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• Clusterware 11gR2 &ndash; Setting up an Active/Passive failover configuration

  - by Gilles Haro

  Oracle provides many interesting ways to ensure High Availability. Dataguard configurations, RAC configurations or even both (as recommended for a Maximum Available Architecture - MAA) are the most frequently found. But when it comes to protecting a system with an Active/Passive architecture with failover capabilities, one often thinks to expensive third party cluster systems. Oracle Clusterware technology, which comes free with Oracle Database, is – in the knowing of most people - often linked to Oracle RAC and therefore, is rarely used to implement failover solutions. 11gR2 Clusterware – which is part of Oracle Grid Infrastructure - provides a comprehensive framework to setup automatic failover configurations. It is actually possible to make “failover-able'” and, therefore to protect, almost every kind of application (from xclock to the more complex Application Server) In the next couple of lines, I will try to present the different steps to achieve this goal : Have a fully operational 11gR2 database protected by automatic failover capabilities. I assume you are fluent in installing Oracle Database 11gR2, Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11gR2 on a Linux system and that ASM is not a problem for you (as I am using it as a shared storage). If not, please have a look at Oracle Documentation. As often, I made my tests using an Oracle VirtualBox environment. The scripts are tested and functional. Unfortunately, there can always be a typo or a mistake. This blog entry is not a course around the Clusterware Framework. I just hope it will let you see how powerful it is and that it will give you the whilst to go further with it…   Prerequisite 2 Linux boxes (OELCluster01 and OELCluster02) at the same OS level. I used OEL 5 Update 5 with Enterprise Kernel. Shared Storage (SAN). On my VirtualBox system, I used Openfiler to simulate the SAN Oracle 11gR2 Database (11.2.0.1) Oracle 11gR2 Grid Infrastructure (11.2.0.1)   Step 1 – Install the software Using asmlib, create 3 ASM disks (ASM_CRS, ASM_DTA and ASM_FRA) Install Grid Infrastructure for a cluster (OELCluster01 and OELCluster02 are the 2 nodes of the cluster) Use ASM_CRS to store Voting Disk and OCR. Use SCAN. Install Oracle Database Standalone binaries on both nodes. Use asmca to check/mount the disk groups on 2 nodes Use dbca to create and configure a database on the primary node Let’s name it DB11G. Copy the pfile, password file to the second node. Create adump directoty on the second node.   Step 2 - Setup the resource to be protected After its creation with dbca, the database is automatically protected by the Oracle Restart technology available with Grid Infrastructure. Consequently, it restarts automatically (if possible) after a crash (ex: kill –9 smon). A database resource has been created for that in the Cluster Registry. We can observe this with the command : crsctl status resource that shows and ora.dba11g.db entry. Let’s save the definition of this resource, for future use : mkdir –p /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts chown oracle:oinstall /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts crsctl status resource ora.db11g.db -p > /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/myResource.txt Although very interesting, Oracle Restart is not cluster aware and cannot restart the database on any other node of the cluster. So, let’s remove it from the OCR definitions, we don’t need it ! srvctl stop database -d DB11G srvctl remove database -d DB11G Instead of it, we need to create a new resource of a more general type : cluster_resource. Here are the steps to achieve this : Create an action script :  /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh #!/bin/bash export ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 export ORACLE_SID=DB11G case $1 in 'start')   $ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus /nolog <<EOF   connect / as sysdba   startup EOF   RET=0   ;; 'stop')   $ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus /nolog <<EOF   connect / as sysdba   shutdown immediate EOF   RET=0   ;; 'check')    ok=`ps -ef | grep smon | grep $ORACLE_SID | wc -l`    if [ $ok = 0 ]; then      RET=1    else      RET=0    fi    ;; '*')      RET=0   ;; esac if [ $RET -eq 0 ]; then    exit 0 else    exit 1 fi   This script must provide, at least, methods to start, stop and check the database. It is self-explaining and contains nothing special. Just be aware that it is run as Oracle user (because of the ACL property – see later) and needs to know about the environment. It also needs to be present on every node of the cluster. chmod +x /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh scp  /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh   oracle@OELCluster02:/crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts Create a new resource file, based on the information we got from previous  myResource.txt . Name it myNewResource.txt. myResource.txt  is shown below. As we can see, it defines an ora.database.type resource, named ora.db11g.db. A lot of properties are related to this type of resource and do not need to be used for a cluster_resource. NAME=ora.db11g.db TYPE=ora.database.type ACL=owner:oracle:rwx,pgrp:oinstall:rwx,other::r-- ACTION_FAILURE_TEMPLATE= ACTION_SCRIPT= ACTIVE_PLACEMENT=1 AGENT_FILENAME=%CRS_HOME%/bin/oraagent%CRS_EXE_SUFFIX% AUTO_START=restore CARDINALITY=1 CHECK_INTERVAL=1 CHECK_TIMEOUT=600 CLUSTER_DATABASE=false DB_UNIQUE_NAME=DB11G DEFAULT_TEMPLATE=PROPERTY(RESOURCE_CLASS=database) PROPERTY(DB_UNIQUE_NAME= CONCAT(PARSE(%NAME%, ., 2), %USR_ORA_DOMAIN%, .)) ELEMENT(INSTANCE_NAME= %GEN_USR_ORA_INST_NAME%) DEGREE=1 DESCRIPTION=Oracle Database resource ENABLED=1 FAILOVER_DELAY=0 FAILURE_INTERVAL=60 FAILURE_THRESHOLD=1 GEN_AUDIT_FILE_DEST=/oracle/admin/DB11G/adump GEN_USR_ORA_INST_NAME= GEN_USR_ORA_INST_NAME@SERVERNAME(oelcluster01)=DB11G HOSTING_MEMBERS= INSTANCE_FAILOVER=0 LOAD=1 LOGGING_LEVEL=1 MANAGEMENT_POLICY=AUTOMATIC NLS_LANG= NOT_RESTARTING_TEMPLATE= OFFLINE_CHECK_INTERVAL=0 ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 PLACEMENT=restricted PROFILE_CHANGE_TEMPLATE= RESTART_ATTEMPTS=2 ROLE=PRIMARY SCRIPT_TIMEOUT=60 SERVER_POOLS=ora.DB11G SPFILE=+DTA/DB11G/spfileDB11G.ora START_DEPENDENCIES=hard(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) weak(type:ora.listener.type,uniform:ora.ons,uniform:ora.eons) pullup(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) START_TIMEOUT=600 STATE_CHANGE_TEMPLATE= STOP_DEPENDENCIES=hard(intermediate:ora.asm,shutdown:ora.DTA.dg,shutdown:ora.FRA.dg) STOP_TIMEOUT=600 UPTIME_THRESHOLD=1h USR_ORA_DB_NAME=DB11G USR_ORA_DOMAIN=haroland USR_ORA_ENV= USR_ORA_FLAGS= USR_ORA_INST_NAME=DB11G USR_ORA_OPEN_MODE=open USR_ORA_OPI=false USR_ORA_STOP_MODE=immediate VERSION=11.2.0.1.0 I removed database type related entries from myResource.txt and modified some other to produce the following myNewResource.txt. Notice the NAME property that should not have the ora. prefix Notice the TYPE property that is not ora.database.type but cluster_resource. Notice the definition of ACTION_SCRIPT. Notice the HOSTING_MEMBERS that enumerates the members of the cluster (as returned by the olsnodes command). NAME=DB11G.db TYPE=cluster_resource DESCRIPTION=Oracle Database resource ACL=owner:oracle:rwx,pgrp:oinstall:rwx,other::r-- ACTION_SCRIPT=/crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh PLACEMENT=restricted ACTIVE_PLACEMENT=0 AUTO_START=restore CARDINALITY=1 CHECK_INTERVAL=10 DEGREE=1 ENABLED=1 HOSTING_MEMBERS=oelcluster01 oelcluster02 LOGGING_LEVEL=1 RESTART_ATTEMPTS=1 START_DEPENDENCIES=hard(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) weak(type:ora.listener.type,uniform:ora.ons,uniform:ora.eons) pullup(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) START_TIMEOUT=600 STOP_DEPENDENCIES=hard(intermediate:ora.asm,shutdown:ora.DTA.dg,shutdown:ora.FRA.dg) STOP_TIMEOUT=600 UPTIME_THRESHOLD=1h Register the resource. Take care of the resource type. It needs to be a cluster_resource and not a ora.database.type resource (Oracle recommendation) .   crsctl add resource DB11G.db  -type cluster_resource -file /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/myNewResource.txt Step 3 - Start the resource crsctl start resource DB11G.db This command launches the ACTION_SCRIPT with a start and a check parameter on the primary node of the cluster. Step 4 - Test this We will test the setup using 2 methods. crsctl relocate resource DB11G.db This command calls the ACTION_SCRIPT  (on the two nodes)  to stop the database on the active node and start it on the other node. Once done, we can revert back to the original node, but, this time we can use a more “MS$ like” method :Turn off the server on which the database is running. After short delay, you should observe that the database is relocated on node 1. Conclusion Once the software installed and the standalone database created (which is a rather common and usual task), the steps to reach the objective are quite easy : Create an executable action script on every node of the cluster. Create a resource file. Create/Register the resource with OCR using the resource file. Start the resource. This solution is a very interesting alternative to licensable third party solutions.   References Clusterware 11gR2 documentation Oracle Clusterware Resource Reference   Gilles Haro Technical Expert - Core Technology, Oracle Consulting   

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• BizTalk: History of one project architecture

