Search Results

Search found 11009 results on 441 pages for 'third party integration'.

Page 321/441 | < Previous Page | 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328  | Next Page >

• Tech Cast Live - Java and Oracle, One Year Later - February 15th 10AM PST

  - by Cassandra Clark

  Join us for a special live conversation with Ajay Patel, Vice President of Product Development for Application Grid Products and Justin Kestelyn, Director of the Oracle Technology Network. Justin and Ajay will discuss the changes that have come to Java and Oracle since the Sun acquisition, just over a year ago. This live broadcast conversation will include discussion on: - Highlights, challenges and what we learned over the past year - The Future of Java and its importance to Oracle and the community - Oracle's Application Grid product portfolio today Watch Live Event February 15th Watch Archived TechCast Lives You will also have the chance to submit questions to the speakers live on the show, for real-time feedback by using #techcastlive. If your question is read on air we will send you a Free I am the Future of Java t-shirt* *Promotion Details After you have submitted your question and it is read on the live TechCast held February 15th your shirt should arrive in two to four weeks while supplies last. No purchase, payments, or fees are required to receive the gift. Limit one thank you gift per person, and the offer is available only while supplies last. Oracle reserves the right to modify or terminate this offer at any time, for any reason. This offer is not available to Oracle employees or residents of countries subject to U.S. embargo (including Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria). Due to Federal Government regulations, this offer is not available to Federal Government customers. Those residing in India or Brazil will be given a substitute gift as we can not ship t-shirts to your country. You are responsible for complying with your employer's policies regarding acceptance of promotional items, and for government laws, regulations and agency policies, if you are a government employee you will not be able to participate. Must be 18 years of age or older. Void where prohibited. Neither Oracle nor any third party assisting Oracle with this offer is responsible for any problems, errors, delays, or technical malfunction related to or impacting this offer. Oracle respects your right to privacy and your information will not be distributed or used for any other purpose. For more information on Oracle's privacy policy, please review our http://www.oracle.com/html/privacy-policy.html. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].

  Read the article

• Will HTML5 make Silverlight redundant?

  - by Laila

  One of the great features of Adobe AIR v2 that was launched this month was its support for some of the 2008 draft of HTML5. The HTML5 specification was started in 2004, but the full spec will probably not be approved by W3C until around 2022. One might have thought that it would take years yet from now to reach the point where any browsers were remotely HTML5-compliant, but enough of HTML5 is published and agreed to make a lot of it possible, and Safari and Adobe have got there thanks to Apple's open-source WebKit. The race for HTML 5 has been fuelled by the demand by Apple and Google for advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without having to rely on third party browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash or Silverlight. There is good reason for this haste: Flash doesn't support touch-devices and has been slow in supporting hardware video decoders such as H.264. There is a strong requirement to do all that Flash can do in an open-standards way. Those with proprietary solutions remain sniffy. In AIR 2, Adobe pointedly disables the HTML5 and tags that allow basic playing of media content, saying that the specification is not final and there is still no standard for the supported formats, and adding that Safari implements a 'disjoint set' of codecs. Microsoft also has little interest in HTML 5 as it has so much invested in Silverlight. Google stands to gain by the Adobe AIR for Android as it will allow a lot of applications to be migrated easily to the platform, so sees Apple's war on Flash as a way of gaining market share. Why do we care? It is because HTML5/CSS3 provides facilities much far beyond HTML4, bring the reality of browser-based applications a lot closer. Probably most generally useful is the advanced typography: Safari and AIR already both support a way of reflowing text in a container across an arbitrary number of columns; Page-specific fonts can also be specified. Then there is 2D drawing, video, transitions, local storage, AJAX navigation and mutable DOM prototypes. HTML5 is likely to provide base functionality that is required but it is too early to be certain that it will render Flash, Silverlight or JavaFX obsolete. In the meantime, Adobe Air provides the best vehicle for developing HTML5/CSS3 applications without a twinge of worry about browser incompatibilities. Cheers, Laila

  Read the article

• Implementing the Reactive Manifesto with Azure and AWS

  - by Elton Stoneman

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2013/10/31/implementing-the-reactive-manifesto-with-azure-and-aws.aspxMy latest Pluralsight course, Implementing the Reactive Manifesto with Azure and AWS has just been published! I’d planned to do a course on dual-running a messaging-based solution in Azure and AWS for super-high availability and scale, and the Reactive Manifesto encapsulates exactly what I wanted to do. A “reactive” application describes an architecture which is inherently resilient and scalable, being event-driven at the core, and using asynchronous communication between components. In the course, I compare that architecture to a classic n-tier approach, and go on to build out an app which exhibits all the reactive traits: responsive, event-driven, scalable and resilient. I use a suite of technologies which are enablers for all those traits: ASP.NET SignalR for presentation, with server push notifications to the user Messaging in the middle layer for asynchronous communication between presentation and compute Azure Service Bus Queues and Topics AWS Simple Queue Service AWS Simple Notification Service MongoDB at the storage layer for easy HA and scale, with minimal locking under load. Starting with a couple of console apps to demonstrate message sending, I build the solution up over 7 modules, deploying to Azure and AWS and running the app across both clouds concurrently for the whole stack - web servers, messaging infrastructure, message handlers and database servers. I demonstrating failover by killing off bits of infrastructure, and show how a reactive app deployed across two clouds can survive machine failure, data centre failure and even whole cloud failure. The course finishes by configuring auto-scaling in AWS and Azure for the compute and presentation layers, and running a load test with blitz.io. The test pushes masses of load into the app, which is deployed across four data centres in Azure and AWS, and the infrastructure scales up seamlessly to meet the load – the blitz report is pretty impressive: That’s 99.9% success rate for hits to the website, with the potential to serve over 36,000,000 hits per day – all from a few hours’ build time, and a fairly limited set of auto-scale configurations. When the load stops, the infrastructure scales back down again to a minimal set of servers for high availability, so the app doesn’t cost much to host unless it’s getting a lot of traffic. This is my third course for Pluralsight, with Nginx and PHP Fundamentals and Caching in the .NET Stack: Inside-Out released earlier this year. Now that it’s out, I’m starting on the fourth one, which is focused on C#, and should be out by the end of the year.

