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• Easy Made Easier

  - by dragonfly

      How easy is it to deploy a 2 node, fully redundant Oracle RAC cluster? Not very. Unless you use an Oracle Database Appliance. The focus of this member of Oracle's Engineered Systems family is to simplify the configuration, management and maintenance throughout the life of the system, while offering pay-as-you-grow scaling. Getting a 2-node RAC cluster up and running in under 2 hours has been made possible by the Oracle Database Appliance. Don't take my word for it, just check out these blog posts from partners and end users. The Oracle Database Appliance Experience - Zip Zoom Zoom http://www.fuadarshad.com/2012/02/oracle-database-appliance-experience.html Off-the-shelf Oracle database servers http://normanweaver.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/off-the-shelf-oracle-database-servers/ Oracle Database Appliance – Deployment Steps http://marcel.vandewaters.nl/oracle/database-appliance/oracle-database-appliance-deployment-steps     See how easy it is to deploy an Oracle Database Appliance for high availability with RAC? Now for the meat of this post, which is the first in a series of posts describing tips for making the deployment of an ODA even easier. The key to the easy deployment of an Oracle Database Appliance is the Appliance Manager software, which does the actual software deployment and configuration, based on best practices. But in order for it to do that, it needs some basic information first, including system name, IP addresses, etc. That's where the Appliance Manager GUI comes in to play, taking a wizard approach to specifying the information needed.     Using the Appliance Manager GUI is pretty straight forward, stepping through several screens of information to enter data in typical wizard style. Like most configuration tasks, it helps to gather the required information before hand. But before you rush out to a committee meeting on what to use for host names, and rely on whatever IP addresses might be hanging around, make sure you are familiar with some of the auto-fill defaults for the Appliance Manager. I'll step through the key screens below to highlight the results of the auto-fill capability of the Appliance Manager GUI.     Depending on which of the 2 Configuration Types (Config Type screen) you choose, you will get a slightly different set of screens. The Typical configuration assumes certain default configuration choices and has the fewest screens, where as the Custom configuration gives you the most flexibility in what you configure from the start. In the examples below, I have used the Custom config type.     One of the first items you are asked for is the System Name (System Info screen). This is used to identify the system, but also as the base for the default hostnames on following screens. In this screen shot, the System Name is "oda".     When you get to the next screen (Generic Network screen), you enter your domain name, DNS IP address(es), and NTP IP address(es). Next up is the Public Network screen, seen below, where you will see the host name fields are automatically filled in with default host names based on the System Name, in this case "oda". The System Name is also the basis for default host names for the extra ethernet ports available for configuration as part of a Custom configuration, as seen in the 2nd screen shot below (Other Network). There is no requirement to use these host names, as you can easily edit any of the host names. This does make filling in the configuration details easier and less prone to "fat fingers" if you are OK with these host names. Here is a full list of the automatically filled in host names. 1 2 1-vip 2-vip -scan 1-ilom 2-ilom 1-net1 2-net1 1-net2 2-net2 1-net3 2-net3     Another auto-fill feature of the Appliance Manager GUI follows a common practice of deploying IP Addresses for a RAC cluster in sequential order. In the screen shot below, I entered the first IP address (Node1-IP), then hit Tab to move to the next field. As a result, the next 5 IP address fields were automatically filled in with the next 5 IP addresses sequentially from the first one I entered. As with the host names, these are not required, and can be changed to whatever your IP address values are. One note of caution though, if the first IP Address field (Node1-IP) is filled out and you click in that field and back out, the following 5 IP addresses will be set to the sequential default. If you don't use the sequential IP addresses, pay attention to where you click that mouse. :-)     In the screen shot below, by entering the netmask value in the Netmask field, in this case 255.255.255.0, the gateway value was auto-filled into the Gateway field, based on the IP addresses and netmask previously entered. As always, you can change this value.     My last 2 screen shots illustrate that the same sequential IP address autofill and netmask to gateway autofill works when entering the IP configuration details for the Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) for both nodes. The time these auto-fill capabilities save in entering data is nice, but from my perspective not as important as the opportunity to avoid data entry errors. In my next post in this series, I will touch on the benefit of using the network validation capability of the Appliance Manager GUI prior to deploying an Oracle Database Appliance.

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• Best Method For Evaluating Existing Software or New Software

  How many of us have been faced with having to decide on an off-the-self or a custom built component, application, or solution to integrate in to an existing system or to be the core foundation of a new system? What is the best method for evaluating existing software or new software still in the design phase? One of the industry preferred methodologies to use is the Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs (ARID) evaluation process.  ARID is a hybrid mixture of the Active Design Review (ADR) methodology and the Architectural Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM). So what is ARID? ARD’s main goal is to ensure quality, detailed designs in software. One way in which it does this is by empowering reviewers by assigning generic open ended survey questions. This approach attempts to remove the possibility for allowing the standard answers such as “Yes” or “No”. The ADR process ignores the “Yes”/”No” questions due to the fact that they can be leading based on how the question is asked. Additionally these questions tend to receive less thought in comparison to more open ended questions. Common Active Design Review Questions What possible exceptions can occur in this component, application, or solution? How should exceptions be handled in this component, application, or solution? Where should exceptions be handled in this component, application, or solution? How should the component, application, or solution flow based on the design? What is the maximum execution time for every component, application, or solution? What environments can this component, application, or solution? What data dependencies does this component, application, or solution have? What kind of data does this component, application, or solution require? Ok, now I know what ARID is, how can I apply? Let’s imagine that your organization is going to purchase an off-the-shelf (OTS) solution for its customer-relationship management software. What process would we use to ensure that the correct purchase is made? If we use ARID, then we will have a series of 9 steps broken up by 2 phases in order to ensure that the correct OTS solution is purchases. Phase 1 Identify the Reviewers Prepare the Design Briefing Prepare the Seed Scenarios Prepare the Materials When identifying reviewers for a design it is preferred that they be pulled from a candidate pool comprised of developers that are going to implement the design. The believe is that developers actually implementing the design will have more a vested interest in ensuring that the design is correct prior to the start of code. Design debriefing consist of a summary of the design, examples of the design solving real world examples put in to use and should be no longer than two hours typically. The primary goal of this briefing is to adequately summarize the design so that the review members could actually implement the design. In the example of purchasing an OTS product I would attempt to review my briefing prior to its distribution with the review facilitator to ensure that nothing was excluded that should have not been. This practice will also allow me to test the length of the briefing to ensure that can be delivered in an appropriate about of time. Seed Scenarios are designed to illustrate conceptualized scenarios when applied with a set of sample data. These scenarios can then be used by the reviewers in the actual evaluation of the software, All materials needed for the evaluation should be prepared ahead of time so that they can be reviewed prior to and during the meeting. Materials Included: Presentation Seed Scenarios Review Agenda Phase 2 Present ARID Present Design Brainstorm and prioritize scenarios Apply scenarios Summarize Prior to the start of any ARID review meeting the Facilitator should define the remaining steps of ARID so that all the participants know exactly what they are doing prior to the start of the review process. Once the ARID rules have been laid out, then the lead designer presents an overview of the design which typically takes about two hours. During this time no questions about the design or rational are allowed to be asked by the review panel as a standard, but they are written down for use latter in the process. After the presentation the list of compiled questions is then summarized and sent back to the lead designer as areas that need to be addressed further. In the example of purchasing an OTS product issues could arise regarding security, the implementation needed or even if this is this the correct product to solve the needed solution. After the Design presentation a brainstorming and prioritize scenarios process begins by reducing the seed scenarios down to just the highest priority scenarios.  These will then be used to test the design for suitability. Once the selected scenarios have been defined the reviewers apply the examples provided in the presentation to the scenarios. The intended output of this process is to provide code or pseudo code that makes use of the examples provided while solving the selected seed scenarios. As a standard rule, the designers of the systems are not allowed to help the review board unless they all become stuck. When this occurs it is documented and along with the reason why the designer needed to help the review panel back on track. Once all of the scenarios have been completed the review facilitator reviews with the group issues that arise during the process. Then the reviewers will be polled as to efficacy of the review experience. References: Clements, Paul., Kazman, Rick., Klien, Mark. (2002). Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies Indianapolis, IN: Addison-Wesley

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• Books are Dead! Long Live the Books!

  - by smisner

  We live in interesting times with regard to the availability of technical material. We have lots of free written material online in the form of vendor documentation online, forums, blogs, and Twitter. And we have written material that we can buy in the form of books, magazines, and training materials. Online videos and training – some free and some not free – are also an option. All of these formats are useful for one need or another. As an author, I pay particular attention to the demand for books, and for now I see no reason to stop authoring books. I assure you that I don’t get rich from the effort, and fortunately that is not my motivation. As someone who likes to refer to books frequently, I am still a big believer in books and have evidence from book sales that there are others like me. If I can do my part to help others learn about the technologies I work with, I will continue to produce content in a variety of formats, including books. (You can view a list of all of my books on the Publications page of my site and my online training videos at Pluralsight.) As a consumer of technical information, I prefer books because a book typically can get into a topic much more deeply than a blog post, and can provide more context than vendor documentation. It comes with a table of contents and a (hopefully accurate) index that helps me zero in on a topic of interest, and of course I can use the Search feature in digital form. Some people suggest that technology books are outdated as soon as they get published. I guess it depends on where you are with technology. Not everyone is able to upgrade to the latest and greatest version at release. I do assume, however, that the SQL Server 7.0 titles in my library have little value for me now, but I’m certain that the minute I discard the book, I’m going to want it for some reason! Meanwhile, as electronic books overtake physical books in sales, my husband is grateful that I can continue to build my collection digitally rather than physically as the books have a way of taking over significant square footage in our house! Blog posts, on the other hand, are useful for describing the scenarios that come up in real-life implementations that wouldn’t fit neatly into a book. As many years that I have working with the Microsoft BI stack, I still run into new problems that require creative thinking. Likewise, people who work with BI and other technologies that I use share what they learn through their blogs. Internet search engines help us find information in blogs that simply isn’t available anywhere else. Another great thing about blogs, also, is the connection to community and the dialog that can ensue between people with common interests. With the trend towards electronic formats for books, I imagine that we’ll see books continue to adapt to incorporate different forms of media and better ways to keep the information current. At the moment, I wish I had a better way to help readers with my last two Reporting Services books. In the case of the Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Reporting Services Step by Step book, I have heard many cases of readers having problems with the sample database that shipped on CD – either the database was missing or it was corrupt. So I’ve provided a copy of the database on my site for download from http://datainspirations.com/uploads/rs2005sbsDW.zip. Then for the Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 Reporting Services Step by Step book, we decided to avoid the database problem by using the AdventureWorks2008 samples that Microsoft published on Codeplex (although code samples are still available on CD). We had this silly idea that the URL for the download would remain constant, but it seems that expectation was ill-founded. Currently, the sample database is found at http://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/37109 but I have no idea how long that will remain valid. My latest books (#9 and #10 which are milestones I never anticipated), Building Integrated Business Intelligence Solutions with SQL Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010 (McGraw Hill, 2011) and Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (Microsoft Press, 2011), will not ship with a CD, but will provide all code samples for download at a site maintained by the respective publishers. I expect that the URLs for the downloads for the book will remain valid, but there are lots of references to other sites that can change or disappear over time. Does that mean authors shouldn’t make reference to such sites? Personally, I think the benefits to be gained from including links are greater than the risks of the links becoming invalid at some point. Do you think the time for technology books has come to an end? Is the delivery of books in electronic format enough to keep them alive? If technological barriers were no object, what would make a book more valuable to you than other formats through which you can obtain information?

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• Computer Networks UNISA - Chap 15 &ndash; Network Management