  - by Leonid Ganeline

  "In the beginning God made heaven and earth. Then he started to integrate." At the very start was the requirement: integrate two working systems. Small digging up: It was one system. It was good but IT guys want to change it to the new one, much better, chipper, more flexible, and more progressive in technologies, more suitable for the future, for the faster world and hungry competitors. One thing. One small, little thing. We cannot turn off the old system (call it A, because it was the first), turn on the new one (call it B, because it is second but not the last one). The A has a hundreds users all across a country, they must study B. A still has a lot nice custom features, home-made features that cannot disappear. These features have to be moved to the B and it is a long process, months and months of redevelopment. So, the decision was simple. Let’s move not jump, let’s both systems working side-by-side several months. In this time we could teach the users and move all custom A’s special functionality to B. That automatically means both systems should work side-by-side all these months and use the same data. Data in A and B must be in sync. That’s how the integration projects get birth. Moreover, the specific of the user tasks requires the both systems must be in sync in real-time. Nightly synchronization is not working, absolutely.   First draft The first draft seems simple. Both systems keep data in SQL databases. When data changes, the Create, Update, Delete operations performed on the data, and the sync process could be started. The obvious decision is to use triggers on tables. When we are talking about data, we are talking about several entities. For example, Orders and Items [in Orders]. We decided to use the BizTalk Server to synchronize systems. Why it was chosen is another story. Second draft   Let’s take an example how it works in more details. 1.       User creates a new entity in the A system. This fires an insert trigger on the entity table. Trigger has to pass the message “Entity created”. This message includes all attributes of the new entity, but I focused on the Id of this entity in the A system. Notation for this message is id.A. System A sends id.A to the BizTalk Server. 2.       BizTalk transforms id.A to the format of the system B. This is easiest part and I will not focus on this kind of transformations in the following text. The message on the picture is still id.A but it is in slightly different format, that’s why it is changing in color. BizTalk sends id.A to the system B. 3.       The system B creates the entity on its side. But it uses different id-s for entities, these id-s are id.B. System B saves id.A+id.B. System B sends the message id.A+id.B back to the BizTalk. 4.       BizTalk sends the message id.A+id.B to the system A. 5.       System A saves id.A+id.B. Why both id-s should be saved on both systems? It was one of the next requirements. Users of both systems have to know the systems are in sync or not in sync. Users working with the entity on the system A can see the id.B and use it to switch to the system B and work there with the copy of the same entity. The decision was to store the pairs of entity id-s on both sides. If there is only one id, the entities are not in sync yet (for the Create operation). Third draft Next problem was the reliability of the synchronization. The synchronizing process can be interrupted on each step, when message goes through the wires. It can be communication problem, timeout, temporary shutdown one of the systems, the second system cannot be synchronized by some internal reason. There were several potential problems that prevented from enclosing the whole synchronization process in one transaction. Decision was to restart the whole sync process if it was not finished (in case of the error). For this purpose was created an additional service. Let’s call it the Resync service. We still keep the id pairs in both systems, but only for the fast access not for the synchronization process. For the synchronizing these id-s now are kept in one main place, in the Resync service database. The Resync service keeps record as: ·       Id.A ·       Id.B ·       Entity.Type ·       Operation (Create, Update, Delete) ·       IsSyncStarted (true/false) ·       IsSyncFinished (true/false0 The example now looks like: 1.       System A creates id.A. id.A is saved on the A. Id.A is sent to the BizTalk. 2.       BizTalk sends id.A to the Resync and to the B. id.A is saved on the Resync. 3.       System B creates id.B. id.A+id.B are saved on the B. id.A+id.B are sent to the BizTalk. 4.       BizTalk sends id.A+id.B to the Resync and to the A. id.A+id.B are saved on the Resync. 5.       id.A+id.B are saved on the B. Resync changes the IsSyncStarted and IsSyncFinished flags accordingly. The Resync service implements three main methods: ·       Save (id.A, Entity.Type, Operation) ·       Save (id.A, id.B, Entity.Type, Operation) ·       Resync () Two Save() are used to save id-s to the service storage. See in the above example, in 2 and 4 steps. What about the Resync()? It is the method that finishes the interrupted synchronization processes. If Save() is started by the trigger event, the Resync() is working as an independent process. It periodically scans the Resync storage to find out “unfinished” records. Then it restarts the synchronization processes. It tries to synchronize them several times then gives up.     One more thing, both systems A and B must tolerate duplicates of one synchronizing process. Say on the step 3 the system B was not able to send id.A+id.B back. The Resync service must restart the synchronization process that will send the id.A to B second time. In this case system B must just send back again also created id.A+id.B pair without errors. That means “tolerate duplicates”. Fourth draft Next draft was created only because of the aesthetics. As it always happens, aesthetics gave significant performance gain to the whole system. First was the stupid question. Why do we need this additional service with special database? Can we just master the BizTalk to do something like this Resync() does? So the Resync orchestration is doing the same thing as the Resync service. It is started by the Id.A and finished by the id.A+id.B message. The first works as a Start message, the second works as a Finish message.     Here is a diagram the whole process without errors. It is pretty straightforward. The Resync orchestration is waiting for the Finish message specific period of time then resubmits the Id.A message. It resubmits the Id.A message specific number of times then gives up and gets suspended. It can be resubmitted then it starts the whole process again: waiting [, resubmitting [, get suspended]], finishing. Tuning up The Resync orchestration resubmits the id.A message with special “Resubmitted” flag. The subscription filter on the Resync orchestration includes predicate as (Resubmit_Flag != “Resubmitted”). That means only the first Sync orchestration starts the Resync orchestration. Other Sync orchestration instantiated by the resubmitting can finish this Resync orchestration but cannot start another instance of the Resync   Here is a diagram where system B was inaccessible for some period of time. The Resync orchestration resubmitted the id.A two times. Then system B got the response the id.A+id.B and this finished the Resync service execution. What is interesting about this, there were submitted several identical id.A messages and only one id.A+id.B message. Because of this, the system B and the Resync must tolerate the duplicate messages. We also told about this requirement for the system B. Now the same requirement is for the Resunc. Let’s assume the system B was very slow in the first response and the Resync service had time to resubmit two id.A messages. System B responded not, as it was in previous case, with one id.A+id.B but with two id.A+id.B messages. First of them finished the Resync execution for the id.A. What about the second id.A+id.B? Where it goes? So, we have to add one more internal requirement. The whole solution must tolerate many identical id.A+id.B messages. It is easy task with the BizTalk. I added the “SinkExtraMessages” subscriber (orchestration with one receive shape), that just get these messages and do nothing. Real design Real architecture is much more complex and interesting. In reality each system can submit several id.A almost simultaneously and completely unordered. There are not only the “Create entity” operation but the Update and Delete operations. And these operations relate each other. Say the Update operation after Delete means not the same as Update after Create. In reality there are entities related each other. Say the Order and Order Items. Change on one of it could start the series of the operations on another. Moreover, the system internals are the “black boxes” and we cannot predict the exact content and order of the operation series. It worth to say, I had to spend a time to manage the zombie message problems. The zombies are still here, but this is not a problem now. And this is another story. What is interesting in the last design? One orchestration works to help another to be more reliable. Why two orchestration design is more reliable, isn’t it something strange? The Synch orchestration takes all the message exchange between systems, here is the area where most of the errors could happen. The Resync orchestration sends and receives messages only within the BizTalk server. Is there another design? Sure. All Resync functionality could be implemented inside the Sync orchestration. Hey guys, some other ideas?

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• Are your personal insecurities screwing up your internal communications?