  Read the article

• Drawing multiple objects from one Vertex Buffer Object in OpenGL/OpenTK

  - by stoney78us

  I am trying to experimenting drawing method using VBO in OpenGL. Many people normally use 1 vbo to store one object data array. I was trying to do something quite opposite which is storing multiple object data into 1 vbo then drawing it. There is story behind why i want to do this. I want to group many of objects as a single object sometime. However my code doesn't do the justice. Following is my pseudo code: //Data double[] vertices = {line strip 1, line strip 2, line strip 3}; //series of vertices int linestrip1offset = index of the first vertex in line strip 1; int linestrip2offset = index of the first vertex in line strip 2; int linestrip3offset = index of the first vertex in line strip 3; int linestrip1VertexNum = number of vertices in linestrip 1; int linestrip2VertexNum = number of vertices in linestrip 2; int linestrip3VertexNum = number of vertices in linestrip 3; //Setting Up void init() { int[] vBO = new int[1]; GL.GenBuffer(1, vBO); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, vBO[0]); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, new IntPtr(_vertices.Length * sizeof(double)), _vertices, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.EnableClientState(Array.VertexArray); } //Drawing void draw() { GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, vBO[0]); GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.VertexArray); GL.VertexPointer(3, VertexPointerType.Double, 0, linestrip1offset); //drawing first linestrip GL.DrawArrays(drawMode, linestrip1offset , linestrip1VertexNum ); GL.VertexPointer(3, VertexPointerType.Double, 0, linestrip2offset); //drawing second linestrip GL.DrawArrays(drawMode, linestrip2offset , linestrip2VertexNum ); GL.VertexPointer(3, VertexPointerType.Double, 0, linestrip3offset); //drawing third linestrip GL.DrawArrays(drawMode, linestrip3offset , linestrip3VertexNum ); GL.DisableClientState(ArrayCap.VertexArray); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, 0); } I don't know what i did wrong but i think technically it should work where we can tell OpenGL which part of the data in the vBO to be drawn.

  Read the article

• Oracle OpenWorld Call for MDM Papers

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  As the MDM Track owner, I would like to invite everyone to respond to the Oracle OpenWorld (October 2-6, Moscone Center, San Francisco) Call for Papers (https://oracleus.wingateweb.com/portal/cfp/ ). The Call for Papers is open now through Sunday, March 27. This is an outstanding opportunity for organizations familiar with MDM to tell their story to a very large, knowledgeable and intensely interested community. Opportunities for feedback and networking abound.  I would love to see MDM papers on: business drivers; business benefits; quantified ROI stories; business process optimization; implementation styles; implementation lessons learned; using master data as a service; data governance best practices; end-to-end data quality experiences; support for SOA; Chart of Accounts issues fixed; how to leverage reference data; improving EPM and/or BI across the board; operationalizing a data warehouse; support for cloud computing; compliance success stories; architecture, scalability, and mixed workload RAC platform performance examples; industry specific value propositions (Financial Services; Retail, Telecom; Manufacturing, High Tech Manufacturing, Public Sector, Health Care, …); and line of business specific value propositions (CRM, ERP, PLM, SCM, …); etc. In fact, given that MDM positively impacts all areas of operations and analytics, there are no limits to the ideas you may have for an OpenWorld presentation. When you follow the submission process, be sure to use “Master Data Management” for either the Primary or Optional track. Add “Master Data Management” as an Optional track if you are adding MDM content to a presentation on one of the following tracks: Agile; Customer Relationship Management, Oracle E-Business Suite, Product Lifecycle Management, Siebel, Sourcing and Procurement, Supply Chain Management, or one of the 18 available industry tracks. If Cloud Computing is included, please add “Cloud Computing” as a Cross-Stream Track. And don’t forget to make “MDM” a Tag, along with Business Intelligence, Cloud, CRM, Data Integration, Data Migration, Data Warehousing, EPM, or Service-Oriented Architecture whenever your content includes these items. I will personally review each submission. I hope you all keep me very busy over the next few weeks.

  Read the article

• Configuring the iPlanet as web tier for Oracle WebCenter Content (UCM)

  - by Adao Junior

  If you are looking for configure the iPlanet as Web server/proxy to use with the Oracle WebCenter Content, you probably won’t found an specific documentation for that or will found some old complex notes related to the old 10gR3. This post will help you out with few simple steps. That’s the diagram of the test scenario, considering that you will deploy in production in an cluster environment. First you need the software, for our scenario you will need: - Oracle iPlanet Web Server 7.0.15+ (Installed) - Oracle WebCenter Content 11gR1 PS5 (Installed) - Oracle WebLogic Web Server Plugins 11g (1.1) - Supported JDK (Using Oracle Java JDK 7u4 for the test) - Certified Client OS - Certified Server OS (Using Oracle Solaris 11 for the test) - Certified Database (Using Oracle Database 11.2.0.3 for the test) Then the configuration: - Download the latest plugin: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/ias/downloads/wls-plugins-096117.html - Extract the WLSPlugin11g-iPlanet7.0 in some folder, like <iPlanet_Home>/plugins/wls11 - Include the plugin reference to the magnus.conf: If Unix (Solaris or Linux), include the line: Init fn="load-modules" shlib="/apps/oracle/WebServer7/plugins/wls11/lib/mod_wl.so" If Windows, Include the line:        Init fn="load-modules" shlib="D:\\oracle\\WebServer7\\plugins\\wls11\\lib\\mod_wl.dll" - Include the proxy reference to the obj.conf of each instance: <Object name="weblogic" ppath="*/cs/*"> Service fn="wl-proxy" WebLogicCluster="wcc-node1:16201,wcc-node2:16202, wcc-node3:16203" </Object>   <Object name="weblogic" ppath="*/_dav/*"> Service fn="wl-proxy" WebLogicCluster="wcc-node1:16201,wcc-node2:16202, wcc-node3:16203" </Object>   <Object name="weblogic" ppath="*/_ocsh/*"> Service fn="wl-proxy" WebLogicCluster="wcc-node1:16201,wcc-node2:16202, wcc-node3:16203" </Object>   <Object name="weblogic" ppath="*/adfAuthentication/*"> Service fn="wl-proxy" WebLogicCluster="wcc-node1:16201,wcc-node2:16202, wcc-node3:16203" </Object> If you are using an single node setup, change the Service fn=…. line to something like: Service fn="wl-proxy" WebLogicHost=<wcc-server> WebLogicPort=16200 With these configurations, your should have the WebCenter Content UI working with the iPlanet, test it. [http://<web-server>/cs/] With the UI working, the last step is to configure the WebDav: - Go to the iPlanet Admin Console (usually https://<web-server>:8989) - Go to Configurations >> [instance] >> Virtual Servers >> [Virtual Server] >> WebDAV: - Click New - Populate the URI with /cs/idcplg/webdav: - Select “Anyone (No Authentication)”, the wc Content will take care of the security: This will allow you to use the WebDav feature and the Desktop Integration Suite, including double-byte characters. Anothers iPlanet tunes could be done, I can cover in the next post related to the iPlanet. Cross-posted on the ContentrA.com Blog Related posts:  - Using a Web Proxy Server with WebCenter Family