  - by MarkPearl

  After reading this section you should be able to Understand network management and the importance of documentation, baseline measurements, policies, and regulations to assess and maintain a network’s health. Manage a network’s performance using SNMP-based network management software, system and event logs, and traffic-shaping techniques Identify the reasons for and elements of an asset managements system Plan and follow regular hardware and software maintenance routines Fundamentals of Network Management Network management refers to the assessment, monitoring, and maintenance of all aspects of a network including checking for hardware faults, ensuring high QoS, maintaining records of network assets, etc. Scope of network management differs depending on the size and requirements of the network. All sub topics of network management share the goals of enhancing the efficiency and performance while preventing costly downtime or loss. Documentation The way documentation is stored may vary, but to adequately manage a network one should at least record the following… Physical topology (types of LAN and WAN topologies – ring, star, hybrid) Access method (does it use Ethernet 802.3, token ring, etc.) Protocols Devices (Switches, routers, etc) Operating Systems Applications Configurations (What version of operating system and config files for serve / client software) Baseline Measurements A baseline is a report of the network’s current state of operation. Baseline measurements might include the utilization rate for your network backbone, number of users logged on per day, etc. Baseline measurements allow you to compare future performance increases or decreases caused by network changes or events with past network performance. Obtaining baseline measurements is the only way to know for certain whether a pattern of usage has changed, or whether a network upgrade has made a difference. There are various tools available for measuring baseline performance on a network. Policies, Procedures, and Regulations Following rules helps limit chaos, confusion, and possibly downtime. The following policies and procedures and regulations make for sound network management. Media installations and management (includes designing physical layout of cable, etc.) Network addressing policies (includes choosing and applying a an addressing scheme) Resource sharing and naming conventions (includes rules for logon ID’s) Security related policies Troubleshooting procedures Backup and disaster recovery procedures In addition to internal policies, a network manager must consider external regulatory rules. Fault and Performance Management After documenting every aspect of your network and following policies and best practices, you are ready to asses you networks status on an on going basis. This process includes both performance management and fault management. Network Management Software To accomplish both fault and performance management, organizations often use enterprise-wide network management software. There various software packages that do this, each collect data from multiple networked devices at regular intervals, in a process called polling. Each managed device runs a network management agent. So as not to affect the performance of a device while collecting information, agents do not demand significant processing resources. The definition of a managed devices and their data are collected in a MIB (Management Information Base). Agents communicate information about managed devices via any of several application layer protocols. On modern networks most agents use SNMP which is part of the TCP/IP suite and typically runs over UDP on port 161. Because of the flexibility and sophisticated network management applications are a challenge to configure and fine-tune. One needs to be careful to only collect relevant information and not cause performance issues (i.e. pinging a device every 5 seconds can be a problem with thousands of devices). MRTG (Multi Router Traffic Grapher) is a simple command line utility that uses SNMP to poll devices and collects data in a log file. MRTG can be used with Windows, UNIX and Linux. System and Event Logs Virtually every condition recognized by an operating system can be recorded. This is typically done using event logs. In Windows there is a GUI event log viewer. Similar information is recorded in UNIX and Linux in a system log. Much of the information collected in event logs and syslog files does not point to a problem, even if it is marked with a warning so it is important to filter your logs appropriately to reduce the noise. Traffic Shaping When a network must handle high volumes of network traffic, users benefit from performance management technique called traffic shaping. Traffic shaping involves manipulating certain characteristics of packets, data streams, or connections to manage the type and amount of traffic traversing a network or interface at any moment. Its goals are to assure timely delivery of the most important traffic while offering the best possible performance for all users. Several types of traffic prioritization exist including prioritizing traffic according to any of the following characteristics… Protocol IP address User group DiffServr VLAN tag in a Data Link layer frame Service or application Caching In addition to traffic shaping, a network or host might use caching to improve performance. Caching is the local storage of frequently needed files that would otherwise be obtained from an external source. By keeping files close to the requester, caching allows the user to access those files quickly. The most common type of caching is Web caching, in which Web pages are stored locally. To an ISP, caching is much more than just convenience. It prevents a significant volume of WAN traffic, thus improving performance and saving money. Asset Management Another key component in managing networks is identifying and tracking its hardware. This is called asset management. The first step to asset management is to take an inventory of each node on the network. You will also want to keep records of every piece of software purchased by your organization. Asset management simplifies maintaining and upgrading the network chiefly because you know what the system includes. In addition, asset management provides network administrators with information about the costs and benefits of certain types of hardware or software. Change Management Networks are always in a stage of flux with various aspects including… Software changes and patches Client Upgrades Shared Application Upgrades NOS Upgrades Hardware and Physical Plant Changes Cabling Upgrades Backbone Upgrades For a detailed explanation on each of these read the textbook (Page 750 – 761)

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• "Yes, but that's niche."

  - by Geertjan

  JavaOne 2012 has come to an end though it feels like it hasn't even started yet! What happened, time is a weird thing. Too many things to report on. James Gosling's appearance at the JavaOne community keynote was seen, by everyone (which is quite a lot) of people I talked to, as the highlight of the conference. It was interesting that the software for the Duke's Choice Award winning Liquid Robotics that James Gosling is now part of and came to talk about is a Swing application that uses the WorldWind libraries. It was also interesting that James Gosling pointed out to the conference: "There are things you can't do using HTML." That brings me to the wonderful counter argument to the above, which I spend my time running into a lot: "Yes, but that's niche." It's a killer argument, i.e., it kills all discussions completely in one fell swoop. Kind of when you're talking about someone and then this sentence drops into the conversation: "Yes, but she's got cancer now." Here's one implementation of "Yes, but that's niche": Person A: All applications are moving to the web, tablet, and mobile phone. That's especially true now with HTML5, which is going to wipe away everything everywhere and all applications are going to be browser based. Person B: What about air traffic control applications? Will they run on mobile phones too? And do you see defence applications running in a browser? Don't you agree that there are multiple scenarios imaginable where the Java desktop is the optimal platform for running applications? Person A: Yes, but that's niche. Here's another implementation, though it contradicts the above [despite often being used by the same people], since JavaFX is a Java desktop technology: Person A: Swing is dead. Everyone is going to be using purely JavaFX and nothing else. Person B: Does JavaFX have a docking framework and a module system? Does it have a plugin system?  These are some of the absolutely basic requirements of Java desktop software once you get to high end systems, e.g., banks, defence force, oil/gas services. Those kinds of applications need a web browser and so they love the JavaFX WebView component and they also love the animated JavaFX charting components. But they need so much more than that, i.e., an application framework. Aren't there requirements that JavaFX isn't meeting since it is a UI toolkit, just like Swing is a UI toolkit, and what they have in common is their lack, i.e., natively, of any kind of application framework? Don't people need more than a single window and a monolithic application structure? Person A: Yes, but that's niche. In other words, anything that doesn't fit within the currently dominant philosophy is "niche", for no other reason than that it doesn't fit within the currently dominant philosophy... regardless of the actual needs of real developers. Saying "Yes, but that's niche", kills the discussion completely, because it relegates one side of the conversation to the arcane and irrelevant corners of the universe. You're kind of like Cobol now, as soon as "Yes, but that's niche" is said. What's worst about "Yes, but that's niche" is that it doesn't enter into any discussion about user requirements, i.e., there's so few that need this particular solution that we don't even need to talk about them anymore. Note, of course, that I'm not referring specifically or generically to anyone or anything in particular. Just picking up from conversations I've picked up on as I was scurrying around the Hilton's corridors while looking for the location of my next presentation over the past few days. It does, however, mean that there were people thinking "Yes, but that's niche" while listening to James Gosling pointing out that HTML is not the be-all and end-all of absolutely everything. And so this all leaves me wondering: How many applications must be part of a niche for the niche to no longer be a niche? And what if there are multiple small niches that have the same requirements? Don't all those small niches together form a larger whole, one that should be taken seriously, i.e., a whole that is not a niche?

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• Coping with infrastructure upgrades

  - by Fatherjack

  A common topic for questions on SQL Server forums is how to plan and implement upgrades to SQL Server. Moving from old to new hardware or moving from one version of SQL Server to another. There are other circumstances where upgrades of other systems affect SQL Server DBAs. For example, where I work at the moment there is an Microsoft Exchange (email) server upgrade in progress. It it being handled by a different team so I’m not wholly sure on the details but we are in a situation where there are currently 2 Exchange email servers – the old one and the new one. Users mail boxes are being transferred in a planned process but as we approach the old server being turned off we have to also make sure that our SQL Servers get updated to use the new SMTP server for all of the SQL Agent notifications, SSIS packages etc. My servers have a number of profiles so that various jobs can send emails on behalf of various departments and different systems. This means there are lots of places that the old server name needs to be replaced by the new one. Anyone who has set up DBMail and enjoyed the click-tastic odyssey of screens to create Profiles and Accounts and so on and so forth ought to seek some professional help in my opinion. It’s a nightmare of back and forth settings changes and it stinks. I wasn’t looking forward to heading into this mess of a UI and changing the old Exchange server name for the new one on all my SQL Instances for all of the accounts I have set up. So I did what any Englishmen with a shed would do, I decided to take it apart and see if I can fix it another way. I took a guess that we are going to be working in MSDB and Books OnLine was remarkably helpful and amongst a lot of information told me about a couple of procedures that can be used to interrogate DBMail settings. USE [msdb] -- It's where all the good stuff is kept GO EXEC dbo.sysmail_help_profile_sp; EXEC dbo.sysmail_help_account_sp; Both of these procedures take optional parameters with the same name – ID and Name. If you provide an ID or a name then the results you get back are for that specific Profile or Account. Otherwise you get details of all Profiles and Accounts on the server you are connected to. As you can see (click for a bigger image), the Account has the SMTP server information in the servername column. We want to change that value to NewSMTP.Contoso.com. Now it appears that the procedure we are looking at gets it’s data from the sysmail_account and sysmail_server tables, you can get the results the stored procedure provides if you run the code below. SELECT [account_id] , [name] , [description] , [email_address] , [display_name] , [replyto_address] , [last_mod_datetime] , [last_mod_user] FROM dbo.sysmail_account AS sa; SELECT [account_id] , [servertype] , [servername] , [port] , [username] , [credential_id] , [use_default_credentials] , [enable_ssl] , [flags] , [last_mod_datetime] , [last_mod_user] , [timeout] FROM dbo.sysmail_server AS sms Now, we have no real idea how these tables are linked and whether making an update direct to one or other of them is going to do what we want or whether it will entirely cripple our ability to send email from SQL Server so we wont touch those tables with any UPDATE TSQL. So, back to Books OnLine then and we find sysmail_update_account_sp. It’s exactly what we need. The examples in BOL take the form (as below) of having every parameter explicitly defined. Not wanting to totally obliterate the existing values by not passing values in all of the parameters I set to writing some code to gather the existing data from the tables and re-write the SMTP server name and then execute the resulting TSQL. IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#sysmailprofiles') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE #sysmailprofiles GO CREATE TABLE #sysmailprofiles ( account_id INT , [name] VARCHAR(50) , [description] VARCHAR(500) , email_address VARCHAR(500) , display_name VARCHAR(500) , replyto_address VARCHAR(500) , servertype VARCHAR(10) , servername VARCHAR(100) , port INT , username VARCHAR(100) , use_default_credentials VARCHAR(1) , ENABLE_ssl VARCHAR(1) ) INSERT [#sysmailprofiles] ( [account_id] , [name] , [description] , [email_address] , [display_name] , [replyto_address] , [servertype] , [servername] , [port] , [username] , [use_default_credentials] , [ENABLE_ssl] ) EXEC [dbo].[sysmail_help_account_sp] DECLARE @TSQL NVARCHAR(1000) SELECT TOP 1 @TSQL = 'EXEC [dbo].[sysmail_update_account_sp] @account_id = ' + CAST([s].[account_id] AS VARCHAR(20)) + ', @account_name = ''' + [s].[name] + '''' + ', @email_address = N''' + [s].[email_address] + '''' + ', @display_name = N''' + [s].[display_name] + '''' + ', @replyto_address = N''' + s.replyto_address + '''' + ', @description = N''' + [s].[description] + '''' + ', @mailserver_name = ''NEWSMTP.contoso.com''' + +', @mailserver_type = ' + [s].[servertype] + ', @port = ' + CAST([s].[port] AS VARCHAR(20)) + ', @username = ' + COALESCE([s].[username], '''''') + ', @use_default_credentials =' + CAST(s.[use_default_credentials] AS VARCHAR(1)) + ', @enable_ssl =' + [s].[ENABLE_ssl] FROM [#sysmailprofiles] AS s WHERE [s].[servername] = 'SMTP.Contoso.com' SELECT @tsql EXEC [sys].[sp_executesql] @tsql This worked well for me and testing the email function EXEC dbo.sp_send_dbmail afterwards showed that the settings were indeed using our new Exchange server. It was only later in writing this blog that I tried running the sysmail_update_account_sp procedure with only the SMTP server name parameter value specified. Despite what Books OnLine might intimate, you can do this and only the values for parameters specified get changed. If a parameter is not specified in the execution of the procedure then the values remain unchanged. This renders most of the above script unnecessary as I could have simply specified the account_id that I want to amend and the new value for the parameter I want to update. EXEC sysmail_update_account_sp @account_id = 1, @mailserver_name = 'NEWSMTP.Contoso.com' This wasn’t going to be the main reason for this post, it was meant to describe how to capture values from a stored procedure and use them in dynamic TSQL but instead we are here and (re)learning the fact that Books Online is a little flawed in places. It is a fantastic resource for anyone working with SQL Server but the reader must adopt an enquiring frame of mind and use a little curiosity to try simple variations on examples to fully understand the code you are working with. I think the author(s) of this part of Books OnLine missed an opportunity to include a third example that had fewer than all parameters specified to give a lead to this method existing.