  - by Lucy Boyes

  I do some internal comms as part of my job. Quite a lot of it involves talking to people about stuff. I’m spending the next couple of weeks talking to lots of people about internal comms itself, because we haven’t done a lot of audience/user feedback gathering, and it turns out that if you talk to people about how they feel and what they think, you get some pretty interesting insights (and an idea of what to do next that isn’t just based on guesswork and generalising from self). Three things keep coming up from talking to people about what we suck at  in terms of internal comms. And, as far as I can tell, they’re all examples where personal insecurity on the part of the person doing the communicating makes the experience much worse for the people on the receiving end. 1. Spending time telling people how you’re going to do something, not what you’re doing and why Imagine you’ve got to give an update to a lot of people who don’t work in your area or department but do have an interest in what you’re doing (either because they want to know because they’re curious or because they need to know because it’s going to affect their work too). You don’t want to look bad at your job. You want to make them think you’ve got it covered – ideally because you do*. And you want to reassure them that there’s lots of exciting work going on in your area to make [insert thing of choice] happen to [insert thing of choice] so that [insert group of people] will be happy. That’s great! You’re doing a good job and you want to tell people about it. This is good comms stuff right here. However, you’re slightly afraid you might secretly be stupid or lazy or incompetent. And you’re exponentially more afraid that the people you’re talking to might think you’re stupid or lazy or incompetent. Or pointless. Or not-adding-value. Or whatever the thing that’s the worst possible thing to be in your company is. So you open by mentioning all the stuff you’re going to do, spending five minutes or so making sure that everyone knows that you’re DOING lots of STUFF. And the you talk for the rest of the time about HOW you’re going to do the stuff, because that way everyone will know that you’ve thought about this really hard and done tons of planning and had lots of great ideas about process and that you’ve got this one down. That’s the stuff you’ve got to say, right? To prove you’re not fundamentally worthless as a human being? Well, maybe. But probably not. See, the people who need to know how you’re going to do the stuff are the people doing the stuff. And those are the people in your area who you’ve (hopefully-please-for-the-love-of-everything-holy) already talked to in depth about how you’re going to do the thing (because else how could they help do it?). They are the only people who need to know the how**. It’s the difference between strategy and tactics. The people outside of your bubble of stuff-doing need to know the strategy – what it is that you’re doing, why, where you’re going with it, etc. The people on the ground with you need the strategy and the tactics, because else they won’t know how to do the stuff. But the outside people don’t really need the tactics at all. Don’t bother with the how unless your audience needs it. They probably don’t. It might make you feel better about yourself, but it’s much more likely that Bob and Jane are thinking about how long this meeting has gone on for already than how personally impressive and definitely-not-an-idiot you are for knowing how you’re going to do some work. Feeling marginally better about yourself (but, let’s face it, still insecure as heck) is not worth the cost, which in this case is the alienation of your audience. 2. Talking for too long about stuff This is kinda the same problem as the previous problem, only much less specific, and I’ve more or less covered why it’s bad already. Basic motivation: to make people think you’re not an idiot. What you do: talk for a very long time about what you’re doing so as to make it sound like you know what you’re doing and lots about it. What your audience wants: the shortest meaningful update. Some of this is a kill your darlings problem – the stuff you’re doing that seems really nifty to you seems really nifty to you, and thus you want to share it with everyone to show that you’re a smart person who thinks up nifty things to do. The downside to this is that it’s mostly only interesting to you – if other people don’t need to know, they likely also don’t care. Think about how you feel when someone is talking a lot to you about a lot of stuff that they’re doing which is at best tangentially interesting and/or relevant. You’re probably not thinking that they’re really smart and clearly know what they’re doing (unless they’re talking a lot and being really engaging about it, which is not the same as talking a lot). You’re probably thinking about something totally unrelated to the thing they’re talking about. Or the fact that you’re bored. You might even – and this is the opposite of what they’re hoping to achieve by talking a lot about stuff – be thinking they’re kind of an idiot. There’s another huge advantage to paring down what you’re trying to say to the barest possible points – it clarifies your thinking. The lightning talk format, as well as other formats which limit the time and/or number of slides you have to say a thing, are really good for doing this. It’s incredibly likely that your audience in this case (the people who need to know some things about your thing but not all the things about your thing) will get everything they need to know from five minutes of you talking about it, especially if trying to condense ALL THE THINGS into a five-minute talk has helped you get clear in your own mind what you’re doing, what you’re trying to say about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. The bonus of this is that by being clear in your thoughts and in what you say, and in not taking up lots of people’s time to tell them stuff they don’t really need to know, you actually come across as much, much smarter than the person who talks for half an hour or more about things that are semi-relevant at best. 3. Waiting until you’ve got every detail sorted before announcing a big change to the people affected by it This is the worst crime on the list. It’s also human nature. Announcing uncertainty – that something important is going to happen (big reorganisation, product getting canned, etc.) but you’re not quite sure what or when or how yet – is scary. There are risks to it. Uncertainty makes people anxious. It might even paralyse them. You can’t run a business while you’re figuring out what to do if you’ve paralysed everyone with fear over what the future might bring. And you’re scared that they might think you’re not the right person to be in charge of [thing] if you don’t even know what you’re doing with it. Best not to say anything until you know exactly what’s going to happen and you can reassure them all, right? Nope. The people who are going to be affected by whatever it is that you don’t quite know all the details of yet aren’t stupid***. You wouldn’t have hired them if they were. They know something’s up because you’ve got your guilty face on and you keep pulling people into meeting rooms and looking vaguely worried. Here’s the deal: it’s a lot less stressful for everyone (including you) if you’re up front from the beginning. We took this approach during a recent company-wide reorganisation and got really positive feedback. People would much, much rather be told that something is going to happen but you’re not entirely sure what it is yet than have you wait until it’s all fixed up and then fait accompli the heck out of them. They will tell you this themselves if you ask them. And here’s why: by waiting until you know exactly what’s going on to communicate, you remove any agency that the people that the thing is going to happen to might otherwise have had. I know you’re scared that they might get scared – and that’s natural and kind of admirable – but it’s also patronising and infantilising. Ask someone whether they’d rather work on a project which has an openly uncertain future from the beginning, or one where everything’s great until it gets shut down with no forewarning, and very few people are going to tell you they’d prefer the latter. Uncertainty is humanising. It’s you admitting that you don’t have all the answers, which is great, because no one does. It allows you to be consultative – you can actually ask other people what they think and how they feel and what they’d like to do and what they think you should do, and they’ll thank you for it and feel listened to and respected as people and colleagues. Which is a really good reason to start talking to them about what’s going on as soon as you know something’s going on yourself. All of the above assumes you actually care about talking to the people who work with you and for you, and that you’d like to do the right thing by them. If that’s not the case, you can cheerfully disregard the advice here, but if it is, you might want to think about the ways above – and the inevitable countless other ways – that making internal communication about you and not about your audience could actually be doing the people you’re trying to communicate with a huge disservice. So take a deep breath and talk. For five minutes or so. About the important things. Not the other things. As soon as you possibly can. And you’ll be fine.   *Of course you do. You’re good at your job. Don’t worry. **This might not always be true, but it is most of the time. Other people who need to know the how will either be people who you’ve already identified as needing-to-know and thus part of the same set as the people in you’re area you’ve already discussed this with, or else they’ll ask you. But don’t bring this stuff up unless someone asks for it, because most of the people in the audience really don’t care and you’re wasting their time. ***I mean, they might be. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re not.

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• SQL SERVER – What is Spatial Database? – Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spati

  - by pinaldave

  What is Spatial Database? A spatial database is a database that is optimized to store and query data related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to process spatial data types. (Source: Wikipedia) Today I will be talking about the same subject at Microsoft TechEd India. If you want to learn about how to spatial aspect of data and how to integrate them with SQL Server this is the perfect session for you. Spatial is very special concept of SQL Server and I really like how it is implemented in SQL Server. In general Performance Tuning and Query Optimization is something I always have enjoyed in my professional life. Index are my best friends and many time, by implementing and many time by removing I have improved the performance of the system. In this session, I will be talking about Index along with Spatial Data. As Spatial Database is very interesting concept, I will cover super short but very interesting 10 quick slides about this subject. I will make sure in very first 20 mins, you will understand following topics Introduction to Spatial Database One line definition Understanding Spatial Indexing Index Internals Query/Performance Tuning Query Hinting/Cost Analysis Spatial Index Catalog Views Performance Troubleshooting Finding Optimal Index using Spatial Index SP Common Errors Index Maintenance This slides decks will be followed by around 30 mins demo which will have story of geometry, geography, index internals and performance tuning. If you are interested in learning how GIS works and how SQL Server out of the box supports this wonderful tools, you will really like how the story is told. I am sure all people who attend the event will know how the Bangalore is positioned on the map of India. I will take example of Bangalore and Hyderabad and demonstrate how index can improve the performance. Well there are lots of story to tell in the session, and I will be opening this session with the beautiful script of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus created by Michael J. Swart. I will also demonstrate few real life scenario where I will be talking about Spatial Database and its usage. Do not miss this session. At the end of session there will be book awarded to best participant. My session details: Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Date: April 14, 2010 Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Spatial Database

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• This Week in Geek History: Gmail Goes Public, Deep Blue Wins at Chess, and the Birth of Thomas Edison

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Every week we bring you a snapshot of the week in Geek History. This week we’re taking a peek at the public release of Gmail, the first time a computer won against a chess champion, and the birth of prolific inventor Thomas Edison. Gmail Goes Public It’s hard to believe that Gmail has only been around for seven years and that for the first three years of its life it was invite only. In 2007 Gmail dropped the invite only requirement (although they would hold onto the “beta” tag for another two years) and opened its doors for anyone to grab a username @gmail. For what seemed like an entire epoch in internet history Gmail had the slickest web-based email around with constant innovations and features rolling out from Gmail Labs. Only in the last year or so have major overhauls at competitors like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail brought other services up to speed. Can’t stand reading a Week in Geek History entry without a random fact? Here you go: gmail.com was originally owned by the Garfield franchise and ran a service that delivered Garfield comics to your email inbox. No, we’re not kidding. Deep Blue Proves Itself a Chess Master Deep Blue was a super computer constructed by IBM with the sole purpose of winning chess matches. In 2011 with the all seeing eye of Google and the amazing computational abilities of engines like Wolfram Alpha we simply take powerful computers immersed in our daily lives for granted. The 1996 match against reigning world chest champion Garry Kasparov where in Deep Blue held its own, but ultimately lost, in a  4-2 match shook a lot of people up. What did it mean if something that was considered such an elegant and quintessentially human endeavor such as chess was so easy for a machine? A series of upgrades helped Deep Blue outright win a match against Kasparov in 1997 (seen in the photo above). After the win Deep Blue was retired and disassembled. Parts of Deep Blue are housed in the National Museum of History and the Computer History Museum. Birth of Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in history and holds an astounding 1,093 US Patents. He is responsible for outright inventing or greatly refining major innovations in the history of world culture including the phonograph, the movie camera, the carbon microphone used in nearly every telephone well into the 1980s, batteries for electric cars (a notion we’d take over a century to take seriously), voting machines, and of course his enormous contribution to electric distribution systems. Despite the role of scientist and inventor being largely unglamorous, Thomas Edison and his tumultuous relationship with fellow inventor Nikola Tesla have been fodder for everything from books, to comics, to movies, and video games. Other Notable Moments from This Week in Geek History Although we only shine the spotlight on three interesting facts a week in our Geek History column, that doesn’t mean we don’t have space to highlight a few more in passing. This week in Geek History: 1971 – Apollo 14 returns to Earth after third Lunar mission. 1974 – Birth of Robot Chicken creator Seth Green. 1986 – Death of Dune creator Frank Herbert. Goodnight Dune. 1997 – Simpsons becomes longest running animated show on television. Have an interesting bit of geek trivia to share? Shoot us an email to [email protected] with “history” in the subject line and we’ll be sure to add it to our list of trivia. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? Clean Up Google Calendar’s Interface in Chrome and Iron The Rise and Fall of Kramerica? [Seinfeld Video] GNOME Shell 3 Live CDs for OpenSUSE and Fedora Available for Testing Picplz Offers Special FX, Sharing, and Backup of Your Smartphone Pics BUILD! An Epic LEGO Stop Motion Film [VIDEO] The Lingering Glow of Sunset over a Winter Landscape Wallpaper

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• SQL SERVER – How to Ignore Columnstore Index Usage in Query

