Search Results

Search found 59272 results on 2371 pages for 'time stamp'.

Page 290/2371 | < Previous Page | 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297  | Next Page >

• PanelGridLayout - A Layout Revolution

  - by Duncan Mills

  With the most recent 11.1.2 patchset (11.1.2.3) there has been a lot of excitement around ADF Essentials (and rightly so), however, in all the fuss I didn't want an even more significant change to get missed - yes you read that correctly, a more significant change! I'm talking about the new panelGridLayout component, I can confidently say that this one of the most revolutionary components that we've introduced in 11g, even though it sounds rather boring. To be totally accurate, panelGrid was introduced in 11.1.2.2 but without any presence in the component palette or other design time support, so it was largely missed unless you read the release notes. However in this latest patchset it's finally front and center. Its time to explore - we (really) need to talk about layout.  Let's face it,with ADF Faces rich client, layout is a rather arcane pursuit, once you are a layout master, all bow before you, but it's more of an art than a science, and it is often, in fact, way too difficult to achieve what should (apparently) be a pretty simple. Here's a great example, it's a homework assignment I set for folks I'm teaching this stuff to:  The requirements for this layout are: The header is 80px high, the footer is 30px. These are both fixed.  The first section of the header containing the logo is 180px wide The logo is centered within the top left hand corner of the header  The title text is start aligned in the center zone of the header and will wrap if the browser window is narrowed. It should be aligned in the center of the vertical space  The about link is anchored to the right hand side of the browser with a 20px gap and again is center aligned vertically. It will move as the browser window is reduced in width. The footer has a right aligned copyright statement, again middle aligned within a 30px high footer region and with a 20px buffer to the right hand edge. It will move as the browser window is reduced in width. All remaining space is given to a central zone, which, in this case contains a panelSplitter. Expect that at some point in time you'll need a separate messages line in the center of the footer.  In the homework assigment I set I also stipulate that no inlineStyles can be used to control alignment or margins and no use of other taglibs (e.g. JSF HTML or Trinidad HTML). So, if we take this purist approach, that basic page layout (in my stock solution) requires 3 panelStretchLayouts, 5 panelGroupLayouts and 4 spacers - not including the spacer I use for the logo and the contents of the central zone splitter - phew! The point is that even a seemingly simple layout needs a bit of thinking about, particulatly when you consider strechting and browser re-size behavior. In fact, this little sample actually teaches you much of what you need to know to become vaguely competant at layouts in the framework. The underlying result of "the way things are" is that most of us reach for panelStretchLayout before even finishing the first sip of coffee as we embark on a new page design. In fact most pages you will see in any moderately complex ADF page will basically be nested panelStretchLayouts and panelGroupLayouts, sometimes many, many levels deep. So this is a problem, we've known this for some time and now we have a good solution. (I should point out that the oft-used Trinidad trh tags are not a particularly good solution as you're tie-ing yourself to an HTML table based layout in that case with a host of attendent issues in resize and bi-di behavior, but I digress.) So, tadaaa, I give to you panelGridLayout. PanelGrid, as the name suggests takes a grid like (dare I say slightly gridbag-like) approach to layout, dividing your layout into rows and colums with margins, sizing, stretch behaviour, colspans and rowspans all rolled in, all without the use of inlineStyle. As such, it provides for a much more powerful and consise way of defining a layout such as the one above that is actually simpler and much more logical to design. The basic building blocks are the panelGridLayout itself, gridRow and gridCell. Your content sits inside the cells inside the rows, all helpfully allowing both streching, valign and halign definitions without the need to nest further panelGroupLayouts. So much simpler!  If I break down the homework example above my nested comglomorate of 12 containers and spacers can be condensed down into a single panelGrid with 3 rows and 5 cell definitions (39 lines of source reduced to 24 in the case of the sample). What's more, the actual runtime representation in the browser DOM is much, much simpler, and clean, with basically one DIV per cell (Note that just because the panelGridLayout semantics looks like an HTML table does not mean that it's rendered that way!) . Another hidden benefit is the runtime cost. Because we can use a single layout to achieve much more complex geometries the client side layout code inside the browser is having to work a lot less. This will be a real benefit if your application needs to run on lower powered clients such as netbooks or tablets. So, it's time, if you're on 11.1.2.2 or above, to smile warmly at your panelStretchLayouts, wrap the blanket around it's knees and wheel it off to the Sunset Retirement Home for a well deserved rest. There's a new kid on the block and it wants to be your friend. 

  Read the article

• Finding it Hard to Deliver Right Customer Experience: Think BPM!

  - by Ajay Khanna

  Our relationship with our customers is not a just a single interaction and we should not treat it like one. A customer’s relationship with a vendor is like a journey which starts way before customer makes a purchase and lasts long after that. The journey may start with customer researching a product that may lead to the eventual purchase and may continue with support or service needs for the product. A typical customer journey can be represented as shown below: As you may notice, customers tend to use multiple channels to interact with a company throughout their journey.  They also expect that they should get consistent experience, no matter what interaction channel they may choose. Customers do not like to repeat the information they have already provided and expect companies to remember their preferences, and offer them relevant products and services. If the company fails to meet this expectation, customers not only will abandon the purchase and go to the competitor but may also influence others’ purchase decision. Gone are the days when word of mouth was the only medium, and the customer could influence “Six” others. This is the age of social media and customer’s good or bad experience, especially bad get highly amplified and may influence hundreds of others. Challenges that face B2C companies today include: Delivering consistent experience: The reason that delivering consistent experience is challenging is due to fragmented data, disjointed systems and siloed multichannel interactions. Customers tend to get different service quality if they use web vs. phone vs. store. They get different responses from different service agents or get inconsistent answers if they call sales vs. service group in the company. Such inconsistent experiences result in lower customer satisfaction or NPS (net promoter score) numbers. Increasing Revenue: To stay competitive companies frequently introduce new products and services. Delay in launching such offerings has a significant impact on revenue realization. In addition to new product revenue, there are multiple opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell that impact bottom line. If companies are not able to identify such opportunities, bring a product to market quickly, or not offer the right product to the right customer at the right time, significant loss of revenue may occur. Ensuring Compliance: Companies must be compliant to ever changing regulations, these could be about Know Your Customer (KYC), Export/Import regulations, or taxation policies. In addition to government agencies, companies also need to comply with the SLA that they have committed to their customers. Lapse in meeting any of these requirements may lead to serious fines, penalties and loss in business. Companies have to make sure that they are in compliance will all such regulations and SLA commitments, at any given time. With the advent of social networks and mobile technology, companies not only need to focus on process efficiency but also on customer engagement. Improving engagement means delivering the customer experience as the customer is expecting and interacting with the customer at right time using right channel. Customers expect to be able to contact you via any channel of their choice (web, email, chat, mobile, social media), purchase via any viable channel (web, phone, store, mobile). Customers expect companies to understand their particular needs and remember their preferences on repeated visits. To deliver such an integrated, consistent, and contextual experience, power of BPM in must. Your company may be organized in departments like Marketing, Sales, Service. You may hold prospect data in SFA, order information in ERP, customer issues in CRM. However, the experience delivered to the customer must not be constrained by your system legacy. BPM helps in designing the right experience for the right customer and integrates all the underlining channels, systems, applications to make sure right information will be delivered to the right knowledge worker or to the customer every single time.     Orchestrating information across all systems (MDM, CRM, ERP), departments (commerce, merchandising, marketing service) and channels (Email, phone, web, social)  is the key, and that’s what BPM delivers. In addition to orchestrating systems and channels for consistency, BPM also provides an ability for analysis and decision management. By using data from historical transactions, social media and from other systems, users can determine the customer preferences, customer value, and churn propensity. This information, in the context, is then used while making a decision at a process step. Working with real-time decision management system can also suggest right up-sell or cross-sell offers, discounts or next-best-action steps for a particular customer. Timely action on customer issues or request is also a key tenet of a good customer experience. BPM’s complex event processing capabilities help companies to take proactive actions before issues get escalated. BPM system can be designed to listen to a certain event patters then deduce from those customer situations (credit card stolen, baggage lost, change of address) and do a triage before situation goes out of control. If such a situation arises you can send alerts to right people or immediately invoke corrective actions. Last but not least one of BPM’s key values is to drive continuous improvement. Learning about customers past experiences, interactions and social conversations, provide valuable insight. Such insight can be used to improve products, customer facing processes, and customer experience. You may take these insights as an input to design better more efficient and customer friendly sales, contact center or self-service processes. If customer experience is important for your business, make sure you have incorporated BPM as a part of your strategy to design, orchestrate and improve your customer facing processes.

  Read the article

• Rebuilding CoasterBuzz, Part II: Hot data objects

  - by Jeff

  This is the second post, originally from my personal blog, in a series about rebuilding one of my Web sites, which has been around for 12 years. More: Part I: Evolution, and death to WCF After the rush to get moving on stuff, I temporarily lost interest. I went almost two weeks without touching the project, in part because the next thing on my backlog was doing up a bunch of administrative pages. So boring. Unfortunately, because most of the site's content is user-generated, you need some facilities for editing data. CoasterBuzz has a database full of amusement parks and roller coasters. The entities enjoy the relationships that you would expect, though they're further defined by "instances" of a coaster, to define one that has moved between parks as one, with different names and operational dates. And of course, there are pictures and news items, too. It's not horribly complex, except when you have to account for a name change and display just the newest name. In all previous versions, data access was straight SQL. As so much of the old code was rooted in 2003, with some changes in 2008, there wasn't much in the way of ORM frameworks going on then. Let me rephrase that, I mostly wasn't interested in ORM's. Since that time, I used a little LINQ to SQL in some projects, and a whole bunch of nHibernate while at Microsoft. Through all of that experience, I have to admit that these frameworks are often a bigger pain in the ass than not. They're great for basic crud operations, but when you start having all kinds of exotic relationships, they get difficult, and generate all kinds of weird SQL under the covers. The black box can quickly turn into a black hole. Sometimes you end up having to build all kinds of new expertise to do things "right" with a framework. Still, despite my reservations, I used the newer version of Entity Framework, with the "code first" modeling, in a science project and I really liked it. Since it's just a right-click away with NuGet, I figured I'd give it a shot here. My initial effort was spent defining the context class, which requires a bit of work because I deviate quite a bit from the conventions that EF uses, starting with table names. Then throw some partial querying of certain tables (where you'll find image data), and you're splitting tables across several objects (navigation properties). I won't go into the details, because these are all things that are well documented around the Internet, but there was a minor learning curve there. The basics of reading data using EF are fantastic. For example, a roller coaster object has a park associated with it, as well as a number of instances (if it was ever relocated), and there also might be a big banner image for it. This is stupid easy to use because it takes one line of code in your repository class, and by the time you pass it to the view, you have a rich object graph that has everything you need to display stuff. Likewise, editing simple data is also, well, simple. For this goodness, thank the ASP.NET MVC framework. The UpdateModel() method on the controllers is very elegant. Remember the old days of assigning all kinds of properties to objects in your Webforms code-behind? What a time consuming mess that used to be. Even if you're not using an ORM tool, having hydrated objects come off the wire is such a time saver. Not everything is easy, though. When you have to persist a complex graph of objects, particularly if they were composed in the user interface with all kinds of AJAX elements and list boxes, it's not just a simple matter of submitting the form. There were a few instances where I ended up going back to "old-fashioned" SQL just in the interest of time. It's not that I couldn't do what I needed with EF, it's just that the efficiency, both my own and that of the generated SQL, wasn't good. Since EF context objects expose a database connection object, you can use that to do the old school ADO.NET stuff you've done for a decade. Using various extension methods from POP Forums' data project, it was a breeze. You just have to stick to your decision, in this case. When you start messing with SQL directly, you can't go back in the same code to messing with entities because EF doesn't know what you're changing. Not really a big deal. There are a number of take-aways from using EF. The first is that you write a lot less code, which has always been a desired outcome of ORM's. The other lesson, and I particularly learned this the hard way working on the MSDN forums back in the day, is that trying to retrofit an ORM framework into an existing schema isn't fun at all. The CoasterBuzz database isn't bad, but there are design decisions I'd make differently if I were starting from scratch. Now that I have some of this stuff done, I feel like I can start to move on to the more interesting things on the backlog. There's a lot to do, but at least it's fun stuff, and not more forms that will be used infrequently.