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• Composing Silverlight Applications With MEF

  - by PeterTweed

  Anyone who has written an application with complexity enough to warrant multiple controls on multiple pages/forms should understand the benefit of composite application development.  That is defining your application architecture that can be separated into separate pieces each with it’s own distinct purpose that can then be “composed” together into the solution. Composition can be useful in any layer of the application, from the presentation layer, the business layer, common services or data access.  Historically people have had different options to achieve composing applications from distinct well known pieces – their own version of dependency injection, containers to aid with composition like Unity, the composite application guidance for WPF and Silverlight and before that the composite application block. Microsoft has been working on another mechanism to aid composition and extension of applications for some time now – the Managed Extensibility Framework or MEF for short.  With Silverlight 4 it is part of the Silverlight environment.  MEF allows a much simplified mechanism for composition and extensibility compared to other mechanisms – which has always been the primary issue for adoption of the earlier mechanisms/frameworks. This post will guide you through the simple use of MEF for the scenario of composition of an application – using exports, imports and composition.  Steps: 1.     Create a new Silverlight 4 application. 2.     Add references to the following assemblies: System.ComponentModel.Composition.dll System.ComponentModel.Composition.Initialization.dll 3.     Add a new user control called LeftControl. 4.     Replace the LayoutRoot Grid with the following xaml:     <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Beige" Margin="40" >         <Button Content="Left Content" Margin="30"></Button>     </Grid> 5.     Add the following statement to the top of the LeftControl.xaml.cs file using System.ComponentModel.Composition; 6.     Add the following attribute to the LeftControl class     [Export(typeof(LeftControl))]   This attribute tells MEF that the type LeftControl will be exported – i.e. made available for other applications to import and compose into the application. 7.     Add a new user control called RightControl. 8.     Replace the LayoutRoot Grid with the following xaml:     <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Green" Margin="40"  >         <TextBlock Margin="40" Foreground="White" Text="Right Control" FontSize="16" VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" ></TextBlock>     </Grid> 9.     Add the following statement to the top of the RightControl.xaml.cs file using System.ComponentModel.Composition; 10.   Add the following attribute to the RightControl class     [Export(typeof(RightControl))] 11.   Add the following xaml to the LayoutRoot Grid in MainPage.xaml:         <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalAlignment="Center">             <Border Name="LeftContent" Background="Red" BorderBrush="Gray" CornerRadius="20"></Border>             <Border Name="RightContent" Background="Red" BorderBrush="Gray" CornerRadius="20"></Border>         </StackPanel>   The borders will hold the controls that will be imported and composed via MEF. 12.   Add the following statement to the top of the MainPage.xaml.cs file using System.ComponentModel.Composition; 13.   Add the following properties to the MainPage class:         [Import(typeof(LeftControl))]         public LeftControl LeftUserControl { get; set; }         [Import(typeof(RightControl))]         public RightControl RightUserControl { get; set; }   This defines properties accepting LeftControl and RightControl types.  The attrributes are used to tell MEF the discovered type that should be applied to the property when composition occurs. 14.   Replace the MainPage constructore with the following code:         public MainPage()         {             InitializeComponent();             CompositionInitializer.SatisfyImports(this);             LeftContent.Child = LeftUserControl;             RightContent.Child = RightUserControl;         }   The CompositionInitializer.SatisfyImports(this) function call tells MEF to discover types related to the declared imports for this object (the MainPage object).  At that point, types matching those specified in the import defintions are discovered in the executing assembly location of the application and instantiated and assigned to the matching properties of the current object. 15.   Run the application and you will see the left control and right control types displayed in the MainPage:   Congratulations!  You have used MEF to dynamically compose user controls into a parent control in a composite application model. In the next post we will build on this topic to cover using MEF to compose Silverlight applications dynamically in download on demand scenarios – so .xap packages can be downloaded only when needed, avoiding large initial download for the main application xap. Take the Slalom Challenge at www.slalomchallenge.com!

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• TFS API Add Favorites programmatically

  - by Tarun Arora

  01 – What are we trying to achieve? In this blog post I’ll be showing you how to add work item queries as favorites, it is also possible to use the same technique to add build definition as favorites. Once a shared query or build definition has been added as favorite it will show up on the team web access.  In this blog post I’ll be showing you a work around in the absence of a proper API how you can add queries to team favorites. 02 – Disclaimer There is no official API for adding favorites programmatically. In the work around below I am using the Identity service to store this data in a property bag which is used during display of favorites on the team web site. This uses an internal data structure that could change over time, there is no guarantee about the key names or content of the values. What is shown below is a workaround for a missing API. 03 – Concept There is no direct API support for favorites, but you could work around it using the identity service in TFS.  Favorites are stored in the property bag associated with the TeamFoundationIdentity (either the ‘team’ identity or the users identity depending on if these are ‘team’ or ‘my’ favorites).  The data is stored as json in the property bag of the identity, the key being prefixed by ‘Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Server.IdentityFavorites’. References - Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client - using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client; - using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Client; - using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Common; - using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.ProcessConfiguration.Client; - using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Server; - using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client; Services - IIdentityManagementService2 - TfsTeamService - WorkItemStore 04 – Solution Lets start by connecting to TFS programmatically // Create an instance of the services to be used during the program private static TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs; private static ProjectInfo _selectedTeamProject; private static WorkItemStore _wis; private static TfsTeamService _tts; private static TeamSettingsConfigurationService _teamConfig; private static IIdentityManagementService2 _ids; // Connect to TFS programmatically public static bool ConnectToTfs() { var isSelected = false; var tfsPp = new TeamProjectPicker(TeamProjectPickerMode.SingleProject, false); tfsPp.ShowDialog(); _tfs = tfsPp.SelectedTeamProjectCollection; if (tfsPp.SelectedProjects.Any()) { _selectedTeamProject = tfsPp.SelectedProjects[0]; isSelected = true; } return isSelected; } Lets get all the work item queries from the selected team project static readonly Dictionary<string, string> QueryAndGuid = new Dictionary<string, string>(); // Get all queries and query guid in the selected team project private static void GetQueryGuidList(IEnumerable<QueryItem> query) { foreach (QueryItem subQuery in query) { if (subQuery.GetType() == typeof(QueryFolder)) GetQueryGuidList((QueryFolder)subQuery); else { QueryAndGuid.Add(subQuery.Name, subQuery.Id.ToString()); } } }   Pass the name of a valid Team in your team project and a name of a valid query in your team project. The team details will be extracted using the team name and query GUID will be extracted using the query name. These details will be used to construct the key and value that will be passed to the SetProperty method in the Identity service.           Key           “Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Server.IdentityFavorites..<TeamProjectURI>.<TeamId>.WorkItemTracking.Queries.<newGuid1>”           Value           "{"data":"<QueryGuid>","id":"<NewGuid1>","name":"<QueryKey>","type":"Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.QueryItem”}"           // Configure a Work Item Query for the given team private static void ConfigureTeamFavorites(string teamName, string queryName) { _ids = _tfs.GetService<IIdentityManagementService2>(); var g = Guid.NewGuid(); var guid = string.Empty; var teamDetail = _tts.QueryTeams(_selectedTeamProject.Uri).FirstOrDefault(t => t.Name == teamName); foreach (var q in QueryAndGuid.Where(q => q.Key == queryName)) { guid = q.Value; } if(guid == string.Empty) { Console.WriteLine("Query '{0}' - Not found!", queryName); return; } var key = string.Format( "Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Server.IdentityFavorites..{0}.{1}.WorkItemTracking.Queries{2}", new Uri(_selectedTeamProject.Uri).Segments.LastOrDefault(), teamDetail.Identity.TeamFoundationId, g); var value = string.Format( @"{0}""data"":""{1}"",""id"":""{2}"",""name"":""{3}"",""type"":""Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.QueryItem""{4}", "{", guid, g, QueryAndGuid.FirstOrDefault(q => q.Value==guid).Key, "}"); teamDetail.Identity.SetProperty(IdentityPropertyScope.Local, key, value); _ids.UpdateExtendedProperties(teamDetail.Identity); Console.WriteLine("{0}Added Query '{1}' as Favorite", Environment.NewLine, queryName); }   If you have any questions or suggestions leave a comment. Enjoy!

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• Some New .NET Downloads and Resources

  - by Kevin Grossnicklaus

  Last week I was fortunate enough to spend time in Redmond on Microsoft’s campus for the 2011 Microsoft MVP Summit.  It was great to hang out with a number of old friends and get the opportunity to talk tech with the various product teams up at Microsoft.  The weather wasn’t exactly sunny but Microsoft always does a great job with the Summit and everyone had a blast (heck, I even got to run the bases at SafeCo field) While much of what we saw is covered under NDA, there a ton of great things in the pipeline from Microsoft and many things that are already available (or just became so) that I wasn’t necessarily aware of.  The purpose of this post is to share some of the info I learned on resources and tools available to .NET developers today.  Please let me know if you have any questions (or if you know of something else cool which might benefit others). Enjoy! Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Microsoft has issued the RTM release of Visual Studio 2010 SP1.  You can download the full SP1 on MSDN as of today (March 10th to the general public) and take advantage of such things as: Silverlight 4 is included in the box (as opposed to a separate install) Silverlight 4 Profiling WCF RIA Services SP1 Intellitrace for 64-bit and SharePoint ASP.NET now easily supports IIS Express and SQL CE Want a description of all that’s new beyond the above biased list (which arguably only contains items I think are important)?  Check out this KB article. Portable Library Tools CTP Without much fanfare Microsoft has released a CTP of a new add-in to Visual Studio 2010 which simplifies code sharing between projects targeting different runtimes (i.e. Silverlight, WPF, Win7 Phone, XBox).   With this Add-In installed you can add a new project of type “Portable Library” and specify which platforms you wish to target.  Once that is done, any code added to this library will be limited to use only features which are common to all selected frameworks.  Other projects can now reference this portable library and be provided assemblies custom built to their environment.  This greatly simplifies the current process of sharing linked files between platforms like WPF and Silverlight.  You can find out more about this CTP and how it works on this great blog post. Visual Studio Async CTP Microsoft has also released a CTP of a set of language and framework enhancements to provide a much more powerful asynchronous programming model.   Due to the focus on async programming in all types of platforms (and it being the ONLY option in Silverlight and Win7 phone) a move towards a simpler and more understandable model is always a good thing. This CTP (called Visual Studio Async CTP) can be downloaded here.  You can read more about this CTP on this blog post. MSDN Code Samples Gallery Microsoft has also launched new code samples gallery on their MSDN site: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/.   This site allows you to easily search for small samples of code related to a particular technology or platform.  If a sample of code you are looking for is not found, you can request one via the site and other developers can see your request and provide a sample to the site to suit your needs.  You can also peruse requested samples and, if you find a scenario where you can provide value, upload your own sample for the benefit of others.  Samples are packaged into the VS .vsix format and include any necessary references/dependencies.  By using .vsix as the deployment mechanism, as samples are installed from the site they are kept in your Visual Studio 2010 Samples Gallery and kept for your future reference. If you get a chance, check out the site and see how it is done.  Although a somewhat simple concept, I was very impressed with their implementation and the way they went about trying to suit a need.  I’ll definitely be looking there in the future as need something or want to share something. MSDN Search Capabilities Another item I learned recently and was not aware of (that might seem trivial to some) is the power of the MSDN site’s search capabilities.  Between the Code Samples Gallery described above and the search enhancements on MSDN, Microsoft is definitely investing in their platform to help provide developers of all skill levels the tools and resources they need to be successful. What do I mean by the MSDN search capability and why should you care? If you go to the MSDN home page (http://msdn.microsoft.com) and use the “Search MSDN with Big” box at the very top of the page you will see some very interesting results.  First, the search actually doesn’t just search the MSDN library it searches: MSDN Library All Microsoft Blogs CodePlex StackOverflow Downloads MSDN Magazine Support Knowledgebase (I’m not sure it even ends there but the above are all I know of) Beyond just searching all the above locations, the results are formatted very nicely to give some contextual information based on where the result came from.  For example, if a keyword search returned results from CodePlex, each row in the search results screen would include a large amount of information specific to CodePlex such as: Looking at the above results immediately tells you everything from the page views to the CodePlex ratings.  All in all, knowing that this much information is indexed and available from a single search location will lead me to utilize this as one of my initial searches for development information.

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• Big Data – Buzz Words: What is HDFS – Day 8 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned what is MapReduce. In this article we will take a quick look at one of the four most important buzz words which goes around Big Data – HDFS. What is HDFS ? HDFS stands for Hadoop Distributed File System and it is a primary storage system used by Hadoop. It provides high performance access to data across Hadoop clusters. It is usually deployed on low-cost commodity hardware. In commodity hardware deployment server failures are very common. Due to the same reason HDFS is built to have high fault tolerance. The data transfer rate between compute nodes in HDFS is very high, which leads to reduced risk of failure. HDFS creates smaller pieces of the big data and distributes it on different nodes. It also copies each smaller piece to multiple times on different nodes. Hence when any node with the data crashes the system is automatically able to use the data from a different node and continue the process. This is the key feature of the HDFS system. Architecture of HDFS The architecture of the HDFS is master/slave architecture. An HDFS cluster always consists of single NameNode. This single NameNode is a master server and it manages the file system as well regulates access to various files. In additional to NameNode there are multiple DataNodes. There is always one DataNode for each data server. In HDFS a big file is split into one or more blocks and those blocks are stored in a set of DataNodes. The primary task of the NameNode is to open, close or rename files and directory and regulate access to the file system, whereas the primary task of the DataNode is read and write to the file systems. DataNode is also responsible for the creation, deletion or replication of the data based on the instruction from NameNode. In reality, NameNode and DataNode are software designed to run on commodity machine build in Java language. Visual Representation of HDFS Architecture Let us understand how HDFS works with the help of the diagram. Client APP or HDFS Client connects to NameSpace as well as DataNode. Client App access to the DataNode is regulated by NameSpace Node. NameSpace Node allows Client App to connect to the DataNode based by allowing the connection to the DataNode directly. A big data file is divided into multiple data blocks (let us assume that those data chunks are A,B,C and D. Client App will later on write data blocks directly to the DataNode. Client App does not have to directly write to all the node. It just has to write to any one of the node and NameNode will decide on which other DataNode it will have to replicate the data. In our example Client App directly writes to DataNode 1 and detained 3. However, data chunks are automatically replicated to other nodes. All the information like in which DataNode which data block is placed is written back to NameNode. High Availability During Disaster Now as multiple DataNode have same data blocks in the case of any DataNode which faces the disaster, the entire process will continue as other DataNode will assume the role to serve the specific data block which was on the failed node. This system provides very high tolerance to disaster and provides high availability. If you notice there is only single NameNode in our architecture. If that node fails our entire Hadoop Application will stop performing as it is a single node where we store all the metadata. As this node is very critical, it is usually replicated on another clustered as well as on another data rack. Though, that replicated node is not operational in architecture, it has all the necessary data to perform the task of the NameNode in the case of the NameNode fails. The entire Hadoop architecture is built to function smoothly even there are node failures or hardware malfunction. It is built on the simple concept that data is so big it is impossible to have come up with a single piece of the hardware which can manage it properly. We need lots of commodity (cheap) hardware to manage our big data and hardware failure is part of the commodity servers. To reduce the impact of hardware failure Hadoop architecture is built to overcome the limitation of the non-functioning hardware. Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss the importance of the relational database in Big Data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• 5 Android Keyboard Replacements to Help You Type Faster