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote about SQL SERVER – Fundamentals of Columnstore Index and very first question I received in email was as following. “We are using SQL Server 2012 CTP3 and so far so good. In our data warehouse solution we have created 1 non-clustered columnstore index on our large fact table. We have very unique situation but your article did not cover it. We are running few queries on our fact table which is working very efficiently but there is one query which earlier was running very fine but after creating this non-clustered columnstore index this query is running very slow. We dropped the columnstore index and suddenly this one query is running fast but other queries which were benefited by this columnstore index it is running slow. Any workaround in this situation?” In summary the question in simple words “How can we ignore using columnstore index in selective queries?” Very interesting question – you can use I can understand there may be the cases when columnstore index is not ideal and needs to be ignored the same. You can use the query hint IGNORE_NONCLUSTERED_COLUMNSTORE_INDEX to ignore the columnstore index. SQL Server Engine will use any other index which is best after ignoring the columnstore index. Here is the quick script to prove the same. We will first create sample database and then create columnstore index on the same. Once columnstore index is created we will write simple query. This query will use columnstore index. We will then show the usage of the query hint. USE AdventureWorks GO -- Create New Table CREATE TABLE [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail]( [SalesOrderID] [int] NOT NULL, [SalesOrderDetailID] [int] NOT NULL, [CarrierTrackingNumber] [nvarchar](25) NULL, [OrderQty] [smallint] NOT NULL, [ProductID] [int] NOT NULL, [SpecialOfferID] [int] NOT NULL, [UnitPrice] [money] NOT NULL, [UnitPriceDiscount] [money] NOT NULL, [LineTotal] [numeric](38, 6) NOT NULL, [rowguid] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL, [ModifiedDate] [datetime] NOT NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GO -- Create clustered index CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX [CL_MySalesOrderDetail] ON [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] ( [SalesOrderDetailID]) GO -- Create Sample Data Table -- WARNING: This Query may run upto 2-10 minutes based on your systems resources INSERT INTO [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] SELECT S1.* FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail S1 GO 100 -- Create ColumnStore Index CREATE NONCLUSTERED COLUMNSTORE INDEX [IX_MySalesOrderDetail_ColumnStore] ON [MySalesOrderDetail] (UnitPrice, OrderQty, ProductID) GO Now we have created columnstore index so if we run following query it will use for sure the same index. -- Select Table with regular Index SELECT ProductID, SUM(UnitPrice) SumUnitPrice, AVG(UnitPrice) AvgUnitPrice, SUM(OrderQty) SumOrderQty, AVG(OrderQty) AvgOrderQty FROM [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] GROUP BY ProductID ORDER BY ProductID GO We can specify Query Hint IGNORE_NONCLUSTERED_COLUMNSTORE_INDEX as described in following query and it will not use columnstore index. -- Select Table with regular Index SELECT ProductID, SUM(UnitPrice) SumUnitPrice, AVG(UnitPrice) AvgUnitPrice, SUM(OrderQty) SumOrderQty, AVG(OrderQty) AvgOrderQty FROM [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] GROUP BY ProductID ORDER BY ProductID OPTION (IGNORE_NONCLUSTERED_COLUMNSTORE_INDEX) GO Let us clean up the database. -- Cleanup DROP INDEX [IX_MySalesOrderDetail_ColumnStore] ON [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] GO TRUNCATE TABLE dbo.MySalesOrderDetail GO DROP TABLE dbo.MySalesOrderDetail GO Again, make sure that you use hint sparingly and understanding the proper implication of the same. Make sure that you test it with and without hint and select the best option after review of your administrator. Here is the question for you – have you started to use SQL Server 2012 for your validation and development (not on production)? It will be interesting to know the answer. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Introducing functional programming constructs in non-functional programming languages

  - by Giorgio

  This question has been going through my mind quite a lot lately and since I haven't found a convincing answer to it I would like to know if other users of this site have thought about it as well. In the recent years, even though OOP is still the most popular programming paradigm, functional programming is getting a lot of attention. I have only used OOP languages for my work (C++ and Java) but I am trying to learn some FP in my free time because I find it very interesting. So, I started learning Haskell three years ago and Scala last summer. I plan to learn some SML and Caml as well, and to brush up my (little) knowledge of Scheme. Well, a lot of plans (too ambitious?) but I hope I will find the time to learn at least the basics of FP during the next few years. What is important for me is how functional programming works and how / whether I can use it for some real projects. I have already developed small tools in Haskell. In spite of my strong interest for FP, I find it difficult to understand why functional programming constructs are being added to languages like C#, Java, C++, and so on. As a developer interested in FP, I find it more natural to use, say, Scala or Haskell, instead of waiting for the next FP feature to be added to my favourite non-FP language. In other words, why would I want to have only some FP in my originally non-FP language instead of looking for a language that has a better support for FP? For example, why should I be interested to have lambdas in Java if I can switch to Scala where I have much more FP concepts and access all the Java libraries anyway? Similarly: why do some FP in C# instead of using F# (to my knowledge, C# and F# can work together)? Java was designed to be OO. Fine. I can do OOP in Java (and I would like to keep using Java in that way). Scala was designed to support OOP + FP. Fine: I can use a mix of OOP and FP in Scala. Haskell was designed for FP: I can do FP in Haskell. If I need to tune the performance of a particular module, I can interface Haskell with some external routines in C. But why would I want to do OOP with just some basic FP in Java? So, my main point is: why are non-functional programming languages being extended with some functional concept? Shouldn't it be more comfortable (interesting, exciting, productive) to program in a language that has been designed from the very beginning to be functional or multi-paradigm? Don't different programming paradigms integrate better in a language that was designed for it than in a language in which one paradigm was only added later? The first explanation I could think of is that, since FP is a new concept (it isn't new at all, but it is new for many developers), it needs to be introduced gradually. However, I remember my switch from imperative to OOP: when I started to program in C++ (coming from Pascal and C) I really had to rethink the way in which I was coding, and to do it pretty fast. It was not gradual. So, this does not seem to be a good explanation to me. Or can it be that many non-FP programmers are not really interested in understanding and using functional programming, but they find it practically convenient to adopt certain FP-idioms in their non-FP language? IMPORTANT NOTE Just in case (because I have seen several language wars on this site): I mentioned the languages I know better, this question is in no way meant to start comparisons between different programming languages to decide which is better / worse. Also, I am not interested in a comparison of OOP versus FP (pros and cons). The point I am interested in is to understand why FP is being introduced one bit at a time into existing languages that were not designed for it even though there exist languages that were / are specifically designed to support FP.

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• SQL SERVER – #TechEdIn – Presenting Tomorrow on SQL Server Misconception and Resolution with Vinod Kumar at TechEd India 2012

  - by pinaldave

  I am excited AND nervous at the same time. I am going to present a very interesting topic tomorrow at an SQL Server track in India. This will be my fourth time presenting at TechEd India. So far, I have received so much feedback about this one session. It seems like every single person out there has their own wishes and requests. I am sure that it is going to very challenging experience to satisfy everyone who attends the event through my presentation. Surprise Element Here is the good news: I am going to co-present this session with Vinod Kumar, my long time friend and co-worker. We have known each other for almost four years now, but this is the very first time that we are going to present together on the big stage of TechEd.  When there are more than two presenters, the usual trick is to practice the session multiple times and know exactly what each other is going to present and talk about. However, there’s a catch – we decided to make it different this time and have shared nothing to each other regarding what exactly we are going to present. This makes everything extremely interesting as each of us will be as clueless as the audience when other person is going to talk. Action Item Here are a few of the action items for all of those who are going to attend this session. Vinod and I will be present at the venue 15 minutes before the session. Do come in early and talk with us. We would be glad to talk with you and see if either of us can accommodate your suggestion in our session. If we do, we will give a surprise gift for you. As discussed, this session is going to be a unique two-presenter session. You will have chance to take a side with one speaker and stump the other speaker. Come early to decide which speaker you want to cheer during the session. Quiz and Goodies By now, you must have figured out that this session is going to be an extremely interactive session. We need your support through your active participation. We will have some really brain-twisting quiz line up just for you. You will have to take part and win surprises from us! Trust me. If you get it right, we will give you something which can help you learn more! We will have a quiz on Twitter as well. We will ask a question in person and you will be able to participate on Twitter. 10 – Demos As I said, both of us do not know what each other is going to present, but there are few things which we know very well. We have 10 demos and 6 slides. I think this is going to be an exciting demo marathon. Trust me, you will love it and the taste of this session will be in your mouth till the next TechEd. Session Details Title: SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolution – A Practical Perspective (Add to Calendar) Abstract: “The earth is flat”! – An ancient common misconception, which has been proven incorrect as we progressed in modern times. In this session, we will see various database misconceptions prevailing and their resolutions with the aid of the demos. In this unique session, the audience will be a part of the conversation and resolution. Date and Time: March 21, 2012, 15:15 to 16:15 Location: Hotel Lalit Ashok - Kumara Krupa High Grounds, Bengaluru – 560001, Karnataka, India. Add to Calendar Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• OOW 2013 Summary for Fusion Middleware Architects & Administrators by Simon Haslam

  - by JuergenKress

  OOW 2013 Summary for Fusion Middleware Architects & Administrators by Simon Haslam This September during Oracle OpenWorld 2013 the weather in San Francisco, as you see can from the photo, was exceptionally sunny. The dramatic final few days of the Americas Cup sailing competition, being held every day in the bay, coincided with the conference and meant that there was almost a holiday feel to the whole event. Here's my annual round-up of what I think was most interesting at OpenWorld 2013 for Fusion Middleware architects and administrators; I hope you find it useful and if you think I've missed something please add a comment! WebLogic and Cloud Application Foundation (CAF) The big WebLogic release of the year has already happened a few months ago with 12.1.2 so I won't duplicate that here. Will Lyons discussed the WebLogic and Coherence roadmap which essentially is that 12.1.3 will probably be released to coincide with SOA 12c next year and that 12.1.4, the next feature-rich WebLogic release, is more likely to be in 2015. This latter release will probably include full Java EE 7 support, have enhancements for multi-tenancy and further auto-scaling features to support increased density (i.e. more WebLogic usage for the same amount of hardware). There's a new Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder (OVAB) out already and an Oracle Traffic Director (OTD) 12c release round the corner too. Also of relevance to administrators is that Oracle has increased the support lifetime for Fusion Middleware 11g (e.g. WebLogic 10.3.6) so that Premier Support will now run to the end of 2018 and Extended Support until 2021 - this should remove any Oracle-driven pressure to upgrade at least. Java Mission Control Java Mission Control (JMC) is the HotSpot Java 7 version of JRockit 6 Mission Control, a very nice performance monitoring tool from Oracle's BEA acquisition. Flight Recorder is a feature built into the JVM which records diagnostic events into, typically, a circular buffer which can then be used for historical analysis, particularly in the case of a JVM crash or hang. It's been available separately for WebLogic only for perhaps a year now but, more significantly, it now includes JVM events and was bundled in with JDK7 Update 40 a few weeks ago. I attended a couple of interesting Java One sessions on JMC/Flight Recorder and have to say it's looking really good - it has all the previous JRMC features except for memory leak detector, plus some enhancements around operative sets and ECID filtering I think. Marcus also showed how you could add your own events into flight recorder by building your own event class - they are then available for graphing alongside all the other events in JMC. This uses a currently an unsupported/undocumented API, but it's also the same one that WebLogic uses for WLDF events so I imagine it is stable. I'm not sure quite whether this would be useful to custom applications, as opposed to infrastructure services or ISV packaged applications, but it was a very nice demonstration. I've been testing JMC / FR enabling on several environments recently and my confidence is growing - it feels robust and I think could very soon be part of my standard builds. Read the full article here. WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: OOW,Simon Haslam,Oracle OpenWorld,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Functional programming constructs in non-functional programming languages