  Read the article

• Using Definition of Done to Drive Agile Maturity

  - by Dylan Smith

  I’ve been an Agile Coach at a lot of different clients over the years, and I want to share an approach I use to help them adopt and mature over time. It’s important to realize that “Agile” is not a black/white yes/no thing. Teams can be varying degrees of agile. I think of this as their agile maturity level. When I coach teams I want them to start out being a little agile, and get more agile as they mature. The approach I teach them is to use the definition of done as a technique to continuously improve their agile maturity over time. We’re probably all familiar with the concept of “Done Done” that represents what *actually* being done a feature means. Not just when a developer says he’s done right after he writes that last line of code that makes the feature kind-of work. Done Done means the coding is done, it’s been tested, installers and deployment packages have been created, user manuals have been updated, architecture docs have been updated, etc. To enable teams to internalize the concept of “Done Done”, they usually get together and come up with their Definition of Done (DoD) that defines all the activities that need to be completed before a feature is considered Done Done. The Done Done technique typically is applied only to features (aka User Stories). What I do is extend this to apply to several concepts such as User Stories, Sprints, Releases (and sometimes Check-Ins). During project kick-off I’ll usually sit down with the team and go through an exercise of creating DoD’s for each of these concepts (Stories/Sprints/Releases). We’ll usually start by just brainstorming a bunch of activities that could end up in these various DoD’s. Here’s some examples: Code Reviews StyleCop FxCop User Manuals Updated Architecture Docs Updated Tested by QA Tested by UAT Installers Created Support Knowledge Base Updated Deployment Instructions (for Ops) written Automated Unit Tests Run Automated Integration Tests Run Then we start by arranging these activities into the place they occur today (e.g. Do you do UAT testing only once per release? every sprint? every feature?). If the team was previously Waterfall most of these activities probably end up in the Release DoD. An extremely mature agile team would probably have most of these activities in the DoD for the User Stories (because an extremely mature agile team will probably do continuous deployment and release every story). So what we need to do as a team, is work to move these activities from their current home (Release DoD) down into the Sprint DoD and eventually into the User Story DoD (and maybe into the lower-level Check-In DoD if we decide to use that). We don’t have to move them all down to User Story immediately, but as a team we figure out what we think we’re capable of moving down to the Sprint cycle, and Story cycle immediately, and that becomes our starting DoD’s. Over time the team makes an effort to continue moving activities down from Release->Sprint->Story as they become more agile and more mature. I try to encourage them to envision a world in which they deploy to production as each User Story is completed. They would need to be updating User Manuals, creating installers, doing UAT testing (typical Release cycle activities) on every single User Story. They may never actually reach that point, but they should envision that, and strive to keep driving the activities down closer to the User Story cycle s they mature. This is a great technique to give a team an easy-to-follow roadmap to mature their agile practices over time. Sure there’s other aspects to maturity outside of this, but it’s a great technique, that’s easy to visualize, to drive agility into the team. Just keep moving those activities (aka “gates”) down the board from Release->Sprint->Story. I’ll try to give an example of what a recent client of mine had for their DoD’s (this is from memory, so probably not 100% accurate): Release Create/Update deployment Instructions For Ops Instructional Videos Updated Run manual regression test suite UAT Testing In this case that meant deploying to an environment shared across the enterprise that mirrored production and asking other business groups to test their own apps to ensure we didn’t break anything outside our system Sprint Deploy to UAT Environment But not necessarily actually request UAT testing occur User Guides updated Sprint Features Video Created In this case we decided to create a video each sprint showing off the progress (video version of Sprint Demo) User Story Manual Test scripts developed and run Tested by BA Deployed in shared QA environment Using automated deployment process Peer Code Review Code Check-In Compiled (warning-free) Passes StyleCop Passes FxCop Create installer packages Run Automated Tests Run Automated Integration Tests PS – One of my clients had a great question when we went through this activity. They said that if a Sprint is by definition done when the end-date rolls around (time-boxed), isn’t a DoD on a sprint meaningless – it’s done on the end-date regardless of whether those other activities are complete or not? My answer is that while that statement is true – the sprint is done regardless when the end date rolls around – if the DoD activities haven’t been completed I would consider the Sprint a failure (similar to not completing what was committed/planned – failure may be too strong a word but you get the idea). In the Retrospective that will become an agenda item to discuss and understand why we weren’t able to complete the activities we agreed would need to be completed each Sprint.

  Read the article

• Cloud to On-Premise Connectivity Patterns

  - by Rajesh Raheja

  Do you have a requirement to convert an Opportunity in Salesforce.com to an Order/Quote in Oracle E-Business Suite? Or maybe you want the creation of an Oracle RightNow Incident to trigger an on-premise Oracle E-Business Suite Service Request creation for RMA and Field Scheduling? If so, read on. In a previous blog post, I discussed integrating TO cloud applications, however the use cases above are the reverse i.e. receiving data FROM cloud applications (SaaS) TO on-premise applications/databases that sit behind a firewall. Oracle SOA Suite is assumed to be on-premise with with Oracle Service Bus as the mediation and virtualization layer. The main considerations for the patterns are are security i.e. shielding enterprise resources; and scalability i.e. minimizing firewall latency. Let me use an analogy to help visualize the patterns: the on-premise system is your home - with your most valuable possessions - and the SaaS app is your favorite on-line store which regularly ships (inbound calls) various types of parcels/items (message types/service operations). You need the items at home (on-premise) but want to safe guard against misguided elements of society (internet threats) who may masquerade as postal workers and vandalize property (denial of service?). Let's look at the patterns. Pattern: Pull from Cloud The on-premise system polls from the SaaS apps and picks up the message instead of having it delivered. This may be done using Oracle RightNow Object Query Language or SOAP APIs. This is particularly suited for certain integration approaches wherein messages are trickling in, can be centralized and batched e.g. retrieving event notifications on an hourly schedule from the Oracle Messaging Service. To compare this pattern with the home analogy, you are avoiding any deliveries to your home and instead go to the post office/UPS/Fedex store to pick up your parcel. Every time. Pros: On-premise assets not exposed to the Internet, firewall issues avoided by only initiating outbound connections Cons: Polling mechanisms may affect performance, may not satisfy near real-time requirements Pattern: Open Firewall Ports The on-premise system exposes the web services that needs to be invoked by the cloud application. This requires opening up firewall ports, routing calls to the appropriate internal services behind the firewall. Fusion Applications uses this pattern, and auto-provisions the services on the various virtual hosts to secure the topology. This works well for service integration, but may not suffice for large volume data integration. Using the home analogy, you have now decided to receive parcels instead of going to the post office every time. A door mail slot cut out allows the postman can drop small parcels, but there is still concern about cutting new holes for larger packages. Pros: optimal pattern for near real-time needs, simpler administration once the service is provisioned Cons: Needs firewall ports to be opened up for new services, may not suffice for batch integration requiring direct database access Pattern: Virtual Private Networking The on-premise network is "extended" to the cloud (or an intermediary on-demand / managed service offering) using Virtual Private Networking (VPN) so that messages are delivered to the on-premise system in a trusted channel. Using the home analogy, you entrust a set of keys with a neighbor or property manager who receives the packages, and then drops it inside your home. Pros: Individual firewall ports don't need to be opened, more suited for high scalability needs, can support large volume data integration, easier management of one connection vs a multitude of open ports Cons: VPN setup, specific hardware support, requires cloud provider to support virtual private computing Pattern: Reverse Proxy / API Gateway The on-premise system uses a reverse proxy "API gateway" software on the DMZ to receive messages. The reverse proxy can be implemented using various mechanisms e.g. Oracle API Gateway provides firewall and proxy services along with comprehensive security, auditing, throttling benefits. If a firewall already exists, then Oracle Service Bus or Oracle HTTP Server virtual hosts can provide reverse proxy implementations on the DMZ. Custom built implementations are also possible if specific functionality (such as message store-n-forward) is needed. In the home analogy, this pattern sits in between cutting mail slots and handing over keys. Instead, you install (and maintain) a mailbox in your home premises outside your door. The post office delivers the parcels in your mailbox, from where you can securely retrieve it. Pros: Very secure, very flexible Cons: Introduces a new software component, needs DMZ deployment and management Pattern: On-Premise Agent (Tunneling) A light weight "agent" software sits behind the firewall and initiates the communication with the cloud, thereby avoiding firewall issues. It then maintains a bi-directional connection either with pull or push based approaches using (or abusing, depending on your viewpoint) the HTTP protocol. Programming protocols such as Comet, WebSockets, HTTP CONNECT, HTTP SSH Tunneling etc. are possible implementation options. In the home analogy, a resident receives the parcel from the postal worker by opening the door, however you still take precautions with chain locks and package inspections. Pros: Light weight software, IT doesn't need to setup anything Cons: May bypass critical firewall checks e.g. virus scans, separate software download, proliferation of non-IT managed software Conclusion The patterns above are some of the most commonly encountered ones for cloud to on-premise integration. Selecting the right pattern for your project involves looking at your scalability needs, security restrictions, sync vs asynchronous implementation, near real-time vs batch expectations, cloud provider capabilities, budget, and more. In some cases, the basic "Pull from Cloud" may be acceptable, whereas in others, an extensive VPN topology may be well justified. For more details on the Oracle cloud integration strategy, download this white paper.

  Read the article

• Cloud to On-Premise Connectivity Patterns

  - by Rajesh Raheja

  Do you have a requirement to convert an Opportunity in Salesforce.com to an Order/Quote in Oracle E-Business Suite? Or maybe you want the creation of an Oracle RightNow Incident to trigger an on-premise Oracle E-Business Suite Service Request creation for RMA and Field Scheduling? If so, read on. In a previous blog post, I discussed integrating TO cloud applications, however the use cases above are the reverse i.e. receiving data FROM cloud applications (SaaS) TO on-premise applications/databases that sit behind a firewall. Oracle SOA Suite is assumed to be on-premise with with Oracle Service Bus as the mediation and virtualization layer. The main considerations for the patterns are are security i.e. shielding enterprise resources; and scalability i.e. minimizing firewall latency. Let me use an analogy to help visualize the patterns: the on-premise system is your home - with your most valuable possessions - and the SaaS app is your favorite on-line store which regularly ships (inbound calls) various types of parcels/items (message types/service operations). You need the items at home (on-premise) but want to safe guard against misguided elements of society (internet threats) who may masquerade as postal workers and vandalize property (denial of service?). Let's look at the patterns. Pattern: Pull from Cloud The on-premise system polls from the SaaS apps and picks up the message instead of having it delivered. This may be done using Oracle RightNow Object Query Language or SOAP APIs. This is particularly suited for certain integration approaches wherein messages are trickling in, can be centralized and batched e.g. retrieving event notifications on an hourly schedule from the Oracle Messaging Service. To compare this pattern with the home analogy, you are avoiding any deliveries to your home and instead go to the post office/UPS/Fedex store to pick up your parcel. Every time. Pros: On-premise assets not exposed to the Internet, firewall issues avoided by only initiating outbound connections Cons: Polling mechanisms may affect performance, may not satisfy near real-time requirements Pattern: Open Firewall Ports The on-premise system exposes the web services that needs to be invoked by the cloud application. This requires opening up firewall ports, routing calls to the appropriate internal services behind the firewall. Fusion Applications uses this pattern, and auto-provisions the services on the various virtual hosts to secure the topology. This works well for service integration, but may not suffice for large volume data integration. Using the home analogy, you have now decided to receive parcels instead of going to the post office every time. A door mail slot cut out allows the postman can drop small parcels, but there is still concern about cutting new holes for larger packages. Pros: optimal pattern for near real-time needs, simpler administration once the service is provisioned Cons: Needs firewall ports to be opened up for new services, may not suffice for batch integration requiring direct database access Pattern: Virtual Private Networking The on-premise network is "extended" to the cloud (or an intermediary on-demand / managed service offering) using Virtual Private Networking (VPN) so that messages are delivered to the on-premise system in a trusted channel. Using the home analogy, you entrust a set of keys with a neighbor or property manager who receives the packages, and then drops it inside your home. Pros: Individual firewall ports don't need to be opened, more suited for high scalability needs, can support large volume data integration, easier management of one connection vs a multitude of open ports Cons: VPN setup, specific hardware support, requires cloud provider to support virtual private computing Pattern: Reverse Proxy / API Gateway The on-premise system uses a reverse proxy "API gateway" software on the DMZ to receive messages. The reverse proxy can be implemented using various mechanisms e.g. Oracle API Gateway provides firewall and proxy services along with comprehensive security, auditing, throttling benefits. If a firewall already exists, then Oracle Service Bus or Oracle HTTP Server virtual hosts can provide reverse proxy implementations on the DMZ. Custom built implementations are also possible if specific functionality (such as message store-n-forward) is needed. In the home analogy, this pattern sits in between cutting mail slots and handing over keys. Instead, you install (and maintain) a mailbox in your home premises outside your door. The post office delivers the parcels in your mailbox, from where you can securely retrieve it. Pros: Very secure, very flexible Cons: Introduces a new software component, needs DMZ deployment and management Pattern: On-Premise Agent (Tunneling) A light weight "agent" software sits behind the firewall and initiates the communication with the cloud, thereby avoiding firewall issues. It then maintains a bi-directional connection either with pull or push based approaches using (or abusing, depending on your viewpoint) the HTTP protocol. Programming protocols such as Comet, WebSockets, HTTP CONNECT, HTTP SSH Tunneling etc. are possible implementation options. In the home analogy, a resident receives the parcel from the postal worker by opening the door, however you still take precautions with chain locks and package inspections. Pros: Light weight software, IT doesn't need to setup anything Cons: May bypass critical firewall checks e.g. virus scans, separate software download, proliferation of non-IT managed software Conclusion The patterns above are some of the most commonly encountered ones for cloud to on-premise integration. Selecting the right pattern for your project involves looking at your scalability needs, security restrictions, sync vs asynchronous implementation, near real-time vs batch expectations, cloud provider capabilities, budget, and more. In some cases, the basic "Pull from Cloud" may be acceptable, whereas in others, an extensive VPN topology may be well justified. For more details on the Oracle cloud integration strategy, download this white paper.

  Read the article

• How You Helped Shape Java EE 7...