  Read the article

• Best Language for the job? Database | C++, .NET, Java

  - by Randy E

  Ok, quick overview. I'm pretty brand new to software design. I have experience reading and editing/customizing PHP things for online scripts/software; Such as CMS, Wordpress, some forum solutions. I'm about to begin my degree in Software Design, the school I'm going to will allow us to kind of focus on an area, C++, Java, or .NET. I've played around a little with VB over the past week, mostly just trying to get a slight feel for it, however nothing extensive. I've been through Herbert Schildt's "C++, A Beginner's Guide." but I was mainly reading it, not doing anything with it beyond a couple basic Console Apps (and getting frustrated with auto-close :/ ). Now, where I decide to focus more in with my degree will depend on what the best language for the job is for my first piece of software I want to develop on my own. Assume I haven't looked at any of the languages at all, please help with the following: My first piece of software will be a database program. Everything has to do with users inputting and retrieving data, and calling that data to help with another function of the software, automatically calculating billing information based on information inputted in the other portion of the program. I won't go into too many details as I'm targeting a niche that doesn't have too much competition, but the competition that is there is established. I want to offer more features, scalable solutions, and the ability to port it to an online version. Ok, basically, it is a complete case management with integrated billing for Private Investigators. I would like the case management to be able to check the Database to see if certain information has been inputted before (such as Names/SSN's), and then the billing will pull hours inputted in the case portion for investigative work, multiplying by an already inputted amount for the fee, and then calculate sales tax. I also want to provide potential clients with an easily scalable solution, that is, a basic option for start ups that costs the least amount, with no additional users, ran on one machine. A middle option with the ability to create users and place them in two groups (User or Admin), as well as adding a few additional features, ran on one machine, but this will allow it to be accessed after being mapped on a network drive. And a third option to allow the placement into 4 different groups (Investigators, Billing, Managers, Admins) and more features. And then, a couple of years after launch, a 4th option that is browser based allowing the same 4 groups to login, as well as clients (view things concerning their case, with some admin customizable objects that can be added for clients view), over the internet. The only licensing security I would like to employ right off the bat will be serial key generated after ordering online (received in an email after the successful purchase). The program will access a database stored on a server periodically to verify license. I would like it to be able to check to make sure it's the most updated version and automatically update if not.

  Read the article

• Enterprise Service Bus (ESB): Important architectural piece to a SOA or is it just vendor hype?

  Is an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) an important architectural piece to a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), or is it just vendor hype in order to sell a particular product such as SOA-in-a-box? According to IBM.com, an ESB is a flexible connectivity infrastructure for integrating applications and services; it offers a flexible and manageable approach to service-oriented architecture implementation. With this being said, it is my personal belief that ESBs are an important architectural piece to any SOA. Additionally, generic design patterns have been created around the integration of web services in to ESB regardless of any vendor. ESB design patterns, according to Philip Hartman, can be classified in to the following categories: Interaction Patterns: Enable service interaction points to send and/or receive messages from the bus Mediation Patterns: Enable the altering of message exchanges Deployment Patterns: Support solution deployment into a federated infrastructure Examples of Interaction Patterns: One-Way Message Synchronous Interaction Asynchronous Interaction Asynchronous Interaction with Timeout Asynchronous Interaction with a Notification Timer One Request, Multiple Responses One Request, One of Two Possible Responses One Request, a Mandatory Response, and an Optional Response Partial Processing Multiple Application Interactions Benefits of the Mediation Pattern: Mediator promotes loose coupling by keeping objects from referring to each other explicitly, and it lets you vary their interaction independently Design an intermediary to decouple many peers Promote the many-to-many relationships between interacting peers to “full object status” Examples of Interaction Patterns: Global ESB: Services share a single namespace and all service providers are visible to every service requester across an entire network Directly Connected ESB: Global service registry that enables independent ESB installations to be visible Brokered ESB: Bridges services that are reluctant to expose requesters or providers to ESBs in other domains Federated ESB: Service consumers and providers connect to the master or to a dependent ESB to access services throughout the network References: Mediator Design Pattern. (2011). Retrieved 2011, from SourceMaking.com: http://sourcemaking.com/design_patterns/mediator Hartman, P. (2006, 24 1). ESB Patterns that "Click". Retrieved 2011, from The Art and Science of Being an IT Architect: http://artsciita.blogspot.com/2006/01/esb-patterns-that-click.html IBM. (2011). WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance Version 2.0. Retrieved 2011, from IBM.com: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wdpxc/v2r0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.websphere.help.glossary.doc%2Ftopics%2Fglossary.html Oracle. (2005). 12 Interaction Patterns. Retrieved 2011, from Oracle® BPEL Process Manager Developer's Guide: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B31017_01/integrate.1013/b28981/interact.htm#BABHHEHD

  Read the article

• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for July 2, 2013

  - by Bob Rhubart

  One Week To Go: OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing - July 9, 2013, Redwood Shores, CA. The first OTN Architect Day event of 2013 happens in just one week, on Tuesday July 9 at the Oracle Conference Center in Redwood Shores, CA. Registration is free and you get three sessions by three experts on cloud computing in the real world — plus a panel Q&A for answers to all of your questions. Register now! Oracle Database 12c: Flashback Moving Forward | Lucas Jellema Oracle ACE Director Lucas Jellema's latest of several recent blog posts dealing with various aspects of the recently released Oracle Database 12c. Detroit, Embracing New Auto Technologies, Seeks App Builders This story from the New York Times paints a rosy picture indeed for app developers as the internet of things continues to evolve. Advanced View Criteria Implementation in ADF BC | Andrejus Baranovskis Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis' post focuses on advanced declarative View Criteria features. JDeveloper: Showing a Popup when Selecting an af:selectOneRadio | Timo Hahn Oracle ACE Timo Hahn illustrates a use case in which a popup is displayed each time the user clicks on one of the radio buttons of a button group. Can Technology Innovation Save The New York Times? One of the standout keynotes from the recent QCon New York event, this presentation by New York Times Sr. VP/CIO Marc Frons and CTO/VP Rajiv Pant paints a detailed portrait of the complete transformation of an organization -- not just the IT. Enterprise architects will find this particularly interesting. Video: Meet Growing IT Demand for Databases with Private DBaaS Do you understand the difference between traditional database deployment and database as a service? If not, you'll want to check out this video, which includes an overview of Oracle Enterprise Manager's capabilities for rapid deployment of DBaaS. S Webcast: Zero-Downtime Migration to Oracle Exadata Using Oracle GoldenGate: A Customer Case Study Presenters Alok Pareek (VP, Product Management/Development, Oracle Data Integration) and John F. Martin (CEO of Emerging Markets and CTO IQNavigator) discuss how IQNavigator is using Oracle GoldenGate with Oracle Exadata. Free eBook: Building a Database Cloud for Dummies This free quick-reference guide, organized into six short chapters and supplemented with helpful illustrations, provides a clear overview of the cloud and step-by-step instructions on deploying database as a service. (Registration required.) Thought for the Day "My motto is: Live every day to the fullest – in moderation." — Lindsay Lohan (Born July 2, 1986) Source: brainyquote.com

  Read the article

• Do you know about the Visual Studio 2010 Database Projects Guidance?