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Android allows developers to replace its keyboard with their own keyboard apps. This has led to experimentation and great new features, like the gesture-typing feature that’s made its way into Android’s official keyboard after proving itself in third-party keyboards. This sort of customization isn’t possible on Apple’s iOS or even Microsoft’s modern Windows environments. Installing a third-party keyboard is easy — install it from Google Play, launch it like another app, and it will explain how to enable it. Google Keyboard Google Keyboard is Android’s official keyboard, as seen on Google’s Nexus devices. However, there’s a good chance your Android smartphone or tablet comes with a keyboard designed by its manufacturer instead. You can install the Google Keyboard from Google Play, even if your device doesn’t come with it. This keyboard offers a wide variety of features, including a built-in gesture-typing feature, as popularized by Swype. It also offers prediction, including full next-word prediction based on your previous word, and includes voice recognition that works offline on modern versions of Android. Google’s keyboard may not offer the most accurate swiping feature or the best autocorrection, but it’s a great keyboard that feels like it belongs in Android. SwiftKey SwiftKey costs $4, although you can try it free for one month. In spite of its price, many people who rarely buy apps have been sold on SwiftKey. It offers amazing auto-correction and word-prediction features. Just mash away on your touch-screen keyboard, typing as fast as possible, and SwiftKey will notice your mistakes and type what you actually meant to type. SwiftKey also now has built-in support for gesture-typing via SwiftKey Flow, so you get a lot of flexibility. At $4, SwiftKey may seem a bit pricey, but give the month-long trial a try. A great keyboard makes all the typing you do everywhere on your phone better. SwiftKey is an amazing keyboard if you tap-to-type rather than swipe-to-type. Swype While other keyboards have copied Swype’s swipe-to-type feature, none have completely matched its accuracy. Swype has been designing a gesture-typing keyboard for longer than anyone else and its gesture feature still seems more accurate than its competitors’ gesture support. If you use gesture-typing all the time, you’ll probably want to use Swype. Swype can now be installed directly from Google Play without the old, tedious process of registering a beta account and sideloading the Swype app. Swype offers a month-long free trial and the full version is available for $1 afterwards. Minuum Minuum is a crowdfunded keyboard that is currently still in beta and only supports English. We include it here because it’s so interesting — it’s a great example of the kind of creativity and experimentation that happens when you allow developers to experiment with their own forms of keyboard. Minuum uses a tiny, minimum keyboard that frees up your screen space, so your touch-screen keyboard doesn’t hog your device’s screen. Rather than displaying a full keyboard on your screen, Minuum displays a single row of letters.  Each letter is small and may be difficult to hit, but that doesn’t matter — Minuum’s smart autocorrection algorithms interpret what you intended to type rather than typing the exact letters you press. Just swipe to the right to type a space and accept Minuum’s suggestion. At $4 for a beta version with no trial, Minuum may seem a bit pricy. But it’s a great example of the flexibility Android allows. If there’s a problem with this keyboard, it’s that it’s a bit late — in an age of 5″ smartphones with 1080p screens, full-size keyboards no longer feel as cramped. MessagEase MessagEase is another example of a new take on text input. Thankfully, this keyboard is available for free. MessagEase presents all letters in a nine-button grid. To type a common letter, you’d tap the button. To type an uncommon letter, you’d tap the button, hold down, and swipe in the appropriate direction. This gives you large buttons that can work well as touch targets, especially when typing with one hand. Like any other unique twist on a traditional keyboard, you’d have to give it a few minutes to get used to where the letters are and the new way it works. After giving it some practice, you may find this is a faster way to type on a touch-screen — especially with one hand, as the targets are so large. Google Play is full of replacement keyboards for Android phones and tablets. Keyboards are just another type of app that you can swap in. Leave a comment if you’ve found another great keyboard that you prefer using. Image Credit: Cheon Fong Liew on Flickr     

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• Computer Networks UNISA - Chap 14 &ndash; Insuring Integrity &amp; Availability

  - by MarkPearl

  After reading this section you should be able to Identify the characteristics of a network that keep data safe from loss or damage Protect an enterprise-wide network from viruses Explain network and system level fault tolerance techniques Discuss issues related to network backup and recovery strategies Describe the components of a useful disaster recovery plan and the options for disaster contingencies What are integrity and availability? Integrity – the soundness of a networks programs, data, services, devices, and connections Availability – How consistently and reliably a file or system can be accessed by authorized personnel A number of phenomena can compromise both integrity and availability including… security breaches natural disasters malicious intruders power flaws human error users etc Although you cannot predict every type of vulnerability, you can take measures to guard against the most damaging events. The following are some guidelines… Allow only network administrators to create or modify NOS and application system users. Monitor the network for unauthorized access or changes Record authorized system changes in a change management system’ Install redundant components Perform regular health checks on the network Check system performance, error logs, and the system log book regularly Keep backups Implement and enforce security and disaster recovery policies These are just some of the basics… Malware Malware refers to any program or piece of code designed to intrude upon or harm a system or its resources. Types of Malware… Boot sector viruses Macro viruses File infector viruses Worms Trojan Horse Network Viruses Bots Malware characteristics Some common characteristics of Malware include… Encryption Stealth Polymorphism Time dependence Malware Protection There are various tools available to protect you from malware called anti-malware software. These monitor your system for indications that a program is performing potential malware operations. A number of techniques are used to detect malware including… Signature Scanning Integrity Checking Monitoring unexpected file changes or virus like behaviours It is important to decide where anti-malware tools will be installed and find a balance between performance and protection. There are several general purpose malware policies that can be implemented to protect your network including… Every compute in an organization should be equipped with malware detection and cleaning software that regularly runs Users should not be allowed to alter or disable the anti-malware software Users should know what to do in case the anti-malware program detects a malware virus Users should be prohibited from installing any unauthorized software on their systems System wide alerts should be issued to network users notifying them if a serious malware virus has been detected. Fault Tolerance Besides guarding against malware, another key factor in maintaining the availability and integrity of data is fault tolerance. Fault tolerance is the ability for a system to continue performing despite an unexpected hardware or software malfunction. Fault tolerance can be realized in varying degrees, the optimal level of fault tolerance for a system depends on how critical its services and files are to productivity. Generally the more fault tolerant the system, the more expensive it is. The following describe some of the areas that need to be considered for fault tolerance. Environment (Temperature and humidity) Power Topology and Connectivity Servers Storage Power Typical power flaws include Surges – a brief increase in voltage due to lightening strikes, solar flares or some idiot at City Power Noise – Fluctuation in voltage levels caused by other devices on the network or electromagnetic interference Brownout – A sag in voltage for just a moment Blackout – A complete power loss The are various alternate power sources to consider including UPS’s and Generators. UPS’s are found in two categories… Standby UPS – provides continuous power when mains goes down (brief period of switching over) Online UPS – is online all the time and the device receives power from the UPS all the time (the UPS is charged continuously) Servers There are various techniques for fault tolerance with servers. Server mirroring is an option where one device or component duplicates the activities of another. It is generally an expensive process. Clustering is a fault tolerance technique that links multiple servers together to appear as a single server. They share processing and storage responsibilities and if one unit in the cluster goes down, another unit can be brought in to replace it. Storage There are various techniques available including the following… RAID Arrays NAS (Storage (Network Attached Storage) SANs (Storage Area Networks) Data Backup A backup is a copy of data or program files created for archiving or safekeeping. Many different options for backups exist with various media including… These vary in cost and speed. Optical Media Tape Backup External Disk Drives Network Backups Backup Strategy After selecting the appropriate tool for performing your servers backup, devise a backup strategy to guide you through performing reliable backups that provide maximum data protection. Questions that should be answered include… What data must be backed up At what time of day or night will the backups occur How will you verify the accuracy of the backups Where and for how long will backup media be stored Who will take responsibility for ensuring that backups occurred How long will you save backups Where will backup and recovery documentation be stored Different backup methods provide varying levels of certainty and corresponding labour cost. There are also different ways to determine which files should be backed up including… Full backup – all data on all servers is copied to storage media Incremental backup – Only data that has changed since the last full or incremental backup is copied to a storage medium Differential backup – Only data that has changed since the last backup is coped to a storage medium Disaster Recovery Disaster recovery is the process of restoring your critical functionality and data after an enterprise wide outage has occurred. A disaster recovery plan is for extreme scenarios (i.e. fire, line fault, etc). A cold site is a place were the computers, devices, and connectivity necessary to rebuild a network exist but they are not appropriately configured. A warm site is a place where the computers, devices, and connectivity necessary to rebuild a network exists with some appropriately configured devices. A hot site is a place where the computers, devices, and connectivity necessary to rebuild a network exists and all are appropriately configured.

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• Scripting custom drawing in Delphi application with IF/THEN/ELSE statements?

  - by Jerry Dodge

  I'm building a Delphi application which displays a blueprint of a building, including doors, windows, wiring, lighting, outlets, switches, etc. I have implemented a very lightweight script of my own to call drawing commands to the canvas, which is loaded from a database. For example, one command is ELP 1110,1110,1290,1290,3,8388608 which draws an ellipse, parameters are 1110x1110 to 1290x1290 with pen width of 3 and the color 8388608 converted from an integer to a TColor. What I'm now doing is implementing objects with common drawing routines, and I'd like to use my scripting engine, but this calls for IF/THEN/ELSE statements and such. For example, when I'm drawing a light, if the light is turned on, I'd like to draw it yellow, but if it's off, I'd like to draw it gray. My current scripting engine has no recognition of such statements. It just accepts simple drawing commands which correspond with TCanvas methods. Here's the procedure I've developed (incomplete) for executing a drawing command on a canvas: function DrawCommand(const Cmd: String; var Canvas: TCanvas): Boolean; type TSingleArray = array of Single; var Br: TBrush; Pn: TPen; X: Integer; P: Integer; L: String; Inst: String; T: String; Nums: TSingleArray; begin Result:= False; Br:= Canvas.Brush; Pn:= Canvas.Pen; if Assigned(Canvas) then begin if Length(Cmd) > 5 then begin L:= UpperCase(Cmd); if Pos(' ', L)> 0 then begin Inst:= Copy(L, 1, Pos(' ', L) - 1); Delete(L, 1, Pos(' ', L)); L:= L + ','; SetLength(Nums, 0); X:= 0; while Pos(',', L) > 0 do begin P:= Pos(',', L); T:= Copy(L, 1, P - 1); Delete(L, 1, P); SetLength(Nums, X + 1); Nums[X]:= StrToFloatDef(T, 0); Inc(X); end; Br.Style:= bsClear; Pn.Style:= psSolid; Pn.Color:= clBlack; if Inst = 'LIN' then begin Pn.Width:= Trunc(Nums[4]); if Length(Nums) > 5 then begin Br.Style:= bsSolid; Br.Color:= Trunc(Nums[5]); end; Canvas.MoveTo(Trunc(Nums[0]), Trunc(Nums[1])); Canvas.LineTo(Trunc(Nums[2]), Trunc(Nums[3])); Result:= True; end else if Inst = 'ELP' then begin Pn.Width:= Trunc(Nums[4]); if Length(Nums) > 5 then begin Br.Style:= bsSolid; Br.Color:= Trunc(Nums[5]); end; Canvas.Ellipse(Trunc(Nums[0]),Trunc(Nums[1]),Trunc(Nums[2]),Trunc(Nums[3])); Result:= True; end else if Inst = 'ARC' then begin Pn.Width:= Trunc(Nums[8]); Canvas.Arc(Trunc(Nums[0]),Trunc(Nums[1]),Trunc(Nums[2]),Trunc(Nums[3]), Trunc(Nums[4]),Trunc(Nums[5]),Trunc(Nums[6]),Trunc(Nums[7])); Result:= True; end else if Inst = 'TXT' then begin Canvas.Font.Size:= Trunc(Nums[2]); Br.Style:= bsClear; Pn.Style:= psSolid; T:= Cmd; Delete(T, 1, Pos(' ', T)); Delete(T, 1, Pos(',', T)); Delete(T, 1, Pos(',', T)); Delete(T, 1, Pos(',', T)); Canvas.TextOut(Trunc(Nums[0]), Trunc(Nums[1]), T); Result:= True; end; end else begin //No space found, not a valid command end; end; end; end; What I'd like to know is what's a good lightweight third-party scripting engine I could use to accomplish this? I would hate to implement parsing of IF, THEN, ELSE, END, IFELSE, IFEND, and all those necessary commands. I need simply the ability to tell the scripting engine if certain properties meet certain conditions, it needs to draw the object a certain way. The light example above is only one scenario, but the same solution needs to also be applicable to other scenarios, such as a door being open or closed, locked or unlocked, and draw it a different way accordingly. This needs to be implemented in the object script drawing level. I can't hard-code any of these scripting/drawing rules, the drawing needs to be controlled based on the current state of the object, and I may also wish to draw a light a certain shade or darkness depending on how dimmed the light is.

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• WebSocket API 1.1 released!

  - by Pavel Bucek

  Its my please to announce that JSR 356 – Java API for WebSocket maintenance release ballot vote finished with majority of “yes” votes (actually, only one eligible voter did not vote, all other votes were “yeses”). New release is maintenance release and it addresses only one issue:  WEBSOCKET_SPEC-226. What changed in the 1.1? Version 1.1 is fully backwards compatible with version 1.0, there are only two methods added to javax.websocket.Session: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 /** * Register to handle to incoming messages in this conversation. A maximum of one message handler per * native websocket message type (text, binary, pong) may be added to each Session. I.e. a maximum * of one message handler to handle incoming text messages a maximum of one message handler for * handling incoming binary messages, and a maximum of one for handling incoming pong * messages. For further details of which message handlers handle which of the native websocket * message types please see {@link MessageHandler.Whole} and {@link MessageHandler.Partial}. * Adding more than one of any one type will result in a runtime exception. * * @param clazz   type of the message processed by message handler to be registered. * @param handler whole message handler to be added. * @throws IllegalStateException if there is already a MessageHandler registered for the same native *                               websocket message type as this handler. */ public void addMessageHandler(Class<T> clazz, MessageHandler.Whole<T> handler); /** * Register to handle to incoming messages in this conversation. A maximum of one message handler per * native websocket message type (text, binary, pong) may be added to each Session. I.e. a maximum * of one message handler to handle incoming text messages a maximum of one message handler for * handling incoming binary messages, and a maximum of one for handling incoming pong * messages. For further details of which message handlers handle which of the native websocket * message types please see {@link MessageHandler.Whole} and {@link MessageHandler.Partial}. * Adding more than one of any one type will result in a runtime exception. * * * @param clazz   type of the message processed by message handler to be registered. * @param handler partial message handler to be added. * @throws IllegalStateException if there is already a MessageHandler registered for the same native *                               websocket message type as this handler. */ public void addMessageHandler(Class<T> clazz, MessageHandler.Partial<T> handler); Why do we need to add those methods? Short and not precise version: to support Lambda expressions as MessageHandlers. Longer and slightly more precise explanation: old Session#addMessageHandler method (which is still there and works as it worked till now) does rely on getting the generic parameter during the runtime, which is not (always) possible. The unfortunate part is that it works for some common cases and the expert group did not catch this issue before 1.0 release because of that. The issue is really clearly visible when Lambdas are used as message handlers: 1 2 3 session.addMessageHandler(message -> { System.out.println("### Received: " + message); }); There is no way for the JSR 356 implementation to get the type of the used Lambda expression, thus this call will always result in an exception. Since all modern IDEs do recommend to use Lambda expressions when possible and MessageHandler interfaces are single method interfaces, it basically just scream “use Lambdas” all over the place but when you do that, the application will fail during runtime. Only solution we currently have is to explicitly provide the type of registered MessageHandler. (There might be another sometime in the future when generic type reification is introduced, but that is not going to happen soon enough). So the example above will then be: 1 2 3 session.addMessageHandler(String.class, message -> { System.out.println("### Received: " + message); }); and voila, it works. There are some limitations – you cannot do 1 List<String>.class , so you will need to encapsulate these types when you want to use them in MessageHandler implementation (something like “class MyType extends ArrayList<String>”). There is no better way how to solve this issue, because Java currently does not provide good way how to describe generic types. The api itself is available on maven central, look for javax.websocket:javax.websocket-api:1.1. The reference implementation is project Tyrus, which implements WebSocket API 1.1 from version 1.8.

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #004

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 Auto Generate Script to Delete Deprecated Fields in Current Database In early career everytime I have to drop a column, I had hard time doing it because I was scared what if that column was needed somewhere in the code. Due to this fear I never dropped any column. I just renamed the column. If the column which I renamed was needed afterwards it was very easy to rename it back again. However, it is not recommended to keep the deleted column renamed in the database. At every interval I used to drop the columns which was prefixed with specific word. This script is 6 years old but still works. Give it a look, I am open for improvements. 2007 Shrinking Truncate Log File – Log Full – Part 2 Shrinking database or mdf file is indeed bad thing and it creates lots of problems. However, once in a while there is legit requirement to shrink the log file – a very rare one. In the rare occasion shrinking or truncating the log file may be the only solution. However, one should make sure to take backup before and after the truncate or shrink as in case of a disaster they can be very useful. Remember that truncating log file will break the log chain and while restore it can create major issue. Anyway, use this feature with caution. 2008 Simple Use of Cursor to Print All Stored Procedures of Database Including Schema This is a very interesting requirement I used to face in my early career days, I needed to print all the Stored procedures of my database. Interesting enough I had written a cursor to do so. Today when I look back at this stored procedure, I believe there will be a much cleaner way to do the same task, however, I still use this SP quite often when I have to document all the stored procedures of my database. Interesting Observation about Order of Resultset without ORDER BY In industry many developers avoid using ORDER BY clause to display the result in particular order thinking that Index is enforcing the order. In this interesting example, I demonstrate that without using ORDER BY, same table and similar query can return different results. Query optimizer always returns results using any method which is optimized for performance. The learning is There is no order unless ORDER BY is used. 2009 Size of Index Table – A Puzzle to Find Index Size for Each Index on Table I asked this puzzle earlier where I asked how to find the Index size for each of the tables. The puzzle was very well received and lots of interesting answers were received. To answer this question I have written following blog posts. I suggest this weekend you try to solve this problem and see if you can come up with a better solution. If not, well here are the solutions. Solution 1 | Solution 2 | Solution 3 Understanding Table Hints with Examples Hints are options and strong suggestions specified for enforcement by the SQL Server query processor on DML statements. The hints override any execution plan the query optimizer might select for a query. The SQL Server Query optimizer is a very smart tool and it makes a better selection of execution plan. Suggesting hints to the Query Optimizer should be attempted when absolutely necessary and by experienced developers who know exactly what they are doing (or in development as a way to experiment and learn). Interesting Observation – TOP 100 PERCENT and ORDER BY I have seen developers and DBAs using TOP very causally when they have to use the ORDER BY clause. Theoretically, there is no need of ORDER BY in the view at all. All the ordering should be done outside the view and view should just have the SELECT statement in it. It was quite common that to save this extra typing by including ordering inside of the view. At several instances developers want a complete resultset and for the same they include TOP 100 PERCENT along with ORDER BY, assuming that this will simulate the SELECT statement with ORDER BY. 2010 SQLPASS Nov 8-11, 2010-Seattle – An Alternative Look at Experience In year 2010 I attended most prestigious SQL Server event SQLPASS between Nov 8-11, 2010 at Seattle. I have only one expression for the event - Best Summit Ever. Instead of writing about my usual routine or the event, I wrote about the interesting things I did and how I felt about it! When I go back and read it, I feel that this is the best event I attended in year 2010. Change Database Access to Single User Mode Using SSMS Image says all. 2011 SQL Server 2012 has introduced new analytic functions. These functions were long awaited and I am glad that they are now here. Before when any of this function was needed, people used to write long T-SQL code to simulate these functions. But now there’s no need of doing so. Having available native function also helps performance as well readability. Function SQLAuthority MSDN CUME_DIST CUME_DIST CUME_DIST FIRST_VALUE FIRST_VALUE FIRST_VALUE LAST_VALUE LAST_VALUE LAST_VALUE LEAD LEAD LEAD LAG LAG LAG PERCENTILE_CONT PERCENTILE_CONT PERCENTILE_CONT PERCENTILE_DISC PERCENTILE_DISC PERCENTILE_DISC PERCENT_RANK PERCENT_RANK PERCENT_RANK Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• How can I read kindle book under xfce(ubuntu)? (using chromebook)(wine not working)

  - by yshn

  I'm using chromebook, dual booting xfce(ubuntu) and cr os. The ebook I bought on amazon is not supported on kindle cloud reader. (Under xfce)I downloaded wine and tried installing kindle for pc under wine, and after couples of times of trials, it always said installation error and could not install kindle, and it's been giving me: Unhandled exception: unimplemented function msvcp90.dll.??0?$basic_ofstream@DU?$char_traits@D@std@@@std@@QAE@XZ called in 32-bit code (0x7b839cf2). Register dump: CS:0023 SS:002b DS:002b ES:002b FS:0063 GS:006b EIP:7b839cf2 ESP:0033fcd4 EBP:0033fd38 EFLAGS:00000287( - -- I S - -P-C) EAX:7b826245 EBX:7b894ff4 ECX:00000008 EDX:0033fcf4 ESI:80000100 EDI:00dca568 Stack dump: 0x0033fcd4: 0033fd58 00000008 00000030 80000100 0x0033fce4: 00000001 00000000 7b839cf2 00000002 0x0033fcf4: 7e24b340 7e24f2ca 0000000d 00110000 0x0033fd04: 7bc47a0d 7e1dbff4 7e1417f0 00dca568 0x0033fd14: 0033fd24 7bc65d0b 00110000 00000000 0x0033fd24: 0033fd44 7e141801 7b839caa 7e1dbff4 000c: sel=0067 base=00000000 limit=00000000 16-bit r-x Backtrace: =0 0x7b839cf2 in kernel32 (+0x29cf2) (0x0033fd38) 1 0x7e24b2a8 in msvcp90 (+0x3b2a7) (0x0033fd68) 2 0x7e216c9d in msvcp90 (+0x6c9c) (0x0033fde8) 3 0x00938fdd in kindle (+0x538fdc) (0x0033fde8) 4 0x0089dc71 in kindle (+0x49dc70) (0x0033fe70) 5 0x7b859cdc call_process_entry+0xb() in kernel32 (0x0033fe88) 6 0x7b85af4f in kernel32 (+0x4af4e) (0x0033fec8) 7 0x7bc71db0 call_thread_func_wrapper+0xb() in ntdll (0x0033fed8) 8 0x7bc7486d call_thread_func+0x7c() in ntdll (0x0033ffa8) 9 0x7bc71d8e RtlRaiseException+0x21() in ntdll (0x0033ffc8) 10 0x7bc49f4e call_dll_entry_point+0x61d() in ntdll (0x0033ffe8) 0x7b839cf2: subl $4,%esp Modules: Module Address Debug info Name (130 modules) PE 340000- 37d000 Deferred ssleay32 PE 390000- 3ca000 Deferred webcoreviewer PE 3d0000- 3e0000 Deferred pthreadvc2 PE 400000- 1433000 Export kindle PE 1440000- 155c000 Deferred libeay32 PE 1560000- 169f000 Deferred qtscript4 PE 16a0000- 1795000 Deferred libxml2 PE 17a0000- 18c7000 Deferred javascriptcore PE 18d0000- 1974000 Deferred cflite PE 1980000- 2048000 Deferred libwebcore PE 2050000- 208d000 Deferred libjpeg PE 10000000-10a34000 Deferred qtwebkit4 PE 4a800000-4a8eb000 Deferred icuuc46 PE 4a900000-4aa36000 Deferred icuin46 PE 4ad00000-4bb80000 Deferred icudt46 PE 5a4c0000-5a4d4000 Deferred zlib1 PE 61000000-61056000 Deferred qtxml4 PE 62000000-62093000 Deferred qtsql4 PE 64000000-640ef000 Deferred qtnetwork4 PE 65000000-657b8000 Deferred qtgui4 PE 67000000-67228000 Deferred qtcore4 PE 78050000-780b9000 Deferred msvcp100 PE 78aa0000-78b5e000 Deferred msvcr100 ELF 7b800000-7ba15000 Dwarf kernel32 -PE 7b810000-7ba15000 \ kernel32 ELF 7bc00000-7bcc3000 Dwarf ntdll -PE 7bc10000-7bcc3000 \ ntdll ELF 7bf00000-7bf04000 Deferred ELF 7d7f7000-7d800000 Deferred librt.so.1 ELF 7d800000-7d818000 Deferred libresolv.so.2 ELF 7d818000-7d861000 Deferred libdbus-1.so.3 ELF 7d861000-7d873000 Deferred libp11-kit.so.0 ELF 7d873000-7d8f8000 Deferred libgcrypt.so.11 ELF 7d8f8000-7d90a000 Deferred libtasn1.so.3 ELF 7d90a000-7d913000 Deferred libkrb5support.so.0 ELF 7d913000-7d9e2000 Deferred libkrb5.so.3 ELF 7da42000-7da47000 Deferred libgpg-error.so.0 ELF 7da47000-7da6f000 Deferred libk5crypto.so.3 ELF 7da6f000-7da81000 Deferred libavahi-client.so.3 ELF 7da81000-7da8f000 Deferred libavahi-common.so.3 ELF 7da8f000-7db53000 Deferred libgnutls.so.26 ELF 7db53000-7db91000 Deferred libgssapi_krb5.so.2 ELF 7db91000-7dbe4000 Deferred libcups.so.2 ELF 7dc21000-7dc55000 Deferred uxtheme -PE 7dc30000-7dc55000 \ uxtheme ELF 7dc55000-7dc5b000 Deferred libxfixes.so.3 ELF 7dc5b000-7dc66000 Deferred libxcursor.so.1 ELF 7dc6a000-7dc6e000 Deferred libkeyutils.so.1 ELF 7dc6e000-7dc73000 Deferred libcom_err.so.2 ELF 7dca5000-7dccf000 Deferred libexpat.so.1 ELF 7dccf000-7dd03000 Deferred libfontconfig.so.1 ELF 7dd03000-7dd13000 Deferred libxi.so.6 ELF 7dd13000-7dd17000 Deferred libxcomposite.so.1 ELF 7dd17000-7dd20000 Deferred libxrandr.so.2 ELF 7dd20000-7dd2a000 Deferred libxrender.so.1 ELF 7dd2a000-7dd30000 Deferred libxxf86vm.so.1 ELF 7dd30000-7dd34000 Deferred libxinerama.so.1 ELF 7dd34000-7dd3b000 Deferred libxdmcp.so.6 ELF 7dd3b000-7dd5c000 Deferred libxcb.so.1 ELF 7dd5c000-7dd76000 Deferred libice.so.6 ELF 7dd76000-7deaa000 Deferred libx11.so.6 ELF 7deaa000-7debc000 Deferred libxext.so.6 ELF 7debc000-7dec5000 Deferred libsm.so.6 ELF 7ded4000-7df67000 Deferred winex11 -PE 7dee0000-7df67000 \ winex11 ELF 7df67000-7e001000 Deferred libfreetype.so.6 ELF 7e001000-7e023000 Deferred iphlpapi -PE 7e010000-7e023000 \ iphlpapi ELF 7e023000-7e03e000 Deferred wsock32 -PE 7e030000-7e03e000 \ wsock32 ELF 7e03e000-7e071000 Deferred wintrust -PE 7e040000-7e071000 \ wintrust ELF 7e071000-7e129000 Deferred crypt32 -PE 7e080000-7e129000 \ crypt32 ELF 7e129000-7e158000 Deferred msvcr90 -PE 7e130000-7e158000 \ msvcr90 ELF 7e158000-7e1e5000 Deferred msvcrt -PE 7e170000-7e1e5000 \ msvcrt ELF 7e1e5000-7e2ca000 Dwarf msvcp90 -PE 7e210000-7e2ca000 \ msvcp90 ELF 7e2ca000-7e2ec000 Deferred imm32 -PE 7e2d0000-7e2ec000 \ imm32 ELF 7e2ec000-7e3de000 Deferred oleaut32 -PE 7e300000-7e3de000 \ oleaut32 ELF 7e3de000-7e418000 Deferred winspool -PE 7e3f0000-7e418000 \ winspool ELF 7e418000-7e4f7000 Deferred comdlg32 -PE 7e420000-7e4f7000 \ comdlg32 ELF 7e4f7000-7e51f000 Deferred msacm32 -PE 7e500000-7e51f000 \ msacm32 ELF 7e51f000-7e5cc000 Deferred winmm -PE 7e530000-7e5cc000 \ winmm ELF 7e5cc000-7e641000 Deferred rpcrt4 -PE 7e5e0000-7e641000 \ rpcrt4 ELF 7e641000-7e749000 Deferred ole32 -PE 7e660000-7e749000 \ ole32 ELF 7e749000-7e841000 Deferred comctl32 -PE 7e750000-7e841000 \ comctl32 ELF 7e841000-7ea52000 Deferred shell32 -PE 7e850000-7ea52000 \ shell32 ELF 7ea52000-7eabc000 Deferred shlwapi -PE 7ea60000-7eabc000 \ shlwapi ELF 7eabc000-7ead5000 Deferred version -PE 7eac0000-7ead5000 \ version ELF 7ead5000-7eb35000 Deferred advapi32 -PE 7eae0000-7eb35000 \ advapi32 ELF 7eb35000-7ebf2000 Deferred gdi32 -PE 7eb40000-7ebf2000 \ gdi32 ELF 7ebf2000-7ed32000 Deferred user32 -PE 7ec00000-7ed32000 \ user32 ELF 7ed32000-7ed58000 Deferred mpr -PE 7ed40000-7ed58000 \ mpr ELF 7ed58000-7ed6e000 Deferred libz.so.1 ELF 7ed6e000-7eddd000 Deferred wininet -PE 7ed80000-7eddd000 \ wininet ELF 7eddd000-7ee0f000 Deferred ws2_32 -PE 7ede0000-7ee0f000 \ ws2_32 ELF 7ee0f000-7ee1c000 Deferred libnss_files.so.2 ELF 7ee1c000-7ee28000 Deferred libnss_nis.so.2 ELF 7ee28000-7ee42000 Deferred libnsl.so.1 ELF 7ee42000-7ee4b000 Deferred libnss_compat.so.2 ELF 7efd4000-7f000000 Deferred libm.so.6 ELF f74a3000-f74a7000 Deferred libxau.so.6 ELF f74a8000-f74ad000 Deferred libdl.so.2 ELF f74ad000-f7657000 Deferred libc.so.6 ELF f7658000-f7673000 Deferred libpthread.so.0 ELF f7675000-f767b000 Deferred libuuid.so.1 ELF f7682000-f77c4000 Dwarf libwine.so.1 ELF f77c6000-f77e8000 Deferred ld-linux.so.2 ELF f77e8000-f77e9000 Deferred [vdso].so Threads: process tid prio (all id:s are in hex) 0000000e services.exe 0000001f 0 0000001e 0 00000015 0 00000010 0 0000000f 0 00000012 winedevice.exe 0000001c 0 00000019 0 00000014 0 00000013 0 0000001a plugplay.exe 00000020 0 0000001d 0 0000001b 0 00000037 explorer.exe 00000038 0 00000042 (D) C:\Program Files (x86)\Amazon\Kindle\Kindle.exe 00000043 0 <== System information: Wine build: wine-1.4 Platform: i386 (WOW64) Host system: Linux Host version: 3.8.11 How can this be fixed?

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• Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare, Increases Transparency and Improves Customer Loyalty with Web Portal Solution

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare, Increases Transparency and Improves Customer Loyalty with Web Portal Solution CUSTOMER AND PARTNER INFORMATION Customer Name – Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare Customer Revenue – 73,515 Billion Euro (2011, Siemens AG total) Customer Quote – “The realization of our complex requirements within a very short amount of time was enabled through the competent implementation partner Sapient, who fully used the  very broad scope of standard functionality provided in the Oracle WebCenter Portal, and the management of customer services, who continuously supported the project setup. ” – Joerg Modlmayr, Project Manager, Healthcare Customer Service Portal, Siemens AG The Siemens Healthcare Sector is one of the world's largest suppliers to the healthcare industry and a trendsetter in medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics, medical information technology and hearing aids. Siemens offers its customers products and solutions for the entire range of patient care from a single source – from prevention and early detection to diagnosis, and on to treatment and aftercare. By optimizing clinical workflows for the most common diseases, Siemens also makes healthcare faster, better and more cost-effective. To ensure greater transparency, increased efficiency, higher user acceptance, and additional services, Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare, replaced several existing legacy portal solutions that could not meet the company’s future needs with Oracle WebCenter Portal. Various existing portal solutions that cannot meet future demands will be successively replaced by the new central service portal, which will also allow for the efficient and intuitive implementation of new service concepts.  With Oracle, doctors and hospitals using Siemens medical solutions now have access to a central information portal that provides important information and services at just the push of a button.  Customer Name – Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare Customer URL – www.siemens.com Customer Headquarters – Erlangen, Germany Industry – Industrial Manufacturing Employees – 360,000  Challenges – Replace disparate medical service portals to meet future demands and eliminate an  unnecessarily high level of administrative work caused by heterogeneous installations Ensure portals meet current user demands to improve user-acceptance rates and increase number of total users Enable changes and expansion through standard functionality to eliminate the need for reliance on IT and reduce administrative efforts and associated high costs Ensure efficient and intuitive implementation of new service concepts for all devices and systems Ensure hospitals and clinics to transparently monitor and measure services rendered for the various medical devices and systems  Increase electronic interaction and expand services to achieve a higher level of customer loyalty Solution –  Deployed Oracle WebCenter Portal to ensure greater transparency, and as a result, a higher level of customer loyalty  Provided a centralized platform for doctors and hospitals using Siemens’ medical technology solutions that provides important information and services at the push of a button Reduced significantly the administrative workload by centralizing the solution in the new customer service portal Secured positive feedback from customers involved in the pilot program developed by design experts from Oracle partner Sapient. The interfaces were created with customer needs in mind. The first survey taken shortly after implementation came back with 2.4 points on a scale of 0-3 in the category “customer service portal intuitiveness level” Met all requirements including alignment with the Siemens Style Guide without extensive programming Implemented additional services via the portal such as benchmarking options to ensure the optimal use of the Customer Device Park Provided option for documentation of all services rendered in conjunction with the medical technology systems to ensure that the value of the services are transparent for the decision makers in the hospitals  Saved and stored all machine data from approximately 100,000 remote systems in the central service and information platform Provided the option to register errors online and follow the call status in real-time on the portal Made  available at the push of a button all information on the medical technology devices used in hospitals or clinics—from security checks and maintenance activities to current device statuses Provided PDF format Service Performance Reports that summarize information from periods of time ranging from previous weeks up to one year, meeting medical product law requirements  Why Oracle – Siemens AG favored Oracle for many reasons, however, the company ultimately decided to go with Oracle due to the enormous range of functionality the solutions offered for the healthcare sector.“We are not programmers; we are service providers in the medical technology segment and focus on the contents of the portal. All the functionality necessary for internet-based customer interaction is already standard in Oracle WebCenter Portal, which is a huge plus for us. Having Oracle as our technology partner ensures that the product will continually evolve, providing a strong technology platform for our customer service portal well into the future,” said Joerg Modlmayr project manager, Healthcare Customer Service Portal, Siemens AG. Partner Involvement – Siemens AG selected Oracle Partner Sapient because the company offered a service portfolio that perfectly met Siemens’ requirements and had a wealth of experience implementing Oracle WebCenter Portal. Additionally, Sapient had designers with a very high level of expertise in usability—an aspect that Siemens considered to be of vast importance for the project.  “The Sapient team completely met all our expectations. Our tightly timed project was completed on schedule, and the positive feedback from our users proves that we set the right measures in terms of usability—all thanks to the folks at Sapient,” Modlmayr said.  Partner Name – Sapient GmbH Deutschland Partner URL – www.sapient.com

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• Sending Outlook Invites

  - by Daniel Moth

  Sending an Outlook invite for a meeting (also referred to as S+ in Microsoft) is a simple thing to get right if you just run the quick mental check below, which is driven by visual cues in the Outlook UI. I know that some folks don’t do this often or are new to Outlook, so if you know one of those folks share this blog post with them and if they read nothing else ask them to read step 7. Add on the To line the folks that you want to be at the meeting. Indicate optional invitees. Click on the “To” button to bring up the dialog that lets you move folks to be Optional (you can also do this from the Scheduling Assistant). Set the Reminder according to the attendee that has to travel the most. 5 minutes is the minimum. Use the Response Options and uncheck the "Request Response" if your event is going ahead regardless of who can make it or not, i.e. if everyone is optional. Don’t force every recipient to make an extra click, instead make the extra click yourself - you are the organizer. Add a good subject Make the subject such that just by reading it folks know what the meeting is about. Examples, e.g. "Review…", "Finalize…", "XYZ sync up" If this is only between two people and what is commonly referred to as a one to one, the subject would be something like "MyName/YourName 1:1" Write the subject in such a way that when the recipient sees this on their calendar among all the other items, they know what this meeting is about without having to see location, recipients, or any other information about the invite. Add a location, typically a meeting room. If recipients are from different buildings, schedule it where the folks that are doing the other folks a favor live. Otherwise schedule it wherever the least amount of people will have to travel. If you send me an invite to come to your building, and there is more of us than you, you are silently sending me the message that you are doing me a favor so if you don’t want to do that, include a note of why this is in your building, e.g. "Sorry we are slammed with back to back meetings today so hope you can come over to our building". If this is in someone's office, the location would be something like "Moth's office (7/666)" where in parenthesis you see the office location. If some folks are remote in another building/country, or if you know you picked a time which wasn't free for everyone, add an Online option (click the Lync Meeting button). Add a date and time. This MUST be at a time that is showing on the recipients’ calendar as FREE or at worst TENTATIVE. You can check that on the Scheduling Assistant. The reality is that this is not always possible, so in that case you MUST say something about it in the Invite Body, e.g. "Sorry I can see X has a conflict, but I cannot find a better slot", or "With so many of us there are some conflicts and I cannot find a better slot so hope this works", or "Apologies but due to Y we must have this meeting at this time and I know there are some conflicts, hope you can make it anyway". When you do that, I better not be able to find a better slot myself for all of us, and of course when you do that you have implicitly designated the Busy folks as optional. Finally, the body of the invite. This has the agenda of the meeting and if applicable the courtesy apologies due to messing up steps 6 & 7. This should not be the introduction to the meeting, in other words the recipients should not be surprised when they see the invite and go to the body to read it. Notifying them of the meeting takes place via separate email where you explain the purpose and give them a heads up that you'll be sending an invite. That separate email is also your chance to attach documents, don’t do that as part of the invite. TIP: If you have sent mail about the meeting, you can then go to your sent folder to select the message and click the "Meeting" button (Ctrl+Alt+R). This will populate the body with the necessary background, auto select the mandatory and optional attendees as per the TO/CC line, and have a subject that may be good enough already (or you can tweak it). Long to write, but very quick to remember and enforce since most of it is common sense and the checklist is driven of the visual cues in the UI you use to send the invite. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Session Report - Modern Software Development Anti-Patterns

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  In this standing-room-only session, building upon his 2011 JavaOne Rock Star “Diabolical Developer” session, Martijn Verburg, this time along with Ben Evans, identified and explored common “anti-patterns” – ways of doing things that keep developers from doing their best work. They emphasized the importance of social interaction and team communication, along with identifying certain psychological pitfalls that lead developers astray. Their emphasis was less on technical coding errors and more how to function well and to keep one’s focus on what really matters. They are the authors of the highly regarded The Well-Grounded Java Developer and are both movers and shakers in the London JUG community and on the Java Community Process. The large room was packed as they gave a fast-moving, witty presentation with lots of laughs and personal anecdotes. Below are a few of the anti-patterns they discussed.Anti-Pattern One: Conference-Driven DeliveryThe theme here is the belief that “Real pros hack code and write their slides minutes before their talks.” Their response to this anti-pattern is an expression popular in the military – PPPPPP, which stands for, “Proper preparation prevents piss-poor performance.”“Communication is very important – probably more important than the code you write,” claimed Verburg. “The more you speak in front of large groups of people the easier it gets, but it’s always important to do dry runs, to present to smaller groups. And important to be members of user groups where you can give presentations. It’s a great place to practice speaking skills; to gain new skills; get new contacts, to network.”They encouraged attendees to record themselves and listen to themselves giving a presentation. They advised them to start with a spouse or friends if need be. Learning to communicate to a group, they argued, is essential to being a successful developer. The emphasis here is that software development is a team activity and good, clear, accessible communication is essential to the functioning of software teams. Anti-Pattern Two: Mortgage-Driven Development The main theme here was that, in a period of worldwide recession and economic stagnation, people are concerned about keeping their jobs. So there is a tendency for developers to treat knowledge as power and not share what they know about their systems with their colleagues, so when it comes time to fix a problem in production, they will be the only one who knows how to fix it – and will have made themselves an indispensable cog in a machine so you cannot be fired. So developers avoid documentation at all costs, or if documentation is required, put it on a USB chip and lock it in a lock box. As in the first anti-pattern, the idea here is that communicating well with your colleagues is essential and documentation is a key part of this. Social interactions are essential. Both Verburg and Evans insisted that increasingly, year by year, successful software development is more about communication than the technical aspects of the craft. Developers who understand this are the ones who will have the most success. Anti-Pattern Three: Distracted by Shiny – Always Use the Latest Technology to Stay AheadThe temptation here is to pick out some obscure framework, try a bit of Scala, HTML5, and Clojure, and always use the latest technology and upgrade to the latest point release of everything. Don’t worry if something works poorly because you are ahead of the curve. Verburg and Evans insisted that there need to be sound reasons for everything a developer does. Developers should not bring in something simply because for some reason they just feel like it or because it’s new. They recommended a site run by a developer named Matt Raible with excellent comparison spread sheets regarding Web frameworks and other apps. They praised it as a useful tool to help developers in their decision-making processes. They pointed out that good developers sometimes make bad choices out of boredom, to add shiny things to their CV, out of frustration with existing processes, or just from a lack of understanding. They pointed out that some code may stay in a business system for 15 or 20 years, but not all code is created equal and some may change after 3 or 6 months. Developers need to know where the code they are contributing fits in. What is its likely lifespan? Anti-Pattern Four: Design-Driven Design The anti-pattern: If you want to impress your colleagues and bosses, use design patents left, right, and center – MVC, Session Facades, SOA, etc. Or the UML modeling suite from IBM, back in the day… Generate super fast code. And the more jargon you can talk when in the vicinity of the manager the better.Verburg shared a true story about a time when he was interviewing a guy for a job and asked him what his previous work was. The interviewee said that he essentially took patterns and uses an approved book of Enterprise Architecture Patterns and applied them. Verburg was dumbstruck that someone could have a job in which they took patterns from a book and applied them. He pointed out that the idea that design is a separate activity is simply wrong. He repeated a saying that he uses, “You should pay your junior developers for the lines of code they write and the things they add; you should pay your senior developers for what they take away.”He explained that by encouraging people to take things away, the code base gets simpler and reflects the actual business use cases developers are trying to solve, as opposed to the framework that is being imposed. He told another true story about a project to decommission a very long system. 98% of the code was decommissioned and people got a nice bonus. But the 2% remained on the mainframe so the 98% reduction in code resulted in zero reduction in costs, because the entire mainframe was needed to run the 2% that was left. There is an incentive to get rid of source code and subsystems when they are no longer needed. The session continued with several more anti-patterns that were equally insightful.

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• Why does calling CreateDXGIFactory prevent my program from exiting?

  - by smoth190

  I'm using CreateDXGIFactory to get the graphics adapters and display modes. When I call it, it works fine and I get all the data. However, when I exit my program, the main Win32 thread exits, but something stays open because it keeps debugging. Does CreateDXGIFactory create an extra thread and I'm not closing it? I don't understand. The only thing I would suspect is that in the documentation it says it doesn't work if it's called from DllMain. It is in a DLL, but it's not called from DllMain. And it doesn't fail, either. I'm using DirectX 11. Here is the function that initializes DirectX. I haven't gotten past retrieving the refresh rate because of this problem. I commented everything out to pinpoint the problem. bool CGraphicsManager::InitDirectX(HWND hWnd, int width, int height) { HRESULT result; IDXGIFactory* factory; IDXGIOutput* output; IDXGIAdapter* adapter; DXGI_MODE_DESC* displayModes; DXGI_ADAPTER_DESC adapterDesc; unsigned int modeCount = 0; unsigned int refreshNum = 0; unsigned int refreshDen = 0; //First, we need to get the monitors refresh rater result = CreateDXGIFactory(__uuidof(IDXGIFactory), (void**)&factory); //if(FAILED(result)) //{ //MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to create DXGI factory\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); //return false; //} /*//Create a graphics card adapter result = factory->EnumAdapters(0, &adapter); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get graphics adapters\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } //Get the output result = adapter->EnumOutputs(0, &output); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get adapter output\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } //Get the modes result = output->GetDisplayModeList(DXGI_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM, DXGI_ENUM_MODES_INTERLACED, &modeCount, 0); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get mode count\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } displayModes = new DXGI_MODE_DESC[modeCount]; result = output->GetDisplayModeList(DXGI_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM, DXGI_ENUM_MODES_INTERLACED, &modeCount, displayModes); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get display modes\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } //Now we need to find one for our screen size for(unsigned int i = 0; i < modeCount; i++) { if(displayModes[i].Width == (unsigned int)width) { if(displayModes[i].Height == (unsigned int)height) { refreshNum = displayModes[i].RefreshRate.Numerator; refreshDen = displayModes[i].RefreshRate.Denominator; break; } } } //Store the video card data result = adapter->GetDesc(&adapterDesc); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get adapter description\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } m_videoCard = new CVideoCard(); MemoryUtil::CreateGameObject(m_videoCard); m_videoCard->VideoCardMemory = (unsigned int)(adapterDesc.DedicatedVideoMemory); wcstombs_s(0, m_videoCard->VideoCardDescription, 128, adapterDesc.Description, 128);*/ //ReleaseCOM(output); //ReleaseCOM(adapter); ReleaseCOM(factory); //DeletePointerArray(displayModes); return true; } Also, I don't know if this means anything, but this is some of the output log when the function is commented out: //... 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\msvcr100d.dll', Symbols loaded. 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\imm32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\msctf.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\uxtheme.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink\tiptsf.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ole32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\oleaut32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\clbcatq.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\oleacc.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file The program '[6560] LostRock.exe: Native' has exited with code 0 (0x0). And when it isn't commented out... //... 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cfgmgr32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\devobj.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\wintrust.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\crypt32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\msasn1.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Unloaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\setupapi.dll' 'LostRock.exe': Unloaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\devobj.dll' 'LostRock.exe': Unloaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cfgmgr32.dll' 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\clbcatq.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\oleacc.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file The thread 'Win32 Thread' (0xb94) has exited with code 0 (0x0). The program '[8096] LostRock.exe: Native' has exited with code 0 (0x0). //This is called when I click "Stop Debugging" P.S. I know it is CreateDXGIFactory because if I comment it out, the program exits correctly.

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• Exalogic 2.0.1 Tea Break Snippets - Modifying the Default Shipped Template

  - by The Old Toxophilist

  Having installed your Exalogic Virtual environment by default you have a single template which can be used to create your vServers. Although this template is suitable for creating simple test or development vServers it is recommended that you look at creating your own custom vServers that match the environment you wish to build and deploy. Therefore this Tea Time Snippet will take you through the simple process of modifying the standard template. Before You Start To edit the template you will need the Oracle ModifyJeos Utility which can be downloaded from the eDelivery Site. Once the ModifyJeos Utility has been downloaded we can install the rpms onto either an existing vServer or one of the Control vServers. rpm -ivh ovm-modify-jeos-1.0.1-10.el5.noarch.rpm rpm -ivh ovm-template-config-1.0.1-5.el5.noarch.rpm Alternatively you can install the modify jeos packages on a none Exalogic OEL installation or a VirtualBox image. If you are doing this, assuming OEL 5u8, you will need the following rpms. rpm -ivh ovm-modify-jeos-1.0.1-10.el5.noarch.rpm rpm -ivh ovm-el5u2-xvm-jeos-1.0.1-5.el5.i386.rpm rpm -ivh ovm-template-config-1.0.1-5.el5.noarch.rpm Base Template If you have installed the modify onto a vServer running on the Exalogic then simply mount the /export/common/images from the ZFS storage and you will be able to find the el_x2-2_base_linux_guest_vm_template_2.0.1.1.0_64.tgz (or similar depending which version you have) template file. Alternatively the latest can be downloaded from the eDelivery Site. Now we have the Template tgz we will need the extract it as follows: tar -zxvf  el_x2-2_base_linux_guest_vm_template_2.0.1.1.0_64.tgz This will create a directory called BASE which will contain the System.img (VServer image) and vm.cfg (VServer Config information). This directory should be renamed to something more meaning full that indicates what we have done to the template and then the Simple name / name in the vm.cfg editted for the same reason. Modifying the Template Resizing Root File System By default the shipped template has a root size of 4 GB which will leave a vServer created from it running at 90% full on the root disk. We can simply resize the template by executing the following: modifyjeos -f System.img -T <New Size MB>) For example to imcrease the default 4 GB to 40 GB we would execute: modifyjeos -f System.img -T 40960) Resizing Swap We can modify the size of the swap space within a template by executing the following: modifyjeos -f System.img -S <New Size MB>) For example to increase the swap from the default 512 MB to 4 GB we would execute: modifyjeos -f System.img -S 4096) Changing RPMs Adding RPMs To add RPMs using modifyjeos, complete the following steps: Add the names of the new RPMs in a list file, such as addrpms.lst. In this file, you should list each new RPM in a separate line. Ensure that all of the new RPMs are in a single directory, such as rpms. Run the following command to add the new RPMs: modifyjeos -f System.img -a <path_to_addrpms.lst> -m <path_to_rpms> -nogpg Where <path_to_addrpms.lst> is the path to the location of the addrpms.lst file, and <path_to_rpms> is the path to the directory that contains the RPMs. The -nogpg option eliminates signature check on the RPMs. Removing RPMs To remove RPM s using modifyjeos, complete the following steps: Add the names of the RPMs (the ones you want to remove) in a list file, such as removerpms.lst. In this file, you should list each RPM in a separate line. The Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Administrator's Guide provides a list of all RPMs that must not be removed from the vServer. Run the following command to remove the RPMs: modifyjeos -f System.img -e <path_to_removerpms.lst> Where <path_to_removerpms.lst> is the path to the location of the removerpms.lst file. Mounting the System.img For all other modifications that are not supported by the modifyjeos command (adding you custom yum repositories, pre configuring NTP, modify default NFSv4 Nobody functionality, etc) we can mount the System.img and access it directly. To facititate quick and easy mounting/unmounting of the System.img I have put together the simple scripts below. MountSystemImg.sh #!/bin/sh # The script assumes it's being run from the directory containing the System.img # Export for later i.e. during unmount export LOOP=`losetup -f` export SYSTEMIMG=/mnt/elsystem # Make Temp Mount Directory mkdir -p $SYSTEMIMG # Create Loop for the System Image losetup $LOOP System.img kpartx -a $LOOP mount /dev/mapper/`basename $LOOP`p2 $SYSTEMIMG #Change Dir into mounted Image cd $SYSTEMIMG UnmountSystemImg.sh #!/bin/sh # The script assumes it's being run from the directory containing the System.img # Assume the $LOOP & $SYSTEMIMG exist from a previous run on the MountSystemImg.sh umount $SYSTEMIMG kpartx -d $LOOP losetup -d $LOOP Packaging the Template Once you have finished modifying the template it can be simply repackaged and then imported into EMOC as described in "Exalogic 2.0.1 Tea Break Snippets - Importing Public Server Template". To do this we will simply cd to the directory above that containing the modified files and execute the following: tar -zcvf <New Template Directory> <New Template Name>.tgz The resulting.tgz file can be copied to the images directory on the ZFS and uploadd using the IB network. This entry was originally posted on the The Old Toxophilist Site.

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• Unexpected advantage of Engineered Systems

  - by user12244672

  It's not surprising that Engineered Systems accelerate the debugging and resolution of customer issues. But what has surprised me is just how much faster issue resolution is with Engineered Systems such as SPARC SuperCluster. These are powerful, complex, systems used by customers wanting extreme database performance, app performance, and cost saving server consolidation. A SPARC SuperCluster consists or 2 or 4 powerful T4-4 compute nodes, 3 or 6 extreme performance Exadata Storage Cells, a ZFS Storage Appliance 7320 for general purpose storage, and ultra fast Infiniband switches.  Each with its own firmware. It runs Solaris 11, Solaris 10, 11gR2, LDoms virtualization, and Zones virtualization on the T4-4 compute nodes, a modified version of Solaris 11 in the ZFS Storage Appliance, a modified and highly tuned version of Oracle Linux running Exadata software on the Storage Cells, another Linux derivative in the Infiniband switches, etc. It has an Infiniband data network between the components, a 10Gb data network to the outside world, and a 1Gb management network. And customers can run whatever middleware and apps they want on it, clustered in whatever way they want. In one word, powerful.  In another, complex. The system is highly Engineered.  But it's designed to run general purpose applications. That is, the physical components, configuration, cabling, virtualization technologies, switches, firmware, Operating System versions, network protocols, tunables, etc. are all preset for optimum performance and robustness. That improves the customer experience as what the customer runs leverages our technical know-how and best practices and is what we've tested intensely within Oracle. It should also make debugging easier by fixing a large number of variables which would otherwise be in play if a customer or Systems Integrator had assembled such a complex system themselves from the constituent components.  For example, there's myriad network protocols which could be used with Infiniband.  Myriad ways the components could be interconnected, myriad tunable settings, etc. But what has really surprised me - and I've been working in this area for 15 years now - is just how much easier and faster Engineered Systems have made debugging and issue resolution. All those error opportunities for sub-optimal cabling, unusual network protocols, sub-optimal deployment of virtualization technologies, issues with 3rd party storage, issues with 3rd party multi-pathing products, etc., are simply taken out of the equation. All those error opportunities for making an issue unique to a particular set-up, the "why aren't we seeing this on any other system ?" type questions, the doubts, just go away when we or a customer discover an issue on an Engineered System. It enables a really honed response, getting to the root cause much, much faster than would otherwise be the case. Here's a couple of examples from the last month, one found in-house by my team, one found by a customer: Example 1: We found a node eviction issue running 11gR2 with Solaris 11 SRU 12 under extreme load on what we call our ExaLego test system (mimics an Exadata / SuperCluster 11gR2 Exadata Storage Cell set-up).  We quickly established that an enhancement in SRU12 enabled an 11gR2 process to query Infiniband's Subnet Manager, replacing a fallback mechanism it had used previously.  Under abnormally heavy load, the query could return results which were misinterpreted resulting in node eviction.  In several daily joint debugging sessions between the Solaris, Infiniband, and 11gR2 teams, the issue was fully root caused, evaluated, and a fix agreed upon.  That fix went back into all Solaris releases the following Monday.  From initial issue discovery to the fix being put back into all Solaris releases was just 10 days. Example 2: A customer reported sporadic performance degradation.  The reasons were unclear and the information sparse.  The SPARC SuperCluster Engineered Systems support teams which comprises both SPARC/Solaris and Database/Exadata experts worked to root cause the issue.  A number of contributing factors were discovered, including tunable parameters.  An intense collaborative investigation between the engineering teams identified the root cause to a CPU bound networking thread which was being starved of CPU cycles under extreme load.  Workarounds were identified.  Modifications have been put back into 11gR2 to alleviate the issue and a development project already underway within Solaris has been sped up to provide the final resolution on the Solaris side.  The fixed SPARC SuperCluster configuration greatly aided issue reproduction and dramatically sped up root cause analysis, allowing the correct workarounds and fixes to be identified, prioritized, and implemented.  The customer is now extremely happy with performance and robustness.  Since the configuration is common to other customers, the lessons learned are being proactively rolled out to other customers and incorporated into the installation procedures for future customers.  This effectively acts as a turbo-boost to performance and reliability for all SPARC SuperCluster customers.  If this had occurred in a "home grown" system of this complexity, I expect it would have taken at least 6 months to get to the bottom of the issue.  But because it was an Engineered System, known, understood, and qualified by both the Solaris and Database teams, we were able to collaborate closely to identify cause and effect and expedite a solution for the customer.  That is a key advantage of Engineered Systems which should not be underestimated.  Indeed, the initial issue mitigation on the Database side followed by final fix on the Solaris side, highlights the high degree of collaboration and excellent teamwork between the Oracle engineering teams.  It's a compelling advantage of the integrated Oracle Red Stack in general and Engineered Systems in particular.

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• How Important is Project Team Communication in the Public Sector?

  - by Melissa Centurio Lopes

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} By Paul Bender, Director of Public Administration Strategy, Oracle Primavera It goes without saying that communication between project team members is a core competency that connects every member of a project team to a common set of strategies, goals and actions. If these components are not effectively shared by project leads and understood by stakeholders, project outcomes can be jeopardized and budgets may incur unnecessary risk. As reported by PMI’s 2013 Pulse of the Profession, an organization’s ability to meet project timelines, budgets and especially goals significantly impacts its ability to survive—and even thrive. The Pulse study revealed that the most crucial success factor in project management is effective communication to all stakeholders—a critical core competency for public agencies. PMI’s 2013 Pulse of the Profession report revealed that US$135 million is at risk for every US$1 billion spent on a project. Further research on the importance of effective project team communication uncovers that a startling 56 percent (US$75 million of that US$135 million) is at risk due to ineffective communication. Simply stated: public agencies cannot execute strategic initiatives unless they can effectively communicate their strategic alignment and business benefits. Executives and project managers around the world agree that poor communication between project team members contributes to project failure. A Forbes Insights 2010 Strategic Initiatives Study “Adapting Corporate Strategy to the Changing Economy,” found that nine out of ten CEOs believe that communication is critical to the success of their strategic initiatives, and nearly half of respondents cite communication as an integral and active component of their strategic planning and execution process. Project managers see it similarly from their side as well. According to PMI’s Pulse research, 55 percent of project managers agree that effective communication to all stakeholders is the most critical success factor in project management. As we all know, not all projects succeed. On average, two in five projects do not meet their original goals and business intent, and one-half of those unsuccessful projects are related to ineffective communication. Results reveal that while all aspects of project communication can be challenging to public agencies, the biggest problem areas are: A gap in understanding the business benefits. Challenges surrounding the language used to deliver project-related information, which is often unclear and peppered with project management jargon. Public agencies -- federal, state, and local -- have difficulty communicating with the appropriate levels with clarity and detail. This difficulty is likely exacerbated by the divide between each key audience and its understanding of project-specific, technical language. For those involved in public sector project and portfolio management, I would be interested to hear your thoughts and please visit Primavera EPPM solutions for public sector.

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• Cookbook: SES and UCM setup

  - by George Maggessy

  The purpose of this post is to guide you setting up the integration between UCM and SES. On my next post I’ll show different approaches to integrate WebCenter Portal, UCM and SES based on some common scenarios. Let’s get started. WebCenter Content Configuration WebCenter Content has a component that adds functionality to the content server to allow it to be searched via the Oracle SES. To enable the component installation, go to Administration -&gt; Admin Server and select SESCrawlerExport. Click the update button and restart UCM_server1 managed server. Once the managed server is back, we’ll configure the component. In the menu, under Administration you should see SESCrawlerExport. Click on the link. You’ll see the window below. Click on Configure SESCrawlerExport. Configure the values below: Hostname: SES hostname. Feed Location: Directory where data feeds will be saved. Metadata List: List of metadata that will be searchable by SES. After updating the values click on the Update button. Come back to the SESCrawlerExport Administration UI and click on Take Snapshot button. It will create the data feeds in the specified Feed Location. To check if the correct configuration was done, please access the following URL http://&lt;ucm_server&gt;:&lt;port&gt;/cs/idcplg?IdcService=SES_CRAWLER_DOWLOAD_CONFIG&amp;source=default. It should download config file in the format below: &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt; &lt;rsscrawler xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/search/rsscrawlerconfig"&gt; &lt;feedLocation&gt;&lt;![CDATA[http://adc6160699.us.oracle.com:16200/cs/idcplg?IdcService=SES_CRAWLER_DOWNLOAD_CONTROL&amp;source=default]]&gt;&lt;/feedLocation&gt; &lt;errorFileLocation&gt;&lt;![CDATA[http://adc6160699.us.oracle.com:16200/cs/idcplg?IdcService=SES_CRAWLER_STATUS&amp;IsJava=1&amp;source=default&amp;StatusFeed=]]&gt;&lt;/errorFileLocation&gt; &lt;feedType&gt;controlFeed&lt;/feedType&gt; &lt;sourceName&gt;default&lt;/sourceName&gt; &lt;securityType&gt;attributeBased&lt;/securityType&gt; &lt;securityAttribute name="Account" grant="true"/&gt; &lt;securityAttribute name="DocSecurityGroup" grant="true"/&gt; &lt;securityAttribute name="Collab" grant="true"/&gt; &lt;/rsscrawler&gt; Make sure Account and DocSecurityGroup values are true. SES Configuration Let’s start by configuring the Identity Plug-ins in SES. Go to Global Settings -&gt; System -&gt; Identity Management Setup. Select Oracle Content Server and click the Activate button. We’ll populate the following values: HTTP endpoint for authentication: URL to WebCenter Content. Notice that /cs/idcplg was added at the end of the URL. Admin User: UCM Admin user. This user must have access to all CPOE content. Password: Password to Admin user. Authentication Type: NATIVE. Go back to the Home tab and click on Sources on the top left. Select Oracle Content Server on the right and click the Create button. Configuration URL: URL that point to the configuration file. Example: http://&lt;ucm_hostname&gt;:&lt;port&gt;/cs/idcplg?IdcService=SES_CRAWLER_DOWNLOAD_CONFIG&amp;source=default. User ID: UCM Admin user. Password: Password to Admin user. Click on the Authorization tab and add the appropriate values to the fields below. Make sure you see the ACCOUNT and DOCSECURITYGROUP security attributes at the end of the page. HTTP endpoint for authorization: http://&lt;ucm_hostname&gt;:&lt;port&gt;/cs/idcplg. Display URL prefix: http://&lt;ucm_hostname&gt;:&lt;port&gt;/cs. Administrator user: UCM Admin user. Administrator password. On the Document Types tab, add the documents that should be indexed by SES. As our last step, we’ll configure the Federation Trusted Entities under Global Settings. Entity Name: The user must be present in both the identity management server configured for your WebCenter application and the identity management server configured for Oracle SES. For instance, I used weblogic in my sample. Password: Entity user password.\ Now you are ready to test the integration on the SES UI: http://&lt;ses hostname&gt;:&lt;port&gt;/search/query/.

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• How to properly add texture to multi-fixture/shape b2Body

  - by Blazej Wdowikowski

  Hello to everyone this is my first poste here I hope that will be not fail start. At start I must say I make part 1 in Ray's Tutorial "How To Make A Game Like Fruit Ninja With Box2D and Cocos2D". But I wonder what when I want make more complex body with texture? Simple just add n b2FixtureDef to the same body. OK but what about texture? If I will take code from that tutorial it only fill last fixture. Probably it does not takes every b2Vec2 point. I was right, it did not. So quick refactor and from that -(id)initWithTexture:(CCTexture2D*)texture body:(b2Body*)body original:(BOOL)original { // gather all the vertices from our Box2D shape b2Fixture *originalFixture = body->GetFixtureList(); b2PolygonShape *shape = (b2PolygonShape*)originalFixture->GetShape(); int vertexCount = shape->GetVertexCount(); NSMutableArray *points = [NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:vertexCount]; for(int i = 0; i < vertexCount; i++) { CGPoint p = ccp(shape->GetVertex(i).x * PTM_RATIO, shape->GetVertex(i).y * PTM_RATIO); [points addObject:[NSValue valueWithCGPoint:p]]; } if ((self = [super initWithPoints:points andTexture:texture])) { _body = body; _body->SetUserData(self); _original = original; // gets the center of the polygon _centroid = self.body->GetLocalCenter(); // assign an anchor point based on the center self.anchorPoint = ccp(_centroid.x * PTM_RATIO / texture.contentSize.width, _centroid.y * PTM_RATIO / texture.contentSize.height); } return self; } I came up with that -(id)initWithTexture:(CCTexture2D*)texture body:(b2Body*)body original:(BOOL)original { int vertexCount = 0; //gather total number of b2Vect2 points b2Fixture *currentFixture = body->GetFixtureList(); while (currentFixture) { //new b2PolygonShape *shape = (b2PolygonShape*)currentFixture->GetShape(); vertexCount += shape->GetVertexCount(); currentFixture = currentFixture->GetNext(); } NSMutableArray *points = [NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:vertexCount]; // gather all the vertices from our Box2D shape b2Fixture *originalFixture = body->GetFixtureList(); while (originalFixture) { //new NSLog((NSString*)@"-"); b2PolygonShape *shape = (b2PolygonShape*)originalFixture->GetShape(); int currentVertexCount = shape->GetVertexCount(); for(int i = 0; i < currentVertexCount; i++) { CGPoint p = ccp(shape->GetVertex(i).x * PTM_RATIO, shape->GetVertex(i).y * PTM_RATIO); [points addObject:[NSValue valueWithCGPoint:p]]; } originalFixture = originalFixture->GetNext(); } if ((self = [super initWithPoints:points andTexture:texture])) { _body = body; _body->SetUserData(self); _original = original; // gets the center of the polygon _centroid = self.body->GetLocalCenter(); // assign an anchor point based on the center self.anchorPoint = ccp(_centroid.x * PTM_RATIO / texture.contentSize.width,_centroid.y * PTM_RATIO / texture.contentSize.height); } return self; } I was working for simple two fixtures body like b2BodyDef bodyDef; bodyDef.type = b2_dynamicBody; bodyDef.position = position; bodyDef.angle = rotation; b2Body *body = world->CreateBody(&bodyDef); b2FixtureDef fixtureDef; fixtureDef.density = 1.0; fixtureDef.friction = 0.5; fixtureDef.restitution = 0.2; fixtureDef.filter.categoryBits = 0x0001; fixtureDef.filter.maskBits = 0x0001; b2Vec2 vertices[] = { b2Vec2(0.0/PTM_RATIO,50.0/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(0.0/PTM_RATIO,0.0/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(50.0/PTM_RATIO,30.1/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(60.0/PTM_RATIO,60.0/PTM_RATIO) }; b2PolygonShape shape; shape.Set(vertices, 4); fixtureDef.shape = &shape; body->CreateFixture(&fixtureDef); b2Vec2 vertices2[] = { b2Vec2(20.0/PTM_RATIO,50.0/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(20.0/PTM_RATIO,0.0/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(70.0/PTM_RATIO,30.1/PTM_RATIO), b2Vec2(80.0/PTM_RATIO,60.0/PTM_RATIO) }; shape.Set(vertices2, 4); fixtureDef.shape = &shape; body->CreateFixture(&fixtureDef); But if I try put secondary shape upper than first it starting wierd, texture goes crazy. For example not mention about more complex shapes. What's more if shapes have one common point texture will not render for them at all [For that I use Physics Edytor like in tutorial part1] BTW. I use PolygonSprite and in method createWithWorld... another shapes. Uff.. Question So my question is, why texture coords are in such a mess up? It's my modify method or just wrong approach? Maybe I should remove duplicated from points array?

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