  - by reza_rahman

  I have been working with the JCP in various roles since EJB 3/Java EE 5 (much of it on my own time), eventually culminating in my decision to accept my current role at Oracle (despite it's inevitable set of unique challenges, a role I find by and large positive and fulfilling). During these years, it has always been clear to me that pretty much everyone in the JCP genuinely cares about openness, feedback and developer participation. Perhaps the most visible sign to date of this high regard for grassroots level input is a survey on Java EE 7 gathered a few months ago. The survey was designed to get open feedback on a number of critical issues central to the Java EE 7 umbrella specification including what APIs to include in the standard. When we started the survey, I don't think anyone was certain what the level of participation from developers would really be. I also think everyone was pleasantly surprised that a large number of developers (around 1100) took the time out to vote on these very important issues that could impact their own professional life. And it wasn't just a matter of the quantity of responses. I was particularly impressed with the quality of the comments made through the survey (some of which I'll try to do justice to below). With Java EE 7 under our belt and the horizons for Java EE 8 emerging, this is a good time to thank everyone that took the survey once again for their thoughts and let you know what the impact of your voice actually was. As an aside, you may be happy to know that we are working hard behind the scenes to try to put together a similar survey to help kick off the agenda for Java EE 8 (although this is by no means certain). I'll break things down by the questions asked in the survey, the responses and the resulting change in the specification. APIs to Add to Java EE 7 Full/Web Profile The first question in the survey asked which of four new candidate APIs (WebSocket, JSON-P, JBatch and JCache) should be added to the Java EE 7 Full and Web profile respectively. Developers by and large wanted all the new APIs added to the full platform. The comments expressed particularly strong support for WebSocket and JCache. Others expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of a JSON binding (as opposed to JSON processing) API. WebSocket, JSON-P and JBatch are now part of Java EE 7. In addition, the long-awaited Java EE Concurrency Utilities API was also included in the Full Profile. Unfortunately, JCache was not finalized in time for Java EE 7 and the decision was made not to hold up the Java EE release any longer. JCache continues to move forward strongly and will very likely be included in Java EE 8 (it will be available much sooner than Java EE 8 to boot). An emergent standard for JSON-B is also a strong possibility for Java EE 8. When it came to the Web Profile, developers were supportive of adding WebSocket and JSON-P, but not JBatch and JCache. Both WebSocket and JSON-P are now part of the Web Profile, now also including the already popular JAX-RS API. Enabling CDI by Default The second question asked whether CDI should be enabled in Java EE by default. The overwhelming majority of developers supported the default enablement of CDI. In addition, developers expressed a desire for better CDI/Java EE alignment (with regards to EJB and JSF in particular). Some developers expressed legitimate concerns over the performance implications of enabling CDI globally as well as the potential conflict with other JSR 330 implementations like Spring and Guice. CDI is enabled by default in Java EE 7. Respecting the legitimate concerns, CDI 1.1 was very careful to add additional controls around component scanning. While a lot of work was done in Java EE 6 and Java EE 7 around CDI alignment, further alignment is under serious consideration for Java EE 8. Consistent Usage of @Inject The third question was around using CDI/JSR 330 @Inject consistently vs. allowing JSRs to create their own injection annotations (e.g. @BatchContext). A majority of developers wanted consistent usage of @Inject. The comments again reflected a strong desire for CDI/Java EE alignment. A lot of emphasis in Java EE 7 was put into using @Inject consistently. For example, the JBatch specification is focused on using @Inject wherever possible. JAX-RS remains an exception with it's existing custom injection annotations. However, the JAX-RS specification leads understand the importance of eventual convergence, hopefully in Java EE 8. Expanding the Use of @Stereotype The fourth question was about expanding CDI @Stereotype to cover annotations across Java EE beyond just CDI. A solid majority of developers supported the idea of making @Stereotype more universal in Java EE. The comments maintained the general theme of strong support for CDI/Java EE alignment Unfortunately, there was not enough time and resources in Java EE 7 to implement this fairly pervasive feature. However, it remains a serious consideration for Java EE 8. Expanding Interceptor Use The final set of questions was about expanding interceptors further across Java EE. Developers strongly supported the concept. Along with injection, interceptors are now supported across all Java EE 7 components including Servlets, Filters, Listeners, JAX-WS endpoints, JAX-RS resources, WebSocket endpoints and so on. I hope you are encouraged by how your input to the survey helped shape Java EE 7 and continues to shape Java EE 8. Participating in these sorts of surveys is of course just one way of contributing to Java EE. Another great way to stay involved is the Adopt-A-JSR Program. A large number of developers are already participating through their local JUGs. You could of course become a Java EE JSR expert group member or observer. You should stay tuned to The Aquarium for the progress of Java EE 8 JSRs if that's something you want to look into...

  Read the article

• Reading the tea leaves from Windows Azure support

  - by jamiet

  A few idle thoughts… Three months ago I had an issue regarding Windows Azure where I was unable to login to the management portal. At the time I contacted Azure support, the issue was soon resolved and I thought no more about it. Until today that is when I received an email from Azure support providing a detailed analysis of the root cause, the fix and moreover precise details about when and where things occurred. The email itself is interesting and I have included the entirety of it below. A few things were interesting to me: The level of detail and the diligence in investigating and reporting the issue I found really rather impressive. They even outline the number of users that were affected (127 in case you can’t be bothered reading). Compare this to the quite pathetic support that another division within Microsoft, Skype, provided to Greg Low recently: Skype support and dead parrot sketches   This line: “Windows Azure performed a planned change from using the Microsoft account service (formerly Windows Live ID) to the Azure Active Directory (AAD) as its primary authentication mechanism on August 24th. This change was made to enable future innovation in the area of authentication – particularly for organizationally owned identities, identity federation, stronger authentication methods and compliance certification. ” I also found to be particularly interesting. I have long thought that one of the reasons Microsoft has proved to be such a money-making machine in the enterprise is because they provide the infrastructure and then upsell on top of that – and nothing is more infrastructural than Active Directory. It has struck me of late that they are trying to make the same play of late in the cloud by tying all their services into Azure Active Directory and here we see a clear indication of that by making AAD the authentication mechanism for anyone using Windows Azure. I get the feeling that we’re going to hear much much more about AAD in the future; isn’t it about time we could log on to SQL Azure Windows Azure SQL Database without resorting to SQL authentication, for example? And why do Microsoft have two identity providers – Microsoft Account (aka Windows Live ID) and AAD – isn’t it about time those things were combined? As I said, just some idle thoughts. Below is the transcript of the email if you are interested. @Jamiet  This is regarding the support request <redacted> where in you were not able to login into the windows azure management portal with live id. We are providing you with the summary, root cause analysis and information about permanent fix: Incident Title: You were unable to access Windows Azure Portal after Microsoft Account to Azure Active Directory account Migration. Service Impacted: Management Portal Incident Start Date and Time: 8/24/2012 4:30:00 PM Date and Time Service was Restored: 10/17/2012 12:00:00 AM Summary: Windows Azure performed a planned change from using the Microsoft account service (formerly Windows Live ID) to the Azure Active Directory (AAD) as its primary authentication mechanism on August 24th.   This change was made to enable future innovation in the area of authentication – particularly for organizationally owned identities, identity federation, stronger authentication methods and compliance certification.   While this migration was largely transparent to Windows Azure users, a small number of users whose sign-in names were part of a Windows Live Custom Domain were unable to login.   This incompatibility was not discovered during the Quality Assurance testing phase prior to the migration. Customer Impact: Customers whose sign-in names were part of a Windows Live Custom Domain were unable to sign-in the Management Portal after ~4:00 p.m. PST on August 24th, 2012.   We determined that the issue did impact at least 127 users in 98 of these Windows Live Custom Domains and had a maximum potential impact of 1,110 users in total. Root Cause: The root cause of the issue was an incompatibility in the AAD authentication service to handle logins from Microsoft accounts whose sign-in names were part of a Windows Live Custom Domains.  This issue was not discovered during the Quality Assurance testing phase prior to the migration from Microsoft Account (MSA) to AAD. Mitigations: The issue was mitigated for the majority of affected users by 8:20 a.m. PST on August 25th, 2012 by running some internal scripts to correct many known Windows Live Custom Domains.   The remaining affected domains fell into two categories: Windows Live Custom Domains that were not corrected by 8/25/2012. An additional 48 Windows Live Custom Domains were fixed in the weeks following the incident within 2 business days after the AAD team received an escalation from product support regarding those accounts. Windows Live Custom domains that were also provisioned in Office365. Some of the affected Windows Live Custom Domains had already been provisioned in AAD because their owners signed up for Office365 which is a service that also uses AAD.   In these cases the Azure customers had to work around the issue by renaming their Microsoft Account or using a different Microsoft Account to administer their Azure subscription. Permanent Fix: The Azure Active Directory team permanently fixed the issue for all customers on 10/17/2012 in an upgraded release of the AAD service.

  Read the article

• 2012&ndash;The End Of The World Review

  - by Tim Murphy

  The end of the world must be coming.  Not because the Mayan calendar says so, but because Microsoft is innovating more than Apple.  It has been a crazy year, with pundits declaring not that the end of the world is coming, but that the end of Microsoft is coming.  Let’s take a look at what 2012 has brought us. The beginning of year is a blur.  I managed to get to TechEd in June which was the first time that I got to take a deep dive into Windows 8 and many other things that had been announced in 2011.  The promise I saw in these products was really encouraging.  The thought of being able to run Windows 8 from a thumb drive or have Hyper-V native to the OS told me that at least for developers good things were coming. I finally got my feet wet with Windows 8 with the developer preview just prior to the RTM.  While the initial experience was a bit of a culture shock I quickly grew to love it.  The media still seems to hold little love for the “reimagined” platform, but I think that once people spend some time with it they will enjoy the experience and what the FUD mongers say will fade into the background.  With the launch of the OS we finally got a look at the Surface.  I think this is a bold entry into the tablet market.  While I wish it was a little more affordable I am already starting to see them in the wild being used by non-techies. I was waiting for Windows Phone 8 at least as much as Windows 8, probably more.  The new hardware, better marketing and new OS features I think are going to finally push us to the point of having a real presence in the smartphone market.  I am seeing a number of iPhone users picking up a Nokia Lumia 920 and getting rid of their brand new iPhone 5.  The only real debacle that I saw around the launch was when they held back the SDK from general developers. Shortly after the launch events came Build 2012.  I was extremely disappointed that I didn’t make it to this year’s Build.  Even if they weren’t handing out Surface and Lumia devices I think the atmosphere and content were something that really needed to be experience in person.  Hopefully there will be a Build next year and it’s schedule will be announced soon.  As you would expect Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 development were the mainstay of the conference, but improvements in Azure also played a key role.  This movement of services to the cloud will continue and we need to understand where it best fits into the solutions we build. Lower on the radar this year were Office 2013, SQL Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012.  Their glory stolen by the consumer OS and hardware announcements, these new releases are no less important.  Companies will see significant improvements in performance and capabilities if they upgrade.  At TechEd they had shown some of the new features of Windows Server 2012 around hardware integration and Hyper-V performance which absolutely blew me away.  It is our job to bring these important improvements to our company’s attention so that they can be leveraged. Personally, the consulting business in 2012 was the busiest it has been in a long time.  More companies were ready to attack new projects after several years of putting them on the back burner.  I also worked to bring back momentum to the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Both the community and clients are excited about the new technologies that have come out in 2012 and now it is time to deliver. What does 2013 have in store.  I don’t see it be quite as exciting as 2012.  Microsoft will be releasing the Surface Pro in January and it seems that we will see more frequent OS update for Windows.  There are rumors that we may see a Surface phone in 2013.  It has also been announced that there will finally be a rework of the XBox next fall.  The new year will also be a time for us in the development community to take advantage of these new tools and devices.  After all, it is what we build on top of these platforms that will attract more consumers and corporations to using them. Just as I am 99.999% sure that the world is not going to end this year, I am also sure that Microsoft will move on and that most of this negative backlash from the media is actually fear and jealousy.  In the end I think we have a promising year ahead of us. del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft,Pundits,Mayans,Windows 8,Windows Phone 8,Surface

  Read the article

• Exploring TCP throughput with DTrace (2)

  - by user12820842

  Last time, I described how we can use the overlap in distributions of unacknowledged byte counts and send window to determine whether the peer's receive window may be too small, limiting throughput. Let's combine that comparison with a comparison of congestion window and slow start threshold, all on a per-port/per-client basis. This will help us Identify whether the congestion window or the receive window are limiting factors on throughput by comparing the distributions of congestion window and send window values to the distribution of outstanding (unacked) bytes. This will allow us to get a visual sense for how often we are thwarted in our attempts to fill the pipe due to congestion control versus the peer not being able to receive any more data. Identify whether slow start or congestion avoidance predominate by comparing the overlap in the congestion window and slow start distributions. If the slow start threshold distribution overlaps with the congestion window, we know that we have switched between slow start and congestion avoidance, possibly multiple times. Identify whether the peer's receive window is too small by comparing the distribution of outstanding unacked bytes with the send window distribution (i.e. the peer's receive window). I discussed this here. # dtrace -s tcp_window.d dtrace: script 'tcp_window.d' matched 10 probes ^C cwnd 80 10.175.96.92 value ------------- Distribution ------------- count 1024 | 0 2048 | 4 4096 | 6 8192 | 18 16384 | 36 32768 |@ 79 65536 |@ 155 131072 |@ 199 262144 |@@@ 400 524288 |@@@@@@ 798 1048576 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 3848 2097152 | 0 ssthresh 80 10.175.96.92 value ------------- Distribution ------------- count 268435456 | 0 536870912 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 5543 1073741824 | 0 unacked 80 10.175.96.92 value ------------- Distribution ------------- count -1 | 0 0 | 1 1 | 0 2 | 0 4 | 0 8 | 0 16 | 0 32 | 0 64 | 0 128 | 0 256 | 3 512 | 0 1024 | 0 2048 | 4 4096 | 9 8192 | 21 16384 | 36 32768 |@ 78 65536 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 5391 131072 | 0 swnd 80 10.175.96.92 value ------------- Distribution ------------- count 32768 | 0 65536 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 5543 131072 | 0 Here we are observing a large file transfer via http on the webserver. Comparing these distributions, we can observe: That slow start congestion control is in operation. The distribution of congestion window values lies below the range of slow start threshold values (which are in the 536870912+ range), so the connection is in slow start mode. Both the unacked byte count and the send window values peak in the 65536-131071 range, but the send window value distribution is narrower. This tells us that the peer TCP's receive window is not closing. The congestion window distribution peaks in the 1048576 - 2097152 range while the receive window distribution is confined to the 65536-131071 range. Since the cwnd distribution ranges as low as 2048-4095, we can see that for some of the time we have been observing the connection, congestion control has been a limiting factor on transfer, but for the majority of the time the receive window of the peer would more likely have been the limiting factor. However, we know the window has never closed as the distribution of swnd values stays within the 65536-131071 range. So all in all we have a connection that has been mildly constrained by congestion control, but for the bulk of the time we have been observing it neither congestion or peer receive window have limited throughput. Here's the script: #!/usr/sbin/dtrace -s tcp:::send / (args[4]-tcp_flags & (TH_SYN|TH_RST|TH_FIN)) == 0 / { @cwnd["cwnd", args[4]-tcp_sport, args[2]-ip_daddr] = quantize(args[3]-tcps_cwnd); @ssthresh["ssthresh", args[4]-tcp_sport, args[2]-ip_daddr] = quantize(args[3]-tcps_cwnd_ssthresh); @unacked["unacked", args[4]-tcp_sport, args[2]-ip_daddr] = quantize(args[3]-tcps_snxt - args[3]-tcps_suna); @swnd["swnd", args[4]-tcp_sport, args[2]-ip_daddr] = quantize((args[4]-tcp_window)*(1 tcps_snd_ws)); } One surprise here is that slow start is still in operation - one would assume that for a large file transfer, acknowledgements would push the congestion window up past the slow start threshold over time. The slow start threshold is in fact still close to it's initial (very high) value, so that would suggest we have not experienced any congestion (the slow start threshold is adjusted when congestion occurs). Also, the above measurements were taken early in the connection lifetime, so the congestion window did not get a changes to get bumped up to the level of the slow start threshold. A good strategy when examining these sorts of measurements for a given service (such as a webserver) would be start by examining the distributions above aggregated by port number only to get an overall feel for service performance, i.e. is congestion control or peer receive window size an issue, or are we unconstrained to fill the pipe? From there, the overlap of distributions will tell us whether to drill down into specific clients. For example if the send window distribution has multiple peaks, we may want to examine if particular clients show issues with their receive window.