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Early on in the Team System (now Visual Studio ALM) cycle a new product surfaced within Team System that was affectionately called “Data Dude”, but had the more formal name of “Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals”. The purpose of this product was to try and make the database a “first class citizen” in the development world. Those that started using Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals (Data Dude) loved it, but everyone else did not get it. The capabilities were a little patchy, but the one thing it did bring to the party was the ability to put your database schema under source control. This was revolutionary as previously your DBA sat as far away from the team as possible, and usually in a dark cupboard, now they could partake of all the goodness of Version Control, Work Item Tracking and automated builds. The problem was that the understanding required to manage these projects was very different to that needed previously. Then the Visual Studio ALM Rangers got a hold of it…and produced some of the best guidance available. Figure: Download the guidance from http://vsdatabaseguide.codeplex.com/ This guidance discusses scenarios and approaches of using the Database Projects in Visual Studio 2010 to help you use the tools more effectively and maximize their value to your organization This guidance is focused on these five areas: Solution and Project Management Source Code Control and Configuration Management Integrating External Changes with the Project System Build and Deployment Automation with Visual Studio Database Projects Database Testing and Deployment Verification Each of these areas has common guidance, usage scenarios, hands on labs, and lessons learned from real world engagements and the community discussions.   The guidance is broken down into three packages: Guidance documentation Hands-on-lab (HOL) documentation note: The documentation is available in XPS-only format packages or complete XPS,PDF,DOCX format packages HOL Package If you need assistance and no one else can help, then you may need to call the Visual Studio ALM Rangers. The Visual Studio ALM Rangers have the mission to provide out of band solutions for missing features or guidance. They are supported by Microsoft Product Group, Microsoft Consulting Services, Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVPs) and technical specialists from technology communities around the globe, giving you a real-world view from the field, where the technology has been tested and used. For more information on the Rangers please visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ee358786.aspx and for more a list of other Rangers projects please see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ee358787.aspx.

  Read the article

• SOA Community Newsletter June 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Dear SOA partner community member Happy New fiscal Year FY13 - thanks for the FY12 middleware business! Our SOA & BPM Partner Community continued to grow to almost 4000 members. Additional we launched the WebLogic Partner Community which grew very fast to 800+ members! To continue our joint successful business in the new fiscal year our Top priorities FY13 are: Become trained:the next opportunity are the summer camps in Lisbon & Munich or our on-demand training SOA & BPM and see our detailed training calendar below. Run your marketing & sales campaign: sales kits, marketing kits, solution catalog add your services to oracle.com, add your events to oracle.com and advertisement Get recognized: OFM awards, partner excellence awards & references & plaques Become Specialized: All of the above makes the Oracle Specialization! Make sure you get your Specialization benefits! Topics: Key product focus areas will be: SOA as the foundation for clouds, integration platform 2.0 for industrial SOA including BAM & CEP, BPM & adaptive case management & migrate legacy solutions to the strategic offerings. The new Oracle VM VirtualBox image is available to test SOA Suite and BPM Suite. To start your BPM 11g project a new BPM Standard Edition a license entry version is available. EAIESB published a post with all BPMN2.0 notations. If you want to learn more please visit the Oracle Learning Library. We want to promote your SOA 11g & BPM 11g success let us know where you are in production! And nominate this success for our Middleware Oracle Excellence Awards 2012. Douwe P. van den Bos published at his blog a SOA governance series: Principles of Service-Oriented Architecture & The Maturity of a Service-Oriented Architecture & SOA Maturity Models. Please let us know if you published interesting papers! Would be great to see you at the SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium by Thomas Erl. Please feel free to get your conference pass with the oracle discount code “DJMXZ370”. See you in Lisbon & London at our summer camps! Jürgen Kress Oracle SOA & BPM Partner Adoption EMEA To read the newsletter please visit http://tinyurl.com/soanewsJune2012 (OPN Account required) To become a member of the SOA Partner Community please register at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA Community newsletter,SOA Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress,SOA Demo System,BPM

  Read the article

• Using a SQL Prompt snippet with template parameters

  - by SQLDev

  As part of my product management role I regularly attend trade shows and man the Red Gate booth in the vendor exhibition hall. Amongst other things this involves giving product demos to customers. Our latest demo involves SQL Source Control and SQL Test in a continuous integration environment. In order to demonstrate quite how easy it is to set up our tools from scratch we start the demo by creating an entirely new database to link to source control, using an individual database name for each conference attendee. In SQL Server Management Studio this can be done either by selecting New Database from the Object Explorer or by executing “CREATE DATABASE DemoDB_John” in a query window. We recently extended the demo to include SQL Test. This uses an open source SQL Server unit testing framework called tSQLt (www.tsqlt.org), which has a CLR object that requires EXTERNAL_ACCESS to be set as follows: ALTER DATABASE DemoDB_John SET TRUSTWORTHY ON This isn’t hard to do, but if you’re giving demo after demo, this two-step process soon becomes tedious. This is where SQL Prompt snippets come into their own. I can create a snippet named create_demo_db for this following: CREATE DATABASE DemoDB_John GO USE DemoDB_John GO ALTER DATABASE DemoDB_John SET TRUSTWORTHY ON Now I just have to type the first few characters of the snippet name, select the snippet from SQL Prompt’s candidate list, and execute the code. Simple! The problem is that this can only work once due to the hard-coded database name. Luckily I can leverage a nice feature in SQL Server Management Studio called Template Parameters. If I modify my snippet to be: CREATE DATABASE <DBName,, DemoDB_> GO USE <DBName,, DemoDB_> GO ALTER DATABASE <DBName,, DemoDB_> SET TRUSTWORTHY ON Once I’ve invoked the snippet, I can press Ctrl-Shift-M, which calls up the Specify Values for Template Parameters dialog, where I can type in my database name just once. Now you can click OK and run the query. Easy. Ideally I’d like for SQL Prompt to auto-invoke the Template Parameter dialog for all snippets where it detects the angled bracket syntax, but typing in the keyboard shortcut is a small price to pay for the time savings.