  - by Giorgio

  This question has been going through my mind quite a lot lately and since I haven't found a convincing answer to it I would like to know if other users of this site have thought about it as well. In the recent years, even though OOP is still the most popular programming paradigm, functional programming is getting a lot of attention. I have only used OOP languages for my work (C++ and Java) but I am trying to learn some FP in my free time because I find it very interesting. So, I started learning Haskell three years ago and Scala last summer. I plan to learn some SML and Caml as well, and to brush up my (little) knowledge of Scheme. Well, a lot of plans (too ambitious?) but I hope I will find the time to learn at least the basics of FP during the next few years. What is important for me is how functional programming works and how / whether I can use it for some real projects. I have already developed small tools in Haskell. In spite of my strong interest for FP, I find it difficult to understand why functional programming constructs are being added to languages like C#, Java, C++, and so on. As a developer interested in FP, I find it more natural to use, say, Scala or Haskell, instead of waiting for the next FP feature to be added to my favourite non-FP language. In other words, why would I want to have only some FP in my originally non-FP language instead of looking for a language that has a better support for FP? For example, why should I be interested to have lambdas in Java if I can switch to Scala where I have much more FP concepts and access all the Java libraries anyway? Similarly: why do some FP in C# instead of using F# (to my knowledge, C# and F# can work together)? Java was designed to be OO. Fine. I can do OOP in Java (and I would like to keep using Java in that way). Scala was designed to support OOP + FP. Fine: I can use a mix of OOP and FP in Scala. Haskell was designed for FP: I can do FP in Haskell. If I need to tune the performance of a particular module, I can interface Haskell with some external routines in C. But why would I want to do OOP with just some basic FP in Java? So, my main point is: why are non-functional programming languages being extended with some functional concept? Shouldn't it be more comfortable (interesting, exciting, productive) to program in a language that has been designed from the very beginning to be functional or multi-paradigm? Don't different programming paradigms integrate better in a language that was designed for it than in a language in which one paradigm was only added later? The first explanation I could think of is that, since FP is a new concept (it isn't new at all, but it is new for many developers), it needs to be introduced gradually. However, I remember my switch from imperative to OOP: when I started to program in C++ (coming from Pascal and C) I really had to rethink the way in which I was coding, and to do it pretty fast. It was not gradual. So, this does not seem to be a good explanation to me. Also, I asked myself if my impression is just plainly wrong due to lack of knowledge. E.g., do C# and C++11 support FP as extensively as, say, Scala or Caml do? In this case, my question would be simply non-existent. Or can it be that many non-FP programmers are not really interested in using functional programming, but they find it practically convenient to adopt certain FP-idioms in their non-FP language? IMPORTANT NOTE Just in case (because I have seen several language wars on this site): I mentioned the languages I know better, this question is in no way meant to start comparisons between different programming languages to decide which is better / worse. Also, I am not interested in a comparison of OOP versus FP (pros and cons). The point I am interested in is to understand why FP is being introduced one bit at a time into existing languages that were not designed for it even though there exist languages that were / are specifically designed to support FP.

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• SQLAuthority News – Follow up on – Replace a Column Name in Multiple Stored Procedure all together

  - by pinaldave

  Last month I had a fantastic time with lots of puzzles and brain teasers, the amount of participation which I have received on the blog is indeed inspiring to write more. One of the blog post was about how to replace a column name in all the stored procedures. The article had very interesting conversation as a follow up. Please read the original article Replace a Column Name in Multiple Stored Procedure all together before reading this blog further as they are connected. Let us start few of the interesting comments. SQL Server Expert Imran Mohammed had a wonderful first and excellent note. I suggest all of you to read it. Imran stresses on the Data Modelling and Logical as well as Physical Design. Developers must create a logical design and get approval on naming convention, data types, references, constraints, indexes etc. He further suggested that one should not cut steps but must follow all the industry standards and guidelines. Here extended my blog post with following note – “Extending Pinal’s answer, what you can do is go to database properties, all tasks, scripts objects, in scripting wizard select all the stored procedure for which you want to change column name, export the query to a new window and then do find and replace, all in once window and execute the script. But make sure you check what you are replacing, sometimes column names are also used in table names, for ex:Table Name: Product and Column Name: ProductId, ProductName”. Thanks Imran Great Points!  Gatej Alexandru suggested that it is not good idea to DROP or CREATE but rather use ALTER as quite possible there may be permissions issue as well. Very good point let me see if I can write blog post over it. Vinay Kumar and SQLStudent144 have proposed another method to achieve the same. I am combining their solution and writing them here. Step 1. Press Ctrl+T or change “Result to Text” mode. Step 2. Execute below commands.SELECT 'EXEC sp_helptext [' + referencing_schema_name + '.' + referencing_entity_name + ']' FROM sys.dm_sql_referencing_entities('schema.objectname','OBJECT') Where schema.objectname is the object or table you are searching for. Step 3. Now copy the result and paste in new window. Again Press Ctrl+T or change “Result to Text” mode. Step 4. Copy the result and paste in new window. Execute the query. Step 5. Copy the result and paste in new window. Step 6. Now find your searching text in the script, make necessary changes and execute this script. Do not forget to remove the code which is generated in resultset which are not relevant to the T-SQL Script. Digitqr suggest we can do this for other objects besides Stored Procedure as well. Iosif suggests to use tool SQL Search from RedGate. I guess this sums it well. We have an alternative perspective to our original issue of replacing the column name in multiple stored procedure. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Linq To SQL: Behaviour for table field which is NotNull and having Default value or binding

  - by kaushalparik27

  I found this something interesting while wandering over community which I would like to share. The post is whole about: DBML is not considering the table field's "Default value or Binding" setting which is a NotNull. I mean the field which can not be null but having default value set needs to be set IsDbGenerated = true in DBML file explicitly.Consider this situation: There is a simple tblEmployee table with below structure: The fields are simple. EmployeeID is a Primary Key with Identity Specification = True with Identity Seed = 1 to autogenerate numeric value for this field. EmployeeName and their EmailAddress to store in rest of 2 fields. And the last one is "DateAdded" with DateTime datatype which doesn't allow NULL but having Default Value/Binding with "GetDate()". That means if we don't pass any value to this field then SQL will insert current date in "DateAdded" field.So, I start with a new website, add a DBML file and dropped the said table to generate LINQ To SQL context class. Finally, I write a simple code snippet to insert data into the tblEmployee table; BUT, I am not passing any value to "DateAdded" field. Because I am considering SQL Server's "Default Value or Binding (GetDate())" setting to this field and understand that SQL will insert current date to this field.        using (TestDatabaseDataContext context = new TestDatabaseDataContext())        {            tblEmployee tblEmpObjet = new tblEmployee();            tblEmpObjet.EmployeeName = "KaushaL";            tblEmpObjet.EmployeeEmailAddress = "[email protected]";            context.tblEmployees.InsertOnSubmit(tblEmpObjet);            context.SubmitChanges();        }Here comes the twist when application give me below error:  This is something not expecting! From the error it clearly depicts that LINQ is passing NULL value to "DateAdded" Field while according to my understanding it should respect Sql Server's "Default value or Binding" setting for this field. A bit googling and I found very interesting related to this problem.When we set Primary Key to any field with "Identity Specification" Property set to true; DBML set one important property "IsDbGenerated=true" for this field. BUT, when we set "Default Value or Biding" property for some field; we need to explicitly tell the DBML/LINQ to let it know that this field is having default binding at DB side that needs to be respected if I don't pass any value. So, the solution is: You need to explicitly set "IsDbGenerated=true" for such field to tell the LINQ that the field is having default value or binding at Sql Server side so, please don't worry if i don't pass any value for it.You can select the field and set this property from property window in DBML Designer file or write the property in DBML.Designer.cs file directly. I have attached a working example with required table script with this post here. I hope this would be helpful for someone hunting for the same. Happy Discovery!

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• SQL SERVER – OVER clause with FIRST _VALUE and LAST_VALUE – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 – ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING

  - by pinaldave

  Yesterday I had discussed two analytical functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE. After reading the blog post I received very interesting question. “Don’t you think there is bug in your first example where FIRST_VALUE is remain same but the LAST_VALUE is changing every line. I think the LAST_VALUE should be the highest value in the windows or set of result.” I find this question very interesting because this is very commonly made mistake. No there is no bug in the code. I think what we need is a bit more explanation. Let me attempt that first. Before you do that I suggest you read yesterday’s blog post as this question is related to that blog post. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO The above query will give us the following result: As per the reader’s question the value of the LAST_VALUE function should be always 114 and not increasing as the rows are increased. Let me re-write the above code once again with bit extra T-SQL Syntax. Please pay special attention to the ROW clause which I have added in the above syntax. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO Now once again check the result of the above query. The result of both the query is same because in OVER clause the default ROWS selection is always UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW. If you want the maximum value of the windows with OVER clause you need to change the syntax to UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING for ROW clause. Now run following query and pay special attention to ROW clause again. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO Here is the resultset of the above query which is what questioner was asking. So in simple word, there is no bug but there is additional syntax needed to add to get your desired answer. The same logic also applies to PARTITION BY clause when used. Here is quick example of how we can further partition the query by SalesOrderDetailID with this new functions. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO Above query will give us windowed resultset on SalesOrderDetailsID as well give us FIRST and LAST value for the windowed resultset. There are lots to discuss for this two functions and we have just explored tip of the iceberg. In future post I will discover it further deep. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Silverlight Cream for May 11, 2010 -- #859

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this All Submittal Issue: Colin Eberhardt, Ken Johnson, Alan Beasley, Pencho Popadiyn, Phil Middlemiss, Khawar(-2-), Levente Mihály, Alex van Beek, Bart Czernicki, Michael Washington, and Mark Monster. Shoutout: Not Silverlight necessarily, but definitely VS2010, read what Brett Balmer has to say In Defense of Portrait Mode From SilverlightCream.com: Silverlight MultiBinding solution for Silverlight 4 Colin Eberhardt updated his Silverlight Multibinding solution to Silverlight 4. Great article with explanatory graphics, and links to the code... congrats on the use in the FaceBook Client too! Spirograph Shapes: WPF Bezier shapes from math formulae Wow... I haven't seen this much math since my Master's Thesis! ... Check out all the shapes Ken Johnson has built... don't let the math scare you... just use it :) Busy Dizzy Bee-sley Spirographic Animation in Expression Blend and Silverlight This is just fun... I saw Michael Washington playing with this yesterday at the Arizona Day of .NET but didn't have a chance to ask what it was.. Alan Beasley had a good time building this, and is sharing a very detailed tutorial with us. ModalDialogs, IEditableObject and MVVM in Silverlight 4 Pencho Popadiyn said the 'M' word over at SilverlightShow... actually the 'MVVM' word :) ... he's discussing Modal dialogs with no code in the View ... check out how he did it. A Chrome and Glass Theme - Part 6 Phil Middlemiss is up to episode 6 in his Theme-building tutorial... this time out, he's giving the TabControl and TabItem new clothes ... specifically discussing what to change and what to allow to inherit ... good stuff! Silverlight 4 Fonts gotcha Check out Khawar's ATM Machine demo -- there's a link on the page for this post... he had an issue with fonts, ratted it out, and explains it for all of us... thanks Khawar Demystifying Silverlight Obfuscation Khawar also has a good post up on Obfuscating your Silverlight... definitely showing that it's not all that difficult to do. geoGallery, a WinPhone7 sample OK this is interesting... using the geoLocation feature of WP7, Levente Mihály hits Google Picasa to find pictures... good write-up and all the code. Silverlight 4: Digitally signing a XAP with Visual Studio 2010 Alex van Beek has a nice tutorial on Signing your XAP file using Visual Studio 2010... of course you may want to visit Tim Heuer's blog (search at SC) to find the two good deals on certificates that are still in play. Creating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Expression Blend 4 for Business Intelligence applications In an interesting post, Bart Czernicki describes using the shape assets in Blend 4 to produce a KPI display in Silverlight or WPF. A discussion of the shape's evolution for KPI is included as well as some alternate shape uses. A DotNetNuke Silverlight 4 Drag and Drop File Manager Michael Washington has blogged about his Drag and Drop File Manager using the View Model Style pattern. This is covered in two CodeProject articles listed in the post. The design work was done by Alan Beasely and links to his work is there as well as covered in other SC posts. How to select a ListItem on Hover Mark Monster had a Use Case for Selecting a ListBox entry by hovering ... but he did it with a Behavior and for a ListBox and PathListBox and it works with DataBinding... Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• SQL SERVER – Puzzle to Win Print Book – Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY

  - by pinaldave

  Some time an interesting feature and smart audience makes total difference at places. From last two days, I have been writing on SQL Server 2012 feature FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE. Please read following post before I continue today as this question is based on the same. Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause As a comment of the second post I received excellent question from Nilesh Molankar. He asks what will happen if we change few things in the T-SQL. I really like this question as this kind of questions will make us sharp and help us perform in critical situation in need. We recently publish SQL Server Interview Questions book. I promise that in future version of this book, we will for sure include this question. Instead of repeating his question, I am going to ask something very similar to his question. Let us first run following query (read yesterday’s blog post for more detail): USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO Here is the resultset of the above query. Now let us change the ORDER BY clause of OVER clause in above query and see what is the new result. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY OrderQty ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY OrderQty ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO Now let us see the result and ready for interesting question: Puzzle You can see that row number 2, 3, 4, and 5 has same SalesOrderID = 43667. The FIRST_VALUE is 78 and LAST_VALUE is 77. Now if these function was working on maximum and minimum value they should have given answer as 77 and 80 respectively instead of 78 and 77. Also the value of FIRST_VALUE is greater than LAST_VALUE 77. Why? Explain in detail. Hint Let me give you a simple hint. Just for simplicity I have changed the order of columns selected in the SELECT and ORDER BY (at the end). This will not change resultset but just order of the columns as well order of the rows. However, the data remains the same. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.OrderQty,s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY OrderQty ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY OrderQty ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.OrderQty,s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID GO Above query returns following result: Now I am very sure all of you have figured out the solution. Here is the second hint – pay attention to row 2, 3, 4, and 10. Hint2 T-SQL Enhancements: FIRST_VALUE() and LAST_VALUE() MSDN: FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Rules Leave a comment with your detailed answer by Nov 15′s blog post. Open world-wide (where Amazon ships books) If you blog about puzzle’s solution and if you win, you win additional surprise gift as well. Prizes Print copy of my new book SQL Server Interview Questions Amazon|Flipkart If you already have this book, you can opt for any of my other books SQL Wait Stats [Amazon|Flipkart|Kindle] and SQL Programming [Amazon|Flipkart|Kindle]. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Get Across The Table & Share Your Story By Megha Kapil !!!

  - by Nadiya

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 I am sure many of you are presently sitting across the table facing an industry expert to prove your mettle. Generally when you think of an interview; first image is of someone firing you with questions & you trying to hit all the shots right. We make an interview look like a court room where you are a victim & being prosecuted to apply for job: Why have you applied for this job, why do you think you are fit for this role, tell me your strengths, tell me your weaknesses, How, When Where, What..?   Interview is a process of knowing a candidate & his/her fitment in the system for interviewer; where as for interviewee its understanding the organization & his/her role. We have made this process of interview synonym to Q&A session. However, as a matter of fact the best scenario is when an interviewee initiates a conversation; which seldom happens. Why don’t we look at our Interview as a meeting to discover a prospect of lifetime, a process to showcase best of our skills, an opportunity to learn while exchanging meaningful dialogue with experts from industry?  We all get inspired when we get to know somebody’s achievements. We like to listen to interesting life stories of people which are positive & motivating. Do you have a story? Everyone does… It’s only about realizing & putting it together. If you want to win the game then the only trick is to “Drive the Conversation”. Tell the interviewer your story; mind you “An Interesting Story”. It’s a non frictional story where you are the “Hero/ Heroine” & you display your strengths to the best. Your story has to be fabricated with hard facts, incidences, experiences & exposures that fits the role you are interested to be in. Story of your success, that describes your knowledge & awareness about the latest trends in industry; solutions which reflect your logical approach towards problem solving. A story which exhibits clarity of your thoughts & ambition; demonstrates your enthusiasm, willingness to learn & passion. Preparation gives you confidence & genuine preparation never goes unnoticed. Organizations look for distinctive individuals; so don’t try to be someone else. Know yourself; be what you are, articulate your characteristics & craft your Unique Story Right Now!! /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Oredev 2011 Trip Report

  - by arungupta

  Oredev had its seventh annual conference in the city of Malmo, Sweden last week. The name "Oredev" signifies to the part that Malmo is connected with Copenhagen with Oresund bridge. There were about 1000 attendees with several speakers from all over the world. The first two days were hands-on workshops and the next three days were sessions. There were different tracks such as Java, Windows 8, .NET, Smart Phones, Architecture, Collaboration, and Entrepreneurship. And then there was Xtra(ck) which had interesting sessions not directly related to technology. I gave two slide-free talks in the Java track. The first one showed how to build an end-to-end Java EE 6 application using NetBeans and GlassFish. The complete instructions to build the application are explained in detail here. This 3-tier application used Java Persistence API, Enterprsie Java Beans, Servlet, Contexts and Dependency Injection, JavaServer Faces, and Java API for RESTful Services. The source code built during the application can be downloaded here (LINK TBD). The second session, slide-free again, showed how to take a Java EE 6 application into production using GlassFish cluster. It explained: Create a 2-instance GlassFish cluster Front-end with a Web server and a load balancer Demonstrate session replication and fail over Monitor the application using JavaScript The complete instructions for this session are available here. Oredev has an interesting way of collecting attendee feedback. The attendees drop a green, yellow, or red card in a bucket as they walk out of the session. Not everybody votes but most do. Other than the instantaneous feedback provided on twitter, this mechanism provides a more coarse grained feedback loop as well. The first talk had about 67 attendees (with 23 green and 7 yellow) and the second one had 22 (11 green and 11 yellow). The speakers' dinner is a good highlight of the conference. It is arranged in the historic city hall and the mayor welcomed all the speakers. As you can see in the pictures, it is a very royal building with lots of history behind it. Fortunately the dinner was a buffet with a much better variety unlike last year where only black soup and geese were served, which was quite cultural BTW ;-) The sauna in 85F, skinny dipping in 35F ocean and alternating between them at Kallbadhus is always very Swedish. Also spent a short evening at a friend's house socializing with other speaker/attendees, drinking Glogg, and eating Pepperkakor.  The welcome packet at the hotel also included cinnamon rolls, recommended to drink with cold milk, for a little more taste of Swedish culture. Something different at this conference was how artists from Image Think were visually capturing all the keynote speakers using images on whiteboards. Here are the images captured for Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder and now running Hipmunk): Unfortunately I could not spend much time engaging with other speakers or attendees because was busy preparing a new hands-on lab material. But was able to spend some time with Matthew Mccullough, Micahel Tiberg, Magnus Martensson, Mattias Karlsson, Corey Haines, Patrick Kua, Charles Nutter, Tushara, Pradeep, Shmuel, and several other folks. Here are a few pictures captured from the event: And the complete album here: Thank you Matthias, Emily, and Kathy for putting up a great show and giving me an opportunity to speak at Oredev. I hope to be back next year with a more vibrant representation of Java - the language and the ecosystem!