  Read the article

• C++ strongly typed typedef

  - by Kian

  I've been trying to think of a way of declaring strongly typed typedefs, to catch a certain class of bugs in the compilation stage. It's often the case that I'll typedef an int into several types of ids, or a vector to position or velocity: typedef int EntityID; typedef int ModelID; typedef Vector3 Position; typedef Vector3 Velocity; This can make the intent of code more clear, but after a long night of coding one might make silly mistakes like comparing different kinds of ids, or adding a position to a velocity perhaps. EntityID eID; ModelID mID; if ( eID == mID ) // <- Compiler sees nothing wrong { /*bug*/ } Position p; Velocity v; Position newP = p + v; // bug, meant p + v*s but compiler sees nothing wrong Unfortunately, suggestions I've found for strongly typed typedefs include using boost, which at least for me isn't a possibility (I do have c++11 at least). So after a bit of thinking, I came upon this idea, and wanted to run it by someone. First, you declare the base type as a template. The template parameter isn't used for anything in the definition, however: template < typename T > class IDType { unsigned int m_id; public: IDType( unsigned int const& i_id ): m_id {i_id} {}; friend bool operator==<T>( IDType<T> const& i_lhs, IDType<T> const& i_rhs ); }; Friend functions actually need to be forward declared before the class definition, which requires a forward declaration of the template class. We then define all the members for the base type, just remembering that it's a template class. Finally, when we want to use it, we typedef it as: class EntityT; typedef IDType<EntityT> EntityID; class ModelT; typedef IDType<ModelT> ModelID; The types are now entirely separate. Functions that take an EntityID will throw a compiler error if you try to feed them a ModelID instead, for example. Aside from having to declare the base types as templates, with the issues that entails, it's also fairly compact. I was hoping anyone had comments or critiques about this idea? One issue that came to mind while writing this, in the case of positions and velocities for example, would be that I can't convert between types as freely as before. Where before multiplying a vector by a scalar would give another vector, so I could do: typedef float Time; typedef Vector3 Position; typedef Vector3 Velocity; Time t = 1.0f; Position p = { 0.0f }; Velocity v = { 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f }; Position newP = p + v*t; With my strongly typed typedef I'd have to tell the compiler that multypling a Velocity by a Time results in a Position. class TimeT; typedef Float<TimeT> Time; class PositionT; typedef Vector3<PositionT> Position; class VelocityT; typedef Vector3<VelocityT> Velocity; Time t = 1.0f; Position p = { 0.0f }; Velocity v = { 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f }; Position newP = p + v*t; // Compiler error To solve this, I think I'd have to specialize every conversion explicitly, which can be kind of a bother. On the other hand, this limitation can help prevent other kinds of errors (say, multiplying a Velocity by a Distance, perhaps, which wouldn't make sense in this domain). So I'm torn, and wondering if people have any opinions on my original issue, or my approach to solving it.

  Read the article

• Notes from AT&T ARO Session at Oredev 2013

  - by Geertjan

  The mobile internet is 12 times bigger than internet was 12 years ago. Explosive growth, faster networks, and more powerful devices. 85% of users prefer mobile apps, while 56% have problems. Almost 60% want less than 2 second mobile app startup. App with poor mobile experience results in not buying stuff, going to competitor, not liking your company. Battery life. Bad mobile app is worse than no app at all because it turns people away from brand, etc. Apps didn't exist 10 years ago, 72 billion dollars a year in 2013, 151 billion in 2017.Testing performance. Mobile is different than regular app. Need to fix issues before customers discover them. ARO is free and open source AT&T tool for identifying mobile app performance problems. Mobile data is different -- radio resource control state machine. Radio resource control -- radio from idle to continuous reception -- drains battery, sends data, packets coming through, after packets come through radio is still on which is tail time, after 10 seconds of no data coming through radio goes off. For example, YouTube, e.g., 10 to 15 seconds after every connection, can be huge drain on battery, app traffic triggers RRC state. Goal. Balance fast network connectivity against battery usage. ARO is free and open source and test any platform and won awards. How do I test my app? pcap or tcdump network. Native collector: Android and iOS. Android rooted device is needed. Test app on phone, background data, idle for ads and analytics. Graded against 25 best practices. See all the processes, all network traffic mapped to processes, stats about trace, can look just at your app, exlude Facebook, etc. Many tests conducted, e.g., file download, HTML (wrapped applications, e.g., cordova). Best Practices. Make stuff smaller. GZIP, smaller files, download faster, best for files larger than 800 bytes, minification -- remove tabs and commenting -- browser doesn't need that, just give processor what it needs remove wheat from chaff. Images -- make images smaller, 1024x1024 image for a checkmark, swish it, make it 33% smaller, ARO records the screen, probably could be 9 times smaller. Download less stuff. 17% of HTTP content on mobile is duplicate data because of caching, reloading from cache is 75% to 99% faster than downloading again, 75% possible savings which means app will start up faster because using cache -- everyone wants app starting up 2 seconds. Make fewer HTTP requests. Inline and combine CSS and JS when possible reduces the number of requests, spread images used often. Fewer connections. Faster and use less battery, for example, download an image every 60 secs, download an add every 60 seconds, send analytics every 60 seconds -- instead of that, use transaction manager, download everything at once, reduce amount of time connected to network by 40% also -- 80% of applications do NOT close connections when they are finished, e.g., download picture, 10 seconds later the radio turns off, if you do not explicitly close, eventually server closes, 38% more tail time, 40% less energy if you close connection right away, background data traffic is 27% of data and 55% of network time, this kills the battery. Look at redirection. Adds 200 to 600 ms on each connection, waterfall diagram to all the requests -- e.g., xyz.com redirect to www.xyz.com redirect to xyz.mobi to www.xyz.com, waterfall visualization of packets, minimize redirects but redirects are fine. HTML best practices. Order matters and hiding code (JS downloading blocks rendering, always do CSS before JS or JS asynchronously, CSS 'display:none' hides images from user but the browser downloads them which adds latency to application. Some apps turn on GPS for no reason. Tell network when down, but maybe some other app is using the radio at the same time. It's all about knowing best practices: everyone wins with ARO (carriers, e.g., AT&T, developers, customers). Faster apps, better battery usage, network traffic better, better app reviews, happier customers. MBTA app, referenced as an example.ARO is free, open source, can test all platforms.

  Read the article

• Norton Ghost EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available.

  - by Breck Carter

  After about 15 minutes, a Norton Ghost 14 backup fails with Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. The source computer is a P4 laptop running Windows XP SP3. The target computer is a Core2 Quad desktop running Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit. It does not help to disable Norton 360 on the source computer or Norton Antivirus 2008 on the target computer. The Event Viewer consistently shows the same two VSS-related errors after Norton Ghost starts but before it fails. It makes no difference if the VSS service is started or stopped. The VSS errors do not appear elsewhere in the event log, only after Ghost starts. The MSS event messages, however, are quite common, appearing throughout the log, and they may have nothing to do with the problem. Here is the Norton Ghost error display... -Errors exist. --Unable to write to file. ---Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. ---Unable to set file size. ----Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. ----Unable to write to file. -----Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. -----Unable to set file size. ------Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Here are the source computer events, with the final error at the top and the "Ghost Starting" message at the bottom: ===== Event Type: Error Event Source: Norton Ghost Event Category: High Priority Event ID: 100 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:40:26 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Error EC8F17B7: Cannot create recovery points for job: Drive Backup of (C:\) (3). Error E7D1001F: Unable to write to file. Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Error E7D10046: Unable to set file size. Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Error E7D1001F: Unable to write to file. Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Error E7D10046: Unable to set file size. Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Details: 0xEBAB0005 Source: Norton Ghost ===== Event Type: Information Event Source: MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS Event Category: Server Event ID: 3421 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:34:06 AM User: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Recovery completed for database ReportServer$SQLEXPRESSTempDB (database ID 6) in 1 second(s) (analysis 205 ms, redo 0 ms, undo 376 ms.) This is an informational message only. No user action is required. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: 5d 0d 00 00 0a 00 00 00 ]....... 0008: 15 00 00 00 50 00 41 00 ....P.A. 0010: 56 00 49 00 4c 00 49 00 V.I.L.I. 0018: 4f 00 4e 00 32 00 5c 00 O.N.2.\. 0020: 53 00 51 00 4c 00 45 00 S.Q.L.E. 0028: 58 00 50 00 52 00 45 00 X.P.R.E. 0030: 53 00 53 00 00 00 18 00 S.S..... 0038: 00 00 52 00 65 00 70 00 ..R.e.p. 0040: 6f 00 72 00 74 00 53 00 o.r.t.S. 0048: 65 00 72 00 76 00 65 00 e.r.v.e. 0050: 72 00 24 00 53 00 51 00 r.$.S.Q. 0058: 4c 00 45 00 58 00 50 00 L.E.X.P. 0060: 52 00 45 00 53 00 53 00 R.E.S.S. 0068: 00 00 .. ===== Event Type: Information Event Source: MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS Event Category: Server Event ID: 17137 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:34:02 AM User: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Starting up database 'ReportServer$SQLEXPRESSTempDB'. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: f1 42 00 00 0a 00 00 00 ñB...... 0008: 15 00 00 00 50 00 41 00 ....P.A. 0010: 56 00 49 00 4c 00 49 00 V.I.L.I. 0018: 4f 00 4e 00 32 00 5c 00 O.N.2.\. 0020: 53 00 51 00 4c 00 45 00 S.Q.L.E. 0028: 58 00 50 00 52 00 45 00 X.P.R.E. 0030: 53 00 53 00 00 00 18 00 S.S..... 0038: 00 00 52 00 65 00 70 00 ..R.e.p. 0040: 6f 00 72 00 74 00 53 00 o.r.t.S. 0048: 65 00 72 00 76 00 65 00 e.r.v.e. 0050: 72 00 24 00 53 00 51 00 r.$.S.Q. 0058: 4c 00 45 00 58 00 50 00 L.E.X.P. 0060: 52 00 45 00 53 00 53 00 R.E.S.S. 0068: 00 00 .. ===== Event Type: Error Event Source: VSS Event Category: None Event ID: 5013 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:28:32 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Shadow Copy writer ContentIndexingService called routine RegQueryValueExW which failed with status 0x80070002 (converted to 0x800423f4). For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: 57 53 48 43 4f 4d 4e 43 WSHCOMNC 0008: 32 32 39 32 00 00 00 00 2292.... 0010: 57 53 48 43 49 43 00 00 WSHCIC.. 0018: 32 38 37 00 00 00 00 00 287..... ===== Event Type: Error Event Source: VSS Event Category: None Event ID: 5013 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:28:32 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Shadow Copy writer ContentIndexingService called routine RegQueryValueExW which failed with status 0x80070002 (converted to 0x800423f4). For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: 57 53 48 43 4f 4d 4e 43 WSHCOMNC 0008: 32 32 39 32 00 00 00 00 2292.... 0010: 57 53 48 43 49 43 00 00 WSHCIC.. 0018: 32 38 37 00 00 00 00 00 287..... ===== Event Type: Error Event Source: VSS Event Category: None Event ID: 12302 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:28:32 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: An internal inconsistency was detected in trying to contact shadow copy service writers. Please check to see that the Event Service and Volume Shadow Copy Service are operating properly. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: 42 55 45 43 58 4d 4c 43 BUECXMLC 0008: 33 36 33 37 00 00 00 00 3637.... 0010: 42 55 45 43 58 4d 4c 43 BUECXMLC 0018: 33 36 30 37 00 00 00 00 3607.... ===== Event Type: Information Event Source: Norton Ghost Event Category: High Priority Event ID: 100 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:27:57 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Info 6C8F1F63: The drive-based backup job, Drive Backup of (C:\) (3), has been started manually. Details: Source: Norton Ghost

  Read the article

• Norton Ghost EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available

  - by Breck Carter

  After about 15 minutes, a Norton Ghost 14 backup fails with Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. The source computer is a P4 laptop running Windows XP SP3. The target computer is a Core2 Quad desktop running Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit. It does not help to disable Norton 360 on the source computer or Norton Antivirus 2008 on the target computer. The Event Viewer consistently shows the same two VSS-related errors after Norton Ghost starts but before it fails. It makes no difference if the VSS service is started or stopped. The VSS errors do not appear elsewhere in the event log, only after Ghost starts. The MSS event messages, however, are quite common, appearing throughout the log, and they may have nothing to do with the problem. Here is the Norton Ghost error display... -Errors exist. --Unable to write to file. ---Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. ---Unable to set file size. ----Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. ----Unable to write to file. -----Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. -----Unable to set file size. ------Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Here are the source computer events, with the final error at the top and the "Ghost Starting" message at the bottom: ===== Event Type: Error Event Source: Norton Ghost Event Category: High Priority Event ID: 100 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:40:26 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Error EC8F17B7: Cannot create recovery points for job: Drive Backup of (C:\) (3). Error E7D1001F: Unable to write to file. Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Error E7D10046: Unable to set file size. Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Error E7D1001F: Unable to write to file. Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Error E7D10046: Unable to set file size. Error EBAB03F1: The specified network name is no longer available. Details: 0xEBAB0005 Source: Norton Ghost ===== Event Type: Information Event Source: MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS Event Category: Server Event ID: 3421 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:34:06 AM User: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Recovery completed for database ReportServer$SQLEXPRESSTempDB (database ID 6) in 1 second(s) (analysis 205 ms, redo 0 ms, undo 376 ms.) This is an informational message only. No user action is required. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: 5d 0d 00 00 0a 00 00 00 ]....... 0008: 15 00 00 00 50 00 41 00 ....P.A. 0010: 56 00 49 00 4c 00 49 00 V.I.L.I. 0018: 4f 00 4e 00 32 00 5c 00 O.N.2.\. 0020: 53 00 51 00 4c 00 45 00 S.Q.L.E. 0028: 58 00 50 00 52 00 45 00 X.P.R.E. 0030: 53 00 53 00 00 00 18 00 S.S..... 0038: 00 00 52 00 65 00 70 00 ..R.e.p. 0040: 6f 00 72 00 74 00 53 00 o.r.t.S. 0048: 65 00 72 00 76 00 65 00 e.r.v.e. 0050: 72 00 24 00 53 00 51 00 r.$.S.Q. 0058: 4c 00 45 00 58 00 50 00 L.E.X.P. 0060: 52 00 45 00 53 00 53 00 R.E.S.S. 0068: 00 00 .. ===== Event Type: Information Event Source: MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS Event Category: Server Event ID: 17137 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:34:02 AM User: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Starting up database 'ReportServer$SQLEXPRESSTempDB'. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: f1 42 00 00 0a 00 00 00 ñB...... 0008: 15 00 00 00 50 00 41 00 ....P.A. 0010: 56 00 49 00 4c 00 49 00 V.I.L.I. 0018: 4f 00 4e 00 32 00 5c 00 O.N.2.\. 0020: 53 00 51 00 4c 00 45 00 S.Q.L.E. 0028: 58 00 50 00 52 00 45 00 X.P.R.E. 0030: 53 00 53 00 00 00 18 00 S.S..... 0038: 00 00 52 00 65 00 70 00 ..R.e.p. 0040: 6f 00 72 00 74 00 53 00 o.r.t.S. 0048: 65 00 72 00 76 00 65 00 e.r.v.e. 0050: 72 00 24 00 53 00 51 00 r.$.S.Q. 0058: 4c 00 45 00 58 00 50 00 L.E.X.P. 0060: 52 00 45 00 53 00 53 00 R.E.S.S. 0068: 00 00 .. ===== Event Type: Error Event Source: VSS Event Category: None Event ID: 5013 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:28:32 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Shadow Copy writer ContentIndexingService called routine RegQueryValueExW which failed with status 0x80070002 (converted to 0x800423f4). For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: 57 53 48 43 4f 4d 4e 43 WSHCOMNC 0008: 32 32 39 32 00 00 00 00 2292.... 0010: 57 53 48 43 49 43 00 00 WSHCIC.. 0018: 32 38 37 00 00 00 00 00 287..... ===== Event Type: Error Event Source: VSS Event Category: None Event ID: 5013 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:28:32 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Shadow Copy writer ContentIndexingService called routine RegQueryValueExW which failed with status 0x80070002 (converted to 0x800423f4). For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: 57 53 48 43 4f 4d 4e 43 WSHCOMNC 0008: 32 32 39 32 00 00 00 00 2292.... 0010: 57 53 48 43 49 43 00 00 WSHCIC.. 0018: 32 38 37 00 00 00 00 00 287..... ===== Event Type: Error Event Source: VSS Event Category: None Event ID: 12302 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:28:32 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: An internal inconsistency was detected in trying to contact shadow copy service writers. Please check to see that the Event Service and Volume Shadow Copy Service are operating properly. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: 42 55 45 43 58 4d 4c 43 BUECXMLC 0008: 33 36 33 37 00 00 00 00 3637.... 0010: 42 55 45 43 58 4d 4c 43 BUECXMLC 0018: 33 36 30 37 00 00 00 00 3607.... ===== Event Type: Information Event Source: Norton Ghost Event Category: High Priority Event ID: 100 Date: 11/09/2009 Time: 9:27:57 AM User: N/A Computer: PAVILION2 Description: Info 6C8F1F63: The drive-based backup job, Drive Backup of (C:\) (3), has been started manually. Details: Source: Norton Ghost

  Read the article

• Network throughput issue (ARP-related)

  - by Joel Coel

  The small college where I work is having some very strange network issues. I'm looking for any advice or ideas here. We were fine over the summer, but the trouble began few days after students returned to campus in force for the fall term. Symptoms The main symptom is that internet access will work, but it's very slow... often to the point of timeouts. As an example, a typical result from Speedtest.net will return .4Mbps download, but allow 3 to 8 Mbps upload speed. Lesser symptoms may include severely limited performance transferring data to and from our file server, or even in some cases the inability to log in to the computer (cannot reach the domain controller). The issue crosses multiple vlans, and has effected devices on nearly every vlan we operate. The issue does not impact all machines on the network. An unaffected machine will typically see at least 11Mbps download from speedtest.net, and perhaps much more depending on larger campus traffic patterns at the time. There is one variation on the larger issue. We have one vlan where users were unable to log into nearly all of the machines at all. IT staff would log in using a local administrator account (or in some cases cached credentials), and from there a release/renew or pinging the gateway would allow the machine to work... for a while. Complicating this issue is that this vlan covers our computer labs, which use software called Deep Freeze to completely reset the hard drives after a reboot. It could just the same issue manifesting differently because of stale data on machines that have not permanently altered low-level info for weeks. We were able to solve this, however, by creating a new vlan and moving the labs over to the new vlan wholesale. Instigations Eventually we noticed that the effected machines all had recent dhcp leases. We can predict when a machine will become "slow" by watching when a dhcp lease comes up for renewal. We played with setting the lease time very short for a test vlan, but all that did was remove our ability to predict when the machine would become slow. Machines with static IPs have pretty much always worked normally. Manually releasing/renewing an address will never cause a machine to become slow. In fact, in some cases this process has fixed a machine in that state. Most of the time, though, it doesn't help. We also noticed that mobile machines like laptops are likely to become slow when they cross to new vlans. Wireless on campus is divided up into "zones", where each zone maps to a small set of buildings. Moving to a new building can place you in a zone, thereby causing you to get a new address. A machine resuming from sleep mode is also very likely to be slow. Mitigations Sometimes, but not always, clearing the arp cache on an effected machine will allow it to work normally again. As already mentioned, releasing/renewing a local machine's IP address can fix that machine, but it's not guaranteed. Pinging the default gateway can also sometimes help with a slow machine. What seems to help most to mitigate the issue is clearing the arp cache on our core layer-3 switch. This switch is used for our dhcp system as the default gateway on all vlans, and it handles inter-vlan routing. The model is a 3Com 4900SX. To try to mitigate the issue, we have the cache timeout set on the switch all the way down to the lowest possible time, but it hasn't helped. I also put together a script that runs every few minutes to automatically connect to the switch and reset the cache. Unfortunately, this does not always work, and can even cause some machines to end up in the slow state for a short time (though these seem to correct themselves after a few minutes). We currently have a scheduled job that runs every 10 minutes to force the core switch to clear it's ARP cache, but this is far from perfect or desirable. Reproduction We now have a test machine that we can force into the slow state at will. It is connected to a switch with ports set up for each of our vlans. We make the machine slow by connecting to different vlans, and after a new connection or two it will be slow. It's also worth noting in this section that this has happened before at the start of prior terms, but in the past the problem has gone away on it's own after a few days. It solved itself before we had a chance to do much diagnostic work... hence why we've allowed it to drag so long into the term this time 'round; the expectation was this would be a short-lived situation. Other Factors It's worth mentioning that we have had about half a dozen switches just outright fail over the last year. These are mainly 2003/2004-era 3Coms (mostly 4200's) that were all put in at about the same time. They should still be covered under warranty, buy HP has made getting service somewhat difficult. Mostly in power supplies that have failed, but in a couple cases we have used a power supply from a switch with a failed mainboard to bring a switch with a failed power supply back to life. We do have UPS devices on all but three of four switches now, but that was not the case when I started two and a half years ago. Severe budget constraints (we were on the Dept. of Ed's financially challenged institutions list a couple years back) have forced me to look to the likes of Netgear and TrendNet for replacements, but so far these low-end models seem to be holding their own. It's also worth mentioning that the big change on our network this summer was migrating from a single cross-campus wireless SSID to the zoned approach mentioned earlier. I don't think this is the source of the issue, as like I've said: we've seen this before. However, it's possible this is exacerbating the issue, and may be much of the reason it's been so hard to isolate. Diagnosis At first it seemed clear to us, given the timing and persistent nature of the problem, that the source of the issue was an infected (or malicious) student machine doing ARP cache poisoning. However, repeated attempts to isolate the source have failed. Those attempts include numerous wireshark packet traces, and even taking entire buildings offline for brief periods. We have not been able even to find a smoking gun bad ARP entry. My current best guess is an overloaded or failing core switch, but I'm not sure on how to test for this, and the cost of replacing it blindly is steep. Again, any ideas appreciated.

  Read the article

• C# .Net 3.5 Asynchronous Socket Server Performance Problem

  - by iBrAaAa

  I'm developing an Asynchronous Game Server using .Net Socket Asynchronous Model( BeginAccept/EndAccept...etc.) The problem I'm facing is described like that: When I have only one client connected, the server response time is very fast but once a second client connects, the server response time increases too much. I've measured the time from a client sends a message to the server until it gets the reply in both cases. I found that the average time in case of one client is about 17ms and in case of 2 clients about 280ms!!! What I really see is that: When 2 clients are connected and only one of them is moving(i.e. requesting service from the server) it is equivalently equal to the case when only one client is connected(i.e. fast response). However, when the 2 clients move at the same time(i.e. requests service from the server at the same time) their motion becomes very slow (as if the server replies each one of them in order i.e. not simultaneously). Basically, what I am doing is that: When a client requests a permission for motion from the server and the server grants him the request, the server then broadcasts the new position of the client to all the players. So if two clients are moving in the same time, the server is eventually trying to broadcast to both clients the new position of each of them at the same time. EX: Client1 asks to go to position (2,2) Client2 asks to go to position (5,5) Server sends to each of Client1 & Client2 the same two messages: message1: "Client1 at (2,2)" message2: "Client2 at (5,5)" I believe that the problem comes from the fact that Socket class is thread safe according MSDN documentation http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.sockets.socket.aspx. (NOT SURE THAT IT IS THE PROBLEM) Below is the code for the server: /// /// This class is responsible for handling packet receiving and sending /// public class NetworkManager { /// /// An integer to hold the server port number to be used for the connections. Its default value is 5000. /// private readonly int port = 5000; /// /// hashtable contain all the clients connected to the server. /// key: player Id /// value: socket /// private readonly Hashtable connectedClients = new Hashtable(); /// /// An event to hold the thread to wait for a new client /// private readonly ManualResetEvent resetEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false); /// /// keeps track of the number of the connected clients /// private int clientCount; /// /// The socket of the server at which the clients connect /// private readonly Socket mainSocket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp); /// /// The socket exception that informs that a client is disconnected /// private const int ClientDisconnectedErrorCode = 10054; /// /// The only instance of this class. /// private static readonly NetworkManager networkManagerInstance = new NetworkManager(); /// /// A delegate for the new client connected event. /// /// the sender object /// the event args public delegate void NewClientConnected(Object sender, SystemEventArgs e); /// /// A delegate for the position update message reception. /// /// the sender object /// the event args public delegate void PositionUpdateMessageRecieved(Object sender, PositionUpdateEventArgs e); /// /// The event which fires when a client sends a position message /// public PositionUpdateMessageRecieved PositionUpdateMessageEvent { get; set; } /// /// keeps track of the number of the connected clients /// public int ClientCount { get { return clientCount; } } /// /// A getter for this class instance. /// /// only instance. public static NetworkManager NetworkManagerInstance { get { return networkManagerInstance; } } private NetworkManager() {} /// Starts the game server and holds this thread alive /// public void StartServer() { //Bind the mainSocket to the server IP address and port mainSocket.Bind(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, port)); //The server starts to listen on the binded socket with max connection queue //1024 mainSocket.Listen(1024); //Start accepting clients asynchronously mainSocket.BeginAccept(OnClientConnected, null); //Wait until there is a client wants to connect resetEvent.WaitOne(); } /// /// Receives connections of new clients and fire the NewClientConnected event /// private void OnClientConnected(IAsyncResult asyncResult) { Interlocked.Increment(ref clientCount); ClientInfo newClient = new ClientInfo { WorkerSocket = mainSocket.EndAccept(asyncResult), PlayerId = clientCount }; //Add the new client to the hashtable and increment the number of clients connectedClients.Add(newClient.PlayerId, newClient); //fire the new client event informing that a new client is connected to the server if (NewClientEvent != null) { NewClientEvent(this, System.EventArgs.Empty); } newClient.WorkerSocket.BeginReceive(newClient.Buffer, 0, BasePacket.GetMaxPacketSize(), SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(WaitForData), newClient); //Start accepting clients asynchronously again mainSocket.BeginAccept(OnClientConnected, null); } /// Waits for the upcoming messages from different clients and fires the proper event according to the packet type. /// /// private void WaitForData(IAsyncResult asyncResult) { ClientInfo sendingClient = null; try { //Take the client information from the asynchronous result resulting from the BeginReceive sendingClient = asyncResult.AsyncState as ClientInfo; // If client is disconnected, then throw a socket exception // with the correct error code. if (!IsConnected(sendingClient.WorkerSocket)) { throw new SocketException(ClientDisconnectedErrorCode); } //End the pending receive request sendingClient.WorkerSocket.EndReceive(asyncResult); //Fire the appropriate event FireMessageTypeEvent(sendingClient.ConvertBytesToPacket() as BasePacket); // Begin receiving data from this client sendingClient.WorkerSocket.BeginReceive(sendingClient.Buffer, 0, BasePacket.GetMaxPacketSize(), SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(WaitForData), sendingClient); } catch (SocketException e) { if (e.ErrorCode == ClientDisconnectedErrorCode) { // Close the socket. if (sendingClient.WorkerSocket != null) { sendingClient.WorkerSocket.Close(); sendingClient.WorkerSocket = null; } // Remove it from the hash table. connectedClients.Remove(sendingClient.PlayerId); if (ClientDisconnectedEvent != null) { ClientDisconnectedEvent(this, new ClientDisconnectedEventArgs(sendingClient.PlayerId)); } } } catch (Exception e) { // Begin receiving data from this client sendingClient.WorkerSocket.BeginReceive(sendingClient.Buffer, 0, BasePacket.GetMaxPacketSize(), SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(WaitForData), sendingClient); } } /// /// Broadcasts the input message to all the connected clients /// /// public void BroadcastMessage(BasePacket message) { byte[] bytes = message.ConvertToBytes(); foreach (ClientInfo client in connectedClients.Values) { client.WorkerSocket.BeginSend(bytes, 0, bytes.Length, SocketFlags.None, SendAsync, client); } } /// /// Sends the input message to the client specified by his ID. /// /// /// The message to be sent. /// The id of the client to receive the message. public void SendToClient(BasePacket message, int id) { byte[] bytes = message.ConvertToBytes(); (connectedClients[id] as ClientInfo).WorkerSocket.BeginSend(bytes, 0, bytes.Length, SocketFlags.None, SendAsync, connectedClients[id]); } private void SendAsync(IAsyncResult asyncResult) { ClientInfo currentClient = (ClientInfo)asyncResult.AsyncState; currentClient.WorkerSocket.EndSend(asyncResult); } /// Fires the event depending on the type of received packet /// /// The received packet. void FireMessageTypeEvent(BasePacket packet) { switch (packet.MessageType) { case MessageType.PositionUpdateMessage: if (PositionUpdateMessageEvent != null) { PositionUpdateMessageEvent(this, new PositionUpdateEventArgs(packet as PositionUpdatePacket)); } break; } } } The events fired are handled in a different class, here are the event handling code for the PositionUpdateMessage (Other handlers are irrelevant): private readonly Hashtable onlinePlayers = new Hashtable(); /// /// Constructor that creates a new instance of the GameController class. /// private GameController() { //Start the server server = new Thread(networkManager.StartServer); server.Start(); //Create an event handler for the NewClientEvent of networkManager networkManager.PositionUpdateMessageEvent += OnPositionUpdateMessageReceived; } /// /// this event handler is called when a client asks for movement. /// private void OnPositionUpdateMessageReceived(object sender, PositionUpdateEventArgs e) { Point currentLocation = ((PlayerData)onlinePlayers[e.PositionUpdatePacket.PlayerId]).Position; Point locationRequested = e.PositionUpdatePacket.Position; ((PlayerData)onlinePlayers[e.PositionUpdatePacket.PlayerId]).Position = locationRequested; // Broadcast the new position networkManager.BroadcastMessage(new PositionUpdatePacket { Position = locationRequested, PlayerId = e.PositionUpdatePacket.PlayerId }); }

  Read the article

• why is LZMA SDK (7-zip) so slow

  - by Tono Nam

  I found 7-zip great and I will like to use it on .net applications. I have a 10MB file (a.001) and it takes: 2 seconds to encode. Now it will be nice if I could do the same thing on c#. I have downloaded http://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html LZMA SDK c# source code. I basically copied the CS directory into a console application in visual studio: Then I compiled and eveything compiled smoothly. So on the output directory I placed the file a.001 which is 10MB of size. On the main method that came on the source code I placed: [STAThread] static int Main(string[] args) { // e stands for encode args = "e a.001 output.7z".Split(' '); // added this line for debug try { return Main2(args); } catch (Exception e) { Console.WriteLine("{0} Caught exception #1.", e); // throw e; return 1; } } when I execute the console application the application works great and I get the output a.7z on the working directory. The problem is that it takes so long. It takes about 15 seconds to execute! I have also tried http://stackoverflow.com/a/8775927/637142 approach and it also takes very long. Why is it 10 times slower than the actual program ? Also Even if I set to use only one thread: It still takes much less time (3 seconds vs 15): (Edit) Another Possibility Could it be because C# is slower than assembly or C ? I notice that the algorithm does a lot of heavy operations. For example compare these two blocks of code. They both do the same thing: C void main() { time_t now; int i,j,k,x; long counter ; counter = 0; now = time(NULL); /* LOOP */ for(x=0; x<10; x++) { counter = -1234567890 + x+2; for (j = 0; j < 10000; j++) for(i = 0; i< 1000; i++) for(k =0; k<1000; k++) { if(counter > 10000) counter = counter - 9999; else counter= counter +1; } printf (" %d \n", time(NULL) - now); // display elapsed time } printf("counter = %d\n\n",counter); // display result of counter printf ("Elapsed time = %d seconds ", time(NULL) - now); gets("Wait"); } output c# static void Main(string[] args) { DateTime now; int i, j, k, x; long counter; counter = 0; now = DateTime.Now; /* LOOP */ for (x = 0; x < 10; x++) { counter = -1234567890 + x + 2; for (j = 0; j < 10000; j++) for (i = 0; i < 1000; i++) for (k = 0; k < 1000; k++) { if (counter > 10000) counter = counter - 9999; else counter = counter + 1; } Console.WriteLine((DateTime.Now - now).Seconds.ToString()); } Console.Write("counter = {0} \n", counter.ToString()); Console.Write("Elapsed time = {0} seconds", DateTime.Now - now); Console.Read(); } Output Note how much slower was c#. Both programs where run from outside visual studio on release mode. Maybe that is the reason why it takes so much longer in .net than on c++. Conclusion I cannot seem to know what is causing the problem. I guess I will use 7z.dll and invoke the necessary methods from c#. A library that does that is at: http://sevenzipsharp.codeplex.com/ and that way I am using the same library that 7zip is using as: // dont forget to add reference to SevenZipSharp located on the link I provided static void Main(string[] args) { // load the dll SevenZip.SevenZipCompressor.SetLibraryPath(@"C:\Program Files (x86)\7-Zip\7z.dll"); SevenZip.SevenZipCompressor compress = new SevenZip.SevenZipCompressor(); compress.CompressDirectory("MyFolderToArchive", "output.7z"); }

  Read the article

• Event Handlers Not Getting Called? - wxWidgets

  - by Alex

  Hello all, I'm working on a program for my C++ programming class, using wxWidgets. I'm having a huge problem in that my event handlers (I assume) are not getting called, because when I click on the button to trigger the event, nothing happens. My question is: Can you help me find the problem and explain why they would not be getting called? The event handlers OnAbout and OnQuit are working, just not OnCompute or OnClear. I'm really frustrated as I can't figure this out. Thanks a bunch in advance! #include "wx/wx.h" #include "time.h" #include <string> using std::string; // create object of Time class Time first; class App: public wxApp { virtual bool OnInit(); }; class MainPanel : public wxPanel { public: // Constructor for panel class // Constructs my panel class // Params - wxWindow pointer // no return type // pre-conditions: none // post-conditions: none MainPanel(wxWindow* parent); // OnCompute is the event handler for the Compute button // params - none // preconditions - none // postconditions - tasks will have been carried otu successfully // returns void void OnCompute(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)); // OnClear is the event handler for the Clear button // params - none // preconditions - none // postconditions - all text areas will be cleared of data // returns void void OnClear(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)); // Destructor for panel class // params none // preconditions - none // postconditions - none // no return type ~MainPanel( ); private: wxStaticText *startLabel; wxStaticText *endLabel; wxStaticText *pCLabel; wxStaticText *newEndLabel; wxTextCtrl *start; wxTextCtrl *end; wxTextCtrl *pC; wxTextCtrl *newEnd; wxButton *compute; wxButton *clear; DECLARE_EVENT_TABLE() }; class MainFrame: public wxFrame { private: wxPanel *mainPanel; public: MainFrame(const wxString& title, const wxPoint& pos, const wxSize& size); void OnQuit(wxCommandEvent& event); void OnAbout(wxCommandEvent& event); ~MainFrame(); DECLARE_EVENT_TABLE() }; enum { ID_Quit = 1, ID_About, BUTTON_COMPUTE = 100, BUTTON_CLEAR = 200 }; IMPLEMENT_APP(App) BEGIN_EVENT_TABLE(MainFrame, wxFrame) EVT_MENU(ID_Quit, MainFrame::OnQuit) EVT_MENU(ID_About, MainFrame::OnAbout) END_EVENT_TABLE() BEGIN_EVENT_TABLE(MainPanel, wxPanel) EVT_MENU(BUTTON_COMPUTE, MainPanel::OnCompute) EVT_MENU(BUTTON_CLEAR, MainPanel::OnClear) END_EVENT_TABLE() bool App::OnInit() { MainFrame *frame = new MainFrame( _("Good Guys Delivery Time Calculator"), wxPoint(50, 50), wxSize(450,340) ); frame->Show(true); SetTopWindow(frame); return true; } MainPanel::MainPanel(wxWindow* parent) : wxPanel(parent) { startLabel = new wxStaticText(this, -1, "Start Time:", wxPoint(75, 35)); start = new wxTextCtrl(this, -1, "", wxPoint(135, 35), wxSize(40, 21)); endLabel = new wxStaticText(this, -1, "End Time:", wxPoint(200, 35)); end = new wxTextCtrl(this, -1, "", wxPoint(260, 35), wxSize(40, 21)); pCLabel = new wxStaticText(this, -1, "Percent Change:", wxPoint(170, 85)); pC = new wxTextCtrl(this, -1, "", wxPoint(260, 85), wxSize(40, 21)); newEndLabel = new wxStaticText(this, -1, "New End Time:", wxPoint(180, 130)); newEnd = new wxTextCtrl(this, -1, "", wxPoint(260, 130), wxSize(40, 21)); compute = new wxButton(this, BUTTON_COMPUTE, "Compute", wxPoint(135, 185), wxSize(75, 35)); clear = new wxButton(this, BUTTON_CLEAR, "Clear", wxPoint(230, 185), wxSize(75, 35)); } MainPanel::~MainPanel() {} MainFrame::MainFrame(const wxString& title, const wxPoint& pos, const wxSize& size) : wxFrame( NULL, -1, title, pos, size ) { mainPanel = new MainPanel(this); wxMenu *menuFile = new wxMenu; menuFile->Append( ID_About, _("&About...") ); menuFile->AppendSeparator(); menuFile->Append( ID_Quit, _("E&xit") ); wxMenuBar *menuBar = new wxMenuBar; menuBar->Append( menuFile, _("&File") ); SetMenuBar( menuBar ); CreateStatusBar(); SetStatusText( _("Hi") ); } MainFrame::~MainFrame() {} void MainFrame::OnQuit(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)) { Close(TRUE); } void MainFrame::OnAbout(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)) { wxMessageBox( _("Alex Olson\nProject 11"), _("About"), wxOK | wxICON_INFORMATION, this); } void MainPanel::OnCompute(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)) { int startT; int endT; int newEndT; double tD; wxString startTString = start->GetValue(); wxString endTString = end->GetValue(); startT = wxAtoi(startTString); endT = wxAtoi(endTString); pC->GetValue().ToDouble(&tD); first.SetStartTime(startT); first.SetEndTime(endT); first.SetTimeDiff(tD); try { first.ValidateData(); newEndT = first.ComputeEndTime(); *newEnd << newEndT; } catch (BaseException& e) { wxMessageBox(_(e.GetMessage()), _("Something Went Wrong!"), wxOK | wxICON_INFORMATION, this); } } void MainPanel::OnClear(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)) { start->Clear(); end->Clear(); pC->Clear(); newEnd->Clear(); }

  Read the article

• how do we access values stored in NSMutableArray of NSMutableDictionary ?

  - by srikanth rongali

  I have stored values in NsMutableDictionaries . ThenI stored all the dictionaries in NSMutable Array. I need to access the values ? How can I do that ? -(void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; self.title = @"Library"; self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Close" style:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered target:self action:@selector(close:)]; cells = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects:@"dict1", @"dict2", @"dict3", @"dict4", @"dict5", @"dict6", nil]; dict1 = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:@"Mon, 01 Feb #2", @"date", @"0.7", @"time", @"1.2MB", @"size", @"200*200", @"pix", nil]; dict2 = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:@"Wed, 02 Mar #3", @"date", @"1.2", @"time", @"2.2MB", @"size", @"300*300", @"pix", nil]; dict3 = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:@"Tue, 03 Apr #5", @"date", @"1.7", @"time", @"2.5MB", @"size", @"240*240", @"pix", nil]; dict4 = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:@"Mon, 01 Feb #2", @"date", @"0.7", @"time", @"1.2MB", @"size", @"200*200", @"pix", nil]; dict5 = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:@"Mon, 10 Nov #5", @"date", @"2.7", @"time", @"4.2MB", @"size", @"200*400", @"pix", nil]; dict6 = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:@"Mon, 11 Dec #6", @"date", @"4.7", @"time", @"2.2MB", @"size", @"500*200", @"pix", nil]; //[cells addObject:dict1]; //[cells addObject:dict2]; //[cells addObject:dict3]; //[cells addObject:dict4]; //[cells addObject:dict5]; //[cells addObject:dict6]; } // Customize the number of rows in the table view. - (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section { return [cells count]; } // Customize the appearance of table view cells. - (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell"; UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier]; if (cell == nil) { cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease]; //cell.contentView.frame = CGRectMake(0.0f, 0.0f, 320.0f, 80.0f); [cell setAccessoryType:UITableViewCellAccessoryDisclosureIndicator]; UIImageView *image1 = [[UIImageView alloc]init]; image1.frame = CGRectMake(0.0f, 0.0f, 80.0f, 80.0f); image1.tag = tag7; UILabel *dateLabel = [[UILabel alloc]init]; dateLabel.frame = CGRectMake(100.0f, 5.0f, 120.0f, 25.0f); dateLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Georgia" size:10]; dateLabel.tag = tag1; UILabel *timeLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init]; timeLabel.frame = CGRectMake(100.0f, 30.0f, 40.0f, 25.0f); timeLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Georgia" size:10]; timeLabel.tag = tag2; UILabel *sizeLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init]; sizeLabel.frame = CGRectMake(160.0f, 30.0f, 40.0f, 25.0f); sizeLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Georgia" size:10]; sizeLabel.tag = tag3; UILabel *pixLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init]; pixLabel.frame = CGRectMake(220.0f, 30.0f, 40.0f, 25.0f); pixLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Georgia" size:10]; pixLabel.tag = tag4; UILabel *shareLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init]; shareLabel.frame = CGRectMake(100.0f, 55.0f, 100.0f, 25.0f); shareLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Georgia" size:10]; shareLabel.tag = tag5; UILabel *deleteLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init]; deleteLabel.frame = CGRectMake(220.0f, 55.0f, 100.0f, 25.0f); deleteLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Georgia" size:10]; deleteLabel.tag = tag6; [cell.contentView addSubview:dateLabel]; [cell.contentView addSubview:timeLabel]; [cell.contentView addSubview:sizeLabel]; [cell.contentView addSubview:pixLabel]; [cell.contentView addSubview:shareLabel]; [cell.contentView addSubview:deleteLabel]; [cell.contentView addSubview:image1]; [dateLabel release]; [timeLabel release]; [sizeLabel release]; [pixLabel release]; [shareLabel release]; [deleteLabel release]; [image1 release]; } // Set up the cell... [(UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:tag1] setText:[cells objectAtIndex:[dict1 objectForKey: @"date"]]]; [(UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:tag2] setText:[cells objectAtIndex:[dict1 objectForKey: @"time"]]]; [(UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:tag3] setText:[cells objectAtIndex:[dict1 objectForKey: @"size"]]]; [(UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:tag4] setText:[cells objectAtIndex:[dict1 objectForKey: @"pix"]]]; [(UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:tag5] setText:@"Share"]; [(UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:tag6] setText:@"Delete"]; cell.imageView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"image2.png"]; return cell; } - (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { return 80.0f; } I did in above way but it is not working. I know the mistake is at the accessing values. but, I could not get how to do it ? Thank You.

  Read the article

• Event Handlers Not Getting Called? - wxWidgets & C++

  - by Alex

  Hello all, I'm working on a program for my C++ programming class, using wxWidgets. I'm having a huge problem in that my event handlers (I assume) are not getting called, because when I click on the button to trigger the event, nothing happens. My question is: Can you help me find the problem and explain why they would not be getting called? The event handlers OnAbout and OnQuit are working, just not OnCompute or OnClear. I'm really frustrated as I can't figure this out. Thanks a bunch in advance! #include "wx/wx.h" #include "time.h" #include <string> using std::string; // create object of Time class Time first; class App: public wxApp { virtual bool OnInit(); }; class MainPanel : public wxPanel { public: // Constructor for panel class // Constructs my panel class // Params - wxWindow pointer // no return type // pre-conditions: none // post-conditions: none MainPanel(wxWindow* parent); // OnCompute is the event handler for the Compute button // params - none // preconditions - none // postconditions - tasks will have been carried otu successfully // returns void void OnCompute(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)); // OnClear is the event handler for the Clear button // params - none // preconditions - none // postconditions - all text areas will be cleared of data // returns void void OnClear(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)); // Destructor for panel class // params none // preconditions - none // postconditions - none // no return type ~MainPanel( ); private: wxStaticText *startLabel; wxStaticText *endLabel; wxStaticText *pCLabel; wxStaticText *newEndLabel; wxTextCtrl *start; wxTextCtrl *end; wxTextCtrl *pC; wxTextCtrl *newEnd; wxButton *compute; wxButton *clear; DECLARE_EVENT_TABLE() }; class MainFrame: public wxFrame { private: wxPanel *mainPanel; public: MainFrame(const wxString& title, const wxPoint& pos, const wxSize& size); void OnQuit(wxCommandEvent& event); void OnAbout(wxCommandEvent& event); ~MainFrame(); DECLARE_EVENT_TABLE() }; enum { ID_Quit = 1, ID_About, BUTTON_COMPUTE = 100, BUTTON_CLEAR = 200 }; IMPLEMENT_APP(App) BEGIN_EVENT_TABLE(MainFrame, wxFrame) EVT_MENU(ID_Quit, MainFrame::OnQuit) EVT_MENU(ID_About, MainFrame::OnAbout) END_EVENT_TABLE() BEGIN_EVENT_TABLE(MainPanel, wxPanel) EVT_MENU(BUTTON_COMPUTE, MainPanel::OnCompute) EVT_MENU(BUTTON_CLEAR, MainPanel::OnClear) END_EVENT_TABLE() bool App::OnInit() { MainFrame *frame = new MainFrame( _("Good Guys Delivery Time Calculator"), wxPoint(50, 50), wxSize(450,340) ); frame->Show(true); SetTopWindow(frame); return true; } MainPanel::MainPanel(wxWindow* parent) : wxPanel(parent) { startLabel = new wxStaticText(this, -1, "Start Time:", wxPoint(75, 35)); start = new wxTextCtrl(this, -1, "", wxPoint(135, 35), wxSize(40, 21)); endLabel = new wxStaticText(this, -1, "End Time:", wxPoint(200, 35)); end = new wxTextCtrl(this, -1, "", wxPoint(260, 35), wxSize(40, 21)); pCLabel = new wxStaticText(this, -1, "Percent Change:", wxPoint(170, 85)); pC = new wxTextCtrl(this, -1, "", wxPoint(260, 85), wxSize(40, 21)); newEndLabel = new wxStaticText(this, -1, "New End Time:", wxPoint(180, 130)); newEnd = new wxTextCtrl(this, -1, "", wxPoint(260, 130), wxSize(40, 21)); compute = new wxButton(this, BUTTON_COMPUTE, "Compute", wxPoint(135, 185), wxSize(75, 35)); clear = new wxButton(this, BUTTON_CLEAR, "Clear", wxPoint(230, 185), wxSize(75, 35)); } MainPanel::~MainPanel() {} MainFrame::MainFrame(const wxString& title, const wxPoint& pos, const wxSize& size) : wxFrame( NULL, -1, title, pos, size ) { mainPanel = new MainPanel(this); wxMenu *menuFile = new wxMenu; menuFile->Append( ID_About, _("&About...") ); menuFile->AppendSeparator(); menuFile->Append( ID_Quit, _("E&xit") ); wxMenuBar *menuBar = new wxMenuBar; menuBar->Append( menuFile, _("&File") ); SetMenuBar( menuBar ); CreateStatusBar(); SetStatusText( _("Hi") ); } MainFrame::~MainFrame() {} void MainFrame::OnQuit(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)) { Close(TRUE); } void MainFrame::OnAbout(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)) { wxMessageBox( _("Alex Olson\nProject 11"), _("About"), wxOK | wxICON_INFORMATION, this); } void MainPanel::OnCompute(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)) { int startT; int endT; int newEndT; double tD; wxString startTString = start->GetValue(); wxString endTString = end->GetValue(); startT = wxAtoi(startTString); endT = wxAtoi(endTString); pC->GetValue().ToDouble(&tD); first.SetStartTime(startT); first.SetEndTime(endT); first.SetTimeDiff(tD); try { first.ValidateData(); newEndT = first.ComputeEndTime(); *newEnd << newEndT; } catch (BaseException& e) { wxMessageBox(_(e.GetMessage()), _("Something Went Wrong!"), wxOK | wxICON_INFORMATION, this); } } void MainPanel::OnClear(wxCommandEvent& WXUNUSED(event)) { start->Clear(); end->Clear(); pC->Clear(); newEnd->Clear(); }

  Read the article

• .Net 3.5 Asynchronous Socket Server Performance Problem

  - by iBrAaAa

  I'm developing an Asynchronous Game Server using .Net Socket Asynchronous Model( BeginAccept/EndAccept...etc.) The problem I'm facing is described like that: When I have only one client connected, the server response time is very fast but once a second client connects, the server response time increases too much. I've measured the time from a client sends a message to the server until it gets the reply in both cases. I found that the average time in case of one client is about 17ms and in case of 2 clients about 280ms!!! What I really see is that: When 2 clients are connected and only one of them is moving(i.e. requesting service from the server) it is equivalently equal to the case when only one client is connected(i.e. fast response). However, when the 2 clients move at the same time(i.e. requests service from the server at the same time) their motion becomes very slow (as if the server replies each one of them in order i.e. not simultaneously). Basically, what I am doing is that: When a client requests a permission for motion from the server and the server grants him the request, the server then broadcasts the new position of the client to all the players. So if two clients are moving in the same time, the server is eventually trying to broadcast to both clients the new position of each of them at the same time. EX: Client1 asks to go to position (2,2) Client2 asks to go to position (5,5) Server sends to each of Client1 & Client2 the same two messages: message1: "Client1 at (2,2)" message2: "Client2 at (5,5)" I believe that the problem comes from the fact that Socket class is thread safe according MSDN documentation http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.sockets.socket.aspx. (NOT SURE THAT IT IS THE PROBLEM) Below is the code for the server: /// /// This class is responsible for handling packet receiving and sending /// public class NetworkManager { /// /// An integer to hold the server port number to be used for the connections. Its default value is 5000. /// private readonly int port = 5000; /// /// hashtable contain all the clients connected to the server. /// key: player Id /// value: socket /// private readonly Hashtable connectedClients = new Hashtable(); /// /// An event to hold the thread to wait for a new client /// private readonly ManualResetEvent resetEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false); /// /// keeps track of the number of the connected clients /// private int clientCount; /// /// The socket of the server at which the clients connect /// private readonly Socket mainSocket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp); /// /// The socket exception that informs that a client is disconnected /// private const int ClientDisconnectedErrorCode = 10054; /// /// The only instance of this class. /// private static readonly NetworkManager networkManagerInstance = new NetworkManager(); /// /// A delegate for the new client connected event. /// /// the sender object /// the event args public delegate void NewClientConnected(Object sender, SystemEventArgs e); /// /// A delegate for the position update message reception. /// /// the sender object /// the event args public delegate void PositionUpdateMessageRecieved(Object sender, PositionUpdateEventArgs e); /// /// The event which fires when a client sends a position message /// public PositionUpdateMessageRecieved PositionUpdateMessageEvent { get; set; } /// /// keeps track of the number of the connected clients /// public int ClientCount { get { return clientCount; } } /// /// A getter for this class instance. /// /// only instance. public static NetworkManager NetworkManagerInstance { get { return networkManagerInstance; } } private NetworkManager() {} /// Starts the game server and holds this thread alive /// public void StartServer() { //Bind the mainSocket to the server IP address and port mainSocket.Bind(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, port)); //The server starts to listen on the binded socket with max connection queue //1024 mainSocket.Listen(1024); //Start accepting clients asynchronously mainSocket.BeginAccept(OnClientConnected, null); //Wait until there is a client wants to connect resetEvent.WaitOne(); } /// /// Receives connections of new clients and fire the NewClientConnected event /// private void OnClientConnected(IAsyncResult asyncResult) { Interlocked.Increment(ref clientCount); ClientInfo newClient = new ClientInfo { WorkerSocket = mainSocket.EndAccept(asyncResult), PlayerId = clientCount }; //Add the new client to the hashtable and increment the number of clients connectedClients.Add(newClient.PlayerId, newClient); //fire the new client event informing that a new client is connected to the server if (NewClientEvent != null) { NewClientEvent(this, System.EventArgs.Empty); } newClient.WorkerSocket.BeginReceive(newClient.Buffer, 0, BasePacket.GetMaxPacketSize(), SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(WaitForData), newClient); //Start accepting clients asynchronously again mainSocket.BeginAccept(OnClientConnected, null); } /// Waits for the upcoming messages from different clients and fires the proper event according to the packet type. /// /// private void WaitForData(IAsyncResult asyncResult) { ClientInfo sendingClient = null; try { //Take the client information from the asynchronous result resulting from the BeginReceive sendingClient = asyncResult.AsyncState as ClientInfo; // If client is disconnected, then throw a socket exception // with the correct error code. if (!IsConnected(sendingClient.WorkerSocket)) { throw new SocketException(ClientDisconnectedErrorCode); } //End the pending receive request sendingClient.WorkerSocket.EndReceive(asyncResult); //Fire the appropriate event FireMessageTypeEvent(sendingClient.ConvertBytesToPacket() as BasePacket); // Begin receiving data from this client sendingClient.WorkerSocket.BeginReceive(sendingClient.Buffer, 0, BasePacket.GetMaxPacketSize(), SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(WaitForData), sendingClient); } catch (SocketException e) { if (e.ErrorCode == ClientDisconnectedErrorCode) { // Close the socket. if (sendingClient.WorkerSocket != null) { sendingClient.WorkerSocket.Close(); sendingClient.WorkerSocket = null; } // Remove it from the hash table. connectedClients.Remove(sendingClient.PlayerId); if (ClientDisconnectedEvent != null) { ClientDisconnectedEvent(this, new ClientDisconnectedEventArgs(sendingClient.PlayerId)); } } } catch (Exception e) { // Begin receiving data from this client sendingClient.WorkerSocket.BeginReceive(sendingClient.Buffer, 0, BasePacket.GetMaxPacketSize(), SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(WaitForData), sendingClient); } } /// /// Broadcasts the input message to all the connected clients /// /// public void BroadcastMessage(BasePacket message) { byte[] bytes = message.ConvertToBytes(); foreach (ClientInfo client in connectedClients.Values) { client.WorkerSocket.BeginSend(bytes, 0, bytes.Length, SocketFlags.None, SendAsync, client); } } /// /// Sends the input message to the client specified by his ID. /// /// /// The message to be sent. /// The id of the client to receive the message. public void SendToClient(BasePacket message, int id) { byte[] bytes = message.ConvertToBytes(); (connectedClients[id] as ClientInfo).WorkerSocket.BeginSend(bytes, 0, bytes.Length, SocketFlags.None, SendAsync, connectedClients[id]); } private void SendAsync(IAsyncResult asyncResult) { ClientInfo currentClient = (ClientInfo)asyncResult.AsyncState; currentClient.WorkerSocket.EndSend(asyncResult); } /// Fires the event depending on the type of received packet /// /// The received packet. void FireMessageTypeEvent(BasePacket packet) { switch (packet.MessageType) { case MessageType.PositionUpdateMessage: if (PositionUpdateMessageEvent != null) { PositionUpdateMessageEvent(this, new PositionUpdateEventArgs(packet as PositionUpdatePacket)); } break; } } } The events fired are handled in a different class, here are the event handling code for the PositionUpdateMessage (Other handlers are irrelevant): private readonly Hashtable onlinePlayers = new Hashtable(); /// /// Constructor that creates a new instance of the GameController class. /// private GameController() { //Start the server server = new Thread(networkManager.StartServer); server.Start(); //Create an event handler for the NewClientEvent of networkManager networkManager.PositionUpdateMessageEvent += OnPositionUpdateMessageReceived; } /// /// this event handler is called when a client asks for movement. /// private void OnPositionUpdateMessageReceived(object sender, PositionUpdateEventArgs e) { Point currentLocation = ((PlayerData)onlinePlayers[e.PositionUpdatePacket.PlayerId]).Position; Point locationRequested = e.PositionUpdatePacket.Position; ((PlayerData)onlinePlayers[e.PositionUpdatePacket.PlayerId]).Position = locationRequested; // Broadcast the new position networkManager.BroadcastMessage(new PositionUpdatePacket { Position = locationRequested, PlayerId = e.PositionUpdatePacket.PlayerId }); }

  Read the article

• How Should I Generate Trade Statistics For CouchDB/Rails3 Application?

  - by James

  My Problem: I am trying to developing a web application for currency traders. The application allows traders to enter or upload information about their trades and I want to calculate a wide variety of statistics based on what the user entered. Now, normally I would use a relational database for this, but I have two requirements that don't fit well with a relational database so I am attempting to use couchdb. Those two problems are: 1) Primarily, I have a companion desktop application that users will be able to work with and replicate to the site using couchdb's awesome replication feature and 2) I would like to allow users to be able to define their own custom things to track about trades and generate results based off of what they enter. The schema less nature of couch seems perfect here, but it may end up being harder than it sounds. (I already know couch requires you to define views in advance and such so I was just planning on sticking all the custom attributes in an array and then emitting the array in the view and further processing from there.) What I Am Doing: Right now I am just emitting each trade in couch keyed by each user's system and querying with the key of the system to get an array of trades per system. Simple. I am not using a reduce function currently to calculate any stats because I couldn't figure out how to get everything I need without getting a reduce overflow error. Here is an example of rows that are getting emitted from couch: {"total_rows":134,"offset":0,"rows":[ {"id":"5b1dcd47221e160d8721feee4ccc64be", "key":["80e40ba2fa43589d57ec3f1d19db41e6","2010/05/14 04:32:37 +0000"], null, "doc":{ "_id":"5b1dcd47221e160d8721feee4ccc64be", "_rev":"1-bc9fe763e2637694df47d6f5efb58e5b", "couchrest-type":"Trade", "system":"80e40ba2fa43589d57ec3f1d19db41e6", "pair":"EUR/USD", "direction":"Buy", "entry":12600, "exit":12700, "stop_loss":12500, "profit_target":12700, "status":"Closed", "slug":"101332132375", "custom_tracking": [{"name":"signal", "value":"Pin Bar"}] "updated_at":"2010/05/14 04:32:37 +0000", "created_at":"2010/05/14 04:32:37 +0000", "result":100}} ]} In my rails 3 controller I am basically just populating an array of trades such as the one above and then extracting out the relevant data into smaller arrays that I can compute my statistics on. Here is my show action for the page that I want to display the stats and all the trades: def show @trades = Trade.by_system(:startkey => [@system.id], :endkey => [@system.id, Time.now ]) @trades.each do |trade| if trade.result > 0 @winning_trades << trade.result elsif trade.result < 0 @losing_trades << trade.result else @breakeven_trades << trade.result end if trade.direction == "Buy" @long_trades << trade.result else @short_trades << trade.result end if trade["custom_tracking"] != nil @custom_tracking << {"result" => trade.result, "variables" => trade["custom_tracking"]} end end end I am omitting some other stuff that is going on, but that is the gist of what I am doing. Then I am calculating stuff in the view layer to produce some results: <% winning_long_trades = @long_trades.reject {|trade| trade <= 0 } %> <% winning_short_trades = @short_trades.reject {|trade| trade <= 0 } %> <ul> <li>Total Trades: <%= @trades.count %></li> <li>Winners: <%= @winning_trades.size %></li> <li>Biggest Winner (Pips): <%= @winning_trades.max %></li> <li>Average Win(Pips): <%= @winning_trades.sum/@winning_trades.size %></li> <li>Losers: <%= @losing_trades.size %></li> <li>Biggest Loser (Pips): <%= @losing_trades.min %></li> <li>Average Loss(Pips): <%= @losing_trades.sum/@losing_trades.size %></li> <li>Breakeven Trades: <%= @breakeven_trades.size %></li> <li>Long Trades: <%= @long_trades.size %></li> <li>Winning Long Trades: <%= winning_long_trades.size %></li> <li>Short Trades: <%= @short_trades.size %></li> <li>Winning Short Trades: <%= winning_short_trades.size %></li> <li>Total Pips: <%= @winning_trades.sum + @losing_trades.sum %></li> <li>Win Rate (%): <%= @winning_trades.size/@trades.count.to_f * 100 %></li> </ul> This produces the following results, which aside from a few things is exactly what I want: Total Trades: 134 Winners: 70 Biggest Winner (Pips): 1488 Average Win(Pips): 440 Losers: 58 Biggest Loser (Pips): -516 Average Loss(Pips): -225 Breakeven Trades: 6 Long Trades: 125 Winning Long Trades: 67 Short Trades: 9 Winning Short Trades: 3 Total Pips: 17819 Win Rate (%): 52.23880597014925 What I Am Wondering- Finally The Actual Questions: I am starting to get really skeptical of how well this method will work when a user has 5,000 trades instead of just 134 like in this example. I anticipate most users will only have somewhere under 200 per year, but some users may have a couple thousand trades per year. Probably no more than 5,000 per year. It seems to work ok now, but the page load times are already getting a tad high for my tastes. (About 800ms to generate the page according to rails logs with about a 250ms of that spent in the view layer.) I will end up caching this page I am sure, but I still need the regenerate the page each time a trade is updated and I can't afford to have this be too slow. Sooo..... Is doing something similar here possible with a straight couchdb reduce function? I am assuming handing this off to couch would possibly help with larger data sets. I couldn't figure out how, but I suppose that doesn't mean it isn't possible. If possible, any hints will be helpful. Could I use a list function if a reduce was not available due to reduce constraints? Are couchdb list functions suitable for this type of calculations? Anyone have any idea of whether or not list functions perform well? Any hints what one would look like for the type of calculations I am trying to achieve? I thought about other options such as running the calculations at the time each trade was saved or nightly if I had to and saving the results to a statistics doc that I could then query so that all the processing was done ahead of time. I would like this to be the last resort because then I can't really filter out trades by time periods dynamically like I would really like to. (I want to have a slider that a user can slide to only show trades from that time period using the startkey and endkey in couchdb if I can.) If I should continue running the calculations inside the rails app at the time of the page view, what can I do to improve my current implementation. I am new to rails, couch and programming in general. I am sure that I could be doing something better here. Do I need to create an array for each stat or is there a better way to do that. I guess I just would really like some advice on how to tackle this problem. I want to keep the page generation time minimal since I anticipate these being some of the highest trafficked pages. My gut is that I will need to offload the statistics calculation to either couch or run the stats in advance of when they are called, but I am not sure. Lastly: Like I mentioned above, one of the primary reasons for using couch is to allow users to define their own things to track per trade. Getting the data into couch is no problem, but how would I be able to take the custom_tracking array and find how many winning trades for each named tracking attribute. If anyone can give me any hints to the possibility of doing this that would be great. Thanks a bunch. Would really appreciate any help. Willing to fork out some $$$ if someone wants to take on the problem for me. (Don't know if that is allowed on stack overflow or not.)

  Read the article

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

  - by Ricardo Ferreira

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

  Read the article

• The Minimalist Approach to Content Governance - Retire Phase

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

   Originally posted by John Brunswick. Good news - the Retire Phase is actually more fun than the Manage Phase. During the Retire Phase our content management team should not have to track down content creators if the Request Phase of this process was completed successfully. The ownership meta data, success criteria and time stamp that was applied to the original content submission will help to manage content at the end of the content life cycle. The Retire Phase will provide the opportunity for us to prune irrelevant content items through archiving or deletion, keeping the content system clear of irrelevant information, streamlining users ability to browse and search for content.   1. Act on Metrics Established during the Request Phase Why - Some information is only relevant for a given amount of time. In Content Platform Migration Strategy - Artifacts vs Perishable Content we examined two content types - Artifacts and Perishable content. Understanding the differences between Artifacts and Perishable content will allow us to explicitly respect their various lifespans. Additionally, some content may have been part of a project that failed to meet the success criteria outlined in the Request Phase. Any content that did not meet the metrics outlined in the Request Phase should be considered for deletion. How - Thankfully by adhering to to The Minimalist Approach to Content Governance our content should have some level of meta data associated with it that will allow us to quickly sort and understand how to deal with it. Content Management Systems like Oracle's Universal Content Management (UCM) natively allow you to create and save advanced searches that can use content meta data like folders, author, expiration date, security settings and custom meta data to pull back listings of content for examination. Additionally, analytics are available for all content items that allow us to determine if the usage is meeting success criteria that may have been previously outlined during the request phase. The lists that are produced from these approaches can be quickly reviewed for each project with the content owners and based on the nature of the content and success criteria undergo archiving or deletion. Impact - Retiring content that is no longer relevant will allow end users to have fast and relevant access to information across your enterprise. As we mentioned in our first post in this series - it is easy to quickly start producing content, but the challenge is ensuring that the environment is easy to navigate and use on the third week and during the third year. The light level of effort that was placed into the Request Phase of this process will set us up to keep content clean and relevant for a long time to come. With an up-to-date content repository users will be able to quickly find access to the information that is critical to their work processes. You might not get a holiday named in your honor managing the content system, but will appreciate their quick access to quality information.

  Read the article

• Drawing multiple Textures as tilemap

  - by DocJones

  I am trying to draw a 2d game map and the objects on the map in a single pass. Here is my OpenGL initialization code // Turn off unnecessary operations glDisable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); glDisable(GL_LIGHTING); glDisable(GL_CULL_FACE); glDisable(GL_STENCIL_TEST); glDisable(GL_DITHER); glEnable(GL_BLEND); glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D); // activate pointer to vertex & texture array glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); My drawing code is being called by a NSTimer every 1/60 s. Here is the drawing code of my world object: - (void) draw:(NSRect)rect withTimedDelta:(double)d { GLint *t; glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, [_textureManager textureByName:@"blocks"]); glTexEnvi(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL_REPLACE); for (int x=0; x<[_map getWidth] ; x++) { for (int y=0; y<[_map getHeight] ; y++) { GLint v[] = { 16*x ,16*y, 16*x+16,16*y, 16*x+16,16*y+16, 16*x ,16*y+16 }; t=[_textureManager getBlockWithNumber:[_map getBlockAtX:x andY:y]]; glVertexPointer(2, GL_INT, 0, v); glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_INT, 0, t); glDrawArrays(GL_QUADS, 0, 4); } } } (_textureManager is a Singelton only loading a texture once!) The object drawing codes is identical (except the nested loops) in terms of OpenGL calls: - (void) drawWithTimedDelta:(double)d { GLint *t; GLint v[] = { 16*xpos ,16*ypos, 16*xpos+16,16*ypos, 16*xpos+16,16*ypos+16, 16*xpos ,16*ypos+16 }; glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, [_textureManager textureByName:_textureName]); t=[_textureManager getBlockWithNumber:12]; glVertexPointer(2, GL_INT, 0, v); glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_INT, 0, t); glDrawArrays(GL_QUADS, 0, 4); } As soon as my central drawing routine calls the two drawing methods the second call overlays the first one. i would expect the call to world.draw to draw the map and "stamp" the objects upon it. Debugging shows me, that the first call is performed correctly (world is being drawn), but the following call to all objects ONLY draws the objects, the rest of the scene is getting black. I think i need to blend the drawn textures, but i cant seem to figure out how. Any help is appreciated. Thanks PS: Here is the github link to the project. It may not be in sync of my post here, but for some more in-depth analysis it may help.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297  | Next Page >