  Read the article

• Swiss Re increases data warehouse performance and deploys in record time

  - by KLaker

  Great information on yet another data warehouse deployment on Exadata. A little background on Swiss Re: In 2002, Swiss Re established a data warehouse for its client markets and products to gather reinsurance information across all organizational units into an integrated structure. The data warehouse provided the basis for reporting at the group level with drill-down capability to individual contracts, while facilitating application integration and data exchange by using common data standards. Initially focusing on property and casualty reinsurance information only, it now includes life and health reinsurance, insurance, and nonlife insurance information. Key highlights of the benefits that Swiss Re achieved by using Exadata: Reduced the time to feed the data warehouse and generate data marts by 58% Reduced average runtime by 24% for standard reports comfortably loading two data warehouse refreshes per day with incremental feeds Freed up technical experts by significantly minimizing time spent on tuning activities Most importantly this was one of the fastest project deployments in Swiss Re's history. They went from installation to production in just four months! What is truly surprising is the that it only took two weeks between power-on to testing the machine with full data volumes! Business teams at Swiss Re are now able to fully exploit up-to-date analytics across property, casualty, life, health insurance, and reinsurance lines to identify successful products. These points are highlighted in the following quotes from Dr. Stephan Gutzwiller, Head of Data Warehouse Services at Swiss Re:  "We were operating a complete Oracle stack, including servers, storage area network, operating systems, and databases that was well optimized and delivered very good performance over an extended period of time. When a hardware replacement was scheduled for 2012, Oracle Exadata was a natural choice—and the performance increase was impressive. It enabled us to deliver analytics to our internal customers faster, without hiring more IT staff" “The high quality data that is readily available with Oracle Exadata gives us the insight and agility we need to cater to client needs. We also can continue re-engineering to keep up with the increasing demand without having to grow the organization. This combination creates excellent business value.” Our full press release is available here: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/customers/customersearch/swiss-re-1-exadata-ss-2050409.html. If you want more information about how Exadata can increase the performance of your data warehouse visit our home page: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/database/exadata-database-machine/overview/index.html

  Read the article

• Impressions from VMworld - Clearing up Misconceptions

  - by Monica Kumar

  Gorgeous sunny weather…none of the usual summer fog…the Oracle Virtualization team has been busy at VMworld in San Francisco this week. From the time exhibits opened on Sunday, our booth staff was fully engaged with visitors. It was great to meet with customers and prospects, and there were many…most with promises to meet again in October at Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Interests and questions ran the gamut - from implementation details to consolidating applications to how does Oracle VM enable rapid application deployment to Oracle support and licensing. All good stuff! Some inquiries are poignant and really help us get at the customer pain points. Some are just based on misconceptions. We’d like to address a couple of common misconceptions that we heard: 1) Rapid deployment of enterprise applications is great but I don’t do this all the time. So why bother? While production applications don’t get updated or upgraded as often, development and QA staging environments are much more dynamic. Also, in today’s Cloud based computing environments, end users expect an entire solution, along with the virtual machine, to be provisioned instantly, on-demand, as and when they need to scale. Whether it’s adding a new feature to meet customer demands or updating applications to meet business/service compliance, these environments undergo change frequently. The ability to rapidly stand up an entire application stack with all the components such as database tier, mid-tier, OS, and applications tightly integrated, can offer significant value. Hand patching, installation of the OS, application and configurations to ensure the entire stack works well together can take days and weeks. Oracle VM Templates provide a much faster path to standing up a development, QA or production stack in a matter of hours or minutes. I see lots of eyes light up as we get to this point of the conversation. 2) Oracle Software licensing on VMware vSphere In the world of multi-vendor IT stacks, understanding license boundaries and terms and conditions for each product in the stack can be challenging.  Oracle’s licensing, though, is straightforward.  Oracle software is licensed per physical processor in the server or cluster where the Oracle software is installed and/or running.  The use of third party virtualization technologies such as VMware is not allowed as a means to change the way Oracle software is licensed.  Exceptions are spelled out in the licensing document labeled “Hard Partitioning". Here are some fun pictures! Visitors to our booth told us they loved the Oracle SUV courtesy shuttles that are helping attendees get to/from hotels. Also spotted were several taxicabs sporting an Oracle banner! Stay tuned for more highlights across desktop and server virtualization as we wrap up our participation at VMworld.

  Read the article

• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: American Home Mortgage

  - by Michelle Kimihira

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter Solution Summary American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. (AHMSI) is a 3,000 employee company based in Coppell, Texas and provides services to homeowners and loan investors. With a multibillion portfolio under management, AHMSI is one of the country's largest servicers of Alt-A and subprime loans. AHMSI implemented a public-facing secure Web portal using Oracle WebCenter Suite to help investors make informed decisions more quickly and automated much of the investor approval process AHMSI reduced the time needed to process loan modification from approximately 30 days to one week.  UsingOracle WebCenter Content AHMSI can now share strategic & sensitive content in compliance with the various governance regulations.  Company OverviewAmerican Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. provides services to homeowners and loan investors. Whether a borrower holds a traditional, Alt-A, payment option, or subprime loan, the company's highly trained experts are committed to providing high levels of service as they work to address each customer's needs. AHMSI also carefully manages the loan portfolios of investors. With a multibillion portfolio under management, AHMSI is one of the country's largest servicers of Alt-A and subprime loans.  Challenges AHMSI’s biggest challenge was to improve security by minimizing the use of e-mail and FTP sites to share sensitive mortgage loan data with third parties, including estate investors.  Solutions AHMSI implemented Oracle WebCenter Suite to deploy a public-facing Web portal, enabling authorized external users to view content stored on the content server and Oracle WebCenter Content  to create a secure storage area for daily, weekly, and monthly reports. They leveraged the standard group spaces in Oracle WebCenter Portal to enable business users to collaborate more effectively.  Results By automating much of the investor approval process, they reduced the time needed to process loan modifications from approximately 30 days to one week and greatly minimized the use of e-mail and FTP sites to share information. Investors can now view supporting materials including real-time loan information and call center data to help them make more informed decisions more quickly.  The implemented solution complies with various government regulations in dealings with real estate investors.  “To maintain our commitment to providing customers with the highest possible levels of services while creating a competitive advantage for our business, we needed to be able to share strategic and sensitive content in a safe and secure manner. With Oracle WebCenter, we have a flexible and modern user experience platform that allows us to securely, reliably and efficiently manage our portfolio of sensitive data and share it with our business partners. This not only helps ensure compliance with various government regulations, it accelerates processes and supports more informed decision making.” Vince Holt, Manager, Application Management, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.  Additional Information AHMSI Customer Snapshot  Oracle WebCenter Suite Oracle WebCenter Content Oracle WebCenter Portal Oracle Fusion Middleware

  Read the article

• In a multidisciplicary team, how much should each member's skills overlap?

  - by spade78

  I've been working in embedded software development for this small startup and our team is pretty small: about 3-4 people. We're responsible for all engineering which involves an RF device controlled by an embedded microcontroller that connects to a PC host which runs some sort of data collection and analysis software. I have come to develop these two guidelines when I work with my colleagues: Define a clear separation of responsibilities and make sure each person's contribution to the final product doesn't overlap. Don't assume your colleagues know everything about their responsibilities. I assume there is some sort of technology that I will need to be competent at to properly interface with the work of my colleagues. The first point is pretty easy for us. I do firmware, one guy does the RF, another does the PC software, and the last does the DSP work. Nothing overlaps in terms of two people's work being mixed into the final product. For that to happen, one guy has to hand off work to another guy who will vet it and integrate it himself. The second point is the heart of my question. I've learned the hard way not to trust the knowledge of my colleagues absolutley no matter how many years experience they claim to have. At least not until they've demonstrated it to me a couple of times. So given that whenever I develop a piece of firmware, if it interfaces with some technology that I don't know then I'll try to learn it and develop a piece of test code that helps me understand what they're doing. That way if my piece of the product comes into conflict with another piece then I have some knowledge about possible causes. For example, the PC guy has started implementing his GUI's in .NET WPF (C#) and using LibUSBdotNET for USB access. So I've been learning C# and the .NET USB library that he uses and I build a little console app to help me understand how that USB library works. Now all this takes extra time and energy but I feel it's justified as it gives me a foothold to confront integration problems. Also I like learning this new stuff so I don't mind. On the other hand I can see how this can turn into a time synch for work that won't make it into the final product and may never turn into a problem. So how much experience/skills overlap do you expect in your teammates relative to your own skills? Does this issue go away as the teams get bigger and more diverse?

  Read the article

• ArchBeat Facebook Friday: Top 10 Shared Links - May 23-29, 2014

  - by OTN ArchBeat

  Among the 5,144 fans of the OTN ArchBeat Facebook Page the following Top 10 items were the most popular over the last seven days, May 23-29, 2014. GlassFish/Java EE Community Open Forum Today! | Reza Rahman Have questions about Glassfish? Java EE/GlassFish evangelist Reza Rahman has answers, and you can pick his brain tomorrow during an online forum organized by the London Glassfish User Group and C2B2. The event is free, but you must register in order to participate. Click the link for more information. Twitter Tuesday - Top 10 @ArchBeat Tweets - May 20-26, 2014 The top 10 @OTNArchBeat tweets for the week of May 20-26, 2014. Topics covered include ADF, Cloud, GoldenGate, KScope14, OBIEE, ODI, WebLogic, WebCenter, and more. FrameworkFolders Support has come to Oracle WebCenter Portal | JayJay Zheng Interested in working with Framework Folders in Oracle WebCenter Portal? Oracle ACE JayJay Zheng reviews the essentials. Video: Programming Best Practices - ADF Business Components | Frank Nimphius Frank Nimphius discusses best practices and recommendations for ADF Business Components in the latest video from ADF Architecture TV. Video: Kscope 2014 Preview: Data Modeling and Moving Meditation with Kent Graziano For your mind and your body! Oracle ACE Director Kent Graziano previews his Kscope 2014 data modeling presentations and the early morning Chi Gung sessions he will once again lead for Kscope attendees. OAG and OES Integration for Web API Security: skin and guts | Andre Correa A-Team architect Andre Correa's post examines a strategy for web API security that uses OAG (Oracle API Gateway) and OES (Oracle Entitlements Server). Getting Started with Coherence*Web in WebLogic Server 12.1.2 | Tim Middleton Solution architect Tim Middleton shows you how to configure Coherence*Web in WebLogic Server 12.1.2 and deploy a basic web application. SOA and Business Processes: You are the Process! Part of the 13-part "Industrial SOA" article series, this article looks at best practices for modeling and managing effective business processes. Authentication in Oracle Identity Federation/ IdP | Damien Carru Damien Carru discuss authentication when OIF acts as an IdP and how the server can be configured to use specific OAM Authentication Schemes to challenge the user. Caveats on Using WebLogic Server with JDK7 | JayJay Zheng Quick tech tips from Oracle ACE JayJay Zheng.

  Read the article

• Handy Generic JQuery Functions

  - by Steve Wilkes

  I was a bit of a late-comer to the JQuery party, but now I've been using it for a while it's given me a host of options for adding extra flair to the client side of my applications. Here's a few generic JQuery functions I've written which can be used to add some neat little features to a page. Just call any of them from a document ready function. Apply JQuery Themeroller Styles to all Page Buttons   The JQuery Themeroller is a great tool for creating a theme for a site based on colours and styles for particular page elements. The JQuery.UI library then provides a set of functions which allow you to apply styles to page elements. This function applies a JQuery Themeroller style to all the buttons on a page - as well as any elements which have a button class applied to them - and then makes the mouse pointer turn into a cursor when you mouse over them: function addCursorPointerToButtons() {     $("button, input[type='submit'], input[type='button'], .button") .button().css("cursor", "pointer"); } Automatically Remove the Default Value from a Select Box   Required drop-down select boxes often have a default option which reads 'Please select...' (or something like that), but once someone has selected a value, there's no need to retain that. This function removes the default option from any select boxes on the page which have a data-val-remove-default attribute once one of the non-default options has been chosen: function removeDefaultSelectOptionOnSelect() {     $("select[data-val-remove-default='']").change(function () {         var sel = $(this);         if (sel.val() != "") { sel.children("option[value='']:first").remove(); }     }); } Automatically add a Required Label and Stars to a Form   It's pretty standard to have a little * next to required form field elements. This function adds the text * Required to the top of the first form on the page, and adds *s to any element within the form with the class editor-label and a data-val-required attribute: function addRequiredFieldLabels() {     var elements = $(".editor-label[data-val-required='']");     if (!elements.length) { return; }     var requiredString = "<div class='editor-required-key'>* Required</div>";     var prependString = "<span class='editor-required-label'> * </span>"; var firstFormOnThePage = $("form:first");     if (!firstFormOnThePage.children('div.editor-required-key').length) {         firstFormOnThePage.prepend(requiredString);     }     elements.each(function (index, value) { var formElement = $(this);         if (!formElement.children('span.editor-required-label').length) {             formElement.prepend(prependString);         }     }); } I hope those come in handy :)

  Read the article

• Advice for how to handle company pride

  - by user17971

  We have this "amazing" little product using the latest development methodologies, components with all the bells and whistles. I took over this product maybe 6 months ago and struggled with it from day one. Even though it is supposedly is state of the art because of all its amazing structure, using dependency injections, inversion of control from the unity framework, hibernation and is domain driven in a .net mvvm xaml application to make it streamlined and modular. I knew from the moment I saw the monolith that it was going to be an uphill struggle for me. A lot of little code-bits scattered all around in neatly organized paradigms. Debugging is difficult, tracing the code is difficult, making new code is difficult, although some modifications is surprisinly easy but it doesn't out weight the problems I have with the code by a long shot. When I took over the project I was told that the new management console was ready for delivery and all I had to do was compile it and drop it. This was the beginning of a uphill struggle, our customer didn't agree at all that this was the functionality they had asked for so I had to do modifications to the program to their specifications. Since the project pretty much has been overdue since I took over it it has always been important that we didn't add or change much to the original system. I could modify the existing bits. fast forward until today where I finally completed all their comments and issues with the program but now I think that the users has opened their eyes (even though they saw this program many times) that they will be going backwards with this new system, that it will be much worse than the tool they got today (for a long time due to the fact that I'm the only resource on the project, project manager, tester, developer, integration specialist etc) My problem is that I lost faith in this system quite early due to the nature of the program. Although I made many changes and improvements to the system I wholeheartedly sympathize with the poor users who are going to start using this system. Its not nearly doing all the things it should do. I had this conversation internally with my boss where I told him what I thought about it, that if I were the customer I wouldn't have spent money developing it. So what do I do now? The system in ready, on a staging system and nobody likes it, its too slow and boring and does maybe do 50% of what they need it to do. Despite how much energy and working around the clock I've done to this project: I won't mind scrapping the system but we've spent much money (well my salaries) developing it and my company wants us to be proud of everything we do and advocate it. How will I tackle the contractor when he asks for advice? Surely I can tell him, this is what we agreed upon based on your use case scenarios, and be done with it? How will I inform my boss about this progress? He knows what I feel about it but I always get the feeling he let my criticism pass him by as just hot air, gone tomorrow,.

  Read the article

• OpenWorld in Small Bites

  - by Kathryn Perry

  Fifty thousand attendees -- that's bigger than the cities some of us live in. Monday morning it took 20 minutes to get from Hall D in Moscone North to a conference room in Moscone South -- the crowds were crushing! A great start to a great week! Larry is as big a name as ever on the program schedule and on the Moscone stage. People were packed in Hall D and clustered around every big screen TV. He stayed on script as he laid out Oracle's SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS strategies. Every seat in Chris Leone's Fusion Apps Cloud Overview was filled on Monday morning. Oracle employees who wanted to get in were turned away. And the same thing happened in the repeat session on Wednesday. Our newest suite of apps is hot! Speaking of hot, the weather was made to order. Then it turned very San Francisco-like on Wednesday afternoon. Downright cold for those who trusted SF temps to hold in the 80's. Who did you follow on Twitter during the conference? So many voices, opinions, and convos! Great combo of social media and sharp minds. Be sure to follow @larryellison, @stevenrmiranda, and @Oracle for updates and MyPOVs. Keywords for the Apps customers at the conference were cloud, mobile, and social. Every day, every session, every speaker. Wednesday afternoon, 4 pm at the Four Seasons hotel. A large roomful of analysts and influencers firing questions at a panel of eight Fusion customers. Steve Miranda moderating. Good energy and a great exchange of information and confidence. Word on the street is that OpenWorld has outgrown San Francisco -- but moving it seems unthinkable. The city isn't just a backdrop for an industry conference - it's a headliner right up there with Larry Ellison and Pearl Jam. As you can imagine, electrical outlets were in high demand at every venue. The most popular hotels and bars near Moscone designed their interiors around accessible electrical power strips. People are plenty willing to buy a drink while they grab a charge. Wednesday afternoon, 4 pm at the Four Seasons hotel. A large roomful of analysts and influencers firing questions at a panel of eight Fusion customers. Steve Miranda moderating. Good energy and a great exchange of information and confidence. Treasure Island in the dark. Eddy Vedder has an amazing voice! And Kings of Leon over delivered on people's expectations. It was cold. It was windy. It was very fun. One analyst said it's the best customer appreciation party in the industry. 

  Read the article

• OPN Specialized Partner Activities at Collaborate 2012

  - by Get_Specialized!

  If your a Partner planning to attend the Collaborate 2012 event, April 22-26th in Las Vegas, Oracle Partner Network (OPN) team members attending welcome meeting you onsite. Whether you are interested in being a new Partner, or you are a long standing Partner seeking an update on OPN programs or Partner Specialization, we welcome meeting with you 1 on 1. In fact, we might drop by your booth or session to further recognize you for your OPN Specialization accomplishments! If you are also  participating in Social Media while at the event, let us know that as well. In addition, we are also seeking to meet Partners, while at Collaborate 2012, who may be interested in speaking at Oracle OpenWorld on their OPN Specialization program accomplishments and customer successes. Understanding that Partners can be busy staffing their own booths, we welcome meeting you when the exhibit hall is closed. Or if you want a break away from your booth, we are glad to meet  on the exhibit hall floor Oracle Validated Integration Lounge - OAUG & Quest member Booth 1679. To learn more or to schedule a meeting on site Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; 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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} contact us

  Read the article

• As a tooling/automation developer, can I be making better use of OOP?

