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• Get your TFS 2012 task board demo ready in under 1 minute

  - by Tarun Arora

  Release Notes – http://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/  | Download | Source Code | Report a Bug | Ideas In this blog post, I’ll show you how to use the ‘TfsDemoSetup’ application to configure and setup the TFS 2012 task board for a demo in well less than 1 minute Step 1 – Note what you get with a newly created Team Project Create a new Team Project on TFS Preview         2. Click Create Project         3. The project creation has completed        4. Open the team web access and have a look at the home page Note – Since I created the project I am the only Team Member       A default Team by the name AdventureWorks Team has been created       A few sprints have been assigned to the default team but no dates for sprint start and end have been specified        A default Area Path for the team is missing       Step 2. Download the TFS Demo Setup Console application from Codeplex 1. Navigate to the TFS Demo Setup project on codeplex https://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/       2. Download Instructions and TFSDemo_<version>      3. Follow the steps in the Instructions.txt file      4. Unzip TFSDemo_<version> and open the target folder. Two important files in this folder, DemoDictionary.xml – This file contains the settings using which the demo environment will be setup SetupTfsDemo.exe – This will run the TFS demo environment setup application       Step 3 – Configure the setup (i.e. team name, members, sprint dates, etc) 1. Open up DemoDictionary.xml      2. Walkthrough DemoDictionary.xml             a. Basic Team Details         <Name> – Specify the name of the team         <Description> – Specify a description to go with the team         <SetAsDefaultTeam> – This accepts a value “true/false” when set to true, the newly created team will be set as the default team in the project         <BacklogIterationPath> – Specify a backlog iteration path for the team     b. Iterations – The iterations you specify here will be set as the Teams iterations        <Iterations> – Accepts multiple <Iteration> nodes.        <Iteration> – This is the most granular level of an Iteration        <Path> – The path to the sprint, sample values, Release 1\Sprint 1 or Release 2\Sprint 2        <StartDate> – The sprint start date, this accepts the format yyyy-MM-dd        <FinishDate> – The sprint finish date, this accepts the format yyyy-MM-dd     c. Team Members – Team Members that need to be added to the newly created team will be added under this section         <TeamMembers> – Accepts multiple <TeamMember> nodes.         <TeamMember> – This is the most granular level of a Team Member         <User> – This accepts the username, if you are running this against TFSPreview then the live id of the user will need to be passed. If you are running this against TFS Server then the user id i.e. Domain\UserName will need to be passed          <Team> – Specify the name of the team that you want the user to be assigned to.     d. WorkItems – This section will allow you to add work items (product backlog Items and linked tasks) to the current sprint of the team         <WorkItems> – Accepts multiple <WorkItem> nodes.         <WorkItem> – Accepts one <ProductBacklogItem> and multiple <Task> nodes         <ProductBacklogItem> – Used to create a Product Backlog Item type work item               <Title> – The title of the Product Backlog Item               <Description> – The description of the Product Backlog Type Work Item               <AssignedTo> – Used to assign the work item to a team member. The team member name or email address can be passed.               <Effort> – The total effort required to complete the Product Backlog Item         <Task> – Used to create a linked task to the Product Backlog type work item               <Title> – The title of the task type work item               <Description> – The description of the Task Type Work Item               <AssignedTo> – Used to assign the work item to a team member. The team member name or email address can be passed.               <RemainingWork> – The remaining effort to complete the task type work item Step 4 – Setup the demo environment against the newly created Team Project 1. Run SetupTfsDemo.exe    2. Enter Y or y on the prompt to continue setting up TFS Demo setup.     3. Select the newly created Team project, for this blogpost I had created the Team Project – AdventureWorks, so that is what I’ll select in the Connect to TFS Server pop up    3. Click Connect and follow the messages that are written to the console application       Step 5 – Validate that the Demo environment is set up as per the configuration 1. The team web access is all lit up You have a Sprint, a burn down chart, team members…    2. The team Demo has been added and has been set up as the default team    3. The Sprint Backlog Iteration path, Sprints and Sprint start and finish dates have been set    4. The default area path has been setup    5. Taskboard – Backlog items view    6. Taskboard – Team members view      Step 6 – Exception Handling! 1. This solution has been tested against TFS 2012 Service/Server for the Scrum 2.1 process template. 2. You are likely to run into an exception if you mess up the config file 3. If the team already exists and you run the console app to set up the team (with the same name) you will run into exceptions. Please remember this is just an alpha release, if you have any feedback please leave a comment! Didn’t I say that it would just take 1 minute, Enjoy!

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• When is a Seek not a Seek?

  - by Paul White

  The following script creates a single-column clustered table containing the integers from 1 to 1,000 inclusive. IF OBJECT_ID(N'tempdb..#Test', N'U') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE #Test ; GO CREATE TABLE #Test ( id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ); ; INSERT #Test (id) SELECT V.number FROM master.dbo.spt_values AS V WHERE V.[type] = N'P' AND V.number BETWEEN 1 AND 1000 ; Let’s say we need to find the rows with values from 100 to 170, excluding any values that divide exactly by 10.  One way to write that query would be: SELECT T.id FROM #Test AS T WHERE T.id IN ( 101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109, 111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119, 121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129, 131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139, 141,142,143,144,145,146,147,148,149, 151,152,153,154,155,156,157,158,159, 161,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169 ) ; That query produces a pretty efficient-looking query plan: Knowing that the source column is defined as an INTEGER, we could also express the query this way: SELECT T.id FROM #Test AS T WHERE T.id >= 101 AND T.id <= 169 AND T.id % 10 > 0 ; We get a similar-looking plan: If you look closely, you might notice that the line connecting the two icons is a little thinner than before.  The first query is estimated to produce 61.9167 rows – very close to the 63 rows we know the query will return.  The second query presents a tougher challenge for SQL Server because it doesn’t know how to predict the selectivity of the modulo expression (T.id % 10 > 0).  Without that last line, the second query is estimated to produce 68.1667 rows – a slight overestimate.  Adding the opaque modulo expression results in SQL Server guessing at the selectivity.  As you may know, the selectivity guess for a greater-than operation is 30%, so the final estimate is 30% of 68.1667, which comes to 20.45 rows. The second difference is that the Clustered Index Seek is costed at 99% of the estimated total for the statement.  For some reason, the final SELECT operator is assigned a small cost of 0.0000484 units; I have absolutely no idea why this is so, or what it models.  Nevertheless, we can compare the total cost for both queries: the first one comes in at 0.0033501 units, and the second at 0.0034054.  The important point is that the second query is costed very slightly higher than the first, even though it is expected to produce many fewer rows (20.45 versus 61.9167). If you run the two queries, they produce exactly the same results, and both complete so quickly that it is impossible to measure CPU usage for a single execution.  We can, however, compare the I/O statistics for a single run by running the queries with STATISTICS IO ON: Table '#Test'. Scan count 63, logical reads 126, physical reads 0. Table '#Test'. Scan count 01, logical reads 002, physical reads 0. The query with the IN list uses 126 logical reads (and has a ‘scan count’ of 63), while the second query form completes with just 2 logical reads (and a ‘scan count’ of 1).  It is no coincidence that 126 = 63 * 2, by the way.  It is almost as if the first query is doing 63 seeks, compared to one for the second query. In fact, that is exactly what it is doing.  There is no indication of this in the graphical plan, or the tool-tip that appears when you hover your mouse over the Clustered Index Seek icon.  To see the 63 seek operations, you have click on the Seek icon and look in the Properties window (press F4, or right-click and choose from the menu): The Seek Predicates list shows a total of 63 seek operations – one for each of the values from the IN list contained in the first query.  I have expanded the first seek node to show the details; it is seeking down the clustered index to find the entry with the value 101.  Each of the other 62 nodes expands similarly, and the same information is contained (even more verbosely) in the XML form of the plan. Each of the 63 seek operations starts at the root of the clustered index B-tree and navigates down to the leaf page that contains the sought key value.  Our table is just large enough to need a separate root page, so each seek incurs 2 logical reads (one for the root, and one for the leaf).  We can see the index depth using the INDEXPROPERTY function, or by using the a DMV: SELECT S.index_type_desc, S.index_depth FROM sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats ( DB_ID(N'tempdb'), OBJECT_ID(N'tempdb..#Test', N'U'), 1, 1, DEFAULT ) AS S ; Let’s look now at the Properties window when the Clustered Index Seek from the second query is selected: There is just one seek operation, which starts at the root of the index and navigates the B-tree looking for the first key that matches the Start range condition (id >= 101).  It then continues to read records at the leaf level of the index (following links between leaf-level pages if necessary) until it finds a row that does not meet the End range condition (id <= 169).  Every row that meets the seek range condition is also tested against the Residual Predicate highlighted above (id % 10 > 0), and is only returned if it matches that as well. You will not be surprised that the single seek (with a range scan and residual predicate) is much more efficient than 63 singleton seeks.  It is not 63 times more efficient (as the logical reads comparison would suggest), but it is around three times faster.  Let’s run both query forms 10,000 times and measure the elapsed time: DECLARE @i INTEGER, @n INTEGER = 10000, @s DATETIME = GETDATE() ; SET NOCOUNT ON; SET STATISTICS XML OFF; ; WHILE @n > 0 BEGIN SELECT @i = T.id FROM #Test AS T WHERE T.id IN ( 101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109, 111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119, 121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129, 131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139, 141,142,143,144,145,146,147,148,149, 151,152,153,154,155,156,157,158,159, 161,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169 ) ; SET @n -= 1; END ; PRINT DATEDIFF(MILLISECOND, @s, GETDATE()) ; GO DECLARE @i INTEGER, @n INTEGER = 10000, @s DATETIME = GETDATE() ; SET NOCOUNT ON ; WHILE @n > 0 BEGIN SELECT @i = T.id FROM #Test AS T WHERE T.id >= 101 AND T.id <= 169 AND T.id % 10 > 0 ; SET @n -= 1; END ; PRINT DATEDIFF(MILLISECOND, @s, GETDATE()) ; On my laptop, running SQL Server 2008 build 4272 (SP2 CU2), the IN form of the query takes around 830ms and the range query about 300ms.  The main point of this post is not performance, however – it is meant as an introduction to the next few parts in this mini-series that will continue to explore scans and seeks in detail. When is a seek not a seek?  When it is 63 seeks © Paul White 2011 email: [email protected] twitter: @SQL_kiwi

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• Refactoring FizzBuzz

  - by MarkPearl

  A few years ago I blogger about FizzBuzz, at the time the post was prompted by Scott Hanselman who had podcasted about how surprized he was that some programmers could not even solve the FizzBuzz problem within a reasonable period of time during a job interview. At the time I thought I would give the problem a go in F# and sure enough the solution was fairly simple – I then also did a basic solution in C# but never posted it. Since then I have learned that being able to solve a problem and how you solve the problem are two totally different things. Today I decided to give the problem a retry and see if I had learnt anything new in the last year or so. Here is how my solution looked after refactoring… Solution 1 – Cheap and Nasty public class FizzBuzzCalculator { public string NumberFormat(int number) { var numDivisibleBy3 = (number % 3) == 0; var numDivisibleBy5 = (number % 5) == 0; if (numDivisibleBy3 && numDivisibleBy5) return String.Format("{0} FizzBuz", number); else if (numDivisibleBy3) return String.Format("{0} Fizz", number); else if (numDivisibleBy5) return String.Format("{0} Buz", number); return number.ToString(); } } class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var fizzBuzz = new FizzBuzzCalculator(); for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { Console.WriteLine(fizzBuzz.NumberFