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• OpenVZ vs KVM for Linux VMs

  - by Eliasdx

  Hardware: Intel® Core™ i7-920, 12 GB DDR3 RAM, 2 x 1500 GB SATA-II HDD (no SoftRaid because Proxmox developers don't support softraid and they are sure you'll run into problems) Software: Proxmox VE with KVM and OpenVZ support and debian everywhere I want to run multiple Linux VMs on this server. One for a firewall (I want to try pfSense), one for MySQL, one VM for nginx (my stuff) and ~2 VMs with nginx for other people's web sites. I don't think that pfSense will run in an OpenVZ environment but it should run in KVM. The question is if I should setup the other VMs using KVM or OpenVZ. In OpenVZ they should have less overhead for the OS itself but I don't know about the performance. I heard that KVM is more stable but needs more RAM and CPU. I found this diagram showing a OpenVZ setup on the same hardware I'm using. This guy uses an own VM for each and every website which is running on his server. I can't think of any advantage why he's using so many VMs.

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• Any program to help me check whether an ethernet channel can support full-length VLAN packet?

  - by Jimm Chen

  Sometimes, I have to face such a situation that I need to quickly and explicitly know whether a full length VLAN packet can traverse between two RJ45 ports. Yes, I mean 802.1Q ethernet frame with Etype=81 00 (diagram below). What I can do now is: Get two Windows PCs, for each PC, intall Intel Gigabit NIC and Intel specific driver to create a virtual NIC, with VLAN ID=3 assigned. Then connect the two PCs to each of the two RJ45 port. Finally execute ping to generate a full-length ethernet packet. ping -f -l 1472 <dest-IP> This way, I can be sure that the sent packet has the maximum "IP data payload" of 1500 bytes(8 bytes of ICMP header and 1472 bytes of ICMP data). If the ping gets reply, I know that the ethernet channel support full-length VLAN packet. From my experiment, some home switch or broad band routers(e.g. Linksys WRT54G) does not support full-length VLAN packet switching, so only ping -f -l 1468 succeeds. You see, I have to use an expensive Intel NIC to carry on that test, quite inconvenient. You know, for most laptop today, they do not equip an Intel NIC, and, even it is an Intel NIC, Intel VLAN driver, Intel has limitations on the models on which VLAN driver can be installed. So, my question is: Is there a small program that can let me send a full-length VLAN packet without installing a dedicated VLAN driver? Or better, the program has a stock feature that does the very job for my situation. Windows programs preferred, Linux solution welcome. Simpler the program, the better. Thank you.

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• Broad Band LAN connection through existing 6 wire phone line ( no phone connected )

  - by Paul Taylor

  I have an (up to but never achieved ) 10 mb broadband signal coming into my house along the telephone line. The modem then connects the broadband signal via a LAN connection and Wi-Fi signal to my computers and iPad. My workshop desk is 54 yards (approx. 50m) downhill from the modem (part of a separate building) – too far to give a good direct signal. The inside corner of the workshop (by a window) receives a weak signal. I have a disconnected telephone cable consisting of 6 wires going from the house to the workshop. The telephone is no longer used in the workshop - we use our mobile number for business calls. A broad band signal using the cable would not have to share with a phone. What would be the most economic price/efficient way to get the broadband signal to the workshop? I am writing in hope that since the telephone didn't need the six wires, an Ethernet connection might be similar and not need all the eight wires for a LAN connection. In theory could use the telephone wire to pull an Ethernet cable trough the underground pipe but I doubt if the cable would survive the strain. The broad band connection in the workshop does not have to have network facility. My skill level is high enough to do house wiring, plumbing and gas fitting; so given any sound advice and a wiring diagram or instructions I can probably work out the rest myself.

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• Standards for documenting/designing infrastructure

  - by Paul

  We have a moderately complex solution for which we need to construct a production environment. There are around a dozen components (and here I'm using a definition of "component" which means "can fail independently of other components" - e.g. an Apache server, a Weblogic web app, an ftp server, an ejabberd server, etc). There are a number of weblogic web apps - and one thing we need to decide is how many weblogic containers to run these web apps in. The system needs to be highly available, and communications in and out of the system are typically secured by SSL Our datacentre team will handle things like VLAN design, racking, server specification and build. So the kinds of decisions we still need to make are: How to map components to physical servers (and weblogic containers) Identify all communication paths, ensure all are either resilient or there's an "upstream" comms path that is resilient, and failover of that depends on all single-points of failure "downstream". Decide where to terminate SSL (on load balancers, or on Apache servers, for instance). My question isn't really about how to make the decisions, but whether there are any standards for documenting (especially in diagrams) the design questions and the design decisions. It seems odd, for instance, that Visio doesn't have a template for something like this - it has templates for more physical layout, and for more logical /software architecture diagrams. So right now I'm using a basic Visio diagram to represent each component, the commms between them with plans to augment this with hostnames, ports, whether each comms link is resilient etc, etc. This all feels like something that must been done many times before. Are there standards for documenting this?

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• Two hosts on same subnet can't see each other

  - by Joey Hewitt

  I've got two routers with two separate public IP addresses on the same subnet, but I can't get them to talk to each other. Both are connected to the internet (ISP-provided gateway) via Ethernet ports provided by the landlord, but I don't have access to or knowledge of how those are physically connected or the protocols used to get back to the ISP. I can ping either from the outside, but they can't ping each other. Traceroutes in and out look the same, and they receive the same gateway over DHCP. I can ping other IPs on the subnet, so I assume this is not any sort of intentional isolation for security/privacy. Since I'm in a setup where my landlord provides internet and we don't have contact with the ISP, I can't really ask the ISP for help (doubt the landlord would know much either.) The situation is similar to the diagram at this question, but instead of the two servers, there's another router coming off the (presumed) switch, and I don't have access to the switch. I've tried giving them static routes to each other with the ISP internet gateway as the gateway, but that's not working. One is a Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT, the other is a Netgear WGR614v7, although I could get something more capable if necessary. I'd like to keep them each connected directly to the ISP on their WAN ports, but I can have an ethernet cable between them if necessary - I'm wondering if there's a way without that, and if there isn't, I'd appreciate advice on how to get that working. Sorry this is so nitpicky; there are reasons for all the constraints, but they don't apply to the real question, so I left them out. ;) Thank you!

