/PersonalAdvanceSearch.xhtml"/> </h:panelGroup> The browser show the above exception. NOTE: Keep in mind that this problem is occurring in deploying.It is not coming in actual application when I run it from eclipse from code EDIT:2 I found in server logs that this exception is coming due to acefaces and this portion of code <ace:autoCompleteEntry id="txtplaceofbirth" rows="10" autocomplete="false" minChars="2" width="150" value="#{inputPersonal.selectedplcofBirth}" filterMatchMode="none" valueChangeListener="#{inputPersonal.valueChangeEventCity}"> <f:selectItems value="#{inputPersonal.cities}"/> </ace:autoCompleteEntry></h:outputFormat> is messing up.Any idea Why this is hapening? Edit #3: Here is the full tack trace of exception [#|2012-11-19T09:55:48.026+0500|SEVERE|glassfish3.1.2|javax.enterprise.system.std.com.sun.enterprise.server.logging|_ThreadID=53;_ThreadName=Thread-2;|java.lang.NullPointerException: WriteText method cannot write null text at org.icefaces.impl.context.DOMResponseWriter.writeText(DOMResponseWriter.java:314) at org.icefaces.impl.context.DOMResponseWriter.writeText(DOMResponseWriter.java:340) at com.sun.faces.renderkit.html_basic.OutputMessageRenderer.encodeEnd(OutputMessageRenderer.java:163) at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.encodeEnd(UIComponentBase.java:875) at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:1764) at javax.faces.render.Renderer.encodeChildren(Renderer.java:168) at org.icefaces.impl.renderkit.RendererWrapper.encodeChildren(RendererWrapper.java:49) at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.encodeChildren(UIComponentBase.java:845) at com.sun.faces.renderkit.html_basic.HtmlBasicRenderer.encodeRecursive(HtmlBasicRenderer.java:304) at com.sun.faces.renderkit.html_basic.GroupRenderer.encodeChildren(GroupRenderer.java:105) at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.encodeChildren(UIComponentBase.java:845) at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:1757) at javax.faces.render.Renderer.encodeChildren(Renderer.java:168) at org.icefaces.impl.renderkit.RendererWrapper.encodeChildren(RendererWrapper.java:49) at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.encodeChildren(UIComponentBase.java:845) at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:1757) at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:1760) at org.icefaces.impl.context.DOMPartialViewContext.processPartial(DOMPartialViewContext.java:142) at javax.faces.component.UIViewRoot.encodeChildren(UIViewRoot.java:981) at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:1757) at com.sun.faces.application.view.FaceletViewHandlingStrategy.renderView(FaceletViewHandlingStrategy.java:391) at com.sun.faces.application.view.MultiViewHandler.renderView(MultiViewHandler.java:131) at javax.faces.application.ViewHandlerWrapper.renderView(ViewHandlerWrapper.java:288) at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.RenderResponsePhase.execute(RenderResponsePhase.java:121) at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.Phase.doPhase(Phase.java:101) at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.render(LifecycleImpl.java:139) at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.service(FacesServlet.java:594) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.service(StandardWrapper.java:1542) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:281) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:175) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.doInvoke(StandardPipeline.java:655) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:595) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:161) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.doService(CoyoteAdapter.java:331) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:231) at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper$AdapterCallable.call(ContainerMapper.java:317) at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper.service(ContainerMapper.java:195) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.invokeAdapter(ProcessorTask.java:849) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.doProcess(ProcessorTask.java:746) at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.process(ProcessorTask.java:1045) at com.sun.grizzly.http.DefaultProtocolFilter.execute(DefaultProtocolFilter.java:228) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.executeProtocolFilter(DefaultProtocolChain.java:137) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:104) at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:90) at com.sun.grizzly.http.HttpProtocolChain.execute(HttpProtocolChain.java:79) at com.sun.grizzly.ProtocolChainContextTask.doCall(ProtocolChainContextTask.java:54) at com.sun.grizzly.SelectionKeyContextTask.call(SelectionKeyContextTask.java:59) at com.sun.grizzly.ContextTask.run(ContextTask.java:71) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.doWork(AbstractThreadPool.java:532) at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.run(AbstractThreadPool.java:513) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:722) |#]

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• .NET 3.5SP1 64-bit memory model vs. 32-bit memory model

  - by James Dunne

  As I understand it, the .NET memory model on a 32-bit machine guarantees 32-bit word writes and reads to be atomic operations but does not provide this guarantee on 64-bit words. I have written a quick tool to demonstrate this effect on a Windows XP 32-bit OS and am getting results consistent with that memory model description. However, I have taken this same tool's executable and run it on a Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit OS and am getting wildly different results. Both the machines are identical specs just with different OSes installed. I would have expected that the .NET memory model would guarantee writes and reads to BOTH 32-bit and 64-bit words to be atomic on a 64-bit OS. I find results completely contrary to BOTH assumptions. 32-bit reads and writes are not demonstrated to be atomic on this OS. Can someone explain to me why this fails on a 64-bit OS? Tool code: using System; using System.Threading; namespace ConsoleApplication1 { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var th = new Thread(new ThreadStart(RunThread)); var th2 = new Thread(new ThreadStart(RunThread)); int lastRecordedInt = 0; long lastRecordedLong = 0L; th.Start(); th2.Start(); while (!done) { int newIntValue = intValue; long newLongValue = longValue; if (lastRecordedInt > newIntValue) Console.WriteLine("BING(int)! {0} > {1}, {2}", lastRecordedInt, newIntValue, (lastRecordedInt - newIntValue)); if (lastRecordedLong > newLongValue) Console.WriteLine("BING(long)! {0} > {1}, {2}", lastRecordedLong, newLongValue, (lastRecordedLong - newLongValue)); lastRecordedInt = newIntValue; lastRecordedLong = newLongValue; } th.Join(); th2.Join(); Console.WriteLine("{0} =? {2}, {1} =? {3}", intValue, longValue, Int32.MaxValue / 2, (long)Int32.MaxValue + (Int32.MaxValue / 2)); } private static long longValue = Int32.MaxValue; private static int intValue; private static bool done = false; static void RunThread() { for (int i = 0; i < Int32.MaxValue / 4; ++i) { ++longValue; ++intValue; } done = true; } } } Results on Windows XP 32-bit: Windows XP 32-bit Intel Core2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz BING(long)! 2161093208 > 2161092246, 962 BING(long)! 2162448397 > 2161273312, 1175085 BING(long)! 2270110050 > 2270109040, 1010 BING(long)! 2270115061 > 2270110059, 5002 BING(long)! 2558052223 > 2557528157, 524066 BING(long)! 2571660540 > 2571659563, 977 BING(long)! 2646433569 > 2646432557, 1012 BING(long)! 2660841714 > 2660840732, 982 BING(long)! 2661795522 > 2660841715, 953807 BING(long)! 2712855281 > 2712854239, 1042 BING(long)! 2737627472 > 2735210929, 2416543 1025780885 =? 1073741823, 3168207035 =? 3221225470 Notice how BING(int) is never written and demonstrates that 32-bit reads/writes are atomic on this 32-bit OS. Results on Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit: Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit Intel Core2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz BING(long)! 2208482159 > 2208121217, 360942 BING(int)! 280292777 > 279704627, 588150 BING(int)! 308158865 > 308131694, 27171 BING(long)! 2549116628 > 2548884894, 231734 BING(int)! 534815527 > 534708027, 107500 BING(int)! 545113548 > 544270063, 843485 BING(long)! 2710030799 > 2709941968, 88831 BING(int)! 668662394 > 667539649, 1122745 1006355562 =? 1073741823, 3154727581 =? 3221225470 Notice that BING(long) AND BING(int) are both displayed! Why are the 32-bit operations failing, let alone the 64-bit ones?

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• $.post is not working

  - by BEBO

  i am trying to post data to Mysql using jquery $.post and php page. my code is not running and nothing is added to the mysql table. I am not sure if the path i am creating is wrong but any help would be appreciated. Jquery location: f_js/tasks/TaskTest.js <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ $("#AddTask").click(function(){ var acct = $('#acct').val(); var quicktask = $('#quicktask').val(); var user = $('#user').val(); $.post('addTask.php',{acct:acct,quicktask:quicktask,user:user}, function(data){ $('#result').fadeIn('slow').html(data); }); }); }); </script> addTask.php (runs the jqeury code) <?php include 'dbconnect.php'; include 'sessions.php'; $acct = $_POST['acct']; $task = $_POST['quicktask']; $taskstatus = 'Active'; //get task Creator $user = $_POST['user']; //query task creator from users table $allusers = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = '$user'"); while ($rows = mysql_fetch_array($allusers)) { //get first and last name for task creator $taskOwner = $rows['user_firstname']; $taskOwnerLast = $rows['user_lastname']; $taskOwnerFull = $taskOwner." ".$taskOwnerLast; mysql_query("INSERT INTO tasks (taskresource, tasktitle, taskdetail, taskstatus, taskowner, taskOwnerFullName) VALUES ('$acct', '$task', '$task', '$taskstatus', '$user', '$taskOwnerFull' )"); echo "inserted"; } ?> Accountview.php finally the front page <html> <div class="input-cont "> <input type="text" class="form-control col-lg-12" placeholder="Add a quick Task..." name ="quicktask" id="quicktask"> </div> <div class="form-group"> <div class="pull-right chat-features"> <a href="javascript:;"> <i class="icon-camera"></i> </a> <a href="javascript:;"> <i class="icon-link"></i> </a> <input type="button" class="btn btn-danger" name="AddTask" id="AddTask" value="Add" /> <input type="hidden" name="acct" id="acct" value="<?php echo $_REQUEST['acctname']?>"/> <input type="hidden" name="user" id="user" value="<?php $username = $_SESSION['username']; echo $username?>"/> <div id="result">result</div> </div> </div> <!-- js placed at the end of the document so the pages load faster --> <script src="js/jquery.js"></script> <script src="f_js/tasks/TaskTest.js"></script> <!--common script for all pages--> <script src="js/common-scripts.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="assets/gritter/js/jquery.gritter.js"></script> <script src="js/gritter.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script> </html> Firebug reponse: Response Headers Connection Keep-Alive Content-Length 0 Content-Type text/html Date Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:48:50 GMT Keep-Alive timeout=5, max=100 Server Apache/2.4.4 (Win32) OpenSSL/0.9.8y PHP/5.4.16 X-Powered-By PHP/5.4.16 refresh 5; URL=index.php Request Headers Accept */* Accept-Encoding gzip, deflate Accept-Language en-US,en;q=0.5 Content-Length 13 Content-Type application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8 Cookie PHPSESSID=6gufl3guiiddreg8cdlc0htnc6 Host localhost Referer http://localhost/betahtml/AccountView.php?acctname=client%201 User-Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:25.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/25.0 X-Requested-With XMLHttpRequest

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• mysql: Bind on unix socket: Permission denied

  - by Alex

  Can't start mysql with: sudo /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/srv/mysql/myDB --log-error=/srv/mysql/logs/mysqld-myDB.log --pid-file=/srv/mysql/pids/mysqld-myDB.pid --user=mysql --socket=/srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock --port=3700 120222 13:40:48 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /srv/mysql/myDB 120222 13:40:54 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /srv/mysql/pids/mysqld-myDB.pid ended /srv/mysql/logs/mysqld-myDB.log: 120222 13:43:53 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /srv/mysql/myDB 120222 13:43:53 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled. /usr/sbin/mysqld: Table 'plugin' is read only 120222 13:43:53 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it. 120222 13:43:53 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool 120222 13:43:53 InnoDB: Started; log sequence number 32 4232720908 120222 13:43:53 [ERROR] Can't start server : Bind on unix socket: Permission denied 120222 13:43:53 [ERROR] Do you already have another mysqld server running on socket: /srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock ? 120222 13:43:53 [ERROR] Aborting 120222 13:43:53 InnoDB: Starting shutdown... One instance mysqld is running: $ ps aux | grep mysql mysql 1093 0.0 0.2 169972 18700 ? Ssl 11:50 0:02 /usr/sbin/mysqld $ Port 3700 is available: $ netstat -a | grep 3700 $ Directory with sockets is empty: $ ls /srv/mysql/sockets/ $ There are all permissions: $ ls -l /srv/mysql/ total 20 drwxrwxrwx 2 mysql mysql 4096 2012-02-22 13:28 logs drwxrwxrwx 13 mysql mysql 4096 2012-02-22 13:44 myDB drwxrwxrwx 2 mysql mysql 4096 2012-02-22 12:55 pids drwxrwxrwx 2 mysql mysql 4096 2012-02-22 12:55 sockets drwxrwxrwx 2 mysql mysql 4096 2012-02-22 13:25 version Apparmor config: $cat /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.mysqld # vim:syntax=apparmor # Last Modified: Tue Jun 19 17:37:30 2007 #include <tunables/global> /usr/sbin/mysqld flags=(complain) { #include <abstractions/base> #include <abstractions/nameservice> #include <abstractions/user-tmp> #include <abstractions/mysql> #include <abstractions/winbind> capability dac_override, capability sys_resource, capability setgid, capability setuid, network tcp, /etc/hosts.allow r, /etc/hosts.deny r, /etc/mysql/*.pem r, /etc/mysql/conf.d/ r, /etc/mysql/conf.d/* r, /etc/mysql/*.cnf r, /usr/lib/mysql/plugin/ r, /usr/lib/mysql/plugin/*.so* mr, /usr/sbin/mysqld mr, /usr/share/mysql/** r, /var/log/mysql.log rw, /var/log/mysql.err rw, /var/lib/mysql/ r, /var/lib/mysql/** rwk, /var/log/mysql/ r, /var/log/mysql/* rw, /{,var/}run/mysqld/mysqld.pid w, /{,var/}run/mysqld/mysqld.sock w, /srv/mysql/ r, /srv/mysql/** rwk, /sys/devices/system/cpu/ r, # Site-specific additions and overrides. See local/README for details. #include <local/usr.sbin.mysqld> } Any suggestions? UPD1: $ touch /srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock $ sudo chown mysql:mysql /srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock $ ls -l /srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock -rw-rw-r-- 1 mysql mysql 0 2012-02-22 14:29 /srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock $ sudo /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/srv/mysql/myDB --log-error=/srv/mysql/logs/mysqld-myDB.log --pid-file=/srv/mysql/pids/mysqld-myDB.pid --user=mysql --socket=/srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock --port=3700 120222 14:30:18 mysqld_safe Can't log to error log and syslog at the same time. Remove all --log-error configuration options for --syslog to take effect. 120222 14:30:18 mysqld_safe Logging to '/srv/mysql/logs/mysqld-myDB.log'. 120222 14:30:18 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /srv/mysqlmyDB 120222 14:30:24 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /srv/mysql/pids/mysqld-myDB.pid ended $ ls -l /srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock ls: cannot access /srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock: No such file or directory $ UPD2: $ sudo netstat -lnp | grep mysql tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1093/mysqld unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 5912 1093/mysqld /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock $ sudo lsof | grep /srv/mysql/sockets/mysql-myDB.sock lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/sears/.gvfs Output information may be incomplete. UPD3: $ cat /etc/mysql/my.cnf # # The MySQL database server configuration file. # # You can copy this to one of: # - "/etc/mysql/my.cnf" to set global options, # - "~/.my.cnf" to set user-specific options. # # One can use all long options that the program supports. # Run program with --help to get a list of available options and with # --print-defaults to see which it would actually understand and use. # # For explanations see # http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/server-system-variables.html # This will be passed to all mysql clients # It has been reported that passwords should be enclosed with ticks/quotes # escpecially if they contain "#" chars... # Remember to edit /etc/mysql/debian.cnf when changing the socket location. [client] port = 3306 socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock # Here is entries for some specific programs # The following values assume you have at least 32M ram # This was formally known as [safe_mysqld]. Both versions are currently parsed. [mysqld_safe] socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock nice = 0 [mysqld] # # * Basic Settings # # # * IMPORTANT # If you make changes to these settings and your system uses apparmor, you may # also need to also adjust /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.mysqld. # user = mysql socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock port = 3306 basedir = /usr datadir = /var/lib/mysql tmpdir = /tmp skip-external-locking # # Instead of skip-networking the default is now to listen only on # localhost which is more compatible and is not less secure. #bind-address = 127.0.0.1 # # * Fine Tuning # key_buffer = 16M max_allowed_packet = 16M thread_stack = 192K thread_cache_size = 8 # This replaces the startup script and checks MyISAM tables if needed # the first time they are touched myisam-recover = BACKUP #max_connections = 100 #table_cache = 64 #thread_concurrency = 10 # # * Query Cache Configuration # query_cache_limit = 1M query_cache_size = 16M # # * Logging and Replication # # Both location gets rotated by the cronjob. # Be aware that this log type is a performance killer. # As of 5.1 you can enable the log at runtime! #general_log_file = /var/log/mysql/mysql.log #general_log = 1 log_error = /var/log/mysql/error.log # Here you can see queries with especially long duration #log_slow_queries = /var/log/mysql/mysql-slow.log #long_query_time = 2 #log-queries-not-using-indexes # # The following can be used as easy to replay backup logs or for replication. # note: if you are setting up a replication slave, see README.Debian about # other settings you may need to change. #server-id = 1 #log_bin = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log expire_logs_days = 10 max_binlog_size = 100M #binlog_do_db = include_database_name #binlog_ignore_db = include_database_name # # * InnoDB # # InnoDB is enabled by default with a 10MB datafile in /var/lib/mysql/. # Read the manual for more InnoDB related options. There are many! # # * Security Features # # Read the manual, too, if you want chroot! # chroot = /var/lib/mysql/ # # For generating SSL certificates I recommend the OpenSSL GUI "tinyca". # # ssl-ca=/etc/mysql/cacert.pem # ssl-cert=/etc/mysql/server-cert.pem # ssl-key=/etc/mysql/server-key.pem [mysqldump] quick quote-names max_allowed_packet = 16M [mysql] #no-auto-rehash # faster start of mysql but no tab completition [isamchk] key_buffer = 16M # # * IMPORTANT: Additional settings that can override those from this file! # The files must end with '.cnf', otherwise they'll be ignored. # !includedir /etc/mysql/conf.d/

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• l2tp / ipsec debian Openswan U2.6.38 does not connect

  - by locojay

  i am trying to get ipsec/l2tp running on a debian server with an iphone as a client but always get: Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [RFC 3947] method set to=115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike] meth=114, but already using method 115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-08] meth=113, but already using method 115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-07] meth=112, but already using method 115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-06] meth=111, but already using method 115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-05] meth=110, but already using method 115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-04] meth=109, but already using method 115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-03] meth=108, but already using method 115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-02] meth=107, but already using method 115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-02_n] meth=106, but already using method 115 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: ignoring Vendor ID payload [FRAGMENTATION 80000000] Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:43598: received Vendor ID payload [Dead Peer Detection] Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[4] <clientip> #20: responding to Main Mode from unknown peer <clientip> Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[4] <clientip> #20: transition from state STATE_MAIN_R0 to state STATE_MAIN_R1 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[4] <clientip> #20: STATE_MAIN_R1: sent MR1, expecting MI2 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[4] <clientip> #20: NAT-Traversal: Result using draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike (MacOS X): both are NATed Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[4] <clientip> #20: transition from state STATE_MAIN_R1 to state STATE_MAIN_R2 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[4] <clientip> #20: STATE_MAIN_R2: sent MR2, expecting MI3 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[4] <clientip> #20: ignoring informational payload, type IPSEC_INITIAL_CONTACT msgid=00000000 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[4] <clientip> #20: Main mode peer ID is ID_IPV4_ADDR: '10.2.210.176' Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[4] <clientip> #20: switched from "L2TP-PSK-noNAT" to "L2TP-PSK-noNAT" Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: deleting connection "L2TP-PSK-noNAT" instance with peer <clientip> {isakmp=#0/ipsec=#0} Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: transition from state STATE_MAIN_R2 to state STATE_MAIN_R3 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: new NAT mapping for #20, was <clientip>:43598, now <clientip>:49826 Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: STATE_MAIN_R3: sent MR3, ISAKMP SA established {auth=OAKLEY_PRESHARED_KEY cipher=aes_256 prf=oakley_sha group=modp1024} Dec 2 21:00:04 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: Dead Peer Detection (RFC 3706): enabled Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: the peer proposed: <public ip>/32:17/1701 -> 10.2.210.176/32:17/0 Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: NAT-Traversal: received 2 NAT-OA. using first, ignoring others Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #21: responding to Quick Mode proposal {msgid:311d3282} Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #21: us: 171.138.2.13<171.138.2.13>:17/1701 Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #21: them: <clientip>[10.2.210.176]:17/61719 Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #21: transition from state STATE_QUICK_R0 to state STATE_QUICK_R1 Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #21: STATE_QUICK_R1: sent QR1, inbound IPsec SA installed, expecting QI2 Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #21: Dead Peer Detection (RFC 3706): enabled Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #21: transition from state STATE_QUICK_R1 to state STATE_QUICK_R2 Dec 2 21:00:05 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #21: STATE_QUICK_R2: IPsec SA established transport mode {ESP=>0x05e23c9a <0x216077a9 xfrm=AES_256-HMAC_SHA1 NATOA=10.2.210.176 NATD=<clientip>:49826 DPD=enabled} Dec 2 21:00:26 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: received Delete SA(0x05e23c9a) payload: deleting IPSEC State #21 Dec 2 21:00:26 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: received and ignored informational message Dec 2 21:00:27 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip> #20: received Delete SA payload: deleting ISAKMP State #20 Dec 2 21:00:27 vpn pluto[22711]: "L2TP-PSK-noNAT"[5] <clientip>: deleting connection "L2TP-PSK-noNAT" instance with peer <clientip> {isakmp=#0/ipsec=#0} Dec 2 21:00:27 vpn pluto[22711]: packet from <clientip>:49826: received and ignored informational message Dec 2 21:00:27 vpn pluto[22711]: ERROR: asynchronous network error report on eth0 (sport=4500) for message to <clientip> port 49826, complainant <clientip>: Connection refused [errno 111, origin ICMP type 3 code 3 (not authenticated)] my setup looks like this verizon fios actiontec -- DMZ-- ddwrt router -- debian xen instance actiontec : 192.168.1.1 ddwrt: 171.138.2.1 debian xen server: 171.138.2.13 forwarded udp 500, 4500, 1701 on ddwrt to debian xen instance. vpn passthrough is enabled /etc/ipsec.conf config setup dumpdir=/var/run/pluto/ nat_traversal=yes virtual_private=%v4:10.0.0.0/8,%v4:192.168.0.0/16,%v4:172.16.0.0/12,%v4:25.0.0.0/8,%v6:fd00::/8,%v6:fe80::/10,%v4:!171.138.2.0/24,%v4:!192.168.1.0/24 protostack=netkey # Add connections here conn L2TP-PSK-NAT rightsubnet=vhost:%priv also=L2TP-PSK-noNAT conn L2TP-PSK-noNAT authby=secret pfs=no auto=add keyingtries=3 # we cannot rekey for %any, let client rekey rekey=no # Apple iOS doesn't send delete notify so we need dead peer detection # to detect vanishing clients dpddelay=30 dpdtimeout=120 dpdaction=clear # Set ikelifetime and keylife to same defaults windows has ikelifetime=8h keylife=1h # l2tp-over-ipsec is transport mode type=transport # left=171.138.2.13 # # For updated Windows 2000/XP clients, # to support old clients as well, use leftprotoport=17/%any leftprotoport=17/1701 # # The remote user. # right=%any # Using the magic port of "%any" means "any one single port". This is # a work around required for Apple OSX clients that use a randomly # high port. rightprotoport=17/%any #force all to be nat'ed. because of ios conn passthrough-for-non-l2tp type=passthrough left=171.138.2.13 leftnexthop=171.138.2.1 right=0.0.0.0 rightsubnet=0.0.0.0/0 auto=route /etc/xl2tp/xl2tp.conf [global] ipsec saref = no listen-addr = 171.138.2.13 ;port = 1701 ;debug network = yes ;debug tunnel = yes ;debug network = yes ;debug packet = yes [lns default] ip range = 171.138.2.231-171.138.2.239 local ip = 171.138.2.13 assign ip = yes require chap = no refuse pap = no require authentication = no ;name = OpenswanVPN ppp debug = yes pppoptfile = /etc/ppp/options.xlt2tpd lenght bit = yes /etc/ppp/options.xl2tpd ;require-mschap-v2 pcp-accept-local ipcp-accept-local ipcp-accept-remote ;ms-dns 171.138.2.1 ms-dns 192.168.1.1 ms-dns 8.8.8.8 name l2tpd noccp auth crtscts idle 1800 mtu 1410 mru 1410 lock proxyarp connect-delay 5000 debug dump logfd 2 logfile /var/log/xl2tpd.log ipsec verify Checking your system to see if IPsec got installed and started correctly: Version check and ipsec on-path [OK] Linux Openswan U2.6.38/K3.0.0-1-amd64 (netkey) Checking for IPsec support in kernel [OK] SAref kernel support [N/A] NETKEY: Testing XFRM related proc values [OK] [OK] [OK] Checking that pluto is running [OK] Pluto listening for IKE on udp 500 [OK] Pluto listening for NAT-T on udp 4500 [OK] Two or more interfaces found, checking IP forwarding [FAILED] Checking NAT and MASQUERADEing [OK] Checking for 'ip' command [OK] Checking /bin/sh is not /bin/dash [WARNING] Checking for 'iptables' command [OK] Opportunistic Encryption Support [DISABLED] The failed can be ignored i guess since cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward returns 1 any help would be much appreciated as i don't have any idea why this is not working

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• Spam Assassin on windows

  - by ebeworld

  I just installed spam assassin and run for its sample ham mail as spamassassin sample-nonspam.txt, but it ended up marking it as a spam. What configuration am i missing to change? Result of the check is: From: Keith Dawson To: [email protected] Subject: **SPAM** TBTF ping for 2001-04-20: Reviving Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 16:59:58 -0400 Message-Id: X-Spam-Flag: YES X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on ebeworld-PC X-Spam-Level: **** X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=10.5 required=6.3 tests=DCC_CHECK,DIGEST_MULTIPLE, DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS,RAZOR2_CF_RANGE_51_100,RAZOR2_CF_RANGE_E4_51_100, RAZOR2_CHECK shortcircuit=no autolearn=no version=3.2.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----------=_4BF17E8E.BF8E0000" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------------=_4BF17E8E.BF8E0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit This mail is probably spam. The original message has been attached intact in RFC 822 format. Content preview: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- TBTF ping for 2001-04-20: Reviving T a s t y B i t s f r o m t h e T e c h n o l o g y F r o n t [...] Content analysis details: (10.5 points, 6.3 required) 2.4 DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS RBL: Envelope sender listed in bl.open-whois.org. 1.5 RAZOR2_CF_RANGE_E4_51_100 Razor2 gives engine 4 confidence level above 50% [cf: 58] 2.5 RAZOR2_CHECK Listed in Razor2 (http://razor.sf.net/) 0.5 RAZOR2_CF_RANGE_51_100 Razor2 gives confidence level above 50% [cf: 58] 3.6 DCC_CHECK Listed in DCC (http://rhyolite.com/anti-spam/dcc/) 0.0 DIGEST_MULTIPLE Message hits more than one network digest check ------------=_4BF17E8E.BF8E0000 Content-Type: message/rfc822; x-spam-type=original Content-Description: original message before SpamAssassin Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-Path: Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from europe.std.com (europe.std.com [199.172.62.20]) by mail.netnoteinc.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 392E1114061 for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 21:34:46 +0000 (Eire) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by europe.std.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id RAA09630 for tbtf-outgoing; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 17:31:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: from sgi04-e.std.com (sgi04-e.std.com [199.172.62.134]) by europe.std.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA08749 for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 17:24:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: from world.std.com (world-f.std.com [199.172.62.5]) by sgi04-e.std.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA8278330 for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 17:24:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dawson@localhost) by world.std.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id RAA26781 for [email protected]; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 17:24:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: from sgi04-e.std.com (sgi04-e.std.com [199.172.62.134]) by europe.std.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA07541 for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 17:12:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: from world.std.com (world-f.std.com [199.172.62.5]) by sgi04-e.std.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA8416421 for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 17:12:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [208.192.102.193] (ppp0c199.std.com [208.192.102.199]) by world.std.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA14226 for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 17:12:04 -0400 (EDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 16:59:58 -0400 To: [email protected] From: Keith Dawson Subject: TBTF ping for 2001-04-20: Reviving Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: [email protected] Precedence: list Reply-To: [email protected] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- TBTF ping for 2001-04-20: Reviving T a s t y B i t s f r o m t h e T e c h n o l o g y F r o n t Timely news of the bellwethers in computer and communications technology that will affect electronic commerce -- since 1994 Your Host: Keith Dawson ISSN: 1524-9948 This issue: < http://tbtf.com/archive/2001-04-20.html > To comment on this issue, please use this forum at Quick Topic: < http://www.quicktopic.com/tbtf/H/kQGJR2TXL6H > ________________________________________________________________________ Q u o t e O f T h e M o m e n t Even organizations that promise "privacy for their customers" rarely if ever promise "continued privacy for their former customers..." Once you cancel your account with any business, their promises of keeping the information about their customers private no longer apply... you're not a customer any longer. This is in the large category of business behaviors that individuals would consider immoral and deceptive -- and businesses know are not illegal. -- "_ankh," writing on the XNStalk mailing list ________________________________________________________________________ ..TBTF's long hiatus is drawing to a close Hail subscribers to the TBTF mailing list. Some 2,000 [1] of you have signed up since the last issue [2] was mailed on 2000-07-20. This brief note is the first of several I will send to this list to excise the dead addresses prior to resuming regular publication. While you time the contractions of the newsletter's rebirth, I in- vite you to read the TBTF Log [3] and sign up for its separate free subscription. Send "subscribe" (no quotes) with any subject to [email protected] . I mail out collected Log items on Sun- days. If you need to stay more immediately on top of breaking stories, pick up the TBTF Log's syndication file [4] or read an aggregator that does. Examples are Slashdot's Cheesy Portal [5], Userland [6], and Sitescooper [7]. If your news obsession runs even deeper and you own an SMS-capable cell phone or PDA, sign up on TBTF's WebWire- lessNow portal [8]. A free call will bring you the latest TBTF Log headline, Jargon Scout [9] find, or Siliconium [10]. Two new columnists have bloomed on TBTF since last summer: Ted By- field's roving_reporter [11] and Gary Stock's UnBlinking [12]. Late- ly Byfield has been writing in unmatched depth about ICANN, but the roving_reporter nym's roots are in commentary at the intersection of technology and culture. Stock's UnBlinking latches onto topical sub- jects and pursues them to the ends of the Net. These writers' voices are compelling and utterly distinctive. [1] http://tbtf.com/growth.html [2] http://tbtf.com/archive/2000-07-20.html [3] http://tbtf.com/blog/ [4] http://tbtf.com/tbtf.rdf [5] http://www.slashdot.org/cheesyportal.shtml [6] http://my.userland.com/ [7] http://www.sitescooper.org/ [8] http://tbtf.com/pull-wwn/ [9] http://tbtf.com/jargon-scout.html [10] http://tbtf.com/siliconia.html [11] http://tbtf.com/roving_reporter/ [12] http://tbtf.com/unblinking/ ________________________________________________________________________ S o u r c e s For a complete list of TBTF's email and Web sources, see http://tbtf.com/sources.html . ________________________________________ B e n e f a c t o r s TBTF is free. If you get value from this publication, please visit the TBTF Benefactors page < http://tbtf.com/the-benefactors.html > and consider contributing to its upkeep. ________________________________________________________________________ TBTF home and archive at http://tbtf.com/ . To unsubscribe send the message "unsubscribe" to [email protected]. TBTF is Copy- right 1994-2000 by Keith Dawson, <[email protected]>. Commercial use prohibited. For non-commercial purposes please forward, post, and link as you see fit. _______________________________________________ Keith Dawson [email protected] Layer of ash separates morning and evening milk. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.2 for non-commercial use http://www.pgp.com iQCVAwUBOuCi3WAMawgf2iXRAQHeAQQA3YSePSQ0XzdHZUVskFDkTfpE9XS4fHQs WaT6a8qLZK9PdNcoz3zggM/Jnjdx6CJqNzxPEtxk9B2DoGll/C/60HWNPN+VujDu Xav65S0P+Px4knaQcCIeCamQJ7uGcsw+CqMpNbxWYaTYmjAfkbKH1EuLC2VRwdmD wQmwrDp70v8= =8hLB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------=_4BF17E8E.BF8E0000--

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• How mod_cache working with "must-revalidate" and "max-age"?