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• Oredev 2011 Trip Report

  - by arungupta

  Oredev had its seventh annual conference in the city of Malmo, Sweden last week. The name "Oredev" signifies to the part that Malmo is connected with Copenhagen with Oresund bridge. There were about 1000 attendees with several speakers from all over the world. The first two days were hands-on workshops and the next three days were sessions. There were different tracks such as Java, Windows 8, .NET, Smart Phones, Architecture, Collaboration, and Entrepreneurship. And then there was Xtra(ck) which had interesting sessions not directly related to technology. I gave two slide-free talks in the Java track. The first one showed how to build an end-to-end Java EE 6 application using NetBeans and GlassFish. The complete instructions to build the application are explained in detail here. This 3-tier application used Java Persistence API, Enterprsie Java Beans, Servlet, Contexts and Dependency Injection, JavaServer Faces, and Java API for RESTful Services. The source code built during the application can be downloaded here (LINK TBD). The second session, slide-free again, showed how to take a Java EE 6 application into production using GlassFish cluster. It explained: Create a 2-instance GlassFish cluster Front-end with a Web server and a load balancer Demonstrate session replication and fail over Monitor the application using JavaScript The complete instructions for this session are available here. Oredev has an interesting way of collecting attendee feedback. The attendees drop a green, yellow, or red card in a bucket as they walk out of the session. Not everybody votes but most do. Other than the instantaneous feedback provided on twitter, this mechanism provides a more coarse grained feedback loop as well. The first talk had about 67 attendees (with 23 green and 7 yellow) and the second one had 22 (11 green and 11 yellow). The speakers' dinner is a good highlight of the conference. It is arranged in the historic city hall and the mayor welcomed all the speakers. As you can see in the pictures, it is a very royal building with lots of history behind it. Fortunately the dinner was a buffet with a much better variety unlike last year where only black soup and geese were served, which was quite cultural BTW ;-) The sauna in 85F, skinny dipping in 35F ocean and alternating between them at Kallbadhus is always very Swedish. Also spent a short evening at a friend's house socializing with other speaker/attendees, drinking Glogg, and eating Pepperkakor.  The welcome packet at the hotel also included cinnamon rolls, recommended to drink with cold milk, for a little more taste of Swedish culture. Something different at this conference was how artists from Image Think were visually capturing all the keynote speakers using images on whiteboards. Here are the images captured for Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder and now running Hipmunk): Unfortunately I could not spend much time engaging with other speakers or attendees because was busy preparing a new hands-on lab material. But was able to spend some time with Matthew Mccullough, Micahel Tiberg, Magnus Martensson, Mattias Karlsson, Corey Haines, Patrick Kua, Charles Nutter, Tushara, Pradeep, Shmuel, and several other folks. Here are a few pictures captured from the event: And the complete album here: Thank you Matthias, Emily, and Kathy for putting up a great show and giving me an opportunity to speak at Oredev. I hope to be back next year with a more vibrant representation of Java - the language and the ecosystem!

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• Oracle celebrates a successful Oracle CloudWorld in Bogotá

  - by yaldahhakim

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 written by: Diana Tamayo Tovar Oracle CloudWorld Bogotá began with scattered showers, rain and strong winds, inviting Colombians to spend a whole day in the social, mobile and complete world of Oracle Cloud. The event took place on November 6th with 807 attendees, 15 media representatives and 65 partners, who gathered to share the business value of Cloud along with Oracle executives and Colombian market leaders. Line-of-business leaders in sales and marketing, customer service and support, HR and talent management, and finance and operations, shared their ideas with Colombian customers, giving them a chance to learn, discover and engage with the tools, trends and concepts of Cloud. The highlights of the event included the presence of keynote speakers such as Bob Evans, Chief Communications Officer, and a customer testimonial session with top business leaders from insurance, finances, retail, communications and health Colombian industries, who shared their innovation experiences and success stories on workforce empowerment, talent management, cloud security, social engagement and productivity, providing best case scenarios on how Oracle has helped them transform their business with technologies like cloud, social collaboration and mobile applications. The keynote session was preceded by a customer success story from one of the largest virtual network operator in the country, providing an interesting case study of mobile banking innovation and a great customer testimonial of the importance of cross industry strategies and cloud technology. The event provided five different tracks on the main trends of how companies communicate and engage with different audiences, providing a different perspective on the importance of empowering brands through their customers, trusting and investing in technology for growth, while Oracle University shared their knowledge with “Oracle Cloud Fundamentals” a training lesson regarding Java Cloud, Database Cloud and other Oracle Cloud product technologies and solutions. The rainy day scenario included sideshows of aerial acrobatics and speed painting performances to recreate the environment of modern and flexible Cloud Solutions in a colorful and creative way. Oracle CloudWorld Bogotá was a great opportunity to expose invalid cloud Myths and the main concerns of the Colombian customers towards cloud, considering IDC Latin America studies stating that 93% of Colombian business leaders are interested in cloud but only 47% understand its business value. Spending a day in the cloud with 6 demogrounds stations, conference sessions, interesting case studies and customer testimonials will surely widen the endless market opportunities for Colombian customers, leaving them amazed with how Oracle Cloud works towards integration with other environments, non oracle applications, social media and mobile devices with bulletproof security infrastructure. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Taking Your Business Scorecard Golfing

  - by tobyehatch

  Our workplace world is definitely changing. Not only are we taking work home, but we are working during odd hours in some very strange places.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Jacques Vigeant, Product Strategy Manager for Oracle Business Intelligence and Enterprise Performance Management, on a Podcast, and he enlightened me about how our mobile devices and business scorecards are enabling us to be more accountable and keep a watchful eye on business – even while on the golf course.Business scorecards have been around for many years - so I asked Jacques if he felt they had changed significantly due to technology. His answer was, “Yes, and no.”  Jacques agreed that scorecard enthusiasts are still passionate about executing the company strategy and monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), but scorecards and Business Intelligence (BI) as a whole have changed.  He explained that five to six years ago, people did BI work at the office and, for the most part, disconnected from their computer and workplace when they went home – with the exception of checking email and making a phone call or two. But now, that is no longer the case. People are virtually always connected with work and, more importantly, expect their BI and scorecards to be ‘always on,’ regardless of whether they are at their desk or somewhere else.Basically, the BI paradigm has changed from a 'pull' model, where employees are at their desks querying or pulling information from the system, to a 'push' model where employees expect their BI and scorecard systems to reach out (or push information) to them when there is something of note to learn or something on which they need to take action. I found this very interesting. However mobile devices do have their limitations with respect to screen sizes – does it really make sense to look at your strategy/scorecard on tiny devices? What kind of scorecard activities can you really expect to be able to do? Jacques’ answer was very logical. “When you think of a scorecard, it is really comprised of an organization of KPIs that are aligned with the strategic objectives of your company. KPIs are the heart of how you will execute your strategy. So, if you decompose that a little more, each KPI is well defined with the thresholds that you should keep an eye on and who is responsible for them. When we talk about scorecarding on a phone, we aren’t talking about surfing the strategy and exploring the strategy map like we do on the desktop. In a scorecarding context, we use the phone more as an alerting mechanism or simple monitoring device for your KPIs.”Jacques gave a great example of an inventory manager who took part of an afternoon off to go golfing before winter finally hit, and while on the front nine holes, his phone vibrated. His scorecard was alerting him that the inventory levels for one of the products was below some threshold that he had set.  From his phone, he had set up three options within Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management (OSSM) for this type of situation:  1. Contact the warehouse manager directly by phone and work it out (standard phone function)  2. Tap/hold the KPI and add an annotation to the KPI in OSSM using the dictation capabilities of the phone and deal with it more fully when he gets back to the office  3. Tap/hold the KPI and invoke a business process from OSSM to transfer product from another warehouse with higher stock levels to the one that needs it  Being on a phone should still give you options to quickly deal with situations as needed, but mobile phones are not designed for nor should try to replicate the full desktop experience. We covered other interesting subjects in the interview, including how Oracle is keeping pace with mobile innovation and new devices such as Google Glasses, Galaxy Gear, Pebble Watches and more, and how Oracle is handling mobile security– which is great news for our mobile workforce. To listen to the entire Podcast, click here.To learn more about Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management, click here.

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• Windows Phone 8, possible tablets and what the latest update might mean

  - by Roger Hart

  Microsoft have just announced an update to Windows Phone 8. As one of the five, maybe six people who actually bought a WP8 handset I found this interesting. Then I read the blog post about it, and rushed off to write somewhat less than a thousand words about a single picture. The blog post announces an extra column of tiles on the start screen, and support for higher resolutions. If we ignore all the usual flummery about how this will make your life better, that (and the rotation lock) sounds a little like stage setting for tablets. Looking at the preview screenshot, I started to wonder. What it’s called Phablet_5F00_StartScreenProductivity_5F00_01_5F00_072A1240.jpg Pretty conclusive. If you can brand something a “phablet” and sleep at night you’re made of sterner stuff than I am, but that’s beside the point. It’s explicit in the post that Microsoft are expecting a broader range of form factors for WP8, but they stop short of quite calling out tablet size. The extra columns and resolution definitely back that up, so why stop at a 6 inch “phablet”? Sadly, the string of numbers there don’t really look like a Lumia model number – that would be a bit tendentious even for a speculative blog post about a single screenshot. “Productivity” is interesting too. I get into this a bit more below, but this is a pretty clear pitch for a business device. What it looks like Something that would look quite decent on a 7 inch screen, but something a bit too vertical to go toe-to-toe with the Surface. Certainly, it would look a lot better on a large-factor phone than any of the current models. Those tiles are going to get cramped and a bit ugly if the handsets aren’t getting bigger. What’s on it You have a bunch of missed calls, you rarely text, use a stocks app, and your budget spreadsheet and meeting notes are a thumb-reach away. Outlook is your main form of email. You care enough about LinkedIn to not only install its app but give it a huge live tile. There’s no beating about the bush here, the implicit persona is a corporate exec. With Nokia in the bag and Blackberry pushing daisies, that may not be a stupid play. There’s almost certainly a niche there if they can parlay their corporate credentials into filling it before BYOD (which functionally means an iPhone) reaches the late adopters. The really quite slick WP8 Office implementation ought to help here. This is the face they’ve chosen to present, the cultural milieu they’re normalizing for Windows Phone. It’s an iPhone for Serious Business Grown-ups. Could work, I guess. Does it mean anything? Is the latest WP8 update a sign that we can expect to see tablets running Windows Phone rather than WinRT? Well, WinRT tablets haven’t exactly taken off but I’m not quite going to make a leap like that just from a file name and a column of icons. I feel pretty safe, however, conjecturing that Microsoft would like to squeeze a WP8 “phablet” into the palm of every exec who’s ever grumbled about their Blackberry, and this release might get them a bit closer. If it works well incrementing up to larger devices, then that could be a fair hedge against WinRt crashing and burning any harder in the marketplace.

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• SQL SERVER – A Puzzle Part 4 – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value

  - by pinaldave

  It seems like every weekend I get a new puzzle in my mind. Before continuing I suggest you read my previous posts here where I have shared earlier puzzles. A Puzzle – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value  A Puzzle Part 2 – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value A Puzzle Part 3 – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value After reading above three posts, I am very confident that you all will be ready for the next set of puzzles now. First execute the script which I have written here. Now guess what will be the next value as requested in the query. USE TempDB GO -- Create sequence CREATE SEQUENCE dbo.SequenceID AS DECIMAL(3,0) START WITH 1 INCREMENT BY -1 MINVALUE 1 MAXVALUE 3 CYCLE NO CACHE; GO SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Guess the number SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Clean up DROP SEQUENCE dbo.SequenceID; GO Please note that Starting value is 1, Increment value is the negative value of -1 and Minimum value is 3. Now let us first assume how this will work out. In our example of the sequence starting value is equal to 1 and decrement value is -1, this means the value should decrement from 1 to 0. However, the minimum value is 1. This means the value cannot further decrement at all. What will happen here? The natural assumption is that it should throw an error. How many of you are assuming about query will throw an ERROR? Well, you are WRONG! Do not blame yourself, it is my fault as I have told you only half of the story. Now if you have voted for error, let us continue running above code in SQL Server Management Studio. The above script will give the following output: Isn’t it interesting that instead of error out it is giving us result value 3. To understand the answer about the same, carefully observe the original syntax of creating SEQUENCE – there is a keyword CYCLE. This keyword cycles the values between the minimum and maximum value and when one of the range is exhausted it cycles the values from the other end of the cycle. As we have negative incremental value when query reaches to the minimum value or lower end it will cycle it from the maximum value. Here the maximum value is 3 so the next logical value is 3. If your business requirement is such that if sequence reaches the maximum or minimum value, it should throw an error, you should not use the keyword cycle, and it will behave as discussed. I hope, you are enjoying the puzzles as much as I am enjoying it. If you have any interesting puzzle to share, please do share with me and I will share this on blog with due credit to you. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Big Data – Operational Databases Supporting Big Data – Columnar, Graph and Spatial Database – Day 14 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned the importance of the Key-Value Pair Databases and Document Databases in the Big Data Story. In this article we will understand the role of Columnar, Graph and Spatial Database supporting Big Data Story. Now we will see a few of the examples of the operational databases. Relational Databases (The day before yesterday’s post) NoSQL Databases (The day before yesterday’s post) Key-Value Pair Databases (Yesterday’s post) Document Databases (Yesterday’s post) Columnar Databases (Tomorrow’s post) Graph Databases (Today’s post) Spatial Databases (Today’s post) Columnar Databases  Relational Database is a row store database or a row oriented database. Columnar databases are column oriented or column store databases. As we discussed earlier in Big Data we have different kinds of data and we need to store different kinds of data in the database. When we have columnar database it is very easy to do so as we can just add a new column to the columnar database. HBase is one of the most popular columnar databases. It uses Hadoop file system and MapReduce for its core data storage. However, remember this is not a good solution for every application. This is particularly good for the database where there is high volume incremental data is gathered and processed. Graph Databases For a highly interconnected data it is suitable to use Graph Database. This database has node relationship structure. Nodes and relationships contain a Key Value Pair where data is stored. The major advantage of this database is that it supports faster navigation among various relationships. For example, Facebook uses a graph database to list and demonstrate various relationships between users. Neo4J is one of the most popular open source graph database. One of the major dis-advantage of the Graph Database is that it is not possible to self-reference (self joins in the RDBMS terms) and there might be real world scenarios where this might be required and graph database does not support it. Spatial Databases  We all use Foursquare, Google+ as well Facebook Check-ins for location aware check-ins. All the location aware applications figure out the position of the phone with the help of Global Positioning System (GPS). Think about it, so many different users at different location in the world and checking-in all together. Additionally, the applications now feature reach and users are demanding more and more information from them, for example like movies, coffee shop or places see. They are all running with the help of Spatial Databases. Spatial data are standardize by the Open Geospatial Consortium known as OGC. Spatial data helps answering many interesting questions like “Distance between two locations, area of interesting places etc.” When we think of it, it is very clear that handing spatial data and returning meaningful result is one big task when there are millions of users moving dynamically from one place to another place & requesting various spatial information. PostGIS/OpenGIS suite is very popular spatial database. It runs as a layer implementation on the RDBMS PostgreSQL. This makes it totally unique as it offers best from both the worlds. Courtesy: mushroom network Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about very important components of the Big Data Ecosystem – Hive. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Multitenant Design for SQL Azure: White Paper Available

  - by Herve Roggero

  Cloud computing is about scaling out all your application tiers, from web application to the database layer. In fact, the whole promise of Azure is to pay for just what you need. You need more IIS servers? No problemo... just spin another web server. You expect to double your storage needs for Azure Tables? No problemo; you are covered there too... just pay for your storage needs. But what about the database tier, SQL Azure? How do you add new databases easily, and transparently, so that your application simply uses more of SQL Azure if its needs to? Without changing a single line of code? And what if you need to scale back down? Welcome to the world of database scalability. There are many terms that describe database scalability, including data federation, multitenant designs, and even NoSQL depending on the technical solution you are implementing.  Because SQL Azure is a transactional database system, NoSQL is not really an option. However data federation and multitenant designs offer some very interesting scalability options that are worth considering. Data federation, a feature of SQL Azure that will be offered in the future, offers very interesting capabilities available natively on the SQL Azure platform. More to come in a few weeks... Multitenant designs on the other hand are design practices and technologies designed to help you reach flexible scalability options not available otherwise. The first incarnation of such a method was made available on CodePlex as an open source project (http://enzosqlshard.codeplex.com).  This project was an attempt to provide a sharding library for educational purposes.  All that sounds really cool... and really esoteric... almost a form of database "voodoo"... However after being on multiple Azure projects I am starting to see a real need. Customers want to be able to free themselves from the database tier, so that if they have 10 new customers tomorrow, all they need to do is add 2 more SQL Azure instances. It's that simple. How you achieve this, and suggested application design guidelines, are available in a white paper I just published.  The white paper offers two primary sections. The first section describes the business and technical problem at hand, and how to classify it according to specific design patterns. For example, I discuss compressed shards through schema separation. The second section offers a method for addressing the needs of a multitenant design using a new library, the big bother of the codeplex project mentioned previously (that I created earlier this year), complete with management interface and such. A Beta of this platform will be made available within weeks; as soon as the documentation will be ready.   I would like to ask you to drop me a quick email at [email protected] if you are going to download the white paper. It's not required, but it would help me get in touch with you for feedback.  You can download this white paper here:   http://www.bluesyntax.net/files/EnzoFramework.pdf . Thank you, and I am looking for feedback, thoughts and implementation opportunities.

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• What Color is your Jetpack ?

  - by JoshReuben

  I’m a programmer, Im approaching 40, and I’m fairly decent at my job – I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for as long as they let me!   So what are your career options if you know how to code? A Programmer could be ..   An Algorithm developer Pros Interesting High barriers of entry, potential for startup competitive factor Cons Do you have the skill, qualifications? What are working conditions n this mystery niche ? micro-focus An Academic Pros Low pressure Job security – or is this an illusion ? Cons Low Pay Need a PhD A Software Architect Pros: strategic, rather than tactical Setting technology platform and high level vision You say how it should work, others have to figure out why its not working the way its supposed to ! broad view – you are paid to learn (how do you con people into paying for you to learn ??) Cons: Glorified developer – more often than not! competitive – everyone wants to do it ! loose touch with underlying tech in tough times, first guy to get the axe ! A Software Engineer Pros: interesting, always more to learn fun I can do it Fallback Cons: Nothing new under the sun – been there, done that Dealing with poor requirements, deadlines, other peoples code, overtime C#, XAML, Web - Low barriers of entry –> à race to the bottom A Team leader Pros: Setting code standards and proposing technology choices Cons: Glorified developer – more often than not! Inspecting other peoples code and debugging the problems they cannot fix Dealing with mugbies and prima donas Responsible for QA of others A Project Manager Pros No need for debugging other peoples code Cons Low barrier of entry High pressure Responsible for QA of others Loosing touch with technology A lot of bullshit meetings Have to be an asshole A Product Manager Pros No need for debugging other peoples code Learning new skillset of sales and marketing Cons Travel (I'm a family man) May need to know the bs details of an uninteresting product things I want to work with: AI, algorithms, Numerical Computing, Mathematica, C++ AMP – unfortunately, the work here is few & far between. VS & TFS Extensibility, DSLs (Workflow , Lightswitch), Code Generation – one day, code will write code ! Unity3D, WebGL – fun, fun, fun ! Modern Web – Knockout, SignalR, MVC, Node.Js ??? (tentative – I'll wait until things stabilize as this area is undergoing a pre-Cambrian explosion) Things I don’t want to work with: (but will if I'm asked to !) C# – same old, same old – not learning anything new here Old code – blech ! Environment with code & fix mentality , ad hoc requirements, excessive overtime Pc support, System administration – even after 20 years, people still ask you to do this sometimes ! debugging – my skills are just not there yet Oracle Old tech: VB 6, XSLT, WinForms, Net 3.51 or less Old style Web dev Information Systems: ASP.NET webforms, Reporting services / crystal reports, SQL Server CRUD with manual data layer, XAML MVVM – variations of the same concept, ad nauseaum. Low barriers of entry –> race to the bottom.  Metro – an elegant API coupled to a horrendous UX – I'll wait for market penetration viability before investing further in this.   Conclusion So if you are in a slump, take heart: Programming is a great career choice compared to every other job !

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