  - by Tom Pickles

  My time as a developer (~8 yrs) has been spent creating tooling/automation of one sort or another. The tools I develop usually interface with one or more API's. These API's could be win32, WMI, VMWare, a help-desk application, LDAP, you get the picture. The apps I develop could be just to pull back data and store/report. It could be to provision groups of VM's to create live like mock environments, update a trouble ticket etc. I've been developing in .Net and I'm currently reading into design patterns and trying to think about how I can improve my skills to make better use of and increase my understanding of OOP. For example, I've never used an interface of my own making in anger (which is probably not a good thing), because I honestly cannot identify where using one would benefit later on when modifying my code. My classes are usually very specific and I don't create similar classes with similar properties/methods which could use a common interface (like perhaps a car dealership or shop application might). I generally use an n-tier approach to my apps, having a presentation layer, a business logic/manager layer which interfaces with layer(s) that make calls to the API's I'm working with. My business entities are always just method-less container objects, which I populate with data and pass back and forth between my API interfacing layer using static methods to proxy/validate between the front and the back end. My code by nature of my work, has few common components, at least from what I can see. So I'm struggling to see how I can better make use of OOP design and perhaps reusable patterns. Am I right to be concerned that I could be being smarter about how I work, or is what I'm doing now right for my line of work? Or, am I missing something fundamental in OOP? EDIT: Here is some basic code to show how my mgr and api facing layers work. I use static classes as they do not persist any data, only facilitate moving it between layers. public static class MgrClass { public static bool PowerOnVM(string VMName) { // Perform logic to validate or apply biz logic // call APIClass to do the work return APIClass.PowerOnVM(VMName); } } public static class APIClass { public static bool PowerOnVM(string VMName) { // Calls to 3rd party API to power on a virtual machine // returns true or false if was successful for example } }

  Read the article

• Dark Sun Dispatch 001.5 (a review of City Under The Sand)

  - by Chris Williams

  City Under The Sand - a review I'm moderately familiar with the Dark Sun setting. I've read the other Dark Sun novels, ages ago and I recently started running a D&D 4.0 campaign in the Dark Sun world, so I picked up this book to help re-familiarize myself with the setting. Overall, it did accomplish that, in a limited way. The book takes place in Nibenay and a neighboring expanse of desert that includes a formerly buried city, a small town and a bandit outpost. The book does a more interesting job of describing Nibenese politics and the court of the ruling Sorcerer King, his templars and the expected jockeying for position that occurs between the Templar Wives. There is a fair amount of combat, which was interesting and fairly well detailed. The ensemble cast is introduced and eventually brought together over the first few chapters. Not a lot of backstory on most of the characters, but you get a feel for them fairly quickly. The storyline was somewhat predictable after the first third of the book. Some of the reviews on Amazon complain about the 2-dimensional characterizations, and yes there were some... but it's easy to ignore because there is a lot going on in the book... several interwoven plotlines that all eventually converge. Where the book falls short... First, it appears to have been edited by a 4th grader who knows how to use spellcheck but lacks the attention to detail to notice the frequent occurence of incorrect words that often don't make sense or change the context of the entire sentence. It happened just enough to be distracting, and honestly I expect better from WOTC. Second, there is a lot of buildup to the end of the story... the big fight, the confrontation between good and evil, etc... which is handled in just a few pages and then the story basically just ends. Kind of a letdown, honestly. There wasn't a big finish, and it wasn't a cliffhanger, it just wraps up neatly and ends. It felt pretty rushed. Overall, aside from the very end, I enjoyed it. I really liked the insight into that region of Athas and it gave me some good ideas for fleshing out my own campaign. In that sense, the book served its purpose for me. If you're looking for a light read (got a 5-6 hour flight somewhere?) or you want to learn more about the Dark Sun setting, then I'd recommend this book.

  Read the article

• The Use-Case Driven Approach to Change Management

  - by Lauren Clark

  In the third entry of the series on OUM and PMI’s Pulse of the Profession, we took a look at the continued importance of change management and risk management. The topic of change management and OUM’s use-case driven approach has come up in few recent conversations. So I thought I would jot down a few thoughts on how the use-case driven approach aids a project team in managing the project’s scope. The use-case model is one of several tools in OUM that is used to establish and manage the project's scope.  Because a use-case model can be understood by both business and IT project team members, it can serve as a bridge for ongoing collaboration as well as a visual diagram that encapsulates all agreed-upon functionality. This makes it a vital artifact in identifying changes to the project’s scope. Here are some of the primary benefits of using the use-case model as part of the effort for establishing and managing project scope: The use-case model quickly communicates scope in a straightforward manner. All project stakeholders can have a common foundation for the decisions regarding architecture and design and how they relate to the project's objectives. Once agreed upon, the model can be put under change control and any updates to the model can then be quickly identified as potentially affecting the project’s scope.  Changes requested or discovered later in the project can be analyzed objectively for their impact on project's budget, resources and schedule. A modular foundation for the design of the software solution can be established in Elaboration.  This permits work to be divided up effectively and executed in so that the most important and riskiest use-cases can be tackled early in the project. The use-case model helps the team make informed decisions about implementation priorities, which allows effective allocation of limited project resources.  This is very helpful in not only managing scope, but in doing iterative and incremental planning which relies heavily on the ability to identify project priorities. Bottom line is that the use-case model gives the project team solid understanding of scope early in the project.  Combine this understanding with effective project management and communication and you have an effective tool for reducing the risk of overruns in budget and/or time due to out of control scope changes. Now that you’ve had a chance to read these thoughts on the use-case model and project scope, please let me know your feedback based on your experience.

  Read the article

• WIF, ADFS 2 and WCF&ndash;Part 1: Overview

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  A lot has been written already about passive federation and integration of WIF and ADFS 2 into web apps. The whole active/WS-Trust feature area is much less documented or covered in articles and blogs. Over the next few posts I will try to compile all relevant information about the above topics – but let’s start with an overview. ADFS 2 has a number of endpoints under the /services/trust base address that implement the WS-Trust protocol. They are grouped by the WS-Trust version they support (/13 and /2005), the client credential type (/windows*, /username*, /certificate*) and the security mode (*transport, *mixed and message). You can see the endpoints in the MMC console under the Service/Endpoints page. So in other words, you use one of these endpoints (which exactly depends on your configuration / system setup) to request tokens from ADFS 2. The bindings behind the endpoints are more or less standard WCF bindings, but with SecureConversation (establishSecurityContext) disabled. That means that whenever you need to programmatically talk to these endpoints – you can (easily) create client bindings that are compatible. Another option is to use the special bindings that come with WIF (in the Microsoft.IdentityModel.Protocols.WSTrust.Bindings namespace). They are already pre-configured to be compatible with the ADFS endpoints. The downside of these bindings is, that you can’t use them in configuration. That’s definitely a feature request of mine for the next version of WIF. The next important piece of information is the so called Federation Service Identifier. This is the value that you (at least by default) have to use as a realm/appliesTo whenever you are requesting a token for ADFS (e.g. in  IdP –> RSTS scenario). Or (even more) technically speaking, ADFS 2 checks for this value in the audience URI restriction in SAML tokens. You can get to this value by clicking the “Edit Federation Service Properties” in the MMC when the Service tree-node is selected. OK – I will come back to this basic information in the following posts. Basically I want to go through the following scenarios: ADFS in the IdP role ADFS in the R-STS role (with a chained claims provider) Using the WCF bindings for automatic token issuance Using WSTrustChannelFactory for manual token handling Stay tuned…

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328  | Next Page >