  - by Dmitriy Sosunov

  Quick question before I will explain my flow: ?an mod_cache perform revalidate with if-none-match only if max-age is expired in case if it configured in reverse proxy mode? My goal is to reduce a number of revalidation requests to our the origin server. For instance: The first request goes to the origin server and then mod_cache save a response in to the cache according to header cache-control: max-age. And only when max-age is expired then mod_cache will revalidate with if-none-match. Currently, mod_cache revalidate each request, regardless that max-age is defined or not. My configuration of Apache 2.4.3 (Windows), on linux I see the same behavior that I will show below. ServerName proxy.lo ProxyRequests Off ProxyPreserveHost Off Header set Vary "Accept, Content-Type, Content-Encoding, Accept-Language" RequestHeader set X-Forwarded-Proto "http" # modify header for user agent's Header set Cache-Control "private, no-cache, no-store, no-transform" CacheQuickHandler off CacheDefaultExpire 300 # the origin server do not provide last-modified CacheIgnoreNoLastMod On CacheIgnoreCacheControl On # the origin server define cache-control: private, no-store only for user agents # Therefore, I would like ignore those headers on the proxy server. CacheStorePrivate On CacheStoreNoStore On CacheEnable disk / CacheRoot "C:/Apache.Cache" CacheDirLevels 5 CacheDirLength 4 CacheMinExpire 15 CacheDetailHeader on CacheHeader on KeepAlive Off ProxyPass / http://origin.lo/ ProxyPassReverse / http://origin.lo/ Also, I have turned on debug log level to see how mod_cache handles a content for caching: I provided this to show that mod_proxy always decides that a content isn't fresh. Why?I provided this to show that mod_proxy always decide that a content isn't fresh. Why? max-age was provided (see below). [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.899890 2012] [cache:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] cache_storage.c(624): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00698: cache: Key for entity /testpage?(null) is http://proxy.lo/testpage? [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.899890 2012] [cache_disk:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] mod_cache_disk.c(569): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00709: Recalled cached URL info header http://proxy.lo/testpage? [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.899890 2012] [cache_disk:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] mod_cache_disk.c(865): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00720: Recalled headers for URL http://proxy.lo/testpage? [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.899890 2012] [cache:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] cache_storage.c(320): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00695: Cached response for /testpage isn't fresh. Adding/replacing conditional request headers. [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.899890 2012] [cache:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] mod_cache.c(414): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00757: Adding CACHE_SAVE filter for /testpage [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.899890 2012] [cache:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] mod_cache.c(448): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00759: Adding CACHE_REMOVE_URL filter for /testpage [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.899890 2012] [proxy:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] mod_proxy.c(1068): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH01143: Running scheme http handler (attempt 0) [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.899890 2012] [proxy:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] proxy_util.c(1976): AH00942: HTTP: has acquired connection for (origin.lo) [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.899890 2012] [proxy:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] proxy_util.c(2029): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00944: connecting http://origin.lo/testpage to origin.lo:80 [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.901890 2012] [proxy:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] proxy_util.c(2151): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00947: connected /testpage to origin.lo:80 [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.901890 2012] [proxy:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] proxy_util.c(2554): AH00962: HTTP: connection complete to 192.168.1.100:80 (origin.lo) [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.903890 2012] [proxy:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] proxy_util.c(1991): AH00943: http: has released connection for (origin.lo) [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.903890 2012] [headers:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] mod_headers.c(800): AH01502: headers: ap_headers_output_filter() [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.903890 2012] [cache:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] mod_cache.c(1190): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00769: cache: Caching url: /testpage [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.903890 2012] [cache:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] mod_cache.c(1196): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00770: cache: Removing CACHE_REMOVE_URL filter. [Sun Nov 04 11:58:42.904890 2012] [cache_disk:debug] [pid 6492:tid 1400] mod_cache_disk.c(1318): [client 192.168.1.100:63741] AH00737: commit_entity: Headers and body for URL http://proxy.lo/testpage? cached. The first request to the origin server without mod_proxy to http://origin.lo/ GET http://origin.lo/testpage HTTP/1.1 Host: origin.lo Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/22.0.1229.94 Safari/537.4 Accept: application/json Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8 Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3 The first response from the origin without mod_proxy HTTP/1.1 200 OK Cache-Control: must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate, max-age=30 Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 ETag: "7cf651e2-176f-4ac1-808e-0e0c17cfd0a2" Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5 X-AspNet-Version: 4.0.30319 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2012 10:11:01 GMT Content-Length: 1877 So, I assumed that revalidation must be occur only in 30 seconds after the success response. Is't right? Let's check it:) Within 30 sec, the Google Chrome didn't perform any requests to the origin server to revalidate a request and has return the response from local cache. When max-age is expired, the Google Chrome perform a request to revalidate: GET http://origin.lo/testpage HTTP/1.1 Host: origin.lo Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/22.0.1229.94 Safari/537.4 Accept: application/xml If-None-Match: "7cf651e2-176f-4ac1-808e-0e0c17cfd0a2" Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8 Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3 and response: HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified Cache-Control: must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate, max-age=30 ETag: "7cf651e2-176f-4ac1-808e-0e0c17cfd0a2" Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5 X-AspNet-Version: 4.0.30319 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2012 10:16:20 GMT As you can see, all works as expected. User agent revalidates request only when max-age is expired. Let's now try perform the folling flow though mod_proxy (see configuration above). The first request: GET http://proxy.lo/testpage HTTP/1.1 Host: proxy.lo Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/22.0.1229.94 Safari/537.4 Accept: application/json Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8 Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3 and the response was: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2012 10:23:36 GMT Server: Apache Cache-Control: private, no-cache, no-store, no-transform Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 ETag: "7cf651e2-176f-4ac1-808e-0e0c17cfd0a2" Content-Length: 1932 Vary: Accept,Content-Type,Content-Encoding,Accept-Language X-Cache: MISS from proxy.lo X-Cache-Detail: "cache miss: attempting entity save" from proxy.lo Connection: close Ok, let's see to the disk cache and try to see how request and response was stored. (I cut binary data) http://proxy.lo/testpage? Cache-Control: private, no-cache, no-store, no-transform Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 ETag: "7cf651e2-176f-4ac1-808e-0e0c17cfd0a2" Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2012 10:27:15 GMT Content-Length: 1932 Vary: Accept, Content-Type, Content-Encoding, Accept-Language Host: proxy.lo User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/22.0.1229.94 Safari/537.4 Accept: application/json Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8 Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3 X-Forwarded-Proto: http Cache-Control: max-age=300, must-revalidate X-Forwarded-For: 192.168.1.100 X-Forwarded-Host: proxy.lo X-Forwarded-Server: origin.lo Ok, what we see? We see that the first request was performed with max-age=300 & must-revalidate Ok, looks good, as for me, lets perform the next call: GET http://proxy.lo/testpage HTTP/1.1 Host: proxy.lo Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/22.0.1229.94 Safari/537.4 Accept: application/json Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8 Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3 and the second response from mod_proxy: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2012 10:31:58 GMT Server: Apache Cache-Control: private, no-cache, no-store, no-transform ETag: "7cf651e2-176f-4ac1-808e-0e0c17cfd0a2" Content-Length: 1932 Vary: Accept,Content-Type,Content-Encoding,Accept-Language X-Cache: REVALIDATE from proxy.lo X-Cache-Detail: "conditional cache hit: entity refreshed" from proxy.lo Connection: close Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 SO, MY QUESTION IS: WHY mod_proxy perform revalidation on each request regardless that max-age is defined? N.B. Apache 2.4.3 Thanks, I would be grateful for any help.

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• Stop duplicate icmp echo replies when bridging to a dummy interface?

  - by mbrownnyc

  I recently configured a bridge br0 with members as eth0 (real if) and dummy0 (dummy.ko if). When I ping this machine, I receive duplicate replies as: # ping SERVERA PING SERVERA.domain.local (192.168.100.115) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from SERVERA.domain.local (192.168.100.115): icmp_seq=1 ttl=62 time=113 ms 64 bytes from SERVERA.domain.local (192.168.100.115): icmp_seq=1 ttl=62 time=114 ms (DUP!) 64 bytes from SERVERA.domain.local (192.168.100.115): icmp_seq=2 ttl=62 time=113 ms 64 bytes from SERVERA.domain.local (192.168.100.115): icmp_seq=2 ttl=62 time=113 ms (DUP!) Using tcpdump on SERVERA, I was able to see icmp echo replies being sent from eth0 and br0 itself as follows (oddly two echo request packets arrive "from" my Windows box myhost): 23:19:05.324192 IP myhost.domain.local > SERVERA.domain.local: ICMP echo request, id 512, seq 43781, length 40 23:19:05.324212 IP SERVERA.domain.local > myhost.domain.local: ICMP echo reply, id 512, seq 43781, length 40 23:19:05.324217 IP myhost.domain.local > SERVERA.domain.local: ICMP echo request, id 512, seq 43781, length 40 23:19:05.324221 IP SERVERA.domain.local > myhost.domain.local: ICMP echo reply, id 512, seq 43781, length 40 23:19:05.324264 IP SERVERA.domain.local > myhost.domain.local: ICMP echo reply, id 512, seq 43781, length 40 23:19:05.324272 IP SERVERA.domain.local > myhost.domain.local: ICMP echo reply, id 512, seq 43781, length 40 It's worth noting, testing reveals that hosts on the same physical switch do not see DUP icmp echo responses (a host on the same VLAN on another switch does see a dup icmp echo response). I've read that this could be due to the ARP table of a switch, but I can't find any info directly related to bridges, just bonds. I have a feeling my problem lay in the stack on linux, not the switch, but am opened to any suggestions. The system is running centos6/el6 kernel 2.6.32-71.29.1.el6.i686. How do I stop ICMP echo replies from being sent in duplicate when dealing with a bridge interface/bridged interfaces? Thanks, Matt [edit] Quick note: It was recommended in #linux to: [08:53] == mbrownnyc [gateway/web/freenode/] has joined ##linux [08:57] <lkeijser> mbrownnyc: what happens if you set arp_ignore to 1 for the dummy interface? [08:59] <lkeijser> also set arp_announce to 2 for that interface [09:24] <mbrownnyc> lkeijser: I set arp_annouce to 2, arp_ignore to 2 in /etc/sysctl.conf and rebooted the machine... verifying that the bits are set after boot... the problem is still present I did this and came up empty. Same dup problem. I will be moving away from including the dummy interface in the bridge as: [09:31] == mbrownnyc [gateway/web/freenode/] has joined #Netfilter [09:31] <mbrownnyc> Hello all... I'm wondering, is it correct that even with an interface in PROMISC that the kernel will drop /some/ packets before they reach applications? [09:31] <whaffle> What would you make think so? [09:32] <mbrownnyc> I ask because I am receiving ICMP echo replies after configuring a bridge with a dummy interface in order for ipt_netflow to see all packets, only as reported in it's documentation: http://ipt-netflow.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=ipt-netflow/ipt-netflow;a=blob;f=README.promisc [09:32] <mbrownnyc> but I do not know if PROMISC will do the same job [09:33] <mbrownnyc> I was referred here from #linux. any assistance is appreciated [09:33] <whaffle> The following conditions need to be met: PROMISC is enabled (bridges and applications like tcpdump will do this automatically, otherwise they won't function). [09:34] <whaffle> If an interface is part of a bridge, then all packets that enter the bridge should already be visible in the raw table. [09:35] <mbrownnyc> thanks whaffle PROMISC must be set manually for ipt_netflow to function, but [09:36] <whaffle> promisc does not need to be set manually, because the bridge will do it for you. [09:36] <whaffle> When you do not have a bridge, you can easily create one, thereby rendering any kernel patches moot. [09:36] <mbrownnyc> whaffle: I speak without the bridge [09:36] <whaffle> It is perfectly valid to have a "half-bridge" with only a single interface in it. [09:36] <mbrownnyc> whaffle: I am unfamiliar with the raw table, does this mean that PROMISC allows the raw table to be populated with packets the same as if the interface was part of a bridge? [09:37] <whaffle> Promisc mode will cause packets with {a dst MAC address that does not equal the interface's MAC address} to be delivered from the NIC into the kernel nevertheless. [09:37] <mbrownnyc> whaffle: I suppose I mean to clearly ask: what benefit would creating a bridge have over setting an interface PROMISC? [09:38] <mbrownnyc> whaffle: from your last answer I feel that the answer to my question is "none," is this correct? [09:39] <whaffle> Furthermore, the linux kernel itself has a check for {packets with a non-local MAC address}, so that packets that will not enter a bridge will be discarded as well, even in the face of PROMISC. [09:46] <mbrownnyc> whaffle: so, this last bit of information is quite clearly why I would need and want a bridge in my situation [09:46] <mbrownnyc> okay, the ICMP echo reply duplicate issue is likely out of the realm of this channel, but I sincerely appreciate the info on the kernels inner-workings [09:52] <whaffle> mbrownnyc: either the kernel patch, or a bridge with an interface. Since the latter is quicker, yes [09:54] <mbrownnyc> thanks whaffle [edit2] After removing the bridge, and removing the dummy kernel module, I only had a single interface chilling out, lonely. I still received duplicate icmp echo replies... in fact I received a random amount: http://pastebin.com/2LNs0GM8 The same thing doesn't happen on a few other hosts on the same switch, so it has to do with the linux box itself. I'll likely end up rebuilding it next week. Then... you know... this same thing will occur again. [edit3] Guess what? I rebuilt the box, and I'm still receiving duplicate ICMP echo replies. Must be the network infrastructure, although the ARP tables do not contain multiple entries. [edit4] How ridiculous. The machine was a network probe, so I was (ingress and egress) mirroring an uplink port to a node that was the NIC. So, the flow (must have) gone like this: ICMP echo request comes in through the mirrored uplink port. (the real) ICMP echo request is received by the NIC (the mirrored) ICMP echo request is received by the NIC ICMP echo reply is sent for both. I'm ashamed of myself, but now I know. It was suggested on #networking to either isolate the mirrored traffic to an interface that does not have IP enabled, or tag the mirrored packets with dot1q.

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• Suspended Laptop Cannot Wake Up - Ubuntu

  - by Zack

  I've got an ASUS G73JH, and whenever I suspend it or hibernate it, it will not wake up. The screen stays backlight but is black. The fan remains running, however the HDD does not, not disk activity is noticeable (audibly (It's not a SSD)). I can't: Awaken it with the keyboard Awaken it with the mouse Soft power-off by pressing the power button Change virtual screens by pressing Ctrl-Alt-# Restart X by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace I have to hold down the power button and shut it down that way, and this seems a little unreasonable. Is there a place I could look for more detail as to what's causing this? Is there a known quick-fix to this issue? Nothing is logged as happening when the system is in "suspend" mode. Here's what happened immediately before and after the suspend "happened," note the time gap: May 4 17:46:13 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (eth0): carrier now OFF (device state 1) May 4 17:48:57 tofu kernel: imklog 4.2.0, log source = /proc/kmsg started. This one's kinda long, here's what happened immediately before the suspend, I'm not sure if it'll help but if you can find a use for it: May 4 17:46:10 tofu anacron[3353]: Anacron 2.3 started on 2010-05-04 May 4 17:46:10 tofu anacron[3353]: Normal exit (0 jobs run) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.775927] CPU0 attaching NULL sched-domain. May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.775958] CPU1 attaching NULL sched-domain. May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.775987] CPU2 attaching NULL sched-domain. May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.776138] CPU3 attaching NULL sched-domain. May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.776168] CPU4 attaching NULL sched-domain. May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.776197] CPU5 attaching NULL sched-domain. May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.776200] CPU6 attaching NULL sched-domain. May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.776229] CPU7 attaching NULL sched-domain. May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919611] CPU0 attaching sched-domain: May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919668] domain 0: span 0,4 level SIBLING May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919699] groups: 0 (cpu_power = 589) 4 (cpu_power = 589) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919733] domain 1: span 0-7 level MC May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919762] groups: 0,4 (cpu_power = 1178) 1,5 (cpu_power = 1178) 2,6 (cpu_power = 1178) 3,7 (cpu_power = 1178) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919850] CPU1 attaching sched-domain: May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919852] domain 0: span 1,5 level SIBLING May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919881] groups: 1 (cpu_power = 589) 5 (cpu_power = 589) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919912] domain 1: span 0-7 level MC May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.919915] groups: 1,5 (cpu_power = 1178) 2,6 (cpu_power = 1178) 3,7 (cpu_power = 1178) 0,4 (cpu_power = 1178) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920003] CPU2 attaching sched-domain: May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920005] domain 0: span 2,6 level SIBLING May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920033] groups: 2 (cpu_power = 589) 6 (cpu_power = 589) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920065] domain 1: span 0-7 level MC May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920093] groups: 2,6 (cpu_power = 1178) 3,7 (cpu_power = 1178) 0,4 (cpu_power = 1178) 1,5 (cpu_power = 1178) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920155] CPU3 attaching sched-domain: May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920157] domain 0: span 3,7 level SIBLING May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920185] groups: 3 (cpu_power = 589) 7 (cpu_power = 589) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920217] domain 1: span 0-7 level MC May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920245] groups: 3,7 (cpu_power = 1178) 0,4 (cpu_power = 1178) 1,5 (cpu_power = 1178) 2,6 (cpu_power = 1178) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920307] CPU4 attaching sched-domain: May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920335] domain 0: span 0,4 level SIBLING May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920337] groups: 4 (cpu_power = 589) 0 (cpu_power = 589) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920368] domain 1: span 0-7 level MC May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920397] groups: 0,4 (cpu_power = 1178) 1,5 (cpu_power = 1178) 2,6 (cpu_power = 1178) 3,7 (cpu_power = 1178) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920459] CPU5 attaching sched-domain: May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920487] domain 0: span 1,5 level SIBLING May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920489] groups: 5 (cpu_power = 589) 1 (cpu_power = 589) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920520] domain 1: span 0-7 level MC May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920549] groups: 1,5 (cpu_power = 1178) 2,6 (cpu_power = 1178) 3,7 (cpu_power = 1178) 0,4 (cpu_power = 1178) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920611] CPU6 attaching sched-domain: May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920639] domain 0: span 2,6 level SIBLING May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920641] groups: 6 (cpu_power = 589) 2 (cpu_power = 589) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920699] domain 1: span 0-7 level MC May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920701] groups: 2,6 (cpu_power = 1178) 3,7 (cpu_power = 1178) 0,4 (cpu_power = 1178) 1,5 (cpu_power = 1178) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920762] CPU7 attaching sched-domain: May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920791] domain 0: span 3,7 level SIBLING May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920793] groups: 7 (cpu_power = 589) 3 (cpu_power = 589) May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920851] domain 1: span 0-7 level MC May 4 17:46:10 tofu kernel: [ 2241.920853] groups: 3,7 (cpu_power = 1178) 0,4 (cpu_power = 1178) 1,5 (cpu_power = 1178) 2,6 (cpu_power = 1178) May 4 17:46:12 tofu NetworkManager: <info> Sleeping... May 4 17:46:12 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): now unmanaged May 4 17:46:12 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): device state change: 8 -> 1 (reason 37) May 4 17:46:12 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): deactivating device (reason: 37). May 4 17:46:12 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): canceled DHCP transaction, dhcp client pid 1984 May 4 17:46:12 tofu kernel: [ 2244.084515] wlan0: deauthenticating from 68:7f:74:23:02:ae by local choice (reason=3) May 4 17:46:12 tofu avahi-daemon[1176]: Withdrawing address record for 192.168.1.2 on wlan0. May 4 17:46:12 tofu avahi-daemon[1176]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface wlan0.IPv4 with address 192.168.1.2. May 4 17:46:12 tofu avahi-daemon[1176]: Interface wlan0.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS. May 4 17:46:12 tofu NetworkManager: <info> Policy set 'Auto eth0' (eth0) as default for routing and DNS. May 4 17:46:12 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): cleaning up... May 4 17:46:12 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): taking down device. May 4 17:46:12 tofu avahi-daemon[1176]: Withdrawing address record for 2002:4c6e:638a:0:1e4b:d6ff:fe78:951d on wlan0. May 4 17:46:12 tofu wpa_supplicant[1212]: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys May 4 17:46:13 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (eth0): now unmanaged May 4 17:46:13 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (eth0): device state change: 8 -> 1 (reason 37) May 4 17:46:13 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (eth0): deactivating device (reason: 37). May 4 17:46:13 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (eth0): canceled DHCP transaction, dhcp client pid 1559 May 4 17:46:13 tofu NetworkManager: <WARN> check_one_route(): (eth0) error -34 returned from rtnl_route_del(): Sucess#012 May 4 17:46:13 tofu avahi-daemon[1176]: Withdrawing address record for 192.168.1.3 on eth0. May 4 17:46:13 tofu avahi-daemon[1176]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface eth0.IPv4 with address 192.168.1.3. May 4 17:46:13 tofu avahi-daemon[1176]: Interface eth0.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS. May 4 17:46:13 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (eth0): cleaning up... May 4 17:46:13 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (eth0): taking down device. May 4 17:46:13 tofu avahi-daemon[1176]: Withdrawing address record for 2002:4c6e:638a:0:4a5b:39ff:fe0b:325d on eth0. May 4 17:46:13 tofu NetworkManager: <info> (eth0): carrier now OFF (device state 1)

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• 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)

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• Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer

  - by mbcrump

  Tweet this list! Add a link to my site to your bookmarks to quickly find this page again! Add me to twitter! This is a list of the tools/utilities that I use to do my job/hobby. I wanted this page to load fast and contain information that only you care about. If I have missed a tool that you like, feel free to contact me and I will add it to the list. Also, this list took a lot of time to complete. Please do not steal my work, if you like the page then please link back to my site. I will keep the links/information updated as new tools/utilities are created.  Windows/.NET Development – This is a list of tools that any Windows/.NET developer should have in his bag. I have used at some point in my career everything listed on this page and below is the tools worth keeping. Name Description License AnkhSVN Subversion support for Visual Studio. It also works with VS2010. Free Aurora XAML Designer One of the best XAML creation tools available. Has a ton of built in templates that you can copy/paste into VS2010. COST/Trial BeyondCompare Beyond Compare 3 is the ideal tool for comparing files and folders on your Windows or Linux system. Visualize changes in your code and carefully reconcile them. COST/Trial BuildIT Automated Task Tool Its main purpose is to automate tasks, whether it is the final packaging of a product, an automated daily build, maybe sending out a mailing list, even backing-up files. Free C Sharper for VB Convert VB to C#. COST CLRProfiler Analyze and improve the behavior of your .NET app. Free CodeRush Direct competitor to ReSharper, contains similar feature. This is one of those decide for yourself. COST/Trial Disk2VHD Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft's Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). Free Eazfuscator.NET Is a free obfuscator for .NET. The main purpose is to protect intellectual property of software. Free EQATEC Profiler Make your .NET app run faster. No source code changes are needed. Just point the profiler to your app, run the modified code, and get a visual report. COST Expression Studio 3/4 Comes with Web, Blend, Sketch Flow and more. You can create websites, produce beautiful XAML and more. COST/Trial Expresso The award-winning Expresso editor is equally suitable as a teaching tool for the beginning user of regular expressions or as a full-featured development environment for the experienced programmer or web designer with an extensive knowledge of regular expressions. Free Fiddler Fiddler is a web debugging proxy which logs all HTTP(s) traffic between your computer and the internet. Free Firebug Powerful Web development tool. If you build websites, you will need this. Free FxCop FxCop is an application that analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements. Free GAC Browser and Remover Easy way to remove multiple assemblies from the GAC. Assemblies registered by programs like Install Shield can also be removed. Free GAC Util The Global Assembly Cache tool allows you to view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache and download cache. Free HelpScribble Help Scribble is a full-featured, easy-to-use help authoring tool for creating help files from start to finish. You can create Win Help (.hlp) files, HTML Help (.chm) files, a printed manual and online documentation (on a web site) all from the same Help Scribble project. COST/Trial IETester IETester is a free Web Browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process. Free iTextSharp iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library for PDF generation written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. Use the iText mailing list to get support. Free Kaxaml Kaxaml is a lightweight XAML editor that gives you a "split view" so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content. Free LINQPad LinqPad lets you interactively query databases in a LINQ. Free Linquer Many programmers are familiar with SQL and will need a help in the transition to LINQ. Sometimes there are complicated queries to be written and Linqer can help by converting SQL scripts to LINQ. COST/Trial LiquidXML Liquid XML Studio 2010 is an advanced XML developers toolkit and IDE, containing all the tools needed for designing and developing XML schema and applications. COST/Trial Log4Net log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets. log4net is a port of the excellent log4j framework to the .NET runtime. We have kept the framework similar in spirit to the original log4j while taking advantage of new features in the .NET runtime. For more information on log4net see the features document. Free Microsoft Web Platform Installer The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes getting the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer easy. Free Mono Development Don't have Visual Studio - no problem! This is an open Source C# and .NET development environment for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X Free Net Mass Downloader While it’s great that Microsoft has released the .NET Reference Source Code, you can only get it one file at a time while you’re debugging. If you’d like to batch download it for reading or to populate the cache, you’d have to write a program that instantiated and called each method in the Framework Class Library. Fortunately, .NET Mass Downloader comes to the rescue! Free nMap Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Free NoScript (Firefox add-in) The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript, Java and Flash and other plug-ins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank), and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser. Free NotePad 2 Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry. Free PageSpy PageSpy is a small add-on for Internet Explorer that allows you to select any element within a webpage, select an option in the context menu, and view detailed information about both the coding behind the page and the element you selected. Free Phrase Express PhraseExpress manages your frequently used text snippets in customizable categories for quick access. Free PowerGui PowerGui is a free community for PowerGUI, a graphical user interface and script editor for Microsoft Windows PowerShell! Free Powershell Comes with Win7, but you can automate tasks by using the .NET Framework. Great for network admins. Free Process Explorer Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. Also, included in the SysInterals Suite. Free Process Monitor Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. Free Reflector Explore and analyze compiled .NET assemblies, viewing them in C#, Visual Basic, and IL. This is an Essential for any .NET developer. Free Regular Expression Library Stuck on a Regular Expression but you think someone has already figured it out? Chances are they have. Free Regulator Regulator makes Regular Expressions easy. This is a must have for a .NET Developer. Free RenameMaestro RenameMaestro is probably the easiest batch file renamer you'll find to instantly rename multiple files COST ReSharper The one program that I cannot live without. Supports VS2010 and offers simple refactoring, code analysis/assistance/cleanup/templates. One of the few applications that is worth the $$$. COST/Trial ScrewTurn Wiki ScrewTurn Wiki allows you to create, manage and share wikis. A wiki is a collaboratively-edited, information-centered website: the most famous is Wikipedia. Free SharpDevelop What is #develop? SharpDevelop is a free IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on Microsoft's .NET platform. Free Show Me The Template Show Me The Template is a tool for exploring the templates, be their data, control or items panel, that comes with the controls built into WPF for all 6 themes. Free SnippetCompiler Compiles code snippets without opening Visual Studio. It does not support .NET 4. Free SQL Prompt SQL Prompt is a plug-in that increases how fast you can work with SQL. It provides code-completion for SQL server, reformatting, db schema information and snippets. Awesome! COST/Trial SQLinForm SQLinForm is an automatic SQL code formatter for all major databases  including ORACLE, SQL Server, DB2, UDB, Sybase, Informix, PostgreSQL, Teradata, MySQL, MS Access etc. with over 70 formatting options. COST/OnlineFree SSMS Tools SSMS Tools Pack is an add-in for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) including SSMS Express. Free Storm STORM is a free and open source tool for testing web services. Free Telerik Code Convertor Convert code from VB to C Sharp and Vice Versa. Free TurtoiseSVN TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows.Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like. Free UltraEdit UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and hex editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. UltraEdit is also an XML editor including a tree-style XML parser. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later). COST/Trial Virtual Windows XP Comes with some W7 version and allows you to run WinXP along side W7. Free VirtualBox Virtualization by Sun Microsystems. You can virtualize Windows, Linux and more. Free Visual Log Parser SQL queries against a variety of log files and other system data sources. Free WinMerge WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. Free Wireshark Wireshark is one of the best network protocol analyzer's for Unix and windows. This has been used several times to get me out of a bind. Free XML Notepad 07 Old, but still one of my favorite XML viewers. Free Productivity Tools – This is the list of tools that I use to save time or quickly navigate around Windows. Name Description License AutoHotKey Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder. Free CLCL CLCL is clipboard caching utility. Free Ditto Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats, ..... Free Evernote Remember everything from notes to photos. It will synch between computers/devices. Free InfoRapid Inforapid is a search tool that will display all you search results in a html like browser. If you click on a word in that browser, it will start another search to the word you clicked on. Handy if you want to trackback something to it's true origin. The word you looked for will be highlighted in red. Clicking on the red word will open the containing file in a text based viewer. Clicking on any word in the opened document will start another search on that word. Free KatMouse The prime purpose of the KatMouse utility is to enhance the functionality of mice with a scroll wheel, offering 'universal' scrolling: moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus, which is default on Windows OSes). This is a major increase in the usefulness of the mouse wheel. Free ScreenR Instant Screencast with nothing to download. Works with Mac or PC and free. Free Start++ Start++ is an enhancement for the Start Menu in Windows Vista. It also extends the Run box and the command-line with customizable commands.  For example, typing "w Windows Vista" will take you to the Windows Vista page on Wikipedia! Free Synergy Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s). Free Texter Texter lets you define text substitution hot strings that, when triggered, will replace hotstring with a larger piece of text. By entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into Texter, you can save countless keystrokes in the course of the day. Free Total Commander File handling, FTP, Archive handling and much more. Even works with Win3.11. COST/Trial Available Wizmouse WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel. Free Xmarks Bookmark sync and search between computers. Free General Utilities – This is a list for power user users or anyone that wants more out of Windows. I usually install a majority of these whenever I get a new system. Name Description License µTorrent µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows or Mac with many features. I use this for downloading LEGAL media. Free Audacity Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check our Wiki and Forum for more information. Free AVast Free FREE Antivirus. Free CD Burner XP Pro CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Free CDEX You can extract digital audio CDs into mp3/wav. Free Combofix Combofix is a freeware (a legitimate spyware remover created by sUBs), Combofix was designed to scan a computer for known malware, spyware (SurfSideKick, QooLogic, and Look2Me as well as any other combination of the mentioned spyware applications) and remove them. Free Cpu-Z Provides information about some of the main devices of your system. Free Cropper Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C#. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen. Use it to easily crop out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor. Use it to easily capture parts of a web site, including text and images. It's also great for writing documentation that needs images of your application or web site. Free DropBox Drag and Drop files to sync between computers. Free DVD-Fab Converts/Copies DVDs/Blu-Ray to different formats. (like mp4, mkv, avi) COST/Trial Available FastStone Capture FastStone Capture is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. Free ffdshow FFDShow is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, H.264, FLV1, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 movies. Free Filezilla FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. You can also download a server version. Free FireFox Web Browser, do you really need an explanation? Free FireGestures A customizable mouse gestures extension which enables you to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures. Free FoxIt Reader Light weight PDF viewer. You should install this with the advanced setting or it will install a toolbar and setup some shortcuts. Free gSynchIt Synch Gmail and Outlook. Even supports Outlook 2010 32/64 bit COST/Trial Available Hulu Desktop At home or in a hotel, this has replaced my cable/satellite subscription. Free ImgBurn ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! Free Infrarecorder InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. Free KeePass KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. Free LastPass Another password management, synchronize between browsers, automatic form filling and more. Free Live Essentials One download and lots of programs including Mail, Live Writer, Movie Maker and more! Free Monitores MonitorES is a small windows utility that helps you to turnoff monitor display when you lock down your machine.Also when you lock your machine, it will pause all your running media programs & set your IM status message to "Away" / Custom message(via options) and restore it back to normal when you back. Free mRemote mRemote is a full-featured, multi-tab remote connections manager. Free Open Office OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Free Paint.NET Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface for editing photos. Free Picasa Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Free Pidgin Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. Free PING PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated into a PXE / RIS environment. Free Putty PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform. Free Revo Uninstaller Revo Uninstaller Pro helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer easily! Even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet! It has very powerful features to uninstall and remove programs. Free Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. Free SetupVirtualCloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Point to the .ISO file and it appears in Windows Explorer as a Drive. Free Shark 007 Codec Pack Play just about any file format with this download. Also includes my W7 Media Playlist Generator. Free Snagit 9 Screen Capture on steroids. Add arrows, captions, etc to any screenshot. COST/Trial Available SysinternalsSuite Go ahead and download the entire sys internals suite. I have mentioned multiple programs in this suite already. Free TeraCopy TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features. Free for Home TrueCrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux Free TweetDeck Fully featured Twitter client. Free UltraVNC UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location. Free Unlocker Unlocks locked files. Pretty simple right? Free VLC Media Player VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats Free Windows 7 Media Playlist This program is special to my heart because I wrote it. It has been mentioned on podcast and various websites. It allows you to quickly create wvx video playlist for Windows Media Center. Free WinRAR WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. COST/Trial Available Blogging – I use the following for my blog. Name Description License Insert Code for Windows Live Writer Insert Code for Windows Live Writer will format a snippet of text in a number of programming languages such as C#, HTML, MSH, JavaScript, Visual Basic and TSQL. Free LiveWriter Included in Live Essentials, but the ultimate in Windows Blogging Free PasteAsVSCode Plug-in for Windows Live Writer that pastes clipboard content as Visual Studio code. Preserves syntax highlighting, indentation and background color. Converts RTF, outputted by Visual Studio, into HTML. Free Desktop Management – The list below represent the best in Windows Desktop Management. Name Description License 7 Stacks Allows users to have "stacks" of icons in their taskbar. Free Executor Executor is a multi purpose launcher and a more advanced and customizable version of windows run. Free Fences Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use. Free RocketDock Rocket Dock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock. Free WindowsTab Tabbing is an essential feature of modern web browsers. Window Tabs brings the productivity of tabbed window management to all of your desktop applications. Free

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• VS 2010 SP1 and SQL CE

  - by ScottGu

  Last month we released the Beta of VS 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1).  You can learn more about the VS 2010 SP1 Beta from Jason Zander’s two blog posts about it, and from Scott Hanselman’s blog post that covers some of the new capabilities enabled with it.   You can download and install the VS 2010 SP1 Beta here. Last week I blogged about the new Visual Studio support for IIS Express that we are adding with VS 2010 SP1. In today’s post I’m going to talk about the new VS 2010 SP1 tooling support for SQL CE, and walkthrough some of the cool scenarios it enables.  SQL CE – What is it and why should you care? SQL CE is a free, embedded, database engine that enables easy database storage. No Database Installation Required SQL CE does not require you to run a setup or install a database server in order to use it.  You can simply copy the SQL CE binaries into the \bin directory of your ASP.NET application, and then your web application can use it as a database engine.  No setup or extra security permissions are required for it to run. You do not need to have an administrator account on the machine. Just copy your web application onto any server and it will work. This is true even of medium-trust applications running in a web hosting environment. SQL CE runs in-memory within your ASP.NET application and will start-up when you first access a SQL CE database, and will automatically shutdown when your application is unloaded.  SQL CE databases are stored as files that live within the \App_Data folder of your ASP.NET Applications. Works with Existing Data APIs SQL CE 4 works with existing .NET-based data APIs, and supports a SQL Server compatible query syntax.  This means you can use existing data APIs like ADO.NET, as well as use higher-level ORMs like Entity Framework and NHibernate with SQL CE.  This enables you to use the same data programming skills and data APIs you know today. Supports Development, Testing and Production Scenarios SQL CE can be used for development scenarios, testing scenarios, and light production usage scenarios.  With the SQL CE 4 release we’ve done the engineering work to ensure that SQL CE won’t crash or deadlock when used in a multi-threaded server scenario (like ASP.NET).  This is a big change from previous releases of SQL CE – which were designed for client-only scenarios and which explicitly blocked running in web-server environments.  Starting with SQL CE 4 you can use it in a web-server as well. There are no license restrictions with SQL CE.  It is also totally free. Easy Migration to SQL Server SQL CE is an embedded database – which makes it ideal for development, testing, and light-usage scenarios.  For high-volume sites and applications you’ll probably want to migrate your database to use SQL Server Express (which is free), SQL Server or SQL Azure.  These servers enable much better scalability, more development features (including features like Stored Procedures – which aren’t supported with SQL CE), as well as more advanced data management capabilities. We’ll ship migration tools that enable you to optionally take SQL CE databases and easily upgrade them to use SQL Server Express, SQL Server, or SQL Azure.  You will not need to change your code when upgrading a SQL CE database to SQL Server or SQL Azure.  Our goal is to enable you to be able to simply change the database connection string in your web.config file and have your application just work. New Tooling Support for SQL CE in VS 2010 SP1 VS 2010 SP1 includes much improved tooling support for SQL CE, and adds support for using SQL CE within ASP.NET projects for the first time.  With VS 2010 SP1 you can now: Create new SQL CE Databases Edit and Modify SQL CE Database Schema and Indexes Populate SQL CE Databases within Data Use the Entity Framework (EF) designer to create model layers against SQL CE databases Use EF Code First to define model layers in code, then create a SQL CE database from them, and optionally edit the DB with VS Deploy SQL CE databases to remote servers using Web Deploy and optionally convert them to full SQL Server databases You can take advantage of all of the above features from within both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC based projects. Download You can enable SQL CE tooling support within VS 2010 by first installing VS 2010 SP1 (beta). Once SP1 is installed, you’ll also then need to install the SQL CE Tools for Visual Studio download.  This is a separate download that enables the SQL CE tooling support for VS 2010 SP1. Walkthrough of Two Scenarios In this blog post I’m going to walkthrough how you can take advantage of SQL CE and VS 2010 SP1 using both an ASP.NET Web Forms and an ASP.NET MVC based application. Specifically, we’ll walkthrough: How to create a SQL CE database using VS 2010 SP1, then use the EF4 visual designers in Visual Studio to construct a model layer from it, and then display and edit the data using an ASP.NET GridView control. How to use an EF Code First approach to define a model layer using POCO classes and then have EF Code-First “auto-create” a SQL CE database for us based on our model classes.  We’ll then look at how we can use the new VS 2010 SP1 support for SQL CE to inspect the database that was created, populate it with data, and later make schema changes to it.  We’ll do all this within the context of an ASP.NET MVC based application. You can follow the two walkthroughs below on your own machine by installing VS 2010 SP1 (beta) and then installing the SQL CE Tools for Visual Studio download (which is a separate download that enables SQL CE tooling support for VS 2010 SP1). Walkthrough 1: Create a SQL CE Database, Create EF Model Classes, Edit the Data with a GridView This first walkthrough will demonstrate how to create and define a SQL CE database within an ASP.NET Web Form application.  We’ll then build an EF model layer for it and use that model layer to enable data editing scenarios with an <asp:GridView> control. Step 1: Create a new ASP.NET Web Forms Project We’ll begin by using the File->New Project menu command within Visual Studio to create a new ASP.NET Web Forms project.  We’ll use the “ASP.NET Web Application” project template option so that it has a default UI skin implemented: Step 2: Create a SQL CE Database Right click on the “App_Data” folder within the created project and choose the “Add->New Item” menu command: This will bring up the “Add Item” dialog box.  Select the “SQL Server Compact 4.0 Local Database” item (new in VS 2010 SP1) and name the database file to create “Store.sdf”: Note that SQL CE database files have a .sdf filename extension. Place them within the /App_Data folder of your ASP.NET application to enable easy deployment. When we clicked the “Add” button above a Store.sdf file was added to our project: Step 3: Adding a “Products” Table Double-clicking the “Store.sdf” database file will open it up within the Server Explorer tab.  Since it is a new database there are no tables within it: Right click on the “Tables” icon and choose the “Create Table” menu command to create a new database table.  We’ll name the new table “Products” and add 4 columns to it.  We’ll mark the first column as a primary key (and make it an identify column so that its value will automatically increment with each new row): When we click “ok” our new Products table will be created in the SQL CE database. Step 4: Populate with Data Once our Products table is created it will show up within the Server Explorer.  We can right-click it and choose the “Show Table Data” menu command to edit its data: Let’s add a few sample rows of data to it: Step 5: Create an EF Model Layer We have a SQL CE database with some data in it – let’s now create an EF Model Layer that will provide a way for us to easily query and update data within it. Let’s right-click on our project and choose the “Add->New Item” menu command.  This will bring up the “Add New Item” dialog – select the “ADO.NET Entity Data Model” item within it and name it “Store.edmx” This will add a new Store.edmx item to our solution explorer and launch a wizard that allows us to quickly create an EF model: Select the “Generate From Database” option above and click next.  Choose to use the Store.sdf SQL CE database we just created and then click next again.  The wizard will then ask you what database objects you want to import into your model.  Let’s choose to import the “Products” table we created earlier: When we click the “Finish” button Visual Studio will open up the EF designer.  It will have a Product entity already on it that maps to the “Products” table within our SQL CE database: The VS 2010 SP1 EF designer works exactly the same with SQL CE as it does already with SQL Server and SQL Express.  The Product entity above will be persisted as a class (called “Product”) that we can programmatically work against within our ASP.NET application. Step 6: Compile the Project Before using your model layer you’ll need to build your project.  Do a Ctrl+Shift+B to compile the project, or use the Build->Build Solution menu command. Step 7: Create a Page that Uses our EF Model Layer Let’s now create a simple ASP.NET Web Form that contains a GridView control that we can use to display and edit the our Products data (via the EF Model Layer we just created). Right-click on the project and choose the Add->New Item command.  Select the “Web Form from Master Page” item template, and name the page you create “Products.aspx”.  Base the master page on the “Site.Master” template that is in the root of the project. Add an <h2>Products</h2> heading the new Page, and add an <asp:gridview> control within it: Then click the “Design” tab to switch into design-view. Select the GridView control, and then click the top-right corner to display the GridView’s “Smart Tasks” UI: Choose the “New data source…” drop down option above.  This will bring up the below dialog which allows you to pick your Data Source type: Select the “Entity” data source option – which will allow us to easily connect our GridView to the EF model layer we created earlier.  This will bring up another dialog that allows us to pick our model layer: Select the “StoreEntities” option in the dropdown – which is the EF model layer we created earlier.  Then click next – which will allow us to pick which entity within it we want to bind to: Select the “Products” entity in the above dialog – which indicates that we want to bind against the “Product” entity class we defined earlier.  Then click the “Enable automatic updates” checkbox to ensure that we can both query and update Products.  When you click “Finish” VS will wire-up an <asp:EntityDataSource> to your <asp:GridView> control: The last two steps we’ll do will be to click the “Enable Editing” checkbox on the Grid (which will cause the Grid to display an “Edit” link on each row) and (optionally) use the Auto Format dialog to pick a UI template for the Grid. Step 8: Run the Application Let’s now run our application and browse to the /Products.aspx page that contains our GridView.  When we do so we’ll see a Grid UI of the Products within our SQL CE database. Clicking the “Edit” link for any of the rows will allow us to edit their values: When we click “Update” the GridView will post back the values, persist them through our EF Model Layer, and ultimately save them within our SQL CE database. Learn More about using EF with ASP.NET Web Forms Read this tutorial series on the http://asp.net site to learn more about how to use EF with ASP.NET Web Forms.  The tutorial series uses SQL Express as the database – but the nice thing is that all of the same steps/concepts can also now also be done with SQL CE.   Walkthrough 2: Using EF Code-First with SQL CE and ASP.NET MVC 3 We used a database-first approach with the sample above – where we first created the database, and then used the EF designer to create model classes from the database.  In addition to supporting a designer-based development workflow, EF also enables a more code-centric option which we call “code first development”.  Code-First Development enables a pretty sweet development workflow.  It enables you to: Define your model objects by simply writing “plain old classes” with no base classes or visual designer required Use a “convention over configuration” approach that enables database persistence without explicitly configuring anything Optionally override the convention-based persistence and use a fluent code API to fully customize the persistence mapping Optionally auto-create a database based on the model classes you define – allowing you to start from code first I’ve done several blog posts about EF Code First in the past – I really think it is great.  The good news is that it also works very well with SQL CE. The combination of SQL CE, EF Code First, and the new VS tooling support for SQL CE, enables a pretty nice workflow.  Below is a simple example of how you can use them to build a simple ASP.NET MVC 3 application. Step 1: Create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 Project We’ll begin by using the File->New Project menu command within Visual Studio to create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 project.  We’ll use the “Internet Project” template so that it has a default UI skin implemented: Step 2: Use NuGet to Install EFCodeFirst Next we’ll use the NuGet package manager (automatically installed by ASP.NET MVC 3) to add the EFCodeFirst library to our project.  We’ll use the Package Manager command shell to do this.  Bring up the package manager console within Visual Studio by selecting the View->Other Windows->Package Manager Console menu command.  Then type: install-package EFCodeFirst within the package manager console to download the EFCodeFirst library and have it be added to our project: When we enter the above command, the EFCodeFirst library will be downloaded and added to our application: Step 3: Build Some Model Classes Using a “code first” based development workflow, we will create our model classes first (even before we have a database).  We create these model classes by writing code. For this sample, we will right click on the “Models” folder of our project and add the below three classes to our project: The “Dinner” and “RSVP” model classes above are “plain old CLR objects” (aka POCO).  They do not need to derive from any base classes or implement any interfaces, and the properties they expose are standard .NET data-types.  No data persistence attributes or data code has been added to them.   The “NerdDinners” class derives from the DbContext class (which is supplied by EFCodeFirst) and handles the retrieval/persistence of our Dinner and RSVP instances from a database. Step 4: Listing Dinners We’ve written all of the code necessary to implement our model layer for this simple project.  Let’s now expose and implement the URL: /Dinners/Upcoming within our project.  We’ll use it to list upcoming dinners that happen in the future. We’ll do this by right-clicking on our “Controllers” folder and select the “Add->Controller” menu command.  We’ll name the Controller we want to create “DinnersController”.  We’ll then implement an “Upcoming” action method within it that lists upcoming dinners using our model layer above.  We will use a LINQ query to retrieve the data and pass it to a View to render with the code below: We’ll then right-click within our Upcoming method and choose the “Add-View” menu command to create an “Upcoming” view template that displays our dinners.  We’ll use the “empty” template option within the “Add View” dialog and write the below view template using Razor: Step 4: Configure our Project to use a SQL CE Database We have finished writing all of our code – our last step will be to configure a database connection-string to use. We will point our NerdDinners model class to a SQL CE database by adding the below <connectionString> to the web.config file at the top of our project: EF Code First uses a default convention where context classes will look for a connection-string that matches the DbContext class name.  Because we created a “NerdDinners” class earlier, we’ve also named our connectionstring “NerdDinners”.  Above we are configuring our connection-string to use SQL CE as the database, and telling it that our SQL CE database file will live within the \App_Data directory of our ASP.NET project. Step 5: Running our Application Now that we’ve built our application, let’s run it! We’ll browse to the /Dinners/Upcoming URL – doing so will display an empty list of upcoming dinners: You might ask – but where did it query to get the dinners from? We didn’t explicitly create a database?!? One of the cool features that EF Code-First supports is the ability to automatically create a database (based on the schema of our model classes) when the database we point it at doesn’t exist.  Above we configured  EF Code-First to point at a SQL CE database in the \App_Data\ directory of our project.  When we ran our application, EF Code-First saw that the SQL CE database didn’t exist and automatically created it for us. Step 6: Using VS 2010 SP1 to Explore our newly created SQL CE Database Click the “Show all Files” icon within the Solution Explorer and you’ll see the “NerdDinners.sdf” SQL CE database file that was automatically created for us by EF code-first within the \App_Data\ folder: We can optionally right-click on the file and “Include in Project" to add it to our solution: We can also double-click the file (regardless of whether it is added to the project) and VS 2010 SP1 will open it as a database we can edit within the “Server Explorer” tab of the IDE. Below is the view we get when we double-click our NerdDinners.sdf SQL CE file.  We can drill in to see the schema of the Dinners and RSVPs tables in the tree explorer.  Notice how two tables - Dinners and RSVPs – were automatically created for us within our SQL CE database.  This was done by EF Code First when we accessed the NerdDinners class by running our application above: We can right-click on a Table and use the “Show Table Data” command to enter some upcoming dinners in our database: We’ll use the built-in editor that VS 2010 SP1 supports to populate our table data below: And now when we hit “refresh” on the /Dinners/Upcoming URL within our browser we’ll see some upcoming dinners show up: Step 7: Changing our Model and Database Schema Let’s now modify the schema of our model layer and database, and walkthrough one way that the new VS 2010 SP1 Tooling support for SQL CE can make this easier.  With EF Code-First you typically start making database changes by modifying the model classes.  For example, let’s add an additional string property called “UrlLink” to our “Dinner” class.  We’ll use this to point to a link for more information about the event: Now when we re-run our project, and visit the /Dinners/Upcoming URL we’ll see an error thrown: We are seeing this error because EF Code-First automatically created our database, and by default when it does this it adds a table that helps tracks whether the schema of our database is in sync with our model classes.  EF Code-First helpfully throws an error when they become out of sync – making it easier to track down issues at development time that you might otherwise only find (via obscure errors) at runtime.  Note that if you do not want this feature you can turn it off by changing the default conventions of your DbContext class (in this case our NerdDinners class) to not track the schema version. Our model classes and database schema are out of sync in the above example – so how do we fix this?  There are two approaches you can use today: Delete the database and have EF Code First automatically re-create the database based on the new model class schema (losing the data within the existing DB) Modify the schema of the existing database to make it in sync with the model classes (keeping/migrating the data within the existing DB) There are a couple of ways you can do the second approach above.  Below I’m going to show how you can take advantage of the new VS 2010 SP1 Tooling support for SQL CE to use a database schema tool to modify our database structure.  We are also going to be supporting a “migrations” feature with EF in the future that will allow you to automate/script database schema migrations programmatically. Step 8: Modify our SQL CE Database Schema using VS 2010 SP1 The new SQL CE Tooling support within VS 2010 SP1 makes it easy to modify the schema of our existing SQL CE database.  To do this we’ll right-click on our “Dinners” table and choose the “Edit Table Schema” command: This will bring up the below “Edit Table” dialog.  We can rename, change or delete any of the existing columns in our table, or click at the bottom of the column listing and type to add a new column.  Below I’ve added a new “UrlLink” column of type “nvarchar” (since our property is a string): When we click ok our database will be updated to have the new column and our schema will now match our model classes. Because we are manually modifying our database schema, there is one additional step we need to take to let EF Code-First know that the database schema is in sync with our model classes.  As i mentioned earlier, when a database is automatically created by EF Code-First it adds a “EdmMetadata” table to the database to track schema versions (and hash our model classes against them to detect mismatches between our model classes and the database schema): Since we are manually updating and maintaining our database schema, we don’t need this table – and can just delete it: This will leave us with just the two tables that correspond to our model classes: And now when we re-run our /Dinners/Upcoming URL it will display the dinners correctly: One last touch we could do would be to update our view to check for the new UrlLink property and render a <a> link to it if an event has one: And now when we refresh our /Dinners/Upcoming we will see hyperlinks for the events that have a UrlLink stored in the database: Summary SQL CE provides a free, embedded, database engine that you can use to easily enable database storage.  With SQL CE 4 you can now take advantage of it within ASP.NET projects and applications (both Web Forms and MVC). VS 2010 SP1 provides tooling support that enables you to easily create, edit and modify SQL CE databases – as well as use the standard EF designer against them.  This allows you to re-use your existing skills and data knowledge while taking advantage of an embedded database option.  This is useful both for small applications (where you don’t need the scalability of a full SQL Server), as well as for development and testing scenarios – where you want to be able to rapidly develop/test your application without having a full database instance.  SQL CE makes it easy to later migrate your data to a full SQL Server or SQL Azure instance if you want to – without having to change any code in your application.  All we would need to change in the above two scenarios is the <connectionString> value within the web.config file in order to have our code run against a full SQL Server.  This provides the flexibility to scale up your application starting from a small embedded database solution as needed. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Rendering ASP.NET MVC Views to String

  - by Rick Strahl

  It's not uncommon in my applications that I require longish text output that does not have to be rendered into the HTTP output stream. The most common scenario I have for 'template driven' non-Web text is for emails of all sorts. Logon confirmations and verifications, email confirmations for things like orders, status updates or scheduler notifications - all of which require merged text output both within and sometimes outside of Web applications. On other occasions I also need to capture the output from certain views for logging purposes. Rather than creating text output in code, it's much nicer to use the rendering mechanism that ASP.NET MVC already provides by way of it's ViewEngines - using Razor or WebForms views - to render output to a string. This is nice because it uses the same familiar rendering mechanism that I already use for my HTTP output and it also solves the problem of where to store the templates for rendering this content in nothing more than perhaps a separate view folder. The good news is that ASP.NET MVC's rendering engine is much more modular than the full ASP.NET runtime engine which was a real pain in the butt to coerce into rendering output to string. With MVC the rendering engine has been separated out from core ASP.NET runtime, so it's actually a lot easier to get View output into a string. Getting View Output from within an MVC Application If you need to generate string output from an MVC and pass some model data to it, the process to capture this output is fairly straight forward and involves only a handful of lines of code. The catch is that this particular approach requires that you have an active ControllerContext that can be passed to the view. This means that the following approach is limited to access from within Controller methods. Here's a class that wraps the process and provides both instance and static methods to handle the rendering:/// <summary> /// Class that renders MVC views to a string using the /// standard MVC View Engine to render the view. /// /// Note: This class can only be used within MVC /// applications that have an active ControllerContext. /// </summary> public class ViewRenderer { /// <summary> /// Required Controller Context /// </summary> protected ControllerContext Context { get; set; } public ViewRenderer(ControllerContext controllerContext) { Context = controllerContext; } /// <summary> /// Renders a full MVC view to a string. Will render with the full MVC /// View engine including running _ViewStart and merging into _Layout /// </summary> /// <param name="viewPath"> /// The path to the view to render. Either in same controller, shared by /// name or as fully qualified ~/ path including extension /// </param> /// <param name="model">The model to render the view with</param> /// <returns>String of the rendered view or null on error</returns> public string RenderView(string viewPath, object model) { return RenderViewToStringInternal(viewPath, model, false); } /// <summary> /// Renders a partial MVC view to string. Use this method to render /// a partial view that doesn't merge with _Layout and doesn't fire /// _ViewStart. /// </summary> /// <param name="viewPath"> /// The path to the view to render. Either in same controller, shared by /// name or as fully qualified ~/ path including extension /// </param> /// <param name="model">The model to pass to the viewRenderer</param> /// <returns>String of the rendered view or null on error</returns> public string RenderPartialView(string viewPath, object model) { return RenderViewToStringInternal(viewPath, model, true); } public static string RenderView(string viewPath, object model, ControllerContext controllerContext) { ViewRenderer renderer = new ViewRenderer(controllerContext); return renderer.RenderView(viewPath, model); } public static string RenderPartialView(string viewPath, object model, ControllerContext controllerContext) { ViewRenderer renderer = new ViewRenderer(controllerContext); return renderer.RenderPartialView(viewPath, model); } protected string RenderViewToStringInternal(string viewPath, object model, bool partial = false) { // first find the ViewEngine for this view ViewEngineResult viewEngineResult = null; if (partial) viewEngineResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(Context, viewPath); else viewEngineResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(Context, viewPath, null); if (viewEngineResult == null) throw new FileNotFoundException(Properties.Resources.ViewCouldNotBeFound); // get the view and attach the model to view data var view = viewEngineResult.View; Context.Controller.ViewData.Model = model; string result = null; using (var sw = new StringWriter()) { var ctx = new ViewContext(Context, view, Context.Controller.ViewData, Context.Controller.TempData, sw); view.Render(ctx, sw); result = sw.ToString(); } return result; } } The key is the RenderViewToStringInternal method. The method first tries to find the view to render based on its path which can either be in the current controller's view path or the shared view path using its simple name (PasswordRecovery) or alternately by its full virtual path (~/Views/Templates/PasswordRecovery.cshtml). This code should work both for Razor and WebForms views although I've only tried it with Razor Views. Note that WebForms Views might actually be better for plain text as Razor adds all sorts of white space into its output when there are code blocks in the template. The Web Forms engine provides more accurate rendering for raw text scenarios. Once a view engine is found the view to render can be retrieved. Views in MVC render based on data that comes off the controller like the ViewData which contains the model along with the actual ViewData and ViewBag. From the View and some of the Context data a ViewContext is created which is then used to render the view with. The View picks up the Model and other data from the ViewContext internally and processes the View the same it would be processed if it were to send its output into the HTTP output stream. The difference is that we can override the ViewContext's output stream which we provide and capture into a StringWriter(). After rendering completes the result holds the output string. If an error occurs the error behavior is similar what you see with regular MVC errors - you get a full yellow screen of death including the view error information with the line of error highlighted. It's your responsibility to handle the error - or let it bubble up to your regular Controller Error filter if you have one. To use the simple class you only need a single line of code if you call the static methods. Here's an example of some Controller code that is used to send a user notification to a customer via email in one of my applications:[HttpPost] public ActionResult ContactSeller(ContactSellerViewModel model) { InitializeViewModel(model); var entryBus = new busEntry(); var entry = entryBus.LoadByDisplayId(model.EntryId); if ( string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.Email) ) entryBus.ValidationErrors.Add("Email address can't be empty.","Email"); if ( string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.Message)) entryBus.ValidationErrors.Add("Message can't be empty.","Message"); model.EntryId = entry.DisplayId; model.EntryTitle = entry.Title; if (entryBus.ValidationErrors.Count > 0) { ErrorDisplay.AddMessages(entryBus.ValidationErrors); ErrorDisplay.ShowError("Please correct the following:"); } else { string message = ViewRenderer.RenderView("~/views/template/ContactSellerEmail.cshtml",model, ControllerContext); string title = entry.Title + " (" + entry.DisplayId + ") - " + App.Configuration.ApplicationName; AppUtils.SendEmail(title, message, model.Email, entry.User.Email, false, false)) } return View(model); } Simple! The view in this case is just a plain MVC view and in this case it's a very simple plain text email message (edited for brevity here) that is created and sent off:@model ContactSellerViewModel @{ Layout = null; }re: @Model.EntryTitle @Model.ListingUrl @Model.Message ** SECURITY ADVISORY - AVOID SCAMS ** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home ** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping ** More Info: @(App.Configuration.ApplicationBaseUrl)scams.html Obviously this is a very simple view (I edited out more from this page to keep it brief) -  but other template views are much more complex HTML documents or long messages that are occasionally updated and they are a perfect fit for Razor rendering. It even works with nested partial views and _layout pages. Partial Rendering Notice that I'm rendering a full View here. In the view I explicitly set the Layout=null to avoid pulling in _layout.cshtml for this view. This can also be controlled externally by calling the RenderPartial method instead: string message = ViewRenderer.RenderPartialView("~/views/template/ContactSellerEmail.cshtml",model, ControllerContext); with this line of code no layout page (or _viewstart) will be loaded, so the output generated is just what's in the view. I find myself using Partials most of the time when rendering templates, since the target of templates usually tend to be emails or other HTML fragment like output, so the RenderPartialView() method is definitely useful to me. Rendering without a ControllerContext The preceding class is great when you're need template rendering from within MVC controller actions or anywhere where you have access to the request Controller. But if you don't have a controller context handy - maybe inside a utility function that is static, a non-Web application, or an operation that runs asynchronously in ASP.NET - which makes using the above code impossible. I haven't found a way to manually create a Controller context to provide the ViewContext() what it needs from outside of the MVC infrastructure. However, there are ways to accomplish this,  but they are a bit more complex. It's possible to host the RazorEngine on your own, which side steps all of the MVC framework and HTTP and just deals with the raw rendering engine. I wrote about this process in Hosting the Razor Engine in Non-Web Applications a long while back. It's quite a process to create a custom Razor engine and runtime, but it allows for all sorts of flexibility. There's also a RazorEngine CodePlex project that does something similar. I've been meaning to check out the latter but haven't gotten around to it since I have my own code to do this. The trick to hosting the RazorEngine to have it behave properly inside of an ASP.NET application and properly cache content so templates aren't constantly rebuild and reparsed. Anyway, in the same app as above I have one scenario where no ControllerContext is available: I have a background scheduler running inside of the app that fires on timed intervals. This process could be external but because it's lightweight we decided to fire it right inside of the ASP.NET app on a separate thread. In my app the code that renders these templates does something like this:var model = new SearchNotificationViewModel() { Entries = entries, Notification = notification, User = user }; // TODO: Need logging for errors sending string razorError = null; var result = AppUtils.RenderRazorTemplate("~/views/template/SearchNotificationTemplate.cshtml", model, razorError); which references a couple of helper functions that set up my RazorFolderHostContainer class:public static string RenderRazorTemplate(string virtualPath, object model,string errorMessage = null) { var razor = AppUtils.CreateRazorHost(); var path = virtualPath.Replace("~/", "").Replace("~", "").Replace("/", "\\"); var merged = razor.RenderTemplateToString(path, model); if (merged == null) errorMessage = razor.ErrorMessage; return merged; } /// <summary> /// Creates a RazorStringHostContainer and starts it /// Call .Stop() when you're done with it. /// /// This is a static instance /// </summary> /// <param name="virtualPath"></param> /// <param name="binBasePath"></param> /// <param name="forceLoad"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static RazorFolderHostContainer CreateRazorHost(string binBasePath = null, bool forceLoad = false) { if (binBasePath == null) { if (HttpContext.Current != null) binBasePath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/"); else binBasePath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory; } if (_RazorHost == null || forceLoad) { if (!binBasePath.EndsWith("\\")) binBasePath += "\\"; //var razor = new RazorStringHostContainer(); var razor = new RazorFolderHostContainer(); razor.TemplatePath = binBasePath; binBasePath += "bin\\"; razor.BaseBinaryFolder = binBasePath; razor.UseAppDomain = false; razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "ClassifiedsBusiness.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "ClassifiedsWeb.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "Westwind.Utilities.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "Westwind.Web.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "Westwind.Web.Mvc.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.Web.dll"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("System.Web"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("ClassifiedsBusiness"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("ClassifiedsWeb"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("Westwind.Web"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("Westwind.Utilities"); _RazorHost = razor; _RazorHost.Start(); //_RazorHost.Engine.Configuration.CompileToMemory = false; } return _RazorHost; } The RazorFolderHostContainer essentially is a full runtime that mimics a folder structure like a typical Web app does including caching semantics and compiling code only if code changes on disk. It maps a folder hierarchy to views using the ~/ path syntax. The host is then configured to add assemblies and namespaces. Unfortunately the engine is not exactly like MVC's Razor - the expression expansion and code execution are the same, but some of the support methods like sections, helpers etc. are not all there so templates have to be a bit simpler. There are other folder hosts provided as well to directly execute templates from strings (using RazorStringHostContainer). The following is an example of an HTML email template @inherits RazorHosting.RazorTemplateFolderHost <ClassifiedsWeb.SearchNotificationViewModel> <html> <head> <title>Search Notifications</title> <style> body { margin: 5px;font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 10pt;} h3 { color: SteelBlue; } .entry-item { border-bottom: 1px solid grey; padding: 8px; margin-bottom: 5px; } </style> </head> <body> Hello @Model.User.Name,<br /> <p>Below are your Search Results for the search phrase:</p> <h3>@Model.Notification.SearchPhrase</h3> <small>since @TimeUtils.ShortDateString(Model.Notification.LastSearch)</small> <hr /> You can see that the syntax is a little different. Instead of the familiar @model header the raw Razor  @inherits tag is used to specify the template base class (which you can extend). I took a quick look through the feature set of RazorEngine on CodePlex (now Github I guess) and the template implementation they use is closer to MVC's razor but there are other differences. In the end don't expect exact behavior like MVC templates if you use an external Razor rendering engine. This is not what I would consider an ideal solution, but it works well enough for this project. My biggest concern is the overhead of hosting a second razor engine in a Web app and the fact that here the differences in template rendering between 'real' MVC Razor views and another RazorEngine really are noticeable. You win some, you lose some It's extremely nice to see that if you have a ControllerContext handy (which probably addresses 99% of Web app scenarios) rendering a view to string using the native MVC Razor engine is pretty simple. Kudos on making that happen - as it solves a problem I see in just about every Web application I work on. But it is a bummer that a ControllerContext is required to make this simple code work. It'd be really sweet if there was a way to render views without being so closely coupled to the ASP.NET or MVC infrastructure that requires a ControllerContext. Alternately it'd be nice to have a way for an MVC based application to create a minimal ControllerContext from scratch - maybe somebody's been down that path. I tried for a few hours to come up with a way to make that work but gave up in the soup of nested contexts (MVC/Controller/View/Http). I suspect going down this path would be similar to hosting the ASP.NET runtime requiring a WorkerRequest. Brrr…. The sad part is that it seems to me that a View should really not require much 'context' of any kind to render output to string. Yes there are a few things that clearly are required like paths to the virtual and possibly the disk paths to the root of the app, but beyond that view rendering should not require much. But, no such luck. For now custom RazorHosting seems to be the only way to make Razor rendering go outside of the MVC context… Resources Full ViewRenderer.cs source code from Westwind.Web.Mvc library Hosting the Razor Engine for Non-Web Applications RazorEngine on GitHub© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET   ASP.NET  MVC   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Oracle Coherence, Split-Brain and Recovery Protocols In Detail

  - by Ricardo Ferreira

  This article provides a high level conceptual overview of Split-Brain scenarios in distributed systems. It will focus on a specific example of cluster communication failure and recovery in Oracle Coherence. This includes a discussion on the witness protocol (used to remove failed cluster members) and the panic protocol (used to resolve Split-Brain scenarios). Note that the removal of cluster members does not necessarily indicate a Split-Brain condition. Oracle Coherence does not (and cannot) detect a Split-Brain as it occurs, the condition is only detected when cluster members that previously lost contact with each other regain contact. Cluster Topology and Configuration In order to create an good didactic for the article, let's assume a cluster topology and configuration. In this example we have a six member cluster, consisting of one JVM on each physical machine. The member IDs are as follows: Member ID  IP Address  1  10.149.155.76  2  10.149.155.77  3  10.149.155.236  4  10.149.155.75  5  10.149.155.79  6  10.149.155.78 Members 1, 2, and 3 are connected to a switch, and members 4, 5, and 6 are connected to a second switch. There is a link between the two switches, which provides network connectivity between all of the machines. Member 1 is the first member to join this cluster, thus making it the senior member. Member 6 is the last member to join this cluster. Here is a log snippet from Member 6 showing the complete member set: 2010-02-26 15:27:57.390/3.062 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Info> (thread=main, member=6): Started DefaultCacheServer... SafeCluster: Name=cluster:0xDDEB Group{Address=224.3.5.3, Port=35465, TTL=4} MasterMemberSet ( ThisMember=Member(Id=6, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:58.635, Address=10.149.155.78:8088, MachineId=1102, Location=process:228, Role=CoherenceServer) OldestMember=Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) ActualMemberSet=MemberSet(Size=6, BitSetCount=2 Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=2, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:17.847, Address=10.149.155.77:8088, MachineId=1101, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:296, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=3, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:24.892, Address=10.149.155.236:8088, MachineId=1260, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:32459, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:39.574, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=5, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:49.095, Address=10.149.155.79:8088, MachineId=1103, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:3229, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=6, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:58.635, Address=10.149.155.78:8088, MachineId=1102, Location=process:228, Role=CoherenceServer) ) RecycleMillis=120000 RecycleSet=MemberSet(Size=0, BitSetCount=0 ) ) At approximately 15:30, the connection between the two switches is severed: Thirty seconds later (the default packet timeout in development mode) the logs indicate communication failures across the cluster. In this example, the communication failure was caused by a network failure. In a production setting, this type of communication failure can have many root causes, including (but not limited to) network failures, excessive GC, high CPU utilization, swapping/virtual memory, and exceeding maximum network bandwidth. In addition, this type of failure is not necessarily indicative of a split brain. Any communication failure will be logged in this fashion. Member 2 logs a communication failure with Member 5: 2010-02-26 15:30:32.638/196.928 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Warning> (thread=PacketPublisher, member=2): Timeout while delivering a packet; requesting the departure confirmation for Member(Id=5, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:49.095, Address=10.149.155.79:8088, MachineId=1103, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:3229, Role=CoherenceServer) by MemberSet(Size=2, BitSetCount=2 Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:39.574, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer) ) The Coherence clustering protocol (TCMP) is a reliable transport mechanism built on UDP. In order for the protocol to be reliable, it requires an acknowledgement (ACK) for each packet delivered. If a packet fails to be acknowledged within the configured timeout period, the Coherence cluster member will log a packet timeout (as seen in the log message above). When this occurs, the cluster member will consult with other members to determine who is at fault for the communication failure. If the witness members agree that the suspect member is at fault, the suspect is removed from the cluster. If the witnesses unanimously disagree, the accuser is removed. This process is known as the witness protocol. Since Member 2 cannot communicate with Member 5, it selects two witnesses (Members 1 and 4) to determine if the communication issue is with Member 5 or with itself (Member 2). However, Member 4 is on the switch that is no longer accessible by Members 1, 2 and 3; thus a packet timeout for member 4 is recorded as well: 2010-02-26 15:30:35.648/199.938 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Warning> (thread=PacketPublisher, member=2): Timeout while delivering a packet; requesting the departure confirmation for Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:39.574, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer) by MemberSet(Size=2, BitSetCount=2 Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=6, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:58.635, Address=10.149.155.78:8088, MachineId=1102, Location=process:228, Role=CoherenceServer) ) Member 1 has the ability to confirm the departure of member 4, however Member 6 cannot as it is also inaccessible. At the same time, Member 3 sends a request to remove Member 6, which is followed by a report from Member 3 indicating that Member 6 has departed the cluster: 2010-02-26 15:30:35.706/199.996 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=2): MemberLeft request for Member 6 received from Member(Id=3, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:24.892, Address=10.149.155.236:8088, MachineId=1260, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:32459, Role=CoherenceServer) 2010-02-26 15:30:35.709/199.999 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=2): MemberLeft notification for Member 6 received from Member(Id=3, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:24.892, Address=10.149.155.236:8088, MachineId=1260, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:32459, Role=CoherenceServer) The log for Member 3 determines how Member 6 departed the cluster: 2010-02-26 15:30:35.161/191.694 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Warning> (thread=PacketPublisher, member=3): Timeout while delivering a packet; requesting the departure confirmation for Member(Id=6, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:58.635, Address=10.149.155.78:8088, MachineId=1102, Location=process:228, Role=CoherenceServer) by MemberSet(Size=2, BitSetCount=2 Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=2, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:17.847, Address=10.149.155.77:8088, MachineId=1101, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:296, Role=CoherenceServer) ) 2010-02-26 15:30:35.165/191.698 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Info> (thread=Cluster, member=3): Member departure confirmed by MemberSet(Size=2, BitSetCount=2 Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=2, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:17.847, Address=10.149.155.77:8088, MachineId=1101, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:296, Role=CoherenceServer) ); removing Member(Id=6, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:58.635, Address=10.149.155.78:8088, MachineId=1102, Location=process:228, Role=CoherenceServer) In this case, Member 3 happened to select two witnesses that it still had connectivity with (Members 1 and 2) thus resulting in a simple decision to remove Member 6. Given the departure of Member 6, Member 2 is left with a single witness to confirm the departure of Member 4: 2010-02-26 15:30:35.713/200.003 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Info> (thread=Cluster, member=2): Member departure confirmed by MemberSet(Size=1, BitSetCount=2 Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) ); removing Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:39.574, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer) In the meantime, Member 4 logs a missing heartbeat from the senior member. This message is also logged on Members 5 and 6. 2010-02-26 15:30:07.906/150.453 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Info> (thread=PacketListenerN, member=4): Scheduled senior member heartbeat is overdue; rejoining multicast group. Next, Member 4 logs a TcpRing failure with Member 2, thus resulting in the termination of Member 2: 2010-02-26 15:30:21.421/163.968 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D4> (thread=Cluster, member=4): TcpRing: Number of socket exceptions exceeded maximum; last was "java.net.SocketTimeoutException: connect timed out"; removing the member: 2 For quick process termination detection, Oracle Coherence utilizes a feature called TcpRing which is a sparse collection of TCP/IP-based connections between different members in the cluster. Each member in the cluster is connected to at least one other member, which (if at all possible) is running on a different physical box. This connection is not used for any data transfer, only heartbeat communications are sent once a second per each link. If a certain number of exceptions are thrown while trying to re-establish a connection, the member throwing the exceptions is removed from the cluster. Member 5 logs a packet timeout with Member 3 and cites witnesses Members 4 and 6: 2010-02-26 15:30:29.791/165.037 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Warning> (thread=PacketPublisher, member=5): Timeout while delivering a packet; requesting the departure confirmation for Member(Id=3, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:24.892, Address=10.149.155.236:8088, MachineId=1260, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:32459, Role=CoherenceServer) by MemberSet(Size=2, BitSetCount=2 Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:39.574, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=6, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:58.635, Address=10.149.155.78:8088, MachineId=1102, Location=process:228, Role=CoherenceServer) ) 2010-02-26 15:30:29.798/165.044 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Info> (thread=Cluster, member=5): Member departure confirmed by MemberSet(Size=2, BitSetCount=2 Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:39.574, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer) Member(Id=6, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:58.635, Address=10.149.155.78:8088, MachineId=1102, Location=process:228, Role=CoherenceServer) ); removing Member(Id=3, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:24.892, Address=10.149.155.236:8088, MachineId=1260, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:32459, Role=CoherenceServer) Eventually we are left with two distinct clusters consisting of Members 1, 2, 3 and Members 4, 5, 6, respectively. In the latter cluster, Member 4 is promoted to senior member. The connection between the two switches is restored at 15:33. Upon the restoration of the connection, the cluster members immediately receive cluster heartbeats from the two senior members. In the case of Members 1, 2, and 3, the following is logged: 2010-02-26 15:33:14.970/369.066 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Warning> (thread=Cluster, member=1): The member formerly known as Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:30:35.341, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer) has been forcefully evicted from the cluster, but continues to emit a cluster heartbeat; henceforth, the member will be shunned and its messages will be ignored. Likewise for Members 4, 5, and 6: 2010-02-26 15:33:14.343/336.890 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Warning> (thread=Cluster, member=4): The member formerly known as Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:30:31.64, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) has been forcefully evicted from the cluster, but continues to emit a cluster heartbeat; henceforth, the member will be shunned and its messages will be ignored. This message indicates that a senior heartbeat is being received from members that were previously removed from the cluster, in other words, something that should not be possible. For this reason, the recipients of these messages will initially ignore them. After several iterations of these messages, the existence of multiple clusters is acknowledged, thus triggering the panic protocol to reconcile this situation. When the presence of more than one cluster (i.e. Split-Brain) is detected by a Coherence member, the panic protocol is invoked in order to resolve the conflicting clusters and consolidate into a single cluster. The protocol consists of the removal of smaller clusters until there is one cluster remaining. In the case of equal size clusters, the one with the older Senior Member will survive. Member 1, being the oldest member, initiates the protocol: 2010-02-26 15:33:45.970/400.066 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Warning> (thread=Cluster, member=1): An existence of a cluster island with senior Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:39.574, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer) containing 3 nodes have been detected. Since this Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) is the senior of an older cluster island, the panic protocol is being activated to stop the other island's senior and all junior nodes that belong to it. Member 3 receives the panic: 2010-02-26 15:33:45.803/382.336 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Error> (thread=Cluster, member=3): Received panic from senior Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer) caused by Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:39.574, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer) Member 4, the senior member of the younger cluster, receives the kill message from Member 3: 2010-02-26 15:33:44.921/367.468 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Error> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Received a Kill message from a valid Member(Id=3, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:24.892, Address=10.149.155.236:8088, MachineId=1260, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:32459, Role=CoherenceServer); stopping cluster service. In turn, Member 4 requests the departure of its junior members 5 and 6: 2010-02-26 15:33:44.921/367.468 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Error> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Received a Kill message from a valid Member(Id=3, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:24.892, Address=10.149.155.236:8088, MachineId=1260, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:32459, Role=CoherenceServer); stopping cluster service. 2010-02-26 15:33:43.343/349.015 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Error> (thread=Cluster, member=6): Received a Kill message from a valid Member(Id=4, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:39.574, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer); stopping cluster service. Once Members 4, 5, and 6 restart, they rejoin the original cluster with senior member 1. The log below is from Member 4. Note that it receives a different member id when it rejoins the cluster. 2010-02-26 15:33:44.921/367.468 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Error> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Received a Kill message from a valid Member(Id=3, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:24.892, Address=10.149.155.236:8088, MachineId=1260, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:32459, Role=CoherenceServer); stopping cluster service. 2010-02-26 15:33:46.921/369.468 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Service Cluster left the cluster 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Invocation:InvocationService, member=4): Service InvocationService left the cluster 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=OptimisticCache, member=4): Service OptimisticCache left the cluster 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=ReplicatedCache, member=4): Service ReplicatedCache left the cluster 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=DistributedCache, member=4): Service DistributedCache left the cluster 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Invocation:Management, member=4): Service Management left the cluster 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Member 6 left service Management with senior member 5 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Member 6 left service DistributedCache with senior member 5 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Member 6 left service ReplicatedCache with senior member 5 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Member 6 left service OptimisticCache with senior member 5 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Member 6 left service InvocationService with senior member 5 2010-02-26 15:33:47.046/369.593 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=4): Member(Id=6, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:33:47.046, Address=10.149.155.78:8088, MachineId=1102, Location=process:228, Role=CoherenceServer) left Cluster with senior member 4 2010-02-26 15:33:49.218/371.765 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Info> (thread=main, member=n/a): Restarting cluster 2010-02-26 15:33:49.421/371.968 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <D5> (thread=Cluster, member=n/a): Service Cluster joined the cluster with senior service member n/a 2010-02-26 15:33:49.625/372.172 Oracle Coherence GE 3.5.3/465p2 <Info> (thread=Cluster, member=n/a): This Member(Id=5, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:33:50.499, Address=10.149.155.75:8088, MachineId=1099, Location=process:800, Role=CoherenceServer, Edition=Grid Edition, Mode=Development, CpuCount=2, SocketCount=1) joined cluster "cluster:0xDDEB" with senior Member(Id=1, Timestamp=2010-02-26 15:27:06.931, Address=10.149.155.76:8088, MachineId=1100, Location=site:usdhcp.oraclecorp.com,machine:dhcp-burlington6-4fl-east-10-149,process:511, Role=CoherenceServer, Edition=Grid Edition, Mode=Development, CpuCount=2, SocketCount=2) Cool isn't it?

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• jQuery Time Entry with Time Navigation Keys

  - by Rick Strahl

  So, how do you display time values in your Web applications? Displaying date AND time values in applications is lot less standardized than date display only. While date input has become fairly universal with various date picker controls available, time entry continues to be a bit of a non-standardized. In my own applications I tend to use the jQuery UI DatePicker control for date entries and it works well for that. Here's an example: The date entry portion is well defined and it makes perfect sense to have a calendar pop up so you can pick a date from a rich UI when necessary. However, time values are much less obvious when it comes to displaying a UI or even just making time entries more useful. There are a slew of time picker controls available but other than adding some visual glitz, they are not really making time entry any easier. Part of the reason for this is that time entry is usually pretty simple. Clicking on a dropdown of any sort and selecting a value from a long scrolling list tends to take more user interaction than just typing 5 characters (7 if am/pm is used). Keystrokes can make Time Entry easier Time entry maybe pretty simple, but I find that adding a few hotkeys to handle date navigation can make it much easier. Specifically it'd be nice to have keys to: Jump to the current time (Now) Increase/decrease minutes Increase/decrease hours The timeKeys jQuery PlugIn Some time ago I created a small plugin to handle this scenario. It's non-visual other than tooltip that pops up when you press ? to display the hotkeys that are available: Try it Online The keys loosely follow the ancient Quicken convention of using the first and last letters of what you're increasing decreasing (ie. H to decrease, R to increase hours and + and - for the base unit or minutes here). All navigation happens via the keystrokes shown above, so it's all non-visual, which I think is the most efficient way to deal with dates. To hook up the plug-in, start with the textbox:<input type="text" id="txtTime" name="txtTime" value="12:05 pm" title="press ? for time options" /> Note the title which might be useful to alert people using the field that additional functionality is available. To hook up the plugin code is as simple as:$("#txtTime").timeKeys(); You essentially tie the plugin to any text box control. OptionsThe syntax for timeKeys allows for an options map parameter:$(selector).timeKeys(options); Options are passed as a parameter map object which can have the following properties: timeFormatYou can pass in a format string that allows you to format the date. The default is "hh:mm t" which is US time format that shows a 12 hour clock with am/pm. Alternately you can pass in "HH:mm" which uses 24 hour time. HH, hh, mm and t are translated in the format string - you can arrange the format as you see fit. callbackYou can also specify a callback function that is called when the date value has been set. This allows you to either re-format the date or perform post processing (such as displaying highlight if it's after a certain hour for example). Here's another example that uses both options:$("#txtTime").timeKeys({ timeFormat: "HH:mm", callback: function (time) { showStatus("new time is: " + time.toString() + " " + $(this).val() ); } }); The plugin code itself is fairly simple. It hooks the keydown event and checks for the various keys that affect time navigation which is straight forward. The bulk of the code however deals with parsing the time value and formatting the output using a Time class that implements parsing, formatting and time navigation methods. Here's the code for the timeKeys jQuery plug-in:/// <reference path="jquery.js" /> /// <reference path="ww.jquery.js" /> (function ($) { $.fn.timeKeys = function (options) { /// <summary> /// Attaches a set of hotkeys to time fields /// + Add minute - subtract minute /// H Subtract Hour R Add houR /// ? Show keys /// </summary> /// <param name="options" type="object"> /// Options: /// timeFormat: "hh:mm t" by default HH:mm alternate /// callback: callback handler after time assignment /// </param> /// <example> /// var proxy = new ServiceProxy("JsonStockService.svc/"); /// proxy.invoke("GetStockQuote",{symbol:"msft"},function(quote) { alert(result.LastPrice); },onPageError); ///</example> if (this.length < 1) return this; var opt = { timeFormat: "hh:mm t", callback: null } $.extend(opt, options); return this.keydown(function (e) { var $el = $(this); var time = new Time($el.val()); //alert($(this).val() + " " + time.toString() + " " + time.date.toString()); switch (e.keyCode) { case 78: // [N]ow time = new Time(new Date()); break; case 109: case 189: // - time.addMinutes(-1); break; case 107: case 187: // + time.addMinutes(1); break; case 72: //H time.addHours(-1); break; case 82: //R time.addHours(1); break; case 191: // ? if (e.shiftKey) $(this).tooltip("<b>N</b> Now<br/><b>+</b> add minute<br /><b>-</b> subtract minute<br /><b>H</b> Subtract Hour<br /><b>R</b> add hour", 4000, { isHtml: true }); return false; default: return true; } $el.val(time.toString(opt.timeFormat)); if (opt.callback) { // call async and set context in this element setTimeout(function () { opt.callback.call($el.get(0), time) }, 1); } return false; }); } Time = function (time, format) { /// <summary> /// Time object that can parse and format /// a time values. /// </summary> /// <param name="time" type="object"> /// A time value as a string (12:15pm or 23:01), a Date object /// or time value. /// /// </param> /// <param name="format" type="string"> /// Time format string: /// HH:mm (23:01) /// hh:mm t (11:01 pm) /// </param> /// <example> /// var time = new Time( new Date()); /// time.addHours(5); /// time.addMinutes(10); /// var s = time.toString(); /// /// var time2 = new Time(s); // parse with constructor /// var t = time2.parse("10:15 pm"); // parse with .parse() method /// alert( t.hours + " " + t.mins + " " + t.ampm + " " + t.hours25) ///</example> var _I = this; this.date = new Date(); this.timeFormat = "hh:mm t"; if (format) this.timeFormat = format; this.parse = function (time) { /// <summary> /// Parses time value from a Date object, or string in format of: /// 12:12pm or 23:01 /// </summary> /// <param name="time" type="any"> /// A time value as a string (12:15pm or 23:01), a Date object /// or time value. /// /// </param> if (!time) return null; // Date if (time.getDate) { var t = {}; var d = time; t.hours24 = d.getHours(); t.mins = d.getMinutes(); t.ampm = "am"; if (t.hours24 > 11) { t.ampm = "pm"; if (t.hours24 > 12) t.hours = t.hours24 - 12; } time = t; } if (typeof (time) == "string") { var parts = time.split(":"); if (parts < 2) return null; var time = {}; time.hours = parts[0] * 1; time.hours24 = time.hours; time.mins = parts[1].toLowerCase(); if (time.mins.indexOf("am") > -1) { time.ampm = "am"; time.mins = time.mins.replace("am", ""); if (time.hours == 12) time.hours24 = 0; } else if (time.mins.indexOf("pm") > -1) { time.ampm = "pm"; time.mins = time.mins.replace("pm", ""); if (time.hours < 12) time.hours24 = time.hours + 12; } time.mins = time.mins * 1; } _I.date.setMinutes(time.mins); _I.date.setHours(time.hours24); return time; }; this.addMinutes = function (mins) { /// <summary> /// adds minutes to the internally stored time value. /// </summary> /// <param name="mins" type="number"> /// number of minutes to add to the date /// </param> _I.date.setMinutes(_I.date.getMinutes() + mins); } this.addHours = function (hours) { /// <summary> /// adds hours the internally stored time value. /// </summary> /// <param name="hours" type="number"> /// number of hours to add to the date /// </param> _I.date.setHours(_I.date.getHours() + hours); } this.getTime = function () { /// <summary> /// returns a time structure from the currently /// stored time value. /// Properties: hours, hours24, mins, ampm /// </summary> return new Time(new Date()); h } this.toString = function (format) { /// <summary> /// returns a short time string for the internal date /// formats: 12:12 pm or 23:12 /// </summary> /// <param name="format" type="string"> /// optional format string for date /// HH:mm, hh:mm t /// </param> if (!format) format = _I.timeFormat; var hours = _I.date.getHours(); if (format.indexOf("t") > -1) { if (hours > 11) format = format.replace("t", "pm") else format = format.replace("t", "am") } if (format.indexOf("HH") > -1) format = format.replace("HH", hours.toString().padL(2, "0")); if (format.indexOf("hh") > -1) { if (hours > 12) hours -= 12; if (hours == 0) hours = 12; format = format.replace("hh", hours.toString().padL(2, "0")); } if (format.indexOf("mm") > -1) format = format.replace("mm", _I.date.getMinutes().toString().padL(2, "0")); return format; } // construction if (time) this.time = this.parse(time); } String.prototype.padL = function (width, pad) { if (!width || width < 1) return this; if (!pad) pad = " "; var length = width - this.length if (length < 1) return this.substr(0, width); return (String.repeat(pad, length) + this).substr(0, width); } String.repeat = function (chr, count) { var str = ""; for (var x = 0; x < count; x++) { str += chr }; return str; } })(jQuery); The plugin consists of the actual plugin and the Time class which handles parsing and formatting of the time value via the .parse() and .toString() methods. Code like this always ends up taking up more effort than the actual logic unfortunately. There are libraries out there that can handle this like datejs or even ww.jquery.js (which is what I use) but to keep the code self contained for this post the plugin doesn't rely on external code. There's one optional exception: The code as is has one dependency on ww.jquery.js  for the tooltip plugin that provides the small popup for all the hotkeys available. You can replace that code with some other mechanism to display hotkeys or simply remove it since that behavior is optional. While we're at it: A jQuery dateKeys plugIn Although date entry tends to be much better served with drop down calendars to pick dates from, often it's also easier to pick dates using a few simple hotkeys. Navigation that uses + - for days and M and H for MontH navigation, Y and R for YeaR navigation are a quick way to enter dates without having to resort to using a mouse and clicking around to what you want to find. Note that this plugin does have a dependency on ww.jquery.js for the date formatting functionality.$.fn.dateKeys = function (options) { /// <summary> /// Attaches a set of hotkeys to date 'fields' /// + Add day - subtract day /// M Subtract Month H Add montH /// Y Subtract Year R Add yeaR /// ? Show keys /// </summary> /// <param name="options" type="object"> /// Options: /// dateFormat: "MM/dd/yyyy" by default "MMM dd, yyyy /// callback: callback handler after date assignment /// </param> /// <example> /// var proxy = new ServiceProxy("JsonStockService.svc/"); /// proxy.invoke("GetStockQuote",{symbol:"msft"},function(quote) { alert(result.LastPrice); },onPageError); ///</example> if (this.length < 1) return this; var opt = { dateFormat: "MM/dd/yyyy", callback: null }; $.extend(opt, options); return this.keydown(function (e) { var $el = $(this); var d = new Date($el.val()); if (!d) d = new Date(1900, 0, 1, 1, 1); var month = d.getMonth(); var year = d.getFullYear(); var day = d.getDate(); switch (e.keyCode) { case 84: // [T]oday d = new Date(); break; case 109: case 189: d = new Date(year, month, day - 1); break; case 107: case 187: d = new Date(year, month, day + 1); break; case 77: //M d = new Date(year, month - 1, day); break; case 72: //H d = new Date(year, month + 1, day); break; case 191: // ? if (e.shiftKey) $el.tooltip("<b>T</b> Today<br/><b>+</b> add day<br /><b>-</b> subtract day<br /><b>M</b> subtract Month<br /><b>H</b> add montH<br/><b>Y</b> subtract Year<br/><b>R</b> add yeaR", 5000, { isHtml: true }); return false; default: return true; } $el.val(d.formatDate(opt.dateFormat)); if (opt.callback) // call async setTimeout(function () { opt.callback.call($el.get(0),d); }, 10); return false; }); } The logic for this plugin is similar to the timeKeys plugin, but it's a little simpler as it tries to directly parse the date value from a string via new Date(inputString). As mentioned it also uses a helper function from ww.jquery.js to format dates which removes the logic to perform date formatting manually which again reduces the size of the code. And the Key is… I've been using both of these plugins in combination with the jQuery UI datepicker for datetime values and I've found that I rarely actually pop up the date picker any more. It's just so much more efficient to use the hotkeys to navigate dates. It's still nice to have the picker around though - it provides the expected behavior for date entry. For time values however I can't justify the UI overhead of a picker that doesn't make it any easier to pick a time. Most people know how to type in a time value and if they want shortcuts keystrokes easily beat out any pop up UI. Hopefully you'll find this as useful as I have found it for my code. Resources Online Sample Download Sample Project © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in jQuery  HTML   Tweet (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Guidance: A Branching strategy for Scrum Teams

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Having a good branching strategy will save your bacon, or at least your code. Be careful when deviating from your branching strategy because if you do, you may be worse off than when you started! This is one possible branching strategy for Scrum teams and I will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even assess your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. You can also read SSW’s Rules to Better Scrum using TFS which have been developed during our own Scrum implementations. Acknowledgements Bill Heys – Bill offered some good feedback on this post and helped soften the language. Note: Bill is a VS ALM Ranger and co-wrote the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Willy-Peter Schaub – Willy-Peter is an ex Visual Studio ALM MVP turned blue badge and has been involved in most of the guidance including the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Chris Birmele – Chris wrote some of the early TFS Branching and Merging Guidance. Dr Paul Neumeyer, Ph.D Parallel Processes, ScrumMaster and SSW Solution Architect – Paul wanted to have feature branches coming from the release branch as well. We agreed that this is really a spin-off that needs own project, backlog, budget and Team. Scenario: A product is developed RTM 1.0 is released and gets great sales.  Extra features are demanded but the new version will have double to price to pay to recover costs, work is approved by the guys with budget and a few sprints later RTM 2.0 is released.  Sales a very low due to the pricing strategy. There are lots of clients on RTM 1.0 calling out for patches. As I keep getting Reverse Integration and Forward Integration mixed up and Bill keeps slapping my wrists I thought I should have a reminder: You still seemed to use reverse and/or forward integration in the wrong context. I would recommend reviewing your document at the end to ensure that it agrees with the common understanding of these terms merge (forward integration) from parent to child (same direction as the branch), and merge  (reverse integration) from child to parent (the reverse direction of the branch). - one of my many slaps on the wrist from Bill Heys.   As I mentioned previously we are using a single feature branching strategy in our current project. The single biggest mistake developers make is developing against the “Main” or “Trunk” line. This ultimately leads to messy code as things are added and never finished. Your only alternative is to NEVER check in unless your code is 100%, but this does not work in practice, even with a single developer. Your ADD will kick in and your half-finished code will be finished enough to pass the build and the tests. You do use builds don’t you? Sadly, this is a very common scenario and I have had people argue that branching merely adds complexity. Then again I have seen the other side of the universe ... branching  structures from he... We should somehow convince everyone that there is a happy between no-branching and too-much-branching. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   A key benefit of branching for development is to isolate changes from the stable Main branch. Branching adds sanity more than it adds complexity. We do try to stress in our guidance that it is important to justify a branch, by doing a cost benefit analysis. The primary cost is the effort to do merges and resolve conflicts. A key benefit is that you have a stable code base in Main and accept changes into Main only after they pass quality gates, etc. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft The second biggest mistake developers make is branching anything other than the WHOLE “Main” line. If you branch parts of your code and not others it gets out of sync and can make integration a nightmare. You should have your Source, Assets, Build scripts deployment scripts and dependencies inside the “Main” folder and branch the whole thing. Some departments within MSFT even go as far as to add the environments used to develop the product in there as well; although I would not recommend that unless you have a massive SQL cluster to house your source code. We tried the “add environment” back in South-Africa and while it was “phenomenal”, especially when having to switch between environments, the disk storage and processing requirements killed us. We opted for virtualization to skin this cat of keeping a ready-to-go environment handy. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   I think people often think that you should have separate branches for separate environments (e.g. Dev, Test, Integration Test, QA, etc.). I prefer to think of deploying to environments (such as from Main to QA) rather than branching for QA). - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   You can read about SSW’s Rules to better Source Control for some additional information on what Source Control to use and how to use it. There are also a number of branching Anti-Patterns that should be avoided at all costs: You know you are on the wrong track if you experience one or more of the following symptoms in your development environment: Merge Paranoia—avoiding merging at all cost, usually because of a fear of the consequences. Merge Mania—spending too much time merging software assets instead of developing them. Big Bang Merge—deferring branch merging to the end of the development effort and attempting to merge all branches simultaneously. Never-Ending Merge—continuous merging activity because there is always more to merge. Wrong-Way Merge—merging a software asset version with an earlier version. Branch Mania—creating many branches for no apparent reason. Cascading Branches—branching but never merging back to the main line. Mysterious Branches—branching for no apparent reason. Temporary Branches—branching for changing reasons, so the branch becomes a permanent temporary workspace. Volatile Branches—branching with unstable software assets shared by other branches or merged into another branch. Note   Branches are volatile most of the time while they exist as independent branches. That is the point of having them. The difference is that you should not share or merge branches while they are in an unstable state. Development Freeze—stopping all development activities while branching, merging, and building new base lines. Berlin Wall—using branches to divide the development team members, instead of dividing the work they are performing. -Branching and Merging Primer by Chris Birmele - Developer Tools Technical Specialist at Microsoft Pty Ltd in Australia   In fact, this can result in a merge exercise no-one wants to be involved in, merging hundreds of thousands of change sets and trying to get a consolidated build. Again, we need to find a happy medium. - Willy-Peter Schaub on Merge Paranoia Merge conflicts are generally the result of making changes to the same file in both the target and source branch. If you create merge conflicts, you will eventually need to resolve them. Often the resolution is manual. Merging more frequently allows you to resolve these conflicts close to when they happen, making the resolution clearer. Waiting weeks or months to resolve them, the Big Bang approach, means you are more likely to resolve conflicts incorrectly. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Main line, this is where your stable code lives and where any build has known entities, always passes and has a happy test that passes as well? Many development projects consist of, a single “Main” line of source and artifacts. This is good; at least there is source control . There are however a couple of issues that need to be considered. What happens if: you and your team are working on a new set of features and the customer wants a change to his current version? you are working on two features and the customer decides to abandon one of them? you have two teams working on different feature sets and their changes start interfering with each other? I just use labels instead of branches? That's a lot of “what if’s”, but there is a simple way of preventing this. Branching… In TFS, labels are not immutable. This does not mean they are not useful. But labels do not provide a very good development isolation mechanism. Branching allows separate code sets to evolve separately (e.g. Current with hotfixes, and vNext with new development). I don’t see how labels work here. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Creating a single feature branch means you can isolate the development work on that branch.   Its standard practice for large projects with lots of developers to use Feature branching and you can check the Branching Guidance for the latest recommendations from the Visual Studio ALM Rangers for other methods. In the diagram above you can see my recommendation for branching when using Scrum development with TFS 2010. It consists of a single Sprint branch to contain all the changes for the current sprint. The main branch has the permissions changes so contributors to the project can only Branch and Merge with “Main”. This will prevent accidental check-ins or checkouts of the “Main” line that would contaminate the code. The developers continue to develop on sprint one until the completion of the sprint. Note: In the real world, starting a new Greenfield project, this process starts at Sprint 2 as at the start of Sprint 1 you would have artifacts in version control and no need for isolation.   Figure: Once the sprint is complete the Sprint 1 code can then be merged back into the Main line. There are always good practices to follow, and one is to always do a Forward Integration from Main into Sprint 1 before you do a Reverse Integration from Sprint 1 back into Main. In this case it may seem superfluous, but this builds good muscle memory into your developer’s work ethic and means that no bad habits are learned that would interfere with additional Scrum Teams being added to the Product. The process of completing your sprint development: The Team completes their work according to their definition of done. Merge from “Main” into “Sprint1” (Forward Integration) Stabilize your code with any changes coming from other Scrum Teams working on the same product. If you have one Scrum Team this should be quick, but there may have been bug fixes in the Release branches. (we will talk about release branches later) Merge from “Sprint1” into “Main” to commit your changes. (Reverse Integration) Check-in Delete the Sprint1 branch Note: The Sprint 1 branch is no longer required as its useful life has been concluded. Check-in Done But you are not yet done with the Sprint. The goal in Scrum is to have a “potentially shippable product” at the end of every Sprint, and we do not have that yet, we only have finished code.   Figure: With Sprint 1 merged you can create a Release branch and run your final packaging and testing In 99% of all projects I have been involved in or watched, a “shippable product” only happens towards the end of the overall lifecycle, especially when sprints are short. The in-between releases are great demonstration releases, but not shippable. Perhaps it comes from my 80’s brain washing that we only ship when we reach the agreed quality and business feature bar. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft Although you should have been testing and packaging your code all the way through your Sprint 1 development, preferably using an automated process, you still need to test and package with stable unchanging code. This is where you do what at SSW we call a “Test Please”. This is first an internal test of the product to make sure it meets the needs of the customer and you generally use a resource external to your Team. Then a “Test Please” is conducted with the Product Owner to make sure he is happy with the output. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: If you find a deviation from the expected result you fix it on the Release branch. If during your final testing or your “Test Please” you find there are issues or bugs then you should fix them on the release branch. If you can’t fix them within the time box of your Sprint, then you will need to create a Bug and put it onto the backlog for prioritization by the Product owner. Make sure you leave plenty of time between your merge from the development branch to find and fix any problems that are uncovered. This process is commonly called Stabilization and should always be conducted once you have completed all of your User Stories and integrated all of your branches. Even once you have stabilized and released, you should not delete the release branch as you would with the Sprint branch. It has a usefulness for servicing that may extend well beyond the limited life you expect of it. Note: Don't get forced by the business into adding features into a Release branch instead that indicates the unspoken requirement is that they are asking for a product spin-off. In this case you can create a new Team Project and branch from the required Release branch to create a new Main branch for that product. And you create a whole new backlog to work from.   Figure: When the Team decides it is happy with the product you can create a RTM branch. Once you have fixed all the bugs you can, and added any you can’t to the Product Backlog, and you Team is happy with the result you can create a Release. This would consist of doing the final Build and Packaging it up ready for your Sprint Review meeting. You would then create a read-only branch that represents the code you “shipped”. This is really an Audit trail branch that is optional, but is good practice. You could use a Label, but Labels are not Auditable and if a dispute was raised by the customer you can produce a verifiable version of the source code for an independent party to check. Rare I know, but you do not want to be at the wrong end of a legal battle. Like the Release branch the RTM branch should never be deleted, or only deleted according to your companies legal policy, which in the UK is usually 7 years.   Figure: If you have made any changes in the Release you will need to merge back up to Main in order to finalise the changes. Nothing is really ever done until it is in Main. The same rules apply when merging any fixes in the Release branch back into Main and you should do a reverse merge before a forward merge, again for the muscle memory more than necessity at this stage. Your Sprint is now nearly complete, and you can have a Sprint Review meeting knowing that you have made every effort and taken every precaution to protect your customer’s investment. Note: In order to really achieve protection for both you and your client you would add Automated Builds, Automated Tests, Automated Acceptance tests, Acceptance test tracking, Unit Tests, Load tests, Web test and all the other good engineering practices that help produce reliable software.     Figure: After the Sprint Planning meeting the process begins again. Where the Sprint Review and Retrospective meetings mark the end of the Sprint, the Sprint Planning meeting marks the beginning. After you have completed your Sprint Planning and you know what you are trying to achieve in Sprint 2 you can create your new Branch to develop in. How do we handle a bug(s) in production that can’t wait? Although in Scrum the only work done should be on the backlog there should be a little buffer added to the Sprint Planning for contingencies. One of these contingencies is a bug in the current release that can’t wait for the Sprint to finish. But how do you handle that? Willy-Peter Schaub asked an excellent question on the release activities: In reality Sprint 2 starts when sprint 1 ends + weekend. Should we not cater for a possible parallelism between Sprint 2 and the release activities of sprint 1? It would introduce FI’s from main to sprint 2, I guess. Your “Figure: Merging print 2 back into Main.” covers, what I tend to believe to be reality in most cases. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft I agree, and if you have a single Scrum team then your resources are limited. The Scrum Team is responsible for packaging and release, so at least one run at stabilization, package and release should be included in the Sprint time box. If more are needed on the current production release during the Sprint 2 time box then resource needs to be pulled from Sprint 2. The Product Owner and the Team have four choices (in order of disruption/cost): Backlog: Add the bug to the backlog and fix it in the next Sprint Buffer Time: Use any buffer time included in the current Sprint to fix the bug quickly Make time: Remove a Story from the current Sprint that is of equal value to the time lost fixing the bug(s) and releasing. Note: The Team must agree that it can still meet the Sprint Goal. Cancel Sprint: Cancel the sprint and concentrate all resource on fixing the bug(s) Note: This can be a very costly if the current sprint has already had a lot of work completed as it will be lost. The choice will depend on the complexity and severity of the bug(s) and both the Product Owner and the Team need to agree. In this case we will go with option #2 or #3 as they are uncomplicated but severe bugs. Figure: Real world issue where a bug needs fixed in the current release. If the bug(s) is urgent enough then then your only option is to fix it in place. You can edit the release branch to find and fix the bug, hopefully creating a test so it can’t happen again. Follow the prior process and conduct an internal and customer “Test Please” before releasing. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: After you have fixed the bug you need to ship again. You then need to again create an RTM branch to hold the version of the code you released in escrow.   Figure: Main is now out of sync with your Release. We now need to get these new changes back up into the Main branch. Do a reverse and then forward merge again to get the new code into Main. But what about the branch, are developers not working on Sprint 2? Does Sprint 2 now have changes that are not in Main and Main now have changes that are not in Sprint 2? Well, yes… and this is part of the hit you take doing branching. But would this scenario even have been possible without branching?   Figure: Getting the changes in Main into Sprint 2 is very important. The Team now needs to do a Forward Integration merge into their Sprint and resolve any conflicts that occur. Maybe the bug has already been fixed in Sprint 2, maybe the bug no longer exists! This needs to be identified and resolved by the developers before they continue to get further out of Sync with Main. Note: Avoid the “Big bang merge” at all costs.   Figure: Merging Sprint 2 back into Main, the Forward Integration, and R0 terminates. Sprint 2 now merges (Reverse Integration) back into Main following the procedures we have already established.   Figure: The logical conclusion. This then allows the creation of the next release. By now you should be getting the big picture and hopefully you learned something useful from this post. I know I have enjoyed writing it as I find these exploratory posts coupled with real world experience really help harden my understanding.  Branching is a tool; it is not a silver bullet. Don’t over use it, and avoid “Anti-Patterns” where possible. Although the diagram above looks complicated I hope showing you how it is formed simplifies it as much as possible.   Technorati Tags: Branching,Scrum,VS ALM,TFS 2010,VS2010

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• Improving Partitioned Table Join Performance

  - by Paul White

  The query optimizer does not always choose an optimal strategy when joining partitioned tables. This post looks at an example, showing how a manual rewrite of the query can almost double performance, while reducing the memory grant to almost nothing. Test Data The two tables in this example use a common partitioning partition scheme. The partition function uses 41 equal-size partitions: CREATE PARTITION FUNCTION PFT (integer) AS RANGE RIGHT FOR VALUES ( 125000, 250000, 375000, 500000, 625000, 750000, 875000, 1000000, 1125000, 1250000, 1375000, 1500000, 1625000, 1750000, 1875000, 2000000, 2125000, 2250000, 2375000, 2500000, 2625000, 2750000, 2875000, 3000000, 3125000, 3250000, 3375000, 3500000, 3625000, 3750000, 3875000, 4000000, 4125000, 4250000, 4375000, 4500000, 4625000, 4750000, 4875000, 5000000 ); GO CREATE PARTITION SCHEME PST AS PARTITION PFT ALL TO ([PRIMARY]); There two tables are: CREATE TABLE dbo.T1 ( TID integer NOT NULL IDENTITY(0,1), Column1 integer NOT NULL, Padding binary(100) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0x,   CONSTRAINT PK_T1 PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (TID) ON PST (TID) );   CREATE TABLE dbo.T2 ( TID integer NOT NULL, Column1 integer NOT NULL, Padding binary(100) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0x,   CONSTRAINT PK_T2 PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (TID, Column1) ON PST (TID) ); The next script loads 5 million rows into T1 with a pseudo-random value between 1 and 5 for Column1. The table is partitioned on the IDENTITY column TID: INSERT dbo.T1 WITH (TABLOCKX) (Column1) SELECT (ABS(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) % 5) + 1 FROM dbo.Numbers AS N WHERE n BETWEEN 1 AND 5000000; In case you don’t already have an auxiliary table of numbers lying around, here’s a script to create one with 10 million rows: CREATE TABLE dbo.Numbers (n bigint PRIMARY KEY);   WITH L0 AS(SELECT 1 AS c UNION ALL SELECT 1), L1 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L0 AS A CROSS JOIN L0 AS B), L2 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L1 AS A CROSS JOIN L1 AS B), L3 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L2 AS A CROSS JOIN L2 AS B), L4 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L3 AS A CROSS JOIN L3 AS B), L5 AS(SELECT 1 AS c FROM L4 AS A CROSS JOIN L4 AS B), Nums AS(SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) AS n FROM L5) INSERT dbo.Numbers WITH (TABLOCKX) SELECT TOP (10000000) n FROM Nums ORDER BY n OPTION (MAXDOP 1); Table T1 contains data like this: Next we load data into table T2. The relationship between the two tables is that table 2 contains ‘n’ rows for each row in table 1, where ‘n’ is determined by the value in Column1 of table T1. There is nothing particularly special about the data or distribution, by the way. INSERT dbo.T2 WITH (TABLOCKX) (TID, Column1) SELECT T.TID, N.n FROM dbo.T1 AS T JOIN dbo.Numbers AS N ON N.n >= 1 AND N.n <= T.Column1; Table T2 ends up containing about 15 million rows: The primary key for table T2 is a combination of TID and Column1. The data is partitioned according to the value in column TID alone. Partition Distribution The following query shows the number of rows in each partition of table T1: SELECT PartitionID = CA1.P, NumRows = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T CROSS APPLY (VALUES ($PARTITION.PFT(TID))) AS CA1 (P) GROUP BY CA1.P ORDER BY CA1.P; There are 40 partitions containing 125,000 rows (40 * 125k = 5m rows). The rightmost partition remains empty. The next query shows the distribution for table 2: SELECT PartitionID = CA1.P, NumRows = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T2 AS T CROSS APPLY (VALUES ($PARTITION.PFT(TID))) AS CA1 (P) GROUP BY CA1.P ORDER BY CA1.P; There are roughly 375,000 rows in each partition (the rightmost partition is also empty): Ok, that’s the test data done. Test Query and Execution Plan The task is to count the rows resulting from joining tables 1 and 2 on the TID column: SET STATISTICS IO ON; DECLARE @s datetime2 = SYSUTCDATETIME();   SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID;   SELECT DATEDIFF(Millisecond, @s, SYSUTCDATETIME()); SET STATISTICS IO OFF; The optimizer chooses a plan using parallel hash join, and partial aggregation: The Plan Explorer plan tree view shows accurate cardinality estimates and an even distribution of rows across threads (click to enlarge the image): With a warm data cache, the STATISTICS IO output shows that no physical I/O was needed, and all 41 partitions were touched: Running the query without actual execution plan or STATISTICS IO information for maximum performance, the query returns in around 2600ms. Execution Plan Analysis The first step toward improving on the execution plan produced by the query optimizer is to understand how it works, at least in outline. The two parallel Clustered Index Scans use multiple threads to read rows from tables T1 and T2. Parallel scan uses a demand-based scheme where threads are given page(s) to scan from the table as needed. This arrangement has certain important advantages, but does result in an unpredictable distribution of rows amongst threads. The point is that multiple threads cooperate to scan the whole table, but it is impossible to predict which rows end up on which threads. For correct results from the parallel hash join, the execution plan has to ensure that rows from T1 and T2 that might join are processed on the same thread. For example, if a row from T1 with join key value ‘1234’ is placed in thread 5’s hash table, the execution plan must guarantee that any rows from T2 that also have join key value ‘1234’ probe thread 5’s hash table for matches. The way this guarantee is enforced in this parallel hash join plan is by repartitioning rows to threads after each parallel scan. The two repartitioning exchanges route rows to threads using a hash function over the hash join keys. The two repartitioning exchanges use the same hash function so rows from T1 and T2 with the same join key must end up on the same hash join thread. Expensive Exchanges This business of repartitioning rows between threads can be very expensive, especially if a large number of rows is involved. The execution plan selected by the optimizer moves 5 million rows through one repartitioning exchange and around 15 million across the other. As a first step toward removing these exchanges, consider the execution plan selected by the optimizer if we join just one partition from each table, disallowing parallelism: SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = 1 AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = 1 OPTION (MAXDOP 1); The optimizer has chosen a (one-to-many) merge join instead of a hash join. The single-partition query completes in around 100ms. If everything scaled linearly, we would expect that extending this strategy to all 40 populated partitions would result in an execution time around 4000ms. Using parallelism could reduce that further, perhaps to be competitive with the parallel hash join chosen by the optimizer. This raises a question. If the most efficient way to join one partition from each of the tables is to use a merge join, why does the optimizer not choose a merge join for the full query? Forcing a Merge Join Let’s force the optimizer to use a merge join on the test query using a hint: SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID OPTION (MERGE JOIN); This is the execution plan selected by the optimizer: This plan results in the same number of logical reads reported previously, but instead of 2600ms the query takes 5000ms. The natural explanation for this drop in performance is that the merge join plan is only using a single thread, whereas the parallel hash join plan could use multiple threads. Parallel Merge Join We can get a parallel merge join plan using the same query hint as before, and adding trace flag 8649: SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID OPTION (MERGE JOIN, QUERYTRACEON 8649); The execution plan is: This looks promising. It uses a similar strategy to distribute work across threads as seen for the parallel hash join. In practice though, performance is disappointing. On a typical run, the parallel merge plan runs for around 8400ms; slower than the single-threaded merge join plan (5000ms) and much worse than the 2600ms for the parallel hash join. We seem to be going backwards! The logical reads for the parallel merge are still exactly the same as before, with no physical IOs. The cardinality estimates and thread distribution are also still very good (click to enlarge): A big clue to the reason for the poor performance is shown in the wait statistics (captured by Plan Explorer Pro): CXPACKET waits require careful interpretation, and are most often benign, but in this case excessive waiting occurs at the repartitioning exchanges. Unlike the parallel hash join, the repartitioning exchanges in this plan are order-preserving ‘merging’ exchanges (because merge join requires ordered inputs): Parallelism works best when threads can just grab any available unit of work and get on with processing it. Preserving order introduces inter-thread dependencies that can easily lead to significant waits occurring. In extreme cases, these dependencies can result in an intra-query deadlock, though the details of that will have to wait for another time to explore in detail. The potential for waits and deadlocks leads the query optimizer to cost parallel merge join relatively highly, especially as the degree of parallelism (DOP) increases. This high costing resulted in the optimizer choosing a serial merge join rather than parallel in this case. The test results certainly confirm its reasoning. Collocated Joins In SQL Server 2008 and later, the optimizer has another available strategy when joining tables that share a common partition scheme. This strategy is a collocated join, also known as as a per-partition join. It can be applied in both serial and parallel execution plans, though it is limited to 2-way joins in the current optimizer. Whether the optimizer chooses a collocated join or not depends on cost estimation. The primary benefits of a collocated join are that it eliminates an exchange and requires less memory, as we will see next. Costing and Plan Selection The query optimizer did consider a collocated join for our original query, but it was rejected on cost grounds. The parallel hash join with repartitioning exchanges appeared to be a cheaper option. There is no query hint to force a collocated join, so we have to mess with the costing framework to produce one for our test query. Pretending that IOs cost 50 times more than usual is enough to convince the optimizer to use collocated join with our test query: -- Pretend IOs are 50x cost temporarily DBCC SETIOWEIGHT(50);   -- Co-located hash join SELECT COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID OPTION (RECOMPILE);   -- Reset IO costing DBCC SETIOWEIGHT(1); Collocated Join Plan The estimated execution plan for the collocated join is: The Constant Scan contains one row for each partition of the shared partitioning scheme, from 1 to 41. The hash repartitioning exchanges seen previously are replaced by a single Distribute Streams exchange using Demand partitioning. Demand partitioning means that the next partition id is given to the next parallel thread that asks for one. My test machine has eight logical processors, and all are available for SQL Server to use. As a result, there are eight threads in the single parallel branch in this plan, each processing one partition from each table at a time. Once a thread finishes processing a partition, it grabs a new partition number from the Distribute Streams exchange…and so on until all partitions have been processed. It is important to understand that the parallel scans in this plan are different from the parallel hash join plan. Although the scans have the same parallelism icon, tables T1 and T2 are not being co-operatively scanned by multiple threads in the same way. Each thread reads a single partition of T1 and performs a hash match join with the same partition from table T2. The properties of the two Clustered Index Scans show a Seek Predicate (unusual for a scan!) limiting the rows to a single partition: The crucial point is that the join between T1 and T2 is on TID, and TID is the partitioning column for both tables. A thread that processes partition ‘n’ is guaranteed to see all rows that can possibly join on TID for that partition. In addition, no other thread will see rows from that partition, so this removes the need for repartitioning exchanges. CPU and Memory Efficiency Improvements The collocated join has removed two expensive repartitioning exchanges and added a single exchange processing 41 rows (one for each partition id). Remember, the parallel hash join plan exchanges had to process 5 million and 15 million rows. The amount of processor time spent on exchanges will be much lower in the collocated join plan. In addition, the collocated join plan has a maximum of 8 threads processing single partitions at any one time. The 41 partitions will all be processed eventually, but a new partition is not started until a thread asks for it. Threads can reuse hash table memory for the new partition. The parallel hash join plan also had 8 hash tables, but with all 5,000,000 build rows loaded at the same time. The collocated plan needs memory for only 8 * 125,000 = 1,000,000 rows at any one time. Collocated Hash Join Performance The collated join plan has disappointing performance in this case. The query runs for around 25,300ms despite the same IO statistics as usual. This is much the worst result so far, so what went wrong? It turns out that cardinality estimation for the single partition scans of table T1 is slightly low. The properties of the Clustered Index Scan of T1 (graphic immediately above) show the estimation was for 121,951 rows. This is a small shortfall compared with the 125,000 rows actually encountered, but it was enough to cause the hash join to spill to physical tempdb: A level 1 spill doesn’t sound too bad, until you realize that the spill to tempdb probably occurs for each of the 41 partitions. As a side note, the cardinality estimation error is a little surprising because the system tables accurately show there are 125,000 rows in every partition of T1. Unfortunately, the optimizer uses regular column and index statistics to derive cardinality estimates here rather than system table information (e.g. sys.partitions). Collocated Merge Join We will never know how well the collocated parallel hash join plan might have worked without the cardinality estimation error (and the resulting 41 spills to tempdb) but we do know: Merge join does not require a memory grant; and Merge join was the optimizer’s preferred join option for a single partition join Putting this all together, what we would really like to see is the same collocated join strategy, but using merge join instead of hash join. Unfortunately, the current query optimizer cannot produce a collocated merge join; it only knows how to do collocated hash join. So where does this leave us? CROSS APPLY sys.partitions We can try to write our own collocated join query. We can use sys.partitions to find the partition numbers, and CROSS APPLY to get a count per partition, with a final step to sum the partial counts. The following query implements this idea: SELECT row_count = SUM(Subtotals.cnt) FROM ( -- Partition numbers SELECT p.partition_number FROM sys.partitions AS p WHERE p.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID(N'T1', N'U') AND p.index_id = 1 ) AS P CROSS APPLY ( -- Count per collocated join SELECT cnt = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = p.partition_number AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = p.partition_number ) AS SubTotals; The estimated plan is: The cardinality estimates aren’t all that good here, especially the estimate for the scan of the system table underlying the sys.partitions view. Nevertheless, the plan shape is heading toward where we would like to be. Each partition number from the system table results in a per-partition scan of T1 and T2, a one-to-many Merge Join, and a Stream Aggregate to compute the partial counts. The final Stream Aggregate just sums the partial counts. Execution time for this query is around 3,500ms, with the same IO statistics as always. This compares favourably with 5,000ms for the serial plan produced by the optimizer with the OPTION (MERGE JOIN) hint. This is another case of the sum of the parts being less than the whole – summing 41 partial counts from 41 single-partition merge joins is faster than a single merge join and count over all partitions. Even so, this single-threaded collocated merge join is not as quick as the original parallel hash join plan, which executed in 2,600ms. On the positive side, our collocated merge join uses only one logical processor and requires no memory grant. The parallel hash join plan used 16 threads and reserved 569 MB of memory:   Using a Temporary Table Our collocated merge join plan should benefit from parallelism. The reason parallelism is not being used is that the query references a system table. We can work around that by writing the partition numbers to a temporary table (or table variable): SET STATISTICS IO ON; DECLARE @s datetime2 = SYSUTCDATETIME();   CREATE TABLE #P ( partition_number integer PRIMARY KEY);   INSERT #P (partition_number) SELECT p.partition_number FROM sys.partitions AS p WHERE p.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID(N'T1', N'U') AND p.index_id = 1;   SELECT row_count = SUM(Subtotals.cnt) FROM #P AS p CROSS APPLY ( SELECT cnt = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = p.partition_number AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = p.partition_number ) AS SubTotals;   DROP TABLE #P;   SELECT DATEDIFF(Millisecond, @s, SYSUTCDATETIME()); SET STATISTICS IO OFF; Using the temporary table adds a few logical reads, but the overall execution time is still around 3500ms, indistinguishable from the same query without the temporary table. The problem is that the query optimizer still doesn’t choose a parallel plan for this query, though the removal of the system table reference means that it could if it chose to: In fact the optimizer did enter the parallel plan phase of query optimization (running search 1 for a second time): Unfortunately, the parallel plan found seemed to be more expensive than the serial plan. This is a crazy result, caused by the optimizer’s cost model not reducing operator CPU costs on the inner side of a nested loops join. Don’t get me started on that, we’ll be here all night. In this plan, everything expensive happens on the inner side of a nested loops join. Without a CPU cost reduction to compensate for the added cost of exchange operators, candidate parallel plans always look more expensive to the optimizer than the equivalent serial plan. Parallel Collocated Merge Join We can produce the desired parallel plan using trace flag 8649 again: SELECT row_count = SUM(Subtotals.cnt) FROM #P AS p CROSS APPLY ( SELECT cnt = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = p.partition_number AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = p.partition_number ) AS SubTotals OPTION (QUERYTRACEON 8649); The actual execution plan is: One difference between this plan and the collocated hash join plan is that a Repartition Streams exchange operator is used instead of Distribute Streams. The effect is similar, though not quite identical. The Repartition uses round-robin partitioning, meaning the next partition id is pushed to the next thread in sequence. The Distribute Streams exchange seen earlier used Demand partitioning, meaning the next partition id is pulled across the exchange by the next thread that is ready for more work. There are subtle performance implications for each partitioning option, but going into that would again take us too far off the main point of this post. Performance The important thing is the performance of this parallel collocated merge join – just 1350ms on a typical run. The list below shows all the alternatives from this post (all timings include creation, population, and deletion of the temporary table where appropriate) from quickest to slowest: Collocated parallel merge join: 1350ms Parallel hash join: 2600ms Collocated serial merge join: 3500ms Serial merge join: 5000ms Parallel merge join: 8400ms Collated parallel hash join: 25,300ms (hash spill per partition) The parallel collocated merge join requires no memory grant (aside from a paltry 1.2MB used for exchange buffers). This plan uses 16 threads at DOP 8; but 8 of those are (rather pointlessly) allocated to the parallel scan of the temporary table. These are minor concerns, but it turns out there is a way to address them if it bothers you. Parallel Collocated Merge Join with Demand Partitioning This final tweak replaces the temporary table with a hard-coded list of partition ids (dynamic SQL could be used to generate this query from sys.partitions): SELECT row_count = SUM(Subtotals.cnt) FROM ( VALUES (1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9),(10), (11),(12),(13),(14),(15),(16),(17),(18),(19),(20), (21),(22),(23),(24),(25),(26),(27),(28),(29),(30), (31),(32),(33),(34),(35),(36),(37),(38),(39),(40),(41) ) AS P (partition_number) CROSS APPLY ( SELECT cnt = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.T1 AS T1 JOIN dbo.T2 AS T2 ON T2.TID = T1.TID WHERE $PARTITION.PFT(T1.TID) = p.partition_number AND $PARTITION.PFT(T2.TID) = p.partition_number ) AS SubTotals OPTION (QUERYTRACEON 8649); The actual execution plan is: The parallel collocated hash join plan is reproduced below for comparison: The manual rewrite has another advantage that has not been mentioned so far: the partial counts (per partition) can be computed earlier than the partial counts (per thread) in the optimizer’s collocated join plan. The earlier aggregation is performed by the extra Stream Aggregate under the nested loops join. The performance of the parallel collocated merge join is unchanged at around 1350ms. Final Words It is a shame that the current query optimizer does not consider a collocated merge join (Connect item closed as Won’t Fix). The example used in this post showed an improvement in execution time from 2600ms to 1350ms using a modestly-sized data set and limited parallelism. In addition, the memory requirement for the query was almost completely eliminated  – down from 569MB to 1.2MB. The problem with the parallel hash join selected by the optimizer is that it attempts to process the full data set all at once (albeit using eight threads). It requires a large memory grant to hold all 5 million rows from table T1 across the eight hash tables, and does not take advantage of the divide-and-conquer opportunity offered by the common partitioning. The great thing about the collocated join strategies is that each parallel thread works on a single partition from both tables, reading rows, performing the join, and computing a per-partition subtotal, before moving on to a new partition. From a thread’s point of view… If you have trouble visualizing what is happening from just looking at the parallel collocated merge join execution plan, let’s look at it again, but from the point of view of just one thread operating between the two Parallelism (exchange) operators. Our thread picks up a single partition id from the Distribute Streams exchange, and starts a merge join using ordered rows from partition 1 of table T1 and partition 1 of table T2. By definition, this is all happening on a single thread. As rows join, they are added to a (per-partition) count in the Stream Aggregate immediately above the Merge Join. Eventually, either T1 (partition 1) or T2 (partition 1) runs out of rows and the merge join stops. The per-partition count from the aggregate passes on through the Nested Loops join to another Stream Aggregate, which is maintaining a per-thread subtotal. Our same thread now picks up a new partition id from the exchange (say it gets id 9 this time). The count in the per-partition aggregate is reset to zero, and the processing of partition 9 of both tables proceeds just as it did for partition 1, and on the same thread. Each thread picks up a single partition id and processes all the data for that partition, completely independently from other threads working on other partitions. One thread might eventually process partitions (1, 9, 17, 25, 33, 41) while another is concurrently processing partitions (2, 10, 18, 26, 34) and so on for the other six threads at DOP 8. The point is that all 8 threads can execute independently and concurrently, continuing to process new partitions until the wider job (of which the thread has no knowledge!) is done. This divide-and-conquer technique can be much more efficient than simply splitting the entire workload across eight threads all at once. Related Reading Understanding and Using Parallelism in SQL Server Parallel Execution Plans Suck © 2013 Paul White – All Rights Reserved Twitter: @SQL_Kiwi

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• Windows Azure: Backup Services Release, Hyper-V Recovery Manager, VM Enhancements, Enhanced Enterprise Management Support

  - by ScottGu

  This morning we released a huge set of updates to Windows Azure.  These new capabilities include: Backup Services: General Availability of Windows Azure Backup Services Hyper-V Recovery Manager: Public preview of Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager Virtual Machines: Delete Attached Disks, Availability Set Warnings, SQL AlwaysOn Configuration Active Directory: Securely manage hundreds of SaaS applications Enterprise Management: Use Active Directory to Better Manage Windows Azure Windows Azure SDK 2.2: A massive update of our SDK + Visual Studio tooling support All of these improvements are now available to use immediately.  Below are more details about them. Backup Service: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Backup Today we are releasing Windows Azure Backup Service as a general availability service.  This release is now live in production, backed by an enterprise SLA, supported by Microsoft Support, and is ready to use for production scenarios. Windows Azure Backup is a cloud based backup solution for Windows Server which allows files and folders to be backed up and recovered from the cloud, and provides off-site protection against data loss. The service provides IT administrators and developers with the option to back up and protect critical data in an easily recoverable way from any location with no upfront hardware cost. Windows Azure Backup is built on the Windows Azure platform and uses Windows Azure blob storage for storing customer data. Windows Server uses the downloadable Windows Azure Backup Agent to transfer file and folder data securely and efficiently to the Windows Azure Backup Service. Along with providing cloud backup for Windows Server, Windows Azure Backup Service also provides capability to backup data from System Center Data Protection Manager and Windows Server Essentials, to the cloud. All data is encrypted onsite before it is sent to the cloud, and customers retain and manage the encryption key (meaning the data is stored entirely secured and can’t be decrypted by anyone but yourself). Getting Started To get started with the Windows Azure Backup Service, create a new Backup Vault within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Click New->Data Services->Recovery Services->Backup Vault to do this: Once the backup vault is created you’ll be presented with a simple tutorial that will help guide you on how to register your Windows Servers with it: Once the servers you want to backup are registered, you can use the appropriate local management interface (such as the Microsoft Management Console snap-in, System Center Data Protection Manager Console, or Windows Server Essentials Dashboard) to configure the scheduled backups and to optionally initiate recoveries. You can follow these tutorials to learn more about how to do this: Tutorial: Schedule Backups Using the Windows Azure Backup Agent This tutorial helps you with setting up a backup schedule for your registered Windows Servers. Additionally, it also explains how to use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to set up a custom backup schedule. Tutorial: Recover Files and Folders Using the Windows Azure Backup Agent This tutorial helps you with recovering data from a backup. Additionally, it also explains how to use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to do the same tasks. Below are some of the key benefits the Windows Azure Backup Service provides: Simple configuration and management. Windows Azure Backup Service integrates with the familiar Windows Server Backup utility in Windows Server, the Data Protection Manager component in System Center and Windows Server Essentials, in order to provide a seamless backup and recovery experience to a local disk, or to the cloud. Block level incremental backups. The Windows Azure Backup Agent performs incremental backups by tracking file and block level changes and only transferring the changed blocks, hence reducing the storage and bandwidth utilization. Different point-in-time versions of the backups use storage efficiently by only storing the changes blocks between these versions. Data compression, encryption and throttling. The Windows Azure Backup Agent ensures that data is compressed and encrypted on the server before being sent to the Windows Azure Backup Service over the network. As a result, the Windows Azure Backup Service only stores encrypted data in the cloud storage. The encryption key is not available to the Windows Azure Backup Service, and as a result the data is never decrypted in the service. Also, users can setup throttling and configure how the Windows Azure Backup service utilizes the network bandwidth when backing up or restoring information. Data integrity is verified in the cloud. In addition to the secure backups, the backed up data is also automatically checked for integrity once the backup is done. As a result, any corruptions which may arise due to data transfer can be easily identified and are fixed automatically. Configurable retention policies for storing data in the cloud. The Windows Azure Backup Service accepts and implements retention policies to recycle backups that exceed the desired retention range, thereby meeting business policies and managing backup costs. Hyper-V Recovery Manager: Now Available in Public Preview I’m excited to also announce the public preview of a new Windows Azure Service – the Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager (HRM). Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager helps protect your business critical services by coordinating the replication and recovery of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 private clouds at a secondary location. With automated protection, asynchronous ongoing replication, and orderly recovery, the Hyper-V Recovery Manager service can help you implement Disaster Recovery and restore important services accurately, consistently, and with minimal downtime. Application data in an Hyper-V Recovery Manager scenarios always travels on your on-premise replication channel. Only metadata (such as names of logical clouds, virtual machines, networks etc.) that is needed for orchestration is sent to Azure. All traffic sent to/from Azure is encrypted. You can begin using Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery today by clicking New->Data Services->Recovery Services->Hyper-V Recovery Manager within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  You can read more about Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager in Brad Anderson’s 9-part series, Transform the datacenter. To learn more about setting up Hyper-V Recovery Manager follow our detailed step-by-step guide. Virtual Machines: Delete Attached Disks, Availability Set Warnings, SQL AlwaysOn Today’s Windows Azure release includes a number of nice updates to Windows Azure Virtual Machines.  These improvements include: Ability to Delete both VM Instances + Attached Disks in One Operation Prior to today’s release, when you deleted VMs within Windows Azure we would delete the VM instance – but not delete the drives attached to the VM.  You had to manually delete these yourself from the storage account.  With today’s update we’ve added a convenience option that now allows you to either retain or delete the attached disks when you delete the VM:   We’ve also added the ability to delete a cloud service, its deployments, and its role instances with a single action. This can either be a cloud service that has production and staging deployments with web and worker roles, or a cloud service that contains virtual machines.  To do this, simply select the Cloud Service within the Windows Azure Management Portal and click the “Delete” button: Warnings on Availability Sets with Only One Virtual Machine In Them One of the nice features that Windows Azure Virtual Machines supports is the concept of “Availability Sets”.  An “availability set” allows you to define a tier/role (e.g. webfrontends, databaseservers, etc) that you can map Virtual Machines into – and when you do this Windows Azure separates them across fault domains and ensures that at least one of them is always available during servicing operations.  This enables you to deploy applications in a high availability way. One issue we’ve seen some customers run into is where they define an availability set, but then forget to map more than one VM into it (which defeats the purpose of having an availability set).  With today’s release we now display a warning in the Windows Azure Management Portal if you have only one virtual machine deployed in an availability set to help highlight this: You can learn more about configuring the availability of your virtual machines here. Configuring SQL Server Always On SQL Server Always On is a great feature that you can use with Windows Azure to enable high availability and DR scenarios with SQL Server. Today’s Windows Azure release makes it even easier to configure SQL Server Always On by enabling “Direct Server Return” endpoints to be configured and managed within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Previously, setting this up required using PowerShell to complete the endpoint configuration.  Starting today you can enable this simply by checking the “Direct Server Return” checkbox: You can learn more about how to use direct server return for SQL Server AlwaysOn availability groups here. Active Directory: Application Access Enhancements This summer we released our initial preview of our Application Access Enhancements for Windows Azure Active Directory.  This service enables you to securely implement single-sign-on (SSO) support against SaaS applications (including Office 365, SalesForce, Workday, Box, Google Apps, GitHub, etc) as well as LOB based applications (including ones built with the new Windows Azure AD support we shipped last week with ASP.NET and VS 2013). Since the initial preview we’ve enhanced our SAML federation capabilities, integrated our new password vaulting system, and shipped multi-factor authentication support. We've also turned on our outbound identity provisioning system and have it working with hundreds of additional SaaS Applications: Earlier this month we published an update on dates and pricing for when the service will be released in general availability form.  In this blog post we announced our intention to release the service in general availability form by the end of the year.  We also announced that the below features would be available in a free tier with it: SSO to every SaaS app we integrate with – Users can Single Sign On to any app we are integrated with at no charge. This includes all the top SAAS Apps and every app in our application gallery whether they use federation or password vaulting. Application access assignment and removal – IT Admins can assign access privileges to web applications to the users in their active directory assuring that every employee has access to the SAAS Apps they need. And when a user leaves the company or changes jobs, the admin can just as easily remove their access privileges assuring data security and minimizing IP loss User provisioning (and de-provisioning) – IT admins will be able to automatically provision users in 3rd party SaaS applications like Box, Salesforce.com, GoToMeeting, DropBox and others. We are working with key partners in the ecosystem to establish these connections, meaning you no longer have to continually update user records in multiple systems. Security and auditing reports – Security is a key priority for us. With the free version of these enhancements you'll get access to our standard set of access reports giving you visibility into which users are using which applications, when they were using them and where they are using them from. In addition, we'll alert you to un-usual usage patterns for instance when a user logs in from multiple locations at the same time. Our Application Access Panel – Users are logging in from every type of devices including Windows, iOS, & Android. Not all of these devices handle authentication in the same manner but the user doesn't care. They need to access their apps from the devices they love. Our Application Access Panel will support the ability for users to access access and launch their apps from any device and anywhere. You can learn more about our plans for application management with Windows Azure Active Directory here.  Try out the preview and start using it today. Enterprise Management: Use Active Directory to Better Manage Windows Azure Windows Azure Active Directory provides the ability to manage your organization in a directory which is hosted entirely in the cloud, or alternatively kept in sync with an on-premises Windows Server Active Directory solution (allowing you to seamlessly integrate with the directory you already have).  With today’s Windows Azure release we are integrating Windows Azure Active Directory even more within the core Windows Azure management experience, and enabling an even richer enterprise security offering.  Specifically: 1) All Windows Azure accounts now have a default Windows Azure Active Directory created for them.  You can create and map any users you want into this directory, and grant administrative rights to manage resources in Windows Azure to these users. 2) You can keep this directory entirely hosted in the cloud – or optionally sync it with your on-premises Windows Server Active Directory.  Both options are free.  The later approach is ideal for companies that wish to use their corporate user identities to sign-in and manage Windows Azure resources.  It also ensures that if an employee leaves an organization, his or her access control rights to the company’s Windows Azure resources are immediately revoked. 3) The Windows Azure Service Management APIs have been updated to support using Windows Azure Active Directory credentials to sign-in and perform management operations.  Prior to today’s release customers had to download and use management certificates (which were not scoped to individual users) to perform management operations.  We still support this management certificate approach (don’t worry – nothing will stop working).  But we think the new Windows Azure Active Directory authentication support enables an even easier and more secure way for customers to manage resources going forward.  4) The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release (which is also shipping today) includes built-in support for the new Service Management APIs that authenticate with Windows Azure Active Directory, and now allow you to create and manage Windows Azure applications and resources directly within Visual Studio using your Active Directory credentials.  This, combined with updated PowerShell scripts that also support Active Directory, enables an end-to-end enterprise authentication story with Windows Azure. Below are some details on how all of this works: Subscriptions within a Directory As part of today’s update, we have associated all existing Window Azure accounts with a Windows Azure Active Directory (and created one for you if you don’t already have one). When you login to the Windows Azure Management Portal you’ll now see the directory name in the URI of the browser.  For example, in the screen-shot below you can see that I have a “scottgu” directory that my subscriptions are hosted within: Note that you can continue to use Microsoft Accounts (formerly known as Microsoft Live IDs) to sign-into Windows Azure.  These map just fine to a Windows Azure Active Directory – so there is no need to create new usernames that are specific to a directory if you don’t want to.  In the scenario above I’m actually logged in using my @hotmail.com based Microsoft ID which is now mapped to a “scottgu” active directory that was created for me.  By default everything will continue to work just like you used to before. Manage your Directory You can manage an Active Directory (including the one we now create for you by default) by clicking the “Active Directory” tab in the left-hand side of the portal.  This will list all of the directories in your account.  Clicking one the first time will display a getting started page that provides documentation and links to perform common tasks with it: You can use the built-in directory management support within the Windows Azure Management Portal to add/remove/manage users within the directory, enable multi-factor authentication, associate a custom domain (e.g. mycompanyname.com) with the directory, and/or rename the directory to whatever friendly name you want (just click the configure tab to do this).  You can also setup the directory to automatically sync with an on-premises Active Directory using the “Directory Integration” tab. Note that users within a directory by default do not have admin rights to login or manage Windows Azure based resources.  You still need to explicitly grant them co-admin permissions on a subscription for them to login or manage resources in Windows Azure.  You can do this by clicking the Settings tab on the left-hand side of the portal and then by clicking the administrators tab within it. Sign-In Integration within Visual Studio If you install the new Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release, you can now connect to Windows Azure from directly inside Visual Studio without having to download any management certificates.  You can now just right-click on the “Windows Azure” icon within the Server Explorer and choose the “Connect to Windows Azure” context menu option to do so: Doing this will prompt you to enter the email address of the username you wish to sign-in with (make sure this account is a user in your directory with co-admin rights on a subscription): You can use either a Microsoft Account (e.g. Windows Live ID) or an Active Directory based Organizational account as the email.  The dialog will update with an appropriate login prompt depending on which type of email address you enter: Once you sign-in you’ll see the Windows Azure resources that you have permissions to manage show up automatically within the Visual Studio server explorer and be available to start using: No downloading of management certificates required.  All of the authentication was handled using your Windows Azure Active Directory! Manage Subscriptions across Multiple Directories If you have already have multiple directories and multiple subscriptions within your Windows Azure account, we have done our best to create a good default mapping of your subscriptions->directories as part of today’s update.  If you don’t like the default subscription-to-directory mapping we have done you can click the Settings tab in the left-hand navigation of the Windows Azure Management Portal and browse to the Subscriptions tab within it: If you want to map a subscription under a different directory in your account, simply select the subscription from the list, and then click the “Edit Directory” button to choose which directory to map it to.  Mapping a subscription to a different directory takes only seconds and will not cause any of the resources within the subscription to recycle or stop working.  We’ve made the directory->subscription mapping process self-service so that you always have complete control and can map things however you want. Filtering By Directory and Subscription Within the Windows Azure Management Portal you can filter resources in the portal by subscription (allowing you to show/hide different subscriptions).  If you have subscriptions mapped to multiple directory tenants, we also now have a filter drop-down that allows you to filter the subscription list by directory tenant.  This filter is only available if you have multiple subscriptions mapped to multiple directories within your Windows Azure Account:   Windows Azure SDK 2.2 Today we are also releasing a major update of our Windows Azure SDK.  The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release adds some great new features including: Visual Studio 2013 Support Integrated Windows Azure Sign-In support within Visual Studio Remote Debugging Cloud Services with Visual Studio Firewall Management support within Visual Studio for SQL Databases Visual Studio 2013 RTM VM Images for MSDN Subscribers Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET Updated Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets and ScriptCenter I’ll post a follow-up blog shortly with more details about all of the above. Additional Updates In addition to the above enhancements, today’s release also includes a number of additional improvements: AutoScale: Richer time and date based scheduling support (set different rules on different dates) AutoScale: Ability to Scale to Zero Virtual Machines (very useful for Dev/Test scenarios) AutoScale: Support for time-based scheduling of Mobile Service AutoScale rules Operation Logs: Auditing support for Service Bus management operations Today we also shipped a major update to the Windows Azure SDK – Windows Azure SDK 2.2.  It has so much goodness in it that I have a whole second blog post coming shortly on it! :-) Summary Today’s Windows Azure release enables a bunch of great new scenarios, and enables a much richer enterprise authentication offering. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Setting up a local AI server - easy with Solaris 11

  - by Stefan Hinker

  Many things are new in Solaris 11, Autoinstall is one of them.  If, like me, you've known Jumpstart for the last 2 centuries or so, you'll have to start from scratch.  Well, almost, as the concepts are similar, and it's not all that difficult.  Just new. I wanted to have an AI server that I could use for demo purposes, on the train if need be.  That answers the question of hardware requirements: portable.  But let's start at the beginning. First, you need an OS image, of course.  In the new world of Solaris 11, it is now called a repository.  The original can be downloaded from the Solaris 11 page at Oracle.   What you want is the "Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Repository Image", which comes in two parts that can be combined using cat.  MD5 checksums for these (and all other downloads from that page) are available closer to the top of the page. With that, building the repository is quick and simple: # zfs create -o mountpoint=/export/repo rpool/ai/repo # zfs create rpool/ai/repo/s11 # mount -o ro -F hsfs /tmp/sol-11-1111-repo-full.iso /mnt # rsync -aP /mnt/repo /export/repo/s11 # umount /mnt # pkgrepo rebuild -s /export/repo/sol11/repo # zfs snapshot rpool/ai/repo/sol11@fcs # pkgrepo info -s /export/repo/sol11/repo PUBLISHER PACKAGES STATUS UPDATED solaris 4292 online 2012-03-12T20:47:15.378639Z That's all there's to it.  Let's make a snapshot, just to be on the safe side.  You never know when one will come in handy.  To use this repository, you could just add it as a file-based publisher: # pkg set-publisher -g file:///export/repo/sol11/repo solaris In case I'd want to access this repository through a (virtual) network, i'll now quickly activate the repository-service: # svccfg -s application/pkg/server \ setprop pkg/inst_root=/export/repo/sol11/repo # svccfg -s application/pkg/server setprop pkg/readonly=true # svcadm refresh application/pkg/server # svcadm enable application/pkg/server That's all you need - now point your browser to http://localhost/ to view your beautiful repository-server. Step 1 is done.  All of this, by the way, is nicely documented in the README file that's contained in the repository image. Of course, we already have updates to the original release.  You can find them in MOS in the Oracle Solaris 11 Support Repository Updates (SRU) Index.  You can simply add these to your existing repository or create separate repositories for each SRU.  The individual SRUs are self-sufficient and incremental - SRU4 includes all updates from SRU2 and SRU3.  With ZFS, you can also get both: A full repository with all updates and at the same time incremental ones up to each of the updates: # mount -o ro -F hsfs /tmp/sol-11-1111-sru4-05-incr-repo.iso /mnt # pkgrecv -s /mnt/repo -d /export/repo/sol11/repo '*' # umount /mnt # pkgrepo rebuild -s /export/repo/sol11/repo # zfs snapshot rpool/ai/repo/sol11@sru4 # zfs set snapdir=visible rpool/ai/repo/sol11 # svcadm restart svc:/application/pkg/server:default The normal repository is now updated to SRU4.  Thanks to the ZFS snapshots, there is also a valid repository of Solaris 11 11/11 without the update located at /export/repo/sol11/.zfs/snapshot/fcs . If you like, you can also create another repository service for each update, running on a separate port. But now lets continue with the AI server.  Just a little bit of reading in the dokumentation makes it clear that we will need to run a DHCP server for this.  Since I already have one active (for my SunRay installation) and since it's a good idea to have these kinds of services separate anyway, I decided to create this in a Zone.  So, let's create one first: # zfs create -o mountpoint=/export/install rpool/ai/install # zfs create -o mountpoint=/zones rpool/zones # zonecfg -z ai-server zonecfg:ai-server> create create: Using system default template 'SYSdefault' zonecfg:ai-server> set zonepath=/zones/ai-server zonecfg:ai-server> add dataset zonecfg:ai-server:dataset> set name=rpool/ai/install zonecfg:ai-server:dataset> set alias=install zonecfg:ai-server:dataset> end zonecfg:ai-server> commit zonecfg:ai-server> exit # zoneadm -z ai-server install # zoneadm -z ai-server boot ; zlogin -C ai-server Give it a hostname and IP address at first boot, and there's the Zone.  For a publisher for Solaris packages, it will be bound to the "System Publisher" from the Global Zone.  The /export/install filesystem, of course, is intended to be used by the AI server.  Let's configure it now: #zlogin ai-server root@ai-server:~# pkg install install/installadm root@ai-server:~# installadm create-service -n x86-fcs -a i386 \ -s pkg://solaris/install-image/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.1482 \ -d /export/install/fcs -i 192.168.2.20 -c 3 With that, the core AI server is already done.  What happened here?  First, I installed the AI server software.  IPS makes that nice and easy.  If necessary, it'll also pull in the required DHCP-Server and anything else that might be missing.  Watch out for that DHCP server software.  In Solaris 11, there are two different versions.  There's the one you might know from Solaris 10 and earlier, and then there's a new one from ISC.  The latter is the one we need for AI.  The SMF service names of both are very similar.  The "old" one is "svc:/network/dhcp-server:default". The ISC-server comes with several SMF-services. We at least need "svc:/network/dhcp/server:ipv4".  The command "installadm create-service" creates the installation-service. It's called "x86-fcs", serves the "i386" architecture and gets its boot image from the repository of the system publisher, using version 5.11,5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.1482, which is Solaris 11 11/11.  (The option "-a i386" in this example is optional, since the installserver itself runs on a x86 machine.) The boot-environment for clients is created in /export/install/fcs and the DHCP-server is configured for 3 IP-addresses starting at 192.168.2.20.  This configuration is stored in a very human readable form in /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf.  An AI-service for SPARC systems could be created in the very same way, using "-a sparc" as the architecture option. Now we would be ready to register and install the first client.  It would be installed with the default "solaris-large-server" using the publisher "http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release" and would query it's configuration interactively at first boot.  This makes it very clear that an AI-server is really only a boot-server.  The true source of packets to install can be different.  Since I don't like these defaults for my demo setup, I did some extra config work for my clients. The configuration of a client is controlled by manifests and profiles.  The manifest controls which packets are installed and how the filesystems are layed out.  In that, it's very much like the old "rules.ok" file in Jumpstart.  Profiles contain additional configuration like root passwords, primary user account, IP addresses, keyboard layout etc.  Hence, profiles are very similar to the old sysid.cfg file. The easiest way to get your hands on a manifest is to ask the AI server we just created to give us it's default one.  Then modify that to our liking and give it back to the installserver to use: root@ai-server:~# mkdir -p /export/install/configs/manifests root@ai-server:~# cd /export/install/configs/manifests root@ai-server:~# installadm export -n x86-fcs -m orig_default \ -o orig_default.xml root@ai-server:~# cp orig_default.xml s11-fcs.small.local.xml root@ai-server:~# vi s11-fcs.small.local.xml root@ai-server:~# more s11-fcs.small.local.xml <!DOCTYPE auto_install SYSTEM "file:///usr/share/install/ai.dtd.1"> <auto_install> <ai_instance name="S11 Small fcs local"> <target> <logical> <zpool name="rpool" is_root="true"> <filesystem name="export" mountpoint="/export"/> <filesystem name="export/home"/> <be name="solaris"/> </zpool> </logical> </target> <software type="IPS"> <destination> <image> <!-- Specify locales to install --> <facet set="false">facet.locale.*</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.de</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.de_DE</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.en</facet> <facet set="true">facet.locale.en_US</facet> </image> </destination> <source> <publisher name="solaris"> <origin name="http://192.168.2.12/"/> </publisher> </source> <!-- By default the latest build available, in the specified IPS repository, is installed. If another build is required, the build number has to be appended to the 'entire' package in the following form: <name>pkg:/[email protected]#</name> --> <software_data action="install"> <name>pkg:/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.0</name> <name>pkg:/group/system/solaris-small-server</name> </software_data> </software> </ai_instance> </auto_install> root@ai-server:~# installadm create-manifest -n x86-fcs -d \ -f ./s11-fcs.small.local.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm list -m -n x86-fcs Manifest Status Criteria -------- ------ -------- S11 Small fcs local Default None orig_default Inactive None The major points in this new manifest are: Install "solaris-small-server" Install a few locales less than the default.  I'm not that fluid in French or Japanese... Use my own package service as publisher, running on IP address 192.168.2.12 Install the initial release of Solaris 11:  pkg:/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2.0 Using a similar approach, I'll create a default profile interactively and use it as a template for a few customized building blocks, each defining a part of the overall system configuration.  The modular approach makes it easy to configure numerous clients later on: root@ai-server:~# mkdir -p /export/install/configs/profiles root@ai-server:~# cd /export/install/configs/profiles root@ai-server:~# sysconfig create-profile -o default.xml root@ai-server:~# cp default.xml general.xml; cp default.xml mars.xml root@ai-server:~# cp default.xml user.xml root@ai-server:~# vi general.xml mars.xml user.xml root@ai-server:~# more general.xml mars.xml user.xml :::::::::::::: general.xml :::::::::::::: <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type="profile" name="sysconfig"> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/timezone"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="timezone"> <propval type="astring" name="localtime" value="Europe/Berlin"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/environment"> <instance enabled="true" name="init"> <property_group type="application" name="environment"> <propval type="astring" name="LANG" value="C"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/keymap"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="system" name="keymap"> <propval type="astring" name="layout" value="US-English"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/console-login"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="ttymon"> <propval type="astring" name="terminal_type" value="vt100"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="network/physical"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="netcfg"> <propval type="astring" name="active_ncp" value="DefaultFixed"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/name-service/switch"> <property_group type="application" name="config"> <propval type="astring" name="default" value="files"/> <propval type="astring" name="host" value="files dns"/> <propval type="astring" name="printer" value="user files"/> </property_group> <instance enabled="true" name="default"/> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/name-service/cache"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"/> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="network/dns/client"> <property_group type="application" name="config"> <property type="net_address" name="nameserver"> <net_address_list> <value_node value="192.168.2.1"/> </net_address_list> </property> </property_group> <instance enabled="true" name="default"/> </service> </service_bundle> :::::::::::::: mars.xml :::::::::::::: <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type="profile" name="sysconfig"> <service version="1" type="service" name="network/install"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="install_ipv4_interface"> <propval type="astring" name="address_type" value="static"/> <propval type="net_address_v4" name="static_address" value="192.168.2.100/24"/> <propval type="astring" name="name" value="net0/v4"/> <propval type="net_address_v4" name="default_route" value="192.168.2.1"/> </property_group> <property_group type="application" name="install_ipv6_interface"> <propval type="astring" name="stateful" value="yes"/> <propval type="astring" name="stateless" value="yes"/> <propval type="astring" name="address_type" value="addrconf"/> <propval type="astring" name="name" value="net0/v6"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/identity"> <instance enabled="true" name="node"> <property_group type="application" name="config"> <propval type="astring" name="nodename" value="mars"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> </service_bundle> :::::::::::::: user.xml :::::::::::::: <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type="profile" name="sysconfig"> <service version="1" type="service" name="system/config-user"> <instance enabled="true" name="default"> <property_group type="application" name="root_account"> <propval type="astring" name="login" value="root"/> <propval type="astring" name="password" value="noIWillNotTellYouMyPasswordNotEvenEncrypted"/> <propval type="astring" name="type" value="role"/> </property_group> <property_group type="application" name="user_account"> <propval type="astring" name="login" value="stefan"/> <propval type="astring" name="password" value="noIWillNotTellYouMyPasswordNotEvenEncrypted"/> <propval type="astring" name="type" value="normal"/> <propval type="astring" name="description" value="Stefan Hinker"/> <propval type="count" name="uid" value="12345"/> <propval type="count" name="gid" value="10"/> <propval type="astring" name="shell" value="/usr/bin/bash"/> <propval type="astring" name="roles" value="root"/> <propval type="astring" name="profiles" value="System Administrator"/> <propval type="astring" name="sudoers" value="ALL=(ALL) ALL"/> </property_group> </instance> </service> </service_bundle> root@ai-server:~# installadm create-profile -n x86-fcs -f general.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm create-profile -n x86-fcs -f user.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm create-profile -n x86-fcs -f mars.xml \ -c ipv4=192.168.2.100 root@ai-server:~# installadm list -p Service Name Profile ------------ ------- x86-fcs general.xml mars.xml user.xml root@ai-server:~# installadm list -n x86-fcs -p Profile Criteria ------- -------- general.xml None mars.xml ipv4 = 192.168.2.100 user.xml None Here's the idea behind these files: "general.xml" contains settings valid for all my clients.  Stuff like DNS servers, for example, which in my case will always be the same. "user.xml" only contains user definitions.  That is, a root password and a primary user.Both of these profiles will be valid for all clients (for now). "mars.xml" defines network settings for an individual client.  This profile is associated with an IP-Address.  For this to work, I'll have to tweak the DHCP-settings in the next step: root@ai-server:~# installadm create-client -e 08:00:27:AA:3D:B1 -n x86-fcs root@ai-server:~# vi /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf root@ai-server:~# tail -5 /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf host 080027AA3DB1 { hardware ethernet 08:00:27:AA:3D:B1; fixed-address 192.168.2.100; filename "01080027AA3DB1"; } This completes the client preparations.  I manually added the IP-Address for mars to /etc/inet/dhcpd4.conf.  This is needed for the "mars.xml" profile.  Disabling arbitrary DHCP-replies will shut up this DHCP server, making my life in a shared environment a lot more peaceful ;-)Now, I of course want this installation to be completely hands-off.  For this to work, I'll need to modify the grub boot menu for this client slightly.  You can find it in /etc/netboot.  "installadm create-client" will create a new boot menu for every client, identified by the client's MAC address.  The template for this can be found in a subdirectory with the name of the install service, /etc/netboot/x86-fcs in our case.  If you don't want to change this manually for every client, modify that template to your liking instead. root@ai-server:~# cd /etc/netboot root@ai-server:~# cp menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1.org root@ai-server:~# vi menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 root@ai-server:~# diff menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1.org 1,2c1,2 < default=1 < timeout=10 --- > default=0 > timeout=30 root@ai-server:~# more menu.lst.01080027AA3DB1 default=1 timeout=10 min_mem64=0 title Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Text Installer and command line kernel$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B install_media=htt p://$serverIP:5555//export/install/fcs,install_service=x86-fcs,install_svc_addre ss=$serverIP:5555 module$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive title Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Automated Install kernel$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B install=true,inst all_media=http://$serverIP:5555//export/install/fcs,install_service=x86-fcs,inst all_svc_address=$serverIP:5555,livemode=text module$ /x86-fcs/platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive Now just boot the client off the network using PXE-boot.  For my demo purposes, that's a client from VirtualBox, of course.  That's all there's to it.  And despite the fact that this blog entry is a little longer - that wasn't that hard now, was it?

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• Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET

  - by user647124

  This year I embarked on a journey to migrate a group of ASP.NET web applications developed to integrate with WebLogic Portal 9.2 via the AquaLogic® Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.0 to instead use the Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET and integrated with WebLogic Portal 10.3.4. It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings. Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there. For the Curious From the perspective of necessity, this section would be better at the end. If it were there, though, it would probably be read by far fewer people, including those that are actually interested in these types of sections. Those in a hurry may skip past and be none the worst for it in dealing with the hands-on bits of performing a migration from .NET Accelerator to WSRP Producer. For others who want to talk about why they did what they did after they did it, or just want to know for themselves, enjoy. A Brief (and edited) History of the WSRP for .NET Technologies (as Relevant to the this Post) Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration path is not as simple as many other Oracle technologies. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The currently deployed architecture that was to be migrated and upgraded achieved initial integration between .NET and J2EE over the WSRP protocol through the use of The AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator. The .NET Accelerator allowed the applications that were written in ASP.NET and deployed on a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) to interact with a WebLogic Portal application deployed on a WebLogic (J2EE application) Server (both version 9.2, the state of the art at the time of its creation). At the time this architectural decision for the application was made, both the AquaLogic and WebLogic brands were owned by BEA Systems. The AquaLogic brand included products acquired by BEA through the acquisition of Plumtree, whose flagship product was a portal platform available in both J2EE and .NET versions. As part of this dual technology support an adaptor was created to facilitate the use of WSRP as a communication protocol where customers wished to integrate components from both versions of the Plumtree portal. The adapter evolved over several product generations to include a broad array of both standard and proprietary WSRP integration capabilities. Later, BEA Systems was acquired by Oracle. Over the course of several years Oracle has acquired a large number of portal applications and has taken the strategic direction to migrate users of these myriad (and formerly competitive) products to the Oracle WebCenter technology stack. As part of Oracle’s strategic technology roadmap, older portal products are being schedule for end of life, including the portal products that were part of the BEA acquisition. The .NET Accelerator has been modified over a very long period of time with features driven by users of that product and developed under three different vendors (each a direct competitor in the same solution space prior to merger). The Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET was introduced much more recently with the key objective to specifically address the needs of the WebCenter customers developing solutions accessible through both J2EE and .NET platforms utilizing the WSRP specifications. The Oracle Product Development Team also provides these insights on the drivers for developing the WSRP Producer: ***************************************** Support for ASP.NET AJAX. Controls using the ASP.NET AJAX script manager do not function properly in the Application Accelerator for .NET. Support 2 way SSL in WLP. This was not possible with the proxy/bridge set up in the existing Application Accelerator for .NET. Allow developers to code portlets (Web Parts) using the .NET framework rather than a proprietary framework. Developers had to use the Application Accelerator for .NET plug-ins to Visual Studio to manage preferences and profile data. This is now replaced with the .NET Framework Personalization (for preferences) and Profile providers. The WSRP Producer for .NET was created as a new way of developing .NET portlets. It was never designed to be an upgrade path for the Application Accelerator for .NET. .NET developers would create new .NET portlets with the WSRP Producer for .NET and leave any existing .NET portlets running in the Application Accelerator for .NET. ***************************************** The advantage to creating a new solution for WSRP is a product that is far easier for Oracle to maintain and support which in turn improves quality, reliability and maintainability for their customers. No changes to J2EE applications consuming the WSRP portlets previously rendered by the.NET Accelerator is required to migrate from the Aqualogic WSRP solution. For some customers using the .NET Accelerator the challenge is adapting their current .NET applications to work with the WSRP Producer (or any other WSRP adapter as they are proprietary by nature). Part of this adaptation is the need to deploy the .NET applications as a child to the WSRP producer web application as root. Differences between .NET Accelerator and WSRP Producer Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration is not as pluggable as something such as changing security providers in WebLogic Server. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The basic terminology used to describe the participating applications in a WSRP environment are the same when applied to either the .NET Accelerator or the WSRP Producer: Producer and Consumer. In both cases the .NET application serves as what is referred to as a WSRP environment as the Producer. The difference lies in how the two adapters create the WSRP translation of the .NET application. The .NET Accelerator, as the name implies, is meant to serve as a quick way of adding WSRP capability to a .NET application. As such, at a high level, the .NET Accelerator behaves as a proxy for requests between the .NET application and the WSRP Consumer. A WSRP request is sent from the consumer to the .NET Accelerator, the.NET Accelerator transforms this request into an ASP.NET request, receives the response, then transforms the response into a WSRP response. The .NET Accelerator is deployed as a stand-alone application on IIS. The WSRP Producer is deployed as a parent application on IIS and all ASP.NET modules that will be made available over WSRP are deployed as children of the WSRP Producer application. In this manner, the WSRP Producer acts more as a Request Filter than a proxy in the WSRP transactions between Producer and Consumer. Highly Recommended Enabling Logging Note: You can skip this section now, but you will most likely want to come back to it later, so why not just read it now? Logging is very helpful in tracking down the causes of any anomalies during testing of migrated portlets. To enable the WSRP Producer logging, update the Application_Start method in the Global.asax.cs for your .NET application by adding log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(); IIS logs will usually (in a standard configuration) be in a sub folder under C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC. WSRP Producer logs will be found at C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\Logs\WSRPProducer.log InputTrace.webinfo and OutputTrace.webinfo are located under C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault and can be useful in debugging issues related to markup transformations. Things You Must Do Merge Web.Config Note: If you have been skipping all the sections that you can, now is the time to stop and pay attention J Because the existing .NET application will become a sub-application to the WSRP Producer, you will want to merge required settings from the existing Web.Config to the one in the WSRP Producer. Use the WSRP Producer Master Page The Master Page installed for the WSRP Producer provides common, hiddenform fields and JavaScripts to facilitate portlet instance management and display configuration when the child page is being rendered over WSRP. You add the Master Page by including it in the <@ Page declaration with MasterPageFile="~/portlets/Resources/MasterPages/WSRP.Master" . You then replace: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" > <HTML> <HEAD> With <asp:Content ID="ContentHead1" ContentPlaceHolderID="wsrphead" Runat="Server"> And </HEAD> <body> <form id="theForm" method="post" runat="server"> With </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="ContentBody1" ContentPlaceHolderID="Main" Runat="Server"> And finally </form> </body> </HTML> With </asp:Content> In the event you already use Master Pages, adapt your existing Master Pages to be sub masters. See Nested ASP.NET Master Pages for a detailed reference of how to do this. It Happened to Me, It Might Happen to You…Or Not Watch for Use of Session or Request in OnInit In the event the .NET application being modified has pages developed to assume the user has been authenticated in an earlier page request there may be direct or indirect references in the OnInit method to request or session objects that may not have been created yet. This will vary from application to application, so the recommended approach is to test first. If there is an issue with a page running as a WSRP portlet then check for potential references in the OnInit method (including references by methods called within OnInit) to session or request objects. If there are, the simplest solution is to create a new method and then call that method once the necessary object(s) is fully available. I find doing this at the start of the Page_Load method to be the simplest solution. Case Sensitivity .NET languages are not case sensitive, but Java is. This means it is possible to have many variations of SRC= and src= or .JPG and .jpg. The preferred solution is to make these mark up instances all lower case in your .NET application. This will allow the default Rewriter rules in wsrp-producer.xml to work as is. If this is not practical, then make duplicates of any rules where an issue is occurring due to upper or mixed case usage in the .NET application markup and match the case in use with the duplicate rule. For example: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(href=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> May need to be duplicated as: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(HREF=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> While it is possible to write a regular expression that will handle mixed case usage, it would be long and strenous to test and maintain, so the recommendation is to use duplicate rules. Is it Still Relative? Some .NET applications base relative paths with a fixed root location. With the introduction of the WSRP Producer, the root has moved up one level. References to ~/ will need to be updated to ~/portlets and many ../ paths will need another ../ in front. I Can See You But I Can’t Find You This issue was first discovered while debugging modules with code that referenced the form on a page from the code-behind by name and/or id. The initial error presented itself as run-time error that was difficult to interpret over WSRP but seemed clear when run as straight ASP.NET as it indicated that the object with the form name did not exist. Since the form name was no longer valid after implementing the WSRP Master Page, the likely fix seemed to simply update the references in the code. However, as the WSRP Master Page is external to the code, a compile time error resulted: Error      155         The name 'form1' does not exist in the current context                C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\portlets\legacywebsite\module\Screens \Reporting.aspx.cs                51           52           legacywebsite.module Much hair-pulling research later it was discovered that it was the use of the FindControl method causing the issue. FindControl doesn’t work quite as expected once a Master Page has been introduced as the controls become embedded in controls, require a recursion to find them that is not part of the FindControl method. In code where the page form is referenced by name, there are two steps to the solution. First, the form needs to be referenced in code generically with Page.Form. For example, this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(frmManualEntry, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Becomes this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(Page.Form, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Generally the form id is referenced in most ASP.NET applications as a path to a control on the form. To reach the control once a MasterPage has been added requires an additional method to recurse through the controls collections within the form and find the control ID. The following method (found at Rick Strahl's Web Log) corrects this very nicely: public static Control FindControlRecursive(Control Root, string Id) { if (Root.ID == Id) return Root; foreach (Control Ctl in Root.Controls) { Control FoundCtl = FindControlRecursive(Ctl, Id); if (FoundCtl != null) return FoundCtl; } return null; } Where the form name is not referenced, simply using the FindControlRecursive method in place of FindControl will be all that is necessary. Following the second part of the example referenced earlier, the method called with Page.Form changes its value extraction code block from this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label)frmRef.FindControl("lblBRMsg" To this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label) FunctionLibrary.FindControlRecursive(frmRef, "lblBRMsg" The Master That Won’t Step Aside In most migrations it is preferable to make as few changes as possible. In one case I ran across an existing Master Page that would not function as a sub-Master Page. While it would probably have been educational to trace down why, the expedient process of updating it to take the place of the WSRP Master Page is the route I took. The changes are highlighted below: … <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="wsrphead" runat="server"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </head> <body leftMargin="0" topMargin="0"> <form id="TheForm" runat="server"> <input type="hidden" name="key" id="key" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="formactionurl" id="formactionurl" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="handle" id="handle" value="" /> <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" EnablePartialRendering="true" > </asp:ScriptManager> This approach did not work for all existing Master Pages, but fortunately all of the other existing Master Pages I have run across worked fine as a sub-Master to the WSRP Master Page. Moving On In Enterprise Portals, even after you get everything working, the work is not finished. Next you need to get it where everyone will work with it. Migration Planning Providing that the server where IIS is running is adequately sized, it is possible to run both the .NET Accelerator and the WSRP Producer on the same server during the upgrade process. The upgrade can be performed incrementally, i.e., one portlet at a time, if server administration processes support it. Those processes would include the ability to manage a second producer in the consuming portal and to change over individual portlet instances from one provider to the other. If processes or requirements demand that all portlets be cut over at the same time, it needs to be determined if this cut over should include a new producer, updating all of the portlets in the consumer, or if the WSRP Producer portlet configuration must maintain the naming conventions used by the .NET Accelerator and simply change the WSRP end point configured in the consumer. In some enterprises it may even be necessary to maintain the same WSDL end point, at which point the IIS configuration will be where the updates occur. The downside to such a requirement is that it makes rolling back very difficult, should the need arise. Location, Location, Location Not everyone wants the web application to have the descriptively obvious wsrpdefault location, or needs to create a second WSRP site on the same server. The instructions below are from the product team and, while targeted towards making a second site, will work for creating a site with a different name and then remove the old site. You can also change just the name in IIS. Manually Creating a WSRP Producer Site Instructions (NOTE: all executables used are the same ones used by the installer and “wsrpdev” will be the name of the new instance): 1. Copy C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault to C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev. 2. Bring up a command window as an administrator 3. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\IISAppAccelSiteCreator.exe install WSRPProducers wsrpdev "C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev" 8678 2.0.50727 4. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev "NETWORK SERVICE" 3 1 5. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev EVERYONE 1 1 6. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev 7. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\2.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev Tests: 1. Bring up a browser on the host itself and go to http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/wsdl/1.0/WSRPService.wsdl and make sure that the URLs in the XML returned include the wsrpdev changes you made in step 6. 2. Bring up a browser on the host itself and see if the default sample comes up: http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/portlets/ASPNET_AJAX_sample/default.aspx 3. Register the producer in WLP and test the portlet. Changing the Port used by WSRP Producer The pre-configured port for the WSRP Producer is 8678. You can change this port by updating both the IIS configuration and C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\[WSRP_APP_NAME]\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl. Do You Need to Migrate? Oracle Premier Support ended in November of 2010 for AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.x and Extended Support ends in November 2012 (see http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/lifetime-support-software-342730.html for other related dates). This means that integration with products released after November of 2010 is not supported. If having such support is the policy within your enterprise, you do indeed need to migrate. If changes in your enterprise cause your current solution with the .NET Accelerator to no longer function properly, you may need to migrate. Migration is a choice, and if the goals of your enterprise are to take full advantage of newer technologies then migration is certainly one activity you should be planning for.

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• ASP.NET Frameworks and Raw Throughput Performance

  - by Rick Strahl

  A few days ago I had a curious thought: With all these different technologies that the ASP.NET stack has to offer, what's the most efficient technology overall to return data for a server request? When I started this it was mere curiosity rather than a real practical need or result. Different tools are used for different problems and so performance differences are to be expected. But still I was curious to see how the various technologies performed relative to each just for raw throughput of the request getting to the endpoint and back out to the client with as little processing in the actual endpoint logic as possible (aka Hello World!). I want to clarify that this is merely an informal test for my own curiosity and I'm sharing the results and process here because I thought it was interesting. It's been a long while since I've done any sort of perf testing on ASP.NET, mainly because I've not had extremely heavy load requirements and because overall ASP.NET performs very well even for fairly high loads so that often it's not that critical to test load performance. This post is not meant to make a point  or even come to a conclusion which tech is better, but just to act as a reference to help understand some of the differences in perf and give a starting point to play around with this yourself. I've included the code for this simple project, so you can play with it and maybe add a few additional tests for different things if you like. Source Code on GitHub I looked at this data for these technologies: ASP.NET Web API ASP.NET MVC WebForms ASP.NET WebPages ASMX AJAX Services  (couldn't get AJAX/JSON to run on IIS8 ) WCF Rest Raw ASP.NET HttpHandlers It's quite a mixed bag, of course and the technologies target different types of development. What started out as mere curiosity turned into a bit of a head scratcher as the results were sometimes surprising. What I describe here is more to satisfy my curiosity more than anything and I thought it interesting enough to discuss on the blog :-) First test: Raw Throughput The first thing I did is test raw throughput for the various technologies. This is the least practical test of course since you're unlikely to ever create the equivalent of a 'Hello World' request in a real life application. The idea here is to measure how much time a 'NOP' request takes to return data to the client. So for this request I create the simplest Hello World request that I could come up for each tech. Http Handler The first is the lowest level approach which is an HTTP handler. public class Handler : IHttpHandler { public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) { context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain"; context.Response.Write("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString()); } public bool IsReusable { get { return true; } } } WebForms Next I added a couple of ASPX pages - one using CodeBehind and one using only a markup page. The CodeBehind page simple does this in CodeBehind without any markup in the ASPX page: public partial class HelloWorld_CodeBehind : System.Web.UI.Page { protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { Response.Write("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString() ); Response.End(); } } while the Markup page only contains some static output via an expression:<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeBehind="HelloWorld_Markup.aspx.cs" Inherits="AspNetFrameworksPerformance.HelloWorld_Markup" %> Hello World. Time is <%= DateTime.Now %> ASP.NET WebPages WebPages is the freestanding Razor implementation of ASP.NET. Here's the simple HelloWorld.cshtml page:Hello World @DateTime.Now WCF REST WCF REST was the token REST implementation for ASP.NET before WebAPI and the inbetween step from ASP.NET AJAX. I'd like to forget that this technology was ever considered for production use, but I'll include it here. Here's an OperationContract class: [ServiceContract(Namespace = "")] [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)] public class WcfService { [OperationContract] [WebGet] public Stream HelloWorld() { var data = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes("Hello World" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); var ms = new MemoryStream(data); // Add your operation implementation here return ms; } } WCF REST can return arbitrary results by returning a Stream object and a content type. The code above turns the string result into a stream and returns that back to the client. ASP.NET AJAX (ASMX Services) I also wanted to test ASP.NET AJAX services because prior to WebAPI this is probably still the most widely used AJAX technology for the ASP.NET stack today. Unfortunately I was completely unable to get this running on my Windows 8 machine. Visual Studio 2012  removed adding of ASP.NET AJAX services, and when I tried to manually add the service and configure the script handler references it simply did not work - I always got a SOAP response for GET and POST operations. No matter what I tried I always ended up getting XML results even when explicitly adding the ScriptHandler. So, I didn't test this (but the code is there - you might be able to test this on a Windows 7 box). ASP.NET MVC Next up is probably the most popular ASP.NET technology at the moment: MVC. Here's the small controller: public class MvcPerformanceController : Controller { public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } public ActionResult HelloWorldCode() { return new ContentResult() { Content = "Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString() }; } } ASP.NET WebAPI Next up is WebAPI which looks kind of similar to MVC. Except here I have to use a StringContent result to return the response: public class WebApiPerformanceController : ApiController { [HttpGet] public HttpResponseMessage HelloWorldCode() { return new HttpResponseMessage() { Content = new StringContent("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString(), Encoding.UTF8, "text/plain") }; } } Testing Take a minute to think about each of the technologies… and take a guess which you think is most efficient in raw throughput. The fastest should be pretty obvious, but the others - maybe not so much. The testing I did is pretty informal since it was mainly to satisfy my curiosity - here's how I did this: I used Apache Bench (ab.exe) from a full Apache HTTP installation to run and log the test results of hitting the server. ab.exe is a small executable that lets you hit a URL repeatedly and provides counter information about the number of requests, requests per second etc. ab.exe and the batch file are located in the \LoadTests folder of the project. An ab.exe command line  looks like this: ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorld which hits the specified URL 100,000 times with a load factor of 20 concurrent requests. This results in output like this:   It's a great way to get a quick and dirty performance summary. Run it a few times to make sure there's not a large amount of varience. You might also want to do an IISRESET to clear the Web Server. Just make sure you do a short test run to warm up the server first - otherwise your first run is likely to be skewed downwards. ab.exe also allows you to specify headers and provide POST data and many other things if you want to get a little more fancy. Here all tests are GET requests to keep it simple. I ran each test: 100,000 iterations Load factor of 20 concurrent connections IISReset before starting A short warm up run for API and MVC to make sure startup cost is mitigated Here is the batch file I used for the test: IISRESET REM make sure you add REM C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\bin REM to your path so ab.exe can be found REM Warm up ab.exe -n100 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/MvcPerformance/HelloWorldJsonab.exe -n100 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorldJson ab.exe -n100 -c20 http://localhost/AspNetPerf/WcfService.svc/HelloWorld ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/handler.ashx > handler.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/HelloWorld_CodeBehind.aspx > AspxCodeBehind.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/HelloWorld_Markup.aspx > AspxMarkup.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/AspNetPerf/WcfService.svc/HelloWorld > Wcf.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/MvcPerformance/HelloWorldCode > Mvc.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorld > WebApi.txt I ran each of these tests 3 times and took the average score for Requests/second, with the machine otherwise idle. I did see a bit of variance when running many tests but the values used here are the medians. Part of this has to do with the fact I ran the tests on my local machine - result would probably more consistent running the load test on a separate machine hitting across the network. I ran these tests locally on my laptop which is a Dell XPS with quad core Sandibridge I7-2720QM @ 2.20ghz and a fast SSD drive on Windows 8. CPU load during tests ran to about 70% max across all 4 cores (IOW, it wasn't overloading the machine). Ideally you can try running these tests on a separate machine hitting the local machine. If I remember correctly IIS 7 and 8 on client OSs don't throttle so the performance here should be Results Ok, let's cut straight to the chase. Below are the results from the tests… It's not surprising that the handler was fastest. But it was a bit surprising to me that the next fastest was WebForms and especially Web Forms with markup over a CodeBehind page. WebPages also fared fairly well. MVC and WebAPI are a little slower and the slowest by far is WCF REST (which again I find surprising). As mentioned at the start the raw throughput tests are not overly practical as they don't test scripting performance for the HTML generation engines or serialization performances of the data engines. All it really does is give you an idea of the raw throughput for the technology from time of request to reaching the endpoint and returning minimal text data back to the client which indicates full round trip performance. But it's still interesting to see that Web Forms performs better in throughput than either MVC, WebAPI or WebPages. It'd be interesting to try this with a few pages that actually have some parsing logic on it, but that's beyond the scope of this throughput test. But what's also amazing about this test is the sheer amount of traffic that a laptop computer is handling. Even the slowest tech managed 5700 requests a second, which is one hell of a lot of requests if you extrapolate that out over a 24 hour period. Remember these are not static pages, but dynamic requests that are being served. Another test - JSON Data Service Results The second test I used a JSON result from several of the technologies. I didn't bother running WebForms and WebPages through this test since that doesn't make a ton of sense to return data from the them (OTOH, returning text from the APIs didn't make a ton of sense either :-) In these tests I have a small Person class that gets serialized and then returned to the client. The Person class looks like this: public class Person { public Person() { Id = 10; Name = "Rick"; Entered = DateTime.Now; } public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public DateTime Entered { get; set; } } Here are the updated handler classes that use Person: Handler public class Handler : IHttpHandler { public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) { var action = context.Request.QueryString["action"]; if (action == "json") JsonRequest(context); else TextRequest(context); } public void TextRequest(HttpContext context) { context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain"; context.Response.Write("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString()); } public void JsonRequest(HttpContext context) { var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new Person(), Formatting.None); context.Response.ContentType = "application/json"; context.Response.Write(json); } public bool IsReusable { get { return true; } } } This code adds a little logic to check for a action query string and route the request to an optional JSON result method. To generate JSON, I'm using the same JSON.NET serializer (JsonConvert.SerializeObject) used in Web API to create the JSON response. WCF REST   [ServiceContract(Namespace = "")] [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)] public class WcfService { [OperationContract] [WebGet] public Stream HelloWorld() { var data = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes("Hello World " + DateTime.Now.ToString()); var ms = new MemoryStream(data); // Add your operation implementation here return ms; } [OperationContract] [WebGet(ResponseFormat=WebMessageFormat.Json,BodyStyle=WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest)] public Person HelloWorldJson() { // Add your operation implementation here return new Person(); } } For WCF REST all I have to do is add a method with the Person result type.   ASP.NET MVC public class MvcPerformanceController : Controller { // // GET: /MvcPerformance/ public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } public ActionResult HelloWorldCode() { return new ContentResult() { Content = "Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString() }; } public JsonResult HelloWorldJson() { return Json(new Person(), JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet); } } For MVC all I have to do for a JSON response is return a JSON result. ASP.NET internally uses JavaScriptSerializer. ASP.NET WebAPI public class WebApiPerformanceController : ApiController { [HttpGet] public HttpResponseMessage HelloWorldCode() { return new HttpResponseMessage() { Content = new StringContent("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString(), Encoding.UTF8, "text/plain") }; } [HttpGet] public Person HelloWorldJson() { return new Person(); } [HttpGet] public HttpResponseMessage HelloWorldJson2() { var response = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK); response.Content = new ObjectContent<Person>(new Person(), GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter); return response; } } Testing and Results To run these data requests I used the following ab.exe commands:REM JSON RESPONSES ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/Handler.ashx?action=json > HandlerJson.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/MvcPerformance/HelloWorldJson > MvcJson.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorldJson > WebApiJson.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/AspNetPerf/WcfService.svc/HelloWorldJson > WcfJson.txt The results from this test run are a bit interesting in that the WebAPI test improved performance significantly over returning plain string content. Here are the results:   The performance for each technology drops a little bit except for WebAPI which is up quite a bit! From this test it appears that WebAPI is actually significantly better performing returning a JSON response, rather than a plain string response. Snag with Apache Benchmark and 'Length Failures' I ran into a little snag with Apache Benchmark, which was reporting failures for my Web API requests when serializing. As the graph shows performance improved significantly from with JSON results from 5580 to 6530 or so which is a 15% improvement (while all others slowed down by 3-8%). However, I was skeptical at first because the WebAPI test reports showed a bunch of errors on about 10% of the requests. Check out this report: Notice the Failed Request count. What the hey? Is WebAPI failing on roughly 10% of requests when sending JSON? Turns out: No it's not! But it took some sleuthing to figure out why it reports these failures. At first I thought that Web API was failing, and so to make sure I re-ran the test with Fiddler attached and runiisning the ab.exe test by using the -X switch: ab.exe -n100 -c10 -X localhost:8888 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorldJson which showed that indeed all requests where returning proper HTTP 200 results with full content. However ab.exe was reporting the errors. After some closer inspection it turned out that the dates varying in size altered the response length in dynamic output. For example: these two results: {"Id":10,"Name":"Rick","Entered":"2012-09-04T10:57:24.841926-10:00"} {"Id":10,"Name":"Rick","Entered":"2012-09-04T10:57:24.8519262-10:00"} are different in length for the number which results in 68 and 69 bytes respectively. The same URL produces different result lengths which is what ab.exe reports. I didn't notice at first bit the same is happening when running the ASHX handler with JSON.NET result since it uses the same serializer that varies the milliseconds. Moral: You can typically ignore Length failures in Apache Benchmark and when in doubt check the actual output with Fiddler. Note that the other failure values are accurate though. Another interesting Side Note: Perf drops over Time As I was running these tests repeatedly I was finding that performance steadily dropped from a startup peak to a 10-15% lower stable level. IOW, with Web API I'd start out with around 6500 req/sec and in subsequent runs it keeps dropping until it would stabalize somewhere around 5900 req/sec occasionally jumping lower. For these tests this is why I did the IIS RESET and warm up for individual tests. This is a little puzzling. Looking at Process Monitor while the test are running memory very quickly levels out as do handles and threads, on the first test run. Subsequent runs everything stays stable, but the performance starts going downwards. This applies to all the technologies - Handlers, Web Forms, MVC, Web API - curious to see if others test this and see similar results. Doing an IISRESET then resets everything and performance starts off at peak again… Summary As I stated at the outset, these were informal to satiate my curiosity not to prove that any technology is better or even faster than another. While there clearly are differences in performance the differences (other than WCF REST which was by far the slowest and the raw handler which was by far the highest) are relatively minor, so there is no need to feel that any one technology is a runaway standout in raw performance. Choosing a technology is about more than pure performance but also about the adequateness for the job and the easy of implementation. The strengths of each technology will make for any minor performance difference we see in these tests. However, to me it's important to get an occasional reality check and compare where new technologies are heading. Often times old stuff that's been optimized and designed for a time of less horse power can utterly blow the doors off newer tech and simple checks like this let you compare. Luckily we're seeing that much of the new stuff performs well even in V1.0 which is great. To me it was very interesting to see Web API perform relatively badly with plain string content, which originally led me to think that Web API might not be properly optimized just yet. For those that caught my Tweets late last week regarding WebAPI's slow responses was with String content which is in fact considerably slower. Luckily where it counts with serialized JSON and XML WebAPI actually performs better. But I do wonder what would make generic string content slower than serialized code? This stresses another point: Don't take a single test as the final gospel and don't extrapolate out from a single set of tests. Certainly Twitter can make you feel like a fool when you post something immediate that hasn't been fleshed out a little more <blush>. Egg on my face. As a result I ended up screwing around with this for a few hours today to compare different scenarios. Well worth the time… I hope you found this useful, if not for the results, maybe for the process of quickly testing a few requests for performance and charting out a comparison. Now onwards with more serious stuff… Resources Source Code on GitHub Apache HTTP Server Project (ab.exe is part of the binary distribution)© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET  Web Api   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, November 23, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, November 23, 2011Popular ReleasesVisual Leak Detector for Visual C++ 2008/2010: v2.2.1: Enhancements: * strdup and _wcsdup functions support added. * Preliminary support for VS 11 added. Bugs Fixed: * Low performance after upgrading from VLD v2.1. * Memory leaks with static linking fixed (disabled calloc support). * Runtime error R6002 fixed because of wrong memory dump format. * version.h fixed in installer. * Some PVS studio warning fixed.NetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.10: 3.6.0.10 22-Nov-2011 Update: Removed PreEmptive Platform integration (PreEmptive analytics) Removed all PreEmptive attributes Removed PreEmptive.dll assembly references from all projects Added first support to ADAM/AD LDS Thanks to PatBea. Work Item 9775: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/9775Developer Team Article System Management: DTASM v1.3: ?? ??? ???? 3 ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? : - ????? ?????? ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ?? . - ??? ?? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ?? ????? , ?????? ????? ????? ?? ??? . - ??? ??????? ??? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????? ????? .SharePoint 2010 FBA Pack: SharePoint 2010 FBA Pack 1.2.0: Web parts are now fully customizable via html templates (Issue #323) FBA Pack is now completely localizable using resource files. Thank you David Chen for submitting the code as well as Chinese translations of the FBA Pack! The membership request web part now gives the option of having the user enter the password and removing the captcha (Issue # 447) The FBA Pack will now work in a zone that does not have FBA enabled (Another zone must have FBA enabled, and the zone must contain the me...SharePoint 2010 Education Demo Project: Release SharePoint SP1 for Education Solutions: This release includes updates to the Content Packs for SharePoint SP1. All Content Packs have been updated to install successfully under SharePoint SP1SQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQLMon 4.1 alpha 6: 1. improved support for schema 2. added find reference when right click on object list 3. added object rename supportBugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 0.9.126: First stable release of version 0.9. Upgrades from 0.8 are fully supported and upgrades to future releases will also be supported. This release is now compiled against the .NET 4.0 framework and is a requirement. Because of this the web.config has significantly changed. After upgrading, you will need to configure the authentication settings for user registration and anonymous access again. Please see our installation / upgrade instructions for more details: http://wiki.bugnetproject.c...Anno 2070 Assistant: v0.1.0 (STABLE): Version 0.1.0 Features Production Chains Eco Production Chains (Complete) Tycoon Production Chains (Disabled - Incomplete) Tech Production Chains (Disabled - Incomplete) Supply (Disabled - Incomplete) Calculator (Disabled - Incomplete) Building Layouts Eco Building Layouts (Complete) Tycoon Building Layouts (Disabled - Incomplete) Tech Building Layouts (Disabled - Incomplete) Credits (Complete)Free SharePoint 2010 Sites Templates: SharePoint Server 2010 Sites Templates: here is the list of sites templates to be downloadedVsTortoise - a TortoiseSVN add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio: VsTortoise Build 30 Beta: Note: This release does not work with custom VsTortoise toolbars. These get removed every time when you shutdown Visual Studio. (#7940) Build 30 (beta)New: Support for TortoiseSVN 1.7 added. (the download contains both setups, for TortoiseSVN 1.6 and 1.7) New: OpenModifiedDocumentDialog displays conflicted files now. New: OpenModifiedDocument allows to group items by changelist now. Fix: OpenModifiedDocumentDialog caused Visual Studio 2010 to freeze sometimes. Fix: The installer didn...nopCommerce. Open source shopping cart (ASP.NET MVC): nopcommerce 2.30: Highlight features & improvements: • Performance optimization. • Back in stock notifications. • Product special price support. • Catalog mode (based on customer role) To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page (http://www.nopCommerce.com/releasenotes.aspx).WPF Converters: WPF Converters V1.2.0.0: support for enumerations, value types, and reference types in the expression converter's equality operators the expression converter now handles DependencyProperty.UnsetValue as argument values correctly (#4062) StyleCop conformance (more or less)Json.NET: Json.NET 4.0 Release 4: Change - JsonTextReader.Culture is now CultureInfo.InvariantCulture by default Change - KeyValurPairConverter no longer cares about the order of the key and value properties Change - Time zone conversions now use new TimeZoneInfo instead of TimeZone Fix - Fixed boolean values sometimes being capitalized when converting to XML Fix - Fixed error when deserializing ConcurrentDictionary Fix - Fixed serializing some Uris returning the incorrect value Fix - Fixed occasional error when...Media Companion: MC 3.423b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) Replaced 'Rebuild' with 'Refresh' throughout entire code. Rebuild will now be known as Refresh. mc_com.exe has been fully updated TV Show Resolutions... Resolved issue #206 - having to hit save twice when updating runtime manually Shrunk cache size and lowered loading times f...Delta Engine: Delta Engine Beta Preview v0.9.1: v0.9.1 beta release with lots of refactoring, fixes, new samples and support for iOS, Android and WP7 (you need a Marketplace account however). If you want a binary release for the games (like v0.9.0), just say so in the Forum or here and we will quickly prepare one. It is just not much different from v0.9.0, so I left it out this time. See http://DeltaEngine.net/Wiki.Roadmap for details.ASP.net Awesome Samples (Web-Forms): 1.0 samples: Demos and Tutorials for ASP.net Awesome VS2008 are in .NET 3.5 VS2010 are in .NET 4.0 (demos for the ASP.net Awesome jQuery Ajax Controls)SharpMap - Geospatial Application Framework for the CLR: SharpMap-0.9-AnyCPU-Trunk-2011.11.17: This is a build of SharpMap from the 0.9 development trunk as per 2011-11-17 For most applications the AnyCPU release is the recommended, but in case you need an x86 build that is included to. For some dataproviders (GDAL/OGR, SqLite, PostGis) you need to also referense the SharpMap.Extensions assembly For SqlServer Spatial you need to reference the SharpMap.SqlServerSpatial assemblyAJAX Control Toolkit: November 2011 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - November 2011 Release Version 51116November 2011 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 - Binary – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 - Binary – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - The current version of the AJAX Control Toolkit is not compatible with ASP.NET 2.0. The latest version that is compatible with ASP.NET 2.0 can be found h...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.36: Fix for issue #16908: string literals containing ASP.NET replacement syntax fail if the ASP.NET code contains the same character as the string literal delimiter. Also, we shouldn't be changing the delimiter for those literals or combining them with other literals; the developer may have specifically chosen the delimiter used because of possible content inserted by ASP.NET code. This logic is normally off; turn it on via the -aspnet command-line flag (or the Code.Settings.AllowEmbeddedAspNetBl...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.5.5: Added: Now the DateRanteAttribute accepts complex expressions containing "Now" and "Today" as static minimum and maximum. Menu, MenuFor helpers capable of handling a "currently selected element". The developer can choose between using a standard nested menu based on a standard SimpleMenuItem class or specifying an item template based on a custom class. Added also helpers to build the tree structure containing all data items the menu takes infos from. Improved the pager. Now the developer ...New ProjectsActiveWorlds World Server Admin PowerShell SnapIn: The purpose of this PowerShell SnapIn is to provide a set of tools to administer the world server from PowerShell. It leverages the ActiveWorlds SDK .NET Wrapper to provide this functionality.Aigu: Enter special characters like you would on your mobile phone. For instance, if you want to type 'é', you just hold down 'e' and a menu will appear. Selected the desired character using the arrow keys and press 'enter'. Simple but powerful.Are you workaholic?: Are you a workaholic? Did your Doctor advice you not to stare at the computer monitor for a long time? Then this app is perfectly made for you. It runs in the background, and alerts you to take periodic rests for your eyes and body. What's more, It's open source (MS-PL).ATDIS PoC: privateAuto Version Web Assets: The AVWA project is an HTTP Module written in C# that is designed to allow for versioning of various web assets such as .CSS and .JS files. This allows you to publish new versions of these files without having to force the server or the client browsers to expire cache.Bachelor Thesis Algorithm Test Bed: Algorithm Test Bed for my Bachelor ThesisBase64: Simple application helps converting strings and files from or to Base64 string. You can use any encoding to convert while a sidebar previews decoded string for all other encodings.BoracayExpress: BoracayExpressC++ Framework for Test Driven Development: A testing framework for C++ written in C++.Class2Table: Class2Table aka Entity2Table. Easy tool that allows creation of SQL tables from .Net types.Code for Demos & Experiments: This is where I will post code from demos and presentationsCodeMaker: CodeMaker?????????： 1、?????????? 2、???? 3、????? 4、??Python????????? ConsoleCommand: ConsoleCommand provides certain .Net commands for access from javascript console engines. Included are commands to set the text and background colors, as well as list and extract resources compiled in a .Net dll. Converter: Character code conversion tools ???????? CryptoInator - self contained, self-encrypting, self-decrypting image viewer: Original developed to encrypt and store NemID images in Denmark. DAiBears: Something, something, botDelicious Notify Plugin: Lets you push a blog post straight to Delicious from Live WriterDeveloperFile: Compresses Javascripts using the YUI .NET project. Loops through the root folder and subfolders for files matching the debug extension and creates new files using the release extension. (File extensions must match exactly).DotNetNuke SharePoint File Explorer: A DotNetNuke SharePoint File ExplorerDouban FM: WP7 Douban FM appGame Lib: Game Library is a open-source game library to allow focusing on the fun part of a game. It is developed in C#, but will be ported to C++ and VB.net.Google reader notes to Delicious Export tool (WPF): Google reader discontinued note in reader features. Current google reader allows to export users old notes in JSON format, This App will parse the JSON file & upload it to it delicious , delicious is a good alternative for note in readerHtml Source Transmitter Control: This web control allows getting a source of a web page, that will displayed before submit. So, developer can store a view of the html page, that was before server exception. It helps to reproduce bugs and can be used with other logging systems.Ideopuzzle: A puzzle gameImageShack-Uploader: This project demonstrates how to upload files automated to imageshack.us and other image hosters with C#.Insert Acronym Tags: Lets you insert <acronym> and <abbr> tags into your blog entry more easily.Insert Quick Link: Allows you to paste a link into the Writer window and have the a window similar to the one in Writer where you can change what text is to appear, open in new window, etc.Insert Video Plugin: Allows you to insert a video into a blog entry from a multitude of different sitesIoCWrap: Provides a wrapper to the various IoC container implementations so that it is possible to switch to a different provider without changing any application code.kaveepoj: sharepoint projectKinect Quiz Engine: Fun quiz game for the Kinect.Klaverjas: Test application for testing different new technologies in .NET (WCF, DataServices, C# stuff, Entity...etc.)Man In The Middle: A cyberpunk themed action with puzzle and strategy elements. Made with XNA as part of a game development course at the IT University of Copenhagen by Bo Bendtsen, Jonas Flensbak, Daniel Kromand, Jess Rahbek & Darryl Woodford.MediaSelektor: Simple tool to select mediasMicajah Mindtouch Deki Wiki Copier: Small C# application to move data between 2 Deki Wiki installs or, more importantly, from a wik.is account to a locally installed systemMineFlagger: MineFlagger is a mine clearing game modeled after Microsoft’s Minesweeper. In addition to standard play, MineFlagger incorporates an AI for fun and training.myXbyqwrhjadsfasfhgf: myXbyqwrhjadsfasfhgfnatoop: natoopNauplius.KeyStore: Provides secure application key storage backed by SQL 2008 and Active Directory.ObjectDB: An object database written using C# 4 and Mono.Cecil.PaceR: PaceR is an attempt to encapsulate a lot of the common code functionality I use on different projects. Instead of recreating functionality from memory or worse, copying from older projects, I'd like to have a central location to maintain this common code. Parseq: Parseq is a Parser Combinator library written in C# (version 2.0).PowerShell Network Adapter Configuration module: PowerShell Network Adapter Configuration module is a PowerShell module which provides functions for managing network adapters using WMI.public traffic tracker: This is a university project for a .net course. We develop a public traffic tracker applications for Windows Phone 7 devices, that can give information about the actual positions of the nearest vehicle on a given line. The speciality is that we use only the GPS information of the users' WP7 devices, so this is a completely software solution without any hardware investment. The disatvantage is that for the real operation we would need a lot of active WP7 user.puyo: puyoRadioTroll: Projeto web Radio TrollRead Feed Community: Read Feed CommunityReviewer: Reviewer.dk - Dansk spil og anmeldelsessite.Rollout Sharepoint Solutions - ROSS: ROSS performs the following actions: - Delete sitecollection and restart services - 'Get Latest Version' from SourceSafe - Rebuild Solution - Install all wsp solutions - Create SiteCollections - Check for build en provisioning errors - Send email to developers if errors occurredSchool Management: school managementSQL File Executer: This project is a class library written in c# which is used for executing *.sql files in remote server. Simply one dll file. You include it in your web project, add using statement at the top of your page, pass the parameters inside. Rest, it will do.Startup Manager: Startup Manager launches all startup programs at a managed rate therefore meaning that your computer doesn't crash everytime it starts up and you can use it immediately.stetic: ...Test Infrastructure Guidance: The purpose of this project is to provide guidance to testers in using TFS effectively as an ALM solution. TFS is much more than a simple code repository. Used with Visual Studio it can form a powerful testing solution and remove a lot of pain in dealing with test infrastructure overhead.Tête-à-tête: Tete-a-tete is an address book with a built-in function to send electronic mail over the Internet.Tipeysh! - Add-in that helps you creating C/C++ header files on a single click: Are you also feel miserable when you need to create a new header file in your Visual Studio C/C++ project? Repeatedly choosing "new header file", then writing the annoying (but needed) "#ifndef" section, then writing the class name with it's "private", "protected" and "public" access modifiers... too much clicks and typewriting! Well, there is a solution: Tipeysh! is a simple, easy to use, very handy and configurable Visual Studio Add-In, compatible for both the 2005 and 2008 versions. Once ...UMN Dashboard Project: academic projUsersMOSS: UsersMOSS est une petite application permettant de consulter sur un serveur MOSS les sites web (SPWeb) les users (SPUser), et les groupes (SPGroup). Cette application utilise le modèle objet de MOSS pour inspecter le contenu des objets d'un serveur MOSS. Cette application est loin d'être professionnelle, ou même terminée, mais elle me rend très souvent service. Surtout ne l'utilisez pas sur un serveur de production car le gestion du GC n'est pas faite, ce qui peut provoquer des plantages de v...UtilityLibrary.Win32: UtilityLibrary.Win32UW iLearn: The iLearn activity inference platform is a suite of desktop and mobile tools for logging, modeling, and classifying sensor data for mobile devices. It was created at the University of Washington.VsDocGen: Dynamic javascript documentation generation directly from xml comment documented source code.Windows Live Spaces Photo Album plugin: This is going to be a plugin for Windows Live Writer that will allow you to browse a Windows Live Space Photo Album.Windows Live Writer Plugin for Amazon Books using CueCat: This Windows Live Writer Plugin is for users who use WLW and wish to use their CueCat to scan books. ItemLookups are run against Amazon via its AWS and book image, title, author, and publisher is returned. This project was first created by Scott Hanselman on MSDN's Coding4Fun! X7: X7 makes it easier for win7user to clean the system. You'll no longer have to delete useless stuff in your win7. It's developed in bat.xDT - Commander: Using this application, the user can assign shortcuts (short texts) for various links/URLs. These short texts will be typed into a Textbox to then launch/go to the target (similar to the "Run" program in Windows).

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