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• Good Enough Failover Strategy for DNS / MySQL / Email

  - by IMB

  I've asked and read a lot questions regarding DNS failover but the more I read the more complicated it becomes, some people say it's good enough some say it isn't. No clear answers from what I read. I was wondering if we can set it straight once and for all, at least for the requirements of most websites out there. Right now let's assume the following: We don't need really need load-balancing, what we need is a failover solution. We are running a website based on LAMP on a VPS. We need to make sure that the Web Server, MySQL, Email are always accessible if not 99%. Basically here's my idea and questions about it: Web Server: We need at least one failover server (another VPS on a separate data center). Is DNS Failover via Round Robin good, if not, what's the best? And how do you exactly implement it? How do you make the files you upload/delete on Server A is also on Server B? MySQL: I've only read a brief intro to MySQL replication and I assume that I can replicate Server A to Server B and vice versa on the fly right? So just it case Server A fails and Server B is now running, it will continue to work and replicate to Server A when it becomes available. So in essence Server B is now the primary server, and will later on failover to Server A, should a failure happen again. Email: If we are gonna use DNS Failover, using webmail or relying on emails stored on the server is probably not a good idea right? Since some emails might be on Server A while some might be on Server B? I assume a basic email forwarder to a 3rdparty is good enough (like Gmail for example) to ensure all emails are kept in one place. Here's a basic diagram for a better picture: http://i.stack.imgur.com/KWSIi.png

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• Can't reliably ping 6224 router from directly-attached system

  - by David Mackintosh

  OK, here's my situation. This is on the internet. The 6224 is the router in this picture and physically resides in Kanata. Both VLAN 1697 and 3994 are provided by an internet service provider. These VLANs are provided through a single 1Gb ethernet wire. The Kanata hosts are directly attached to the 6224; the other two sites are remote. VLAN 3994 is a single IP address space, so theoretically it shouldn't matter physically where the hosts on that subnet are. Here's the problem. I have a monitoring system which is connected further into the internet, so probes from the monitor would come in to this diagram on the 1697 VLAN. When I ping hosts at Albert or Bells Corners from the internet, there is 0 loss. The connection looks perfect. When I ping hosts at Kanata, I lose anywhere from 10 to 40% of the pings. The loss is not predictable, but: when I do lose them, I always lose at least 3, usually 4, rarely more, pings in a bunch. I have attached a monitor directly to the 6224 in Kanata on 3994.. When the monitor pings the 6224 routing interface, I see exactly the same loss pattern -- but NOT at the same time as the loss from the remote system. Ping time is around 1ms. When the monitor pings another system directly attached to the 6224, there is 0 loss. Ping time is about 0.1ms, one-tenth of the time to ping the router. Anyone know what is going on here?

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• Find routers IP address on the other side

  - by corsiKa

  Here's the basic setup of my network In this diagram: 1: The internet c: cable 2: Wireless router w: wireless connection 3: A win7 box with internet connection sharing enabled 4: A wireless router, but I'm only using its LAN capabilities to connect box 5 to the internet. 5: A win7 box, the computer I'm using to make this post. So its internet works just fine. Now if I'm on box 5, and I ping 192.168.1.1, I hit 4. If I'm on box 3 and I ping 192.168.1.1, I hit 2. Now obviously box 3 does not think 4's IP address is 192.168.1.1, or I wouldn't be able to connect to the internet. Okay, now that you know as much as I do about my network, here's my question: If I was on box 3, how would I determine the IP address of 4? Basically I'm running a webserver on box 5 and want to access this webserver on box 3 and other boxes. So that's the end goal. If there's other information there that can help, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

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• Consulting: Organizing site/environment documentation for customers?

  - by ewwhite

  Over time, I've taken on consulting and contract engineering work for various clients. More recently, customers are asking for certain types of documentation. These are small businesses and typically do not have dedicated technical staff. Within a single company, Wiki/Confluence/Sharepoint, etc. all make sense as a central repository for documentation and environment information. I struggle with finding a consistent method to deliver the following information to discrete customers. I'm shooting for a process that's more portable, secure and elegant than a simple spreadsheet or the dreaded binder full of outdated information. Important IP addresses, DHCP scope, etc. Network diagram (if needed). Administrative usernames and passwords and management URLs. Software license keys. Support contracts and warranty information. Vendor support contacts and instructions. I know there are other consultants here. Any suggestions or tips on maintaining documentation across multiple environments in a customer-friendly format? How do you do it?

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• VPN into multiple LAN Subnets

  - by Rain

  I need to figure out a way to allow access to two LAN subnets on a SonicWall NSA 220 through the built-in SonicWall GlobalVPN server. I've Googled and tried everything I can think of, but nothing has worked. The SonicWall NSA management web interface is also very unorganized; I'm probably missing something simple/obvious. There are two networks, called Network A and Network B for simplicity, with two different subnets. A SonicWall NSA 220 is the router/firewall/DHCP Server for Network A, which is plugged into the X2 port. Some other router is the router/firewall/DHCP server for Network B. Both of these networks need to be managed through a VPN connection. I setup the X3 interface on the SonicWall to have a static IP in the Network B subnet and plugged it in. Network A and Network B should not be able to access each other, which appears the be the default configuration. I then configured and enabled VPN. The SonicWall currently has the X1 interface setup with a subnet of 192.168.1.0/24 with a DHCP Server enabled, although it is not plugged in. When I VPN into the SonicWall, I get an IP address supplied by the DHCP Server on the X1 interface and I can access Network A remotely although I do not have access to Network B. How can I allow access to both Network A and Network B to VPN clients although keep devices on Network B from accessing Network A and vice-versa. Is there some way to create a VPN-only subnet (something like 10.100.0.0/24) on the SonicWall that can access Network A and Network B without changing the current network configuration or allowing devices on both netorks "see" each other? How would I go about setting this up? Diagram of the network: (Hopefully this kind of helps) WAN1 WAN2 | | [ SonicWall NSA 220 ]-(X3)-----------------[ Router 2 ] | | (X2) 192.168.2.0/24 10.1.1.0/24 Any help would be greatly appriciated!

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• VMWare use of Gratuitous ARP REPLY

  - by trs80

  I have an ESXi cluster that hosts several Windows Server VMs and around 30 Windows workstation VMs. Packet captures show a high number of ARP replies of the form: -sender_ip: VM IP -sender_mac: VM virtual MAC -target_ip: 0.0.0.0 -target_mac: Switch interface MAC The specific addresses aren't really a concern -- they're all legitimate and we're not having any problems with communications (most of the questions surrounding GARP and VMWare have to do with ping issues, a problem we don't have). I'm looking for an explanation of the traffic pattern in an environment that functions as expected. So the question is why would I see a high number of unsolicited ARP replies? Is this a mechanism VMWare uses for some purpose? What is it? Is there an alternative? EDIT: Quick diagram: [esxi]--[switch vlan]--[inline IDS]--[fw]--(rest of network) The IDS is complaining about these unsolicited ARPs. Several IDS vendors trigger on ARP replies without a prior request, or for ARP replies that have a target IP of 0.0.0.0. The target MAC in these replies is the VLAN interface on the switch. Capture points: -The IDS grabs the offending packets -The FW can see the same ones -A VM on the ESXi host does not see these, although there is an ARP request for a specific IP on the ESXi host that has source_ip=0.0.0.0 and source_mac=[switch vlan interface]. I can't share the captures, unfortunately. Really I'm interested in finding out if this is normal for an ESXi deployment.

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• How can I pair two bluetooth dongles together?

  - by techaddict

  I want to hack a device which connects via USB, and plug a bluetooth USB dongle to the end of the USB cable (using a female to female adapter), and then connect to that device from another USB bluetooth dongle connected to my computer. How can I do this? It is straightforward? I don't want to spend $30 before I know how to do this. Also I think another concern is that the USB cable is providing power to the device. So I think that means I would also have to hack it for power. I have created this diagram in Photoshop to illustrate my intent: (NOTE: it won't be a USB mouse, as that would be pointless because there are already wireless mice in existence. The mouse is displayed for illustrative purposes) Don't tell me "it won't work". Because I KNOW it WILL work. Think for example, PS3 controller. That works, and in fact I was able to get it working with my laptop, over bluetooth. I just want to know HOW to make it work.

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• Servers - Buying New vs Buying Second-hand

  - by Django Reinhardt

  We're currently in the process of adding additional servers to our website. We have a pretty simple topology planned: A Firewall/Router Server infront of a Web Application Server and Database Server. Here's a simple (and technically incorrect) diagram that I used in a previous question to illustrate what I mean: We're now wondering about the specs of our two new machines (the Web App and Firewall servers) and whether we can get away with buying a couple of old servers. (Note: Both machines will be running Windows Server 2008 R2.) We're not too concerned about our Firewall/Router server as we're pretty sure it won't be taxed too heavily, but we are interested in our Web App server. I realise that answering this type of question is really difficult without a ton of specifics on users, bandwidth, concurrent sessions, etc, etc., so I just want to focus on the general wisdom on buying old versus new. I had originally specced a new Dell PowerEdge R300 (1U Rack) for our company. In short, because we're going to be caching as much data as possible, I focussed on Processor Speed and Memory: Quad-Core Intel Xeon X3323 2.5Ghz (2x3M Cache) 1333Mhz FSB 16GB DDR2 667Mhz But when I was looking for a cheap second-hand machine for our Firewall/Router, I came across several machines that made our engineer ask a very reasonable question: If we stuck a boat load of RAM in this thing, wouldn't it do for the Web App Server and save us a ton of money in the process? For example, what about a second-hand machine with the following specs: 2x Dual-Core AMD Opteron 2218 2.6Ghz (2MB Cache) 1000Mhz HT 16GB DDR2 667Mhz Would it really be comparable with the more expensive (new) server above? Our engineer postulated that the reason companies upgrade their servers to newer processors is often because they want to reduce their power costs, and that a 2.6Ghz processor was still a 2.6Ghz processor, no matter when it was made. Benchmarks on various sites don't really support this theory, but I was wondering what server admin thought. Thanks for any advice.

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• Cannot make bind9 forward DNS query to subdomain unless recursive enabled

  - by PP.

  I am trying to develop my own dynamic DNS. I'm running my own custom DNS for the subdomain on port 5353. ASCII diagram: INET --->:53 Bind 9 --->:5353 node.js | V zone_files I have example.com. The node.js DNS is for dyn.example.com. In my /etc/bind/named.conf.local I have: zone "example.com" { type master; file "/etc/bind/db.com.example"; allow-transfer { zonetxfrsafe; }; }; zone "dyn.example.com" IN { # DYNAMIC type forward; forwarders { 127.0.0.1 port 5353; }; forward only; }; I've even gone so far as to add a NS in my example.com zone file: $TTL 86400 @ IN SOA ns.example.com. hostmaster.example.com. ( 2013070104 ; Serial 7200 ; Refresh 1200 ; Retry 2419200 ; Expire 86400 ) ; Negative Cache TTL ; NS ns ; inet of our nameserver ns A 1.2.3.4 ; NS record for subdomain dyn NS ns When I attempt to get a record from the subdomain server it doesn't get forwarded: dig @127.0.0.1 test.dyn.example.com However if I turn recursive on in /etc/bind/named.conf.options: options { recursion yes; } .. then I CAN see the request going to the subdomain server. But I don't want recursion yes; in my Bind configuration as it is poor security practice (and allows all-and-sundry requests that are not related to my managed zones). How does one forward (proxy) zone queries for just one zone? Or do I give up on Bind altogether and find a DNS server that can actually forward specific queries?

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• ActionResult types in MVC2

  - by rajbk

  In ASP.NET MVC, incoming browser requests gets mapped to a controller action method. The action method returns a type of ActionResult in response to the browser request. A basic example is shown below: public class HomeController : Controller { public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } } Here we have an action method called Index that returns an ActionResult. Inside the method we call the View() method on the base Controller. The View() method, as you will see shortly, is a method that returns a ViewResult. The ActionResult class is the base class for different controller results. The following diagram shows the types derived from the ActionResult type. ASP.NET has a description of these methods ContentResult – Represents a text result. EmptyResult – Represents no result. FileContentResult – Represents a downloadable file (with the binary content). FilePathResult – Represents a downloadable file (with a path). FileStreamResult – Represents a downloadable file (with a file stream). JavaScriptResult – Represents a JavaScript script. JsonResult – Represents a JavaScript Object Notation result that can be used in an AJAX application. PartialViewResult – Represents HTML and markup rendered by a partial view. RedirectResult – Represents a redirection to a new URL. RedirectToRouteResult – Represents a result that performs a redirection by using the specified route values dictionary. ViewResult – Represents HTML and markup rendered by a view. To return the types shown above, you call methods that are available in the Controller base class. A list of these methods are shown below.   Methods without an ActionResult return type The MVC framework will translate action methods that do not return an ActionResult into one. Consider the HomeController below which has methods that do not return any ActionResult types. The methods defined return an int, object and void respectfully. public class HomeController : Controller { public int Add(int x, int y) { return x + y; }   public Employee GetEmployee() { return new Employee(); }   public void DoNothing() { } } When a request comes in, the Controller class hands internally uses a ControllerActionInvoker class which inspects the action parameters and invokes the correct action method. The CreateActionResult method in the ControllerActionInvoker class is used to return an ActionResult. This method is shown below. If the result of the action method is null, an EmptyResult instance is returned. If the result is not of type ActionResult, the result is converted to a string and returned as a ContentResult. protected virtual ActionResult CreateActionResult(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, object actionReturnValue) { if (actionReturnValue == null) { return new EmptyResult(); }   ActionResult actionResult = (actionReturnValue as ActionResult) ?? new ContentResult { Content = Convert.ToString(actionReturnValue, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) }; return actionResult; }   In the HomeController class above, the DoNothing method will return an instance of the EmptyResult() Renders an empty webpage the GetEmployee() method will return a ContentResult which contains a string that represents the current object Renders the text “MyNameSpace.Controllers.Employee” without quotes. the Add method for a request of /home/add?x=3&y=5 returns a ContentResult Renders the text “8” without quotes. Unit Testing The nice thing about the ActionResult types is in unit testing the controller. We can, without starting a web server, create an instance of the Controller, call the methods and verify that the type returned is the expected ActionResult type. We can then inspect the returned type properties and confirm that it contains the expected values. Enjoy! Sulley: Hey, Mike, this might sound crazy but I don't think that kid's dangerous. Mike: Really? Well, in that case, let's keep it. I always wanted a pet that could kill me.

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• Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

  - by Michelle Kimihira

  By Maria Forney Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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• Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

  - by Maria Forney

  Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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• Where’s my MD.050?

  - by Dave Burke

  A question that I’m sometimes asked is “where’s my MD.050 in OUM?” For those not familiar with an MD.050, it serves the purpose of being a Functional Design Document (FDD) in one of Oracle’s legacy Methods. Functional Design Documents have existed for many years with their primary purpose being to describe the functional aspects of one or more components of an IT system, typically, a Custom Extension of some sort. So why don’t we have a direct replacement for the MD.050/FDD in OUM? In simple terms, the disadvantage of the MD.050/FDD approach is that it tends to lead practitioners into “Design mode” too early in the process. Whereas OUM encourages more emphasis on gathering, and describing the functional requirements of a system ahead of the formal Analysis and Design process. So that just means more work up front for the Business Analyst or Functional Consultants right? Well no…..the design of a solution, particularly when it involves a complex custom extension, does not necessarily take longer just because you put more thought into the functional requirements. In fact, one could argue the complete opposite, in that by putting more emphasis on clearly understanding the nuances of functionality requirements early in the process, then the overall time and cost incurred during the Analysis to Design process should be less. In short, as your understanding of requirements matures over time, it is far easier (and more cost effective) to update a document or a diagram, than to change lines of code. So how does that translate into Tasks and Work Products in OUM? Let us assume you have reached a point on a project where a Custom Extension is needed. One of the first things you should consider doing is creating a Use Case, and remember, a Use Case could be as simple as a few lines of text reflecting a “User Story”, or it could be what Cockburn1 describes a “fully dressed Use Case”. It is worth mentioned at this point the highly scalable nature of OUM in the sense that “documents” should not be produced just because that is the way we have always done things. Some projects may well be predicated upon a base of electronic documents, whilst other projects may take a much more Agile approach to describing functional requirements; through “User Stories” perhaps. In any event, it is quite common for a Custom Extension to involve the creation of several “components”, i.e. some new screens, an interface, a report etc. Therefore several Use Cases might be required, which in turn can then be assembled into a Use Case Package. Once you have the Use Cases attributed to an appropriate (fit-for-purpose) level of detail, and assembled into a Package, you can now create an Analysis Model for the Package. An Analysis Model is conceptual in nature, and depending on the solution being developing, would involve the creation of one or more diagrams (i.e. Sequence Diagrams, Collaboration Diagrams etc.) which collectively describe the Data, Behavior and Use Interface requirements of the solution. If required, the various elements of the Analysis Model may be indexed via an Analysis Specification. For Custom Extension projects that follow a pure Object Orientated approach, then the Analysis Model will naturally support the development of the Design Model without any further artifacts. However, for projects that are transitioning to this approach, then the various elements of the Analysis Model may be represented within the Analysis Specification. If we now return to the original question of “Where’s my MD.050”. The full answer would be: Capture the functional requirements within a Use Case Group related Use Cases into a Package Create an Analysis Model for each Package Consider creating an Analysis Specification (AN.100) as a index to each Analysis Model artifact An alternative answer for a relatively simple Custom Extension would be: Capture the functional requirements within a Use Case Optionally, group related Use Cases into a Package Create an Analysis Specification (AN.100) for each package 1 Cockburn, A, 2000, Writing Effective Use Case, Addison-Wesley Professional; Edition 1

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• Using NServiceBus behind a custom web service

  - by Michael Stephenson

  In this post I'd like to talk about an architecture scenario we had recently and how we were able to utilise NServiceBus to help us address this problem. Scenario Cognos is a reporting system used by one of my clients. A while back we developed a web service façade to allow line of business applications to be able to access reports from Cognos to support their various functions. The service was intended to provide access to reports which were quick running reports or pre-generated reports which could be accessed real-time on demand. One of the key aims of the web service was to provide a simple generic interface to allow applications to get any report without needing to worry about the complex .net SDK for Cognos. The web service also supported multi-hop kerberos delegation so that report data could be accesses under the context of the end user. This service was working well for a period of time. The Problem The problem we encountered was that reports were now also required to be available to batch processes. The original design was optimised for low latency so users would enjoy a positive experience, however when the batch processes started to request 250+ concurrent reports over an extended period of time you can begin to imagine the sorts of problems that come into play. The key problems this new scenario caused are: Users may be affected and the latency of on demand reports was significantly slower The Cognos infrastructure was not scaled sufficiently to be able to cope with these long peaks of load From a cost perspective it just isn't feasible to scale the Cognos infrastructure to be able to handle the load when it is only for a couple of hour window each night. We really needed to introduce a second pattern for accessing this service which would support high through-put scenarios. We also had little control over the batch process in terms of being able to throttle its load. We could however make some changes to the way it accessed the reports. The Approach My idea was to introduce a throttling mechanism between the Web Service Façade and Cognos. This would allow the batch processes to push reports requests hard at the web service which we were confident the web service can handle. The web service would then queue these requests and process them behind the scenes and make a call back to the batch application to provide the report once it had been accessed. In terms of technology we had some limitations because we were not able to use WCF or IIS7 where the MSMQ-Activated WCF services could have helped, but we did have MSMQ as an option and I thought NServiceBus could do just the job to help us here. The flow of how this would work was as follows: The batch applications would send a request for a report to the web service The web service uses NServiceBus to send the message to a Queue The NServiceBus Generic Host is running as a windows service with a message handler which subscribes to these messages The message handler gets the message, accesses the report from Cognos The message handler calls back to the original batch application, this is decoupled because the calling application provides a call back url The report gets into the batch application and is processed as normal This approach looks something like the below diagram: The key points are an application wanting to take advantage of the batch driven reports needs to do the following: Implement our call back contract Make a call to the service providing a call back url Provide a correlation ID so it knows how to tie each response back to its request What does NServiceBus offer in this solution So this scenario is not the typical messaging service bus type of solution people implement with NServiceBus, but it did offer the following: Simplified interaction with MSMQ Offered the ability to configure the number of processes working through the queue so we could find a balance between load on Cognos versus the applications end to end processing time NServiceBus offers retries and a way to manage failed messages NServiceBus offers a high availability setup The simple thing is that NServiceBus gave us the platform to build the solution on. We just implemented a message handler which functionally processed a message and we could rely on NServiceBus to do all of the hard work around managing the queues and all of the lower level things that would have took ages to write to any kind of robust level. Conclusion With this approach we were able to deal with a fairly significant performance issue with out too much rework. Hopefully this write up gives people some insight into ideas on how to leverage the excellent NServiceBus framework to help solve integration and high through-put scenarios.

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• RPi and Java Embedded GPIO: Writing Java code to blink LED

  - by hinkmond

  So, you've followed the previous steps to install Java Embedded on your Raspberry Pi ?, you went to Fry's and picked up some jumper wires, LEDs, and resistors ?, you hooked up the wires, LED, and resistor the the correct pins ?, and now you want to start programming in Java on your RPi? Yes? ???????! OK, then... Here we go. You can use the following source code to blink your first LED on your RPi using Java. In the code you can see that I'm not using any complicated gpio libraries like wiringpi or pi4j, and I'm not doing any low-level pin manipulation like you can in C. And, I'm not using python (hell no!). This is Java programming, so we keep it simple (and more readable) than those other programming languages. See: Write Java code to do this In the Java code, I'm opening up the RPi Debian Wheezy well-defined file handles to control the GPIO ports. First I'm resetting everything using the unexport/export file handles. (On the RPi, if you open the well-defined file handles and write certain ASCII text to them, you can drive your GPIO to perform certain operations. See this GPIO reference). Next, I write a "1" then "0" to the value file handle of the GPIO0 port (see the previous pinout diagram). That makes the LED blink. Then, I loop to infinity. Easy, huh? import java.io.* /* * Java Embedded Raspberry Pi GPIO app */ package jerpigpio; import java.io.FileWriter; /** * * @author hinkmond */ public class JerpiGPIO { static final String GPIO_OUT = "out"; static final String GPIO_ON = "1"; static final String GPIO_OFF = "0"; static final String GPIO_CH00="0"; /** * @param args the command line arguments */ public static void main(String[] args) { FileWriter commandFile; try { /*** Init GPIO port for output ***/ // Open file handles to GPIO port unexport and export controls FileWriter unexportFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/unexport"); FileWriter exportFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/export"); // Reset the port unexportFile.write(GPIO_CH00); unexportFile.flush(); // Set the port for use exportFile.write(GPIO_CH00); exportFile.flush(); // Open file handle to port input/output control FileWriter directionFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/gpio"+GPIO_CH00+"/direction"); // Set port for output directionFile.write(GPIO_OUT); directionFile.flush(); /*--- Send commands to GPIO port ---*/ // Opne file handle to issue commands to GPIO port commandFile = new FileWriter("/sys/class/gpio/gpio"+GPIO_CH00+"/value"); // Loop forever while (true) { // Set GPIO port ON commandFile.write(GPIO_ON); commandFile.flush(); // Wait for a while java.lang.Thread.sleep(200); // Set GPIO port OFF commandFile.write(GPIO_OFF); commandFile.flush(); // Wait for a while java.lang.Thread.sleep(200); } } catch (Exception exception) { exception.printStackTrace(); } } } Hinkmond

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• Next Generation Mobile Clients for Oracle Applications & the role of Oracle Fusion Middleware

  - by Manish Palaparthy

  Oracle Enterprise Applications have been available with modern web browser based interfaces for a while now. The web browsers available in smart phones no longer require special markup language such as WML since the processing power of these handsets is quite near to that of a typical personal computer. Modern Mobile devices such as the IPhone, Android Phones, BlackBerry, Windows 8 devices can now render XHTML & HTML quite well. This means you could potentially use your mobile browser to access your favorite enterprise application. While the Mobile browser would render the UI, you might find it difficult to use it due to the formatting & Presentation of the Native UI. Smart phones offer a lot more than just a powerful web browser, they offer capabilities such as Maps, GPS, Multi touch, pinch zoom, accelerometers, vivid colors, camera with video, support for 3G, 4G networks, cloud storage, NFC, streaming media, tethering, voice based features, multi tasking, messaging, social networking web browsers with support for HTML 5 and many more features.  While the full potential of Enterprise Mobile Apps is yet to be realized, Oracle has published a few of its applications that take advantage of the above capabilities and are available for the IPhone natively. Here are some of them Iphone Apps  Oracle Business Approvals for Managers: Offers a highly intuitive user interface built as a native mobile application to conveniently access pending actions related to expenses, purchase requisitions, HR vacancies and job offers. You can even view BI reports related to the worklist actions. Works with Oracle E-Business Suite Oracle Business Indicators : Real-time secure access to OBI reports. Oracle Business Approvals for Sales Managers: Enables sales executives to review key targeted tasks, access relevant business intelligence reports. Works with Siebel CRM, Siebel Quote & Order Capture. Oracle Mobile Sales Assistant: CRM application that provides real-time, secure access to the information your sales organization needs, complete frequent tasks, collaborate with colleagues and customers. Works with Oracle CRMOracle Mobile Sales Forecast: Designed specifically for the mobile business user to view key opportunities. Works with Oracle CRM on demand Oracle iReceipts : Part of Oracle PeopleSoft Expenses, which allows users to create and submit expense lines for cash transactions in real-time. Works with Oracle PeopleSoft expenses Now, we have seen some mobile Apps that Oracle has published, I am sure you are intrigued as to how develop your own clients for the use-cases that you deem most fit. For that Oracle has ADF Mobile ADF Mobile You could develop Mobile Applications with the SDK available with the smart phone platforms!, but you'd really have to be a mobile ninja developer to develop apps with the rich user experience like the ones above. The challenges really multiply when you have to support multiple mobile devices. ADF Mobile framework is really handy to meet this challenge ADF Mobile can in be used to Develop Apps for the Mobile browser : An application built with ADF Mobile framework installs on a smart device, renders user interface via HTML5, and has access to device services. This means the programming model is primarily web-based, which offers consistency with other enterprise applications as well as easier migration to new platforms. Develop Apps for the Mobile Client (Native Apps): These applications have access to device services, enabling a richer experience for users than a browser alone can offer. ADF mobile enables rapid and declarative development of rich, on-device mobile applications. Developers only need to write an application once and then they can deploy the same application across multiple leading smart phone platforms. Oracle SOA Suite Although the Mobile users are using the smart phone apps, and actual transactions are being executed in the underlying app, there is lot of technical wizardry that is going under the surface. All of this key technical components to make 1. WebService calls 2. Authentication 3. Intercepting Webservice calls and adding security credentials to the request 4. Invoking the services of the enterprise application 5. Integrating with the Enterprise Application via the Adapter is all being implemented at the SOA infrastructure layer.  As you can see from the above diagram. The key pre-requisites to mobile enable an Enterprise application are The core enterprise application Oracle SOA Suite ADF Mobile

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• MEB Support to NetBackup MMS

  - by Hema Sridharan

  In MySQL Enterprise Backup 3.6, new option was introduced to support backup to tapes via SBT interface. SBT stands for System Backup to Tape, an Oracle API that helps to perform backup and restore jobs via media management software such as Oracle's Secure Backup (OSB). There are other storage managers like IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) and Symantec's Netbackup (NB) which are also supported by MEB but we don't guarantee that it will function as expected for every release. MEB supports SBT API version 2.0 In this blog, I am primarily going to focus the interface of MEB and Symantec's NB. If we are using tapes for backup, ensure that tape library and tape drives are compatible. Test Setup 1. Install NB 7.5 master and media servers in Linux OS. ( NB 7.1 can also be used but for testing purpose I used NB 7.5)2. Install MEB 3.8 also in Linux OS.3. Install NB admin console in your windows desktop and configure the NB master server from there. Note: Ensure that you have root user permission to install NetBackup. Configuration Steps for MEB and NB Once MEB and NB are installed, Ensure that NB is linked to MEB by specifying the library /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/libobk.so64 in the mysqlbackup command line using --sbt-lib-path. Configure the NB master server from windows console. That is configure the storage units by specifying the Storage unit name, Disk type, Media Server name etc.  Create NetBackup policies that are user selectable. But please make sure that policy type is "Oracle".  Define the clients where MEB will be executed. Some times this will be different host where MEB is run or some times in same Media server where NB and tapes are attached. Now once the installation and configuration steps are performed for MEB and NB, the next part is the actual execution.MEB should be run as single file backup using --backup-image option with prefix sbt:(it is a tag which tells MEB that it should stream the backup image through the SBT interface) which is sent to NB client via SBT interface . The resulting backup image is stored where NB stores the images that it backs up. The following diagram shows how MEB interacts with MMS through SBT interface. Backup The following parameters should also be ready for the execution,    --sbt-lib-path : Path to SBT library specific to NetBackup MMS. SBT lib for NetBackup  is in /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/libobk.so64    --sbt-environment: Environment variables must be defined specific to NetBackup. In our example below, we use     NB_ORA_SERV=myserver.com,    NB_ORA_CLIENT=myserver.com,    NB_ORA_POLICY=NBU-MEB    ORACLE_HOME = /export/home2/tmp/hema/mysql-server/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ./mysqlbackup --port=13000 --protocol=tcp --user=root --backup-image=sbt:bkpsbtNB --sbt-lib-path=/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/libobk.so64 --sbt-environment="NB_ORA_SERV=myserver.com, NB_ORA_CLIENT=myserver.com, NB_ORA_POLICY=NBU-MEB, ORACLE_HOME=/export/home2/tmp/hema/mysql-server/” --backup-dir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/MEB_bkdir/ backup-to-image ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once backup is completed successfully, this should appear in Activity Monitor in NetBackup Console.For restore,  image contents has to be extracted using image-to-backup-dir command and then apply-log and copy-back steps are applied. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ./mysqlbackup --sbt-lib-path=/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/libobk.so64  --backup-dir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/NBMEB/ --backup-image=sbt:bkpsbtNB image-to-backup-dir-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Now apply logs as usual, shutdown the server and perform restore, restart the server and check the data contents. ./mysqlbackup   ---backup-dir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/NBMEB/  apply-log ./mysqlbackup --datadir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/mysql-server/mysql-5.5-meb-repo/mysql-test/var/mysqld.1/data/  --backup-dir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/MEB_bkpdir/ innodb_log_files_in_group=2 --innodb_log_file_size=5M --user=root --port=13000 --protocol=tcp copy-back The NB console should show 'Restore" job as done. If you don't see that there is something wrong with MEB or NetBackup.You can also refer to more detailed steps of MEB and NB integration in whitepaper here

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• Why Your ERP System Isn't Ready for the Next Evolution of the Enterprise

  - by ken.pulverman

    ERP has been the backbone of enterprise software.  The data held in your ERP system is core of most companies.  Efficiencies gained through the accounting and resource allocation through ERP software have literally saved companies trillions of dollars. Not only does everything seem to be fine with your ERP system, you haven't had to touch it in years.  Why aren't you ready for what comes next? Well judging by the growth rates in the space (Oracle posted only a 3% growth rate, while SAP showed a 12% decline) there hasn't been much modernization going on, just a little replacement activity. If you are like most companies, your ERP system is connected to a proprietary middleware solution that only effectively talks with a handful of other systems you might have acquired from the same vendor.   Connecting your legacy system through proprietary middleware is expensive and brittle and if you are like most companies, you were only willing to pay an SI so much before you said "enough."  So your ERP is working.  It's humming along.  You might not be able to get Order to Promise information when you take orders in your call center, but there are work arounds that work just fine. So what's the problem? The problem is that you built your business around your ERP core, and now there is such pressure to innovate your business processes to keep up that you need a whole new slew of modern apps and you need ERP data to be accessible from everywhere.   Every time you change a sales territory or a comp plan or change a benefits provider your ERP system, literally the economic brain of your business, needs to know what's going on.  And this giant need to access and provide information to your ERP is only growing. What makes matters even more challenging is that apps today come in every flavor under the Sun™.   SaaS, cloud, managed, hybrid, outsourced, composite....and they all have different integration protocols. The only easy way to get ahead of all this is to modernize the way you connect and run your applications.  Unlike the middleware solutions of yesteryear, modern middleware is effectively the operating system of the enterprise.  In the same way that you rely on Apple, Microsoft, and Google to find a video driver for your 23" monitor or to ensure the Word or Keynote runs, modern middleware takes care of intra-application connectivity and process execution.  It effectively allows you to take ERP out of the middle while ensuring connectivity to your vital data for anything you want to do.  The diagram below reflects that change.    In this model, the hegemony of ERP is over.  It too has to become a stealthy modern app to help you quickly adapt to business changes while managing vital information.  And through modern middleware it will connect to everything.  So yes ERP as we've know it is dead, but long live ERP as a connected application member of the modern enterprise. I want to Thank Andrew Zoldan, Group Vice President Oracle Manufacturing Industries Business Unit for introducing me to how some of his biggest customers have benefited by modernizing their applications infrastructure and making ERP a connected application. by John Burke, Group Vice President, Applications Business Unit

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• Why Your ERP System Isn't Ready for the Next Evolution of the Enterprise

  - by [email protected]

  By ken.pulverman on March 24, 2010 8:51 AM ERP has been the backbone of enterprise software. The data held in your ERP system is core of most companies. Efficiencies gained through the accounting and resource allocation through ERP software have literally saved companies trillions of dollars. Not only does everything seem to be fine with your ERP system, you haven't had to touch it in years. Why aren't you ready for what comes next? Well judging by the growth rates in the space (Oracle posted only a 3% growth rate, while SAP showed a 12% decline) there hasn't been much modernization going on, just a little replacement activity. If you are like most companies, your ERP system is connected to a proprietary middleware solution that only effectively talks with a handful of other systems you might have acquired from the same vendor. Connecting your legacy system through proprietary middleware is expensive and brittle and if you are like most companies, you were only willing to pay an SI so much before you said "enough." So your ERP is working. It's humming along. You might not be able to get Order to Promise information when you take orders in your call center, but there are work arounds that work just fine. So what's the problem? The problem is that you built your business around your ERP core, and now there is such pressure to innovate your business processes to keep up that you need a whole new slew of modern apps and you need ERP data to be accessible from everywhere. Every time you change a sales territory or a comp plan or change a benefits provider your ERP system, literally the economic brain of your business, needs to know what's going on. And this giant need to access and provide information to your ERP is only growing. What makes matters even more challenging is that apps today come in every flavor under the Sun™. SaaS, cloud, managed, hybrid, outsourced, composite....and they all have different integration protocols. The only easy way to get ahead of all this is to modernize the way you connect and run your applications. Unlike the middleware solutions of yesteryear, modern middleware is effectively the operating system of the enterprise. In the same way that you rely on Apple, Microsoft, and Google to find a video driver for your 23" monitor or to ensure that Word or Keynote runs, modern middleware takes care of intra-application connectivity and process execution. It effectively allows you to take ERP out of the middle while ensuring connectivity to your vital data for anything you want to do. The diagram below reflects that change. In this model, the hegemony of ERP is over. It too has to become a stealthy modern app to help you quickly adapt to business changes while managing vital information. And through modern middleware it will connect to everything. So yes ERP as we've know it is dead, but long live ERP as a connected application member of the modern enterprise. I want to Thank Andrew Zoldan, Group Vice President Oracle Manufacturing Industries Business Unit for introducing me to how some of his biggest customers have benefited by modernizing their applications infrastructure and making ERP a connected application. by John Burke, Group Vice President, Applications Business Unit

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• 256 Worker Role 3D Rendering Demo is now a Lab on my Azure Course

  - by Alan Smith

  Ever since I came up with the crazy idea of creating an Azure application that would spin up 256 worker roles (please vote if you like it ) to render a 3D animation created using the Kinect depth camera I have been trying to think of something useful to do with it. I have also been busy working on developing training materials for a Windows Azure course that I will be delivering through a training partner in Stockholm, and for customers wanting to learn Windows Azure. I hit on the idea of combining the render demo and a course lab and creating a lab where the students would create and deploy their own mini render farms, which would participate in a single render job, consisting of 2,000 frames. The architecture of the solution is shown below. As students would be creating and deploying their own applications, I thought it would be fun to introduce some competitiveness into the lab. In the 256 worker role demo I capture the rendering statistics for each role, so it was fairly simple to include the students name in these statistics. This allowed the process monitor application to capture the number of frames each student had rendered and display a high-score table. When I demoed the application I deployed one instance that started rendering a frame every few minutes, and the challenge for the students was to deploy and scale their applications, and then overtake my single role instance by the end of the lab time. I had the process monitor running on the projector during the lab so the class could see the progress of their deployments, and how they were performing against my implementation and their classmates. When I tested the lab for the first time in Oslo last week it was a great success, the students were keen to be the first to build and deploy their solution and then watch the frames appear. As the students mostly had MSDN suspicions they were able to scale to the full 20 worker role instances and before long we had over 100 worker roles working on the animation. There were, however, a few issues who the couple of issues caused by the competitive nature of the lab. The first student to scale the application to 20 instances would render the most frames and win; there was no way for others to catch up. Also, as they were competing against each other, there was no incentive to help others on the course get their application up and running. I have now re-written the lab to divide the student into teams that will compete to render the most frames. This means that if one developer on the team can deploy and scale quickly, the other team still has a chance to catch up. It also means that if a student finishes quickly and puts their team in the lead they will have an incentive to help the other developers on their team get up and running. As I was using “Sharks with Lasers” for a lot of my demos, and reserved the sharkswithfreakinlasers namespaces for some of the Azure services (well somebody had to do it), the students came up with some creative alternatives, like “Camels with Cannons” and “Honey Badgers with Homing Missiles”. That gave me the idea for the teams having to choose a creative name involving animals and weapons. The team rendering architecture diagram is shown below.   Render Challenge Rules In order to ensure fair play a number of rules are imposed on the lab. ·         The class will be divided into teams, each team choses a name. ·         The team name must consist of a ferocious animal combined with a hazardous weapon. ·         Teams can allocate as many worker roles as they can muster to the render job. ·         Frame processing statistics and rendered frames will be vigilantly monitored; any cheating, tampering, and other foul play will result in penalties. The screenshot below shows an example of the team render farm in action, Badgers with Bombs have taken a lead over Camels with Cannons, and both are  leaving the Sharks with Lasers standing. If you are interested in attending a scheduled delivery of my Windows Azure or Windows Azure Service bus courses, or would like on-site training, more details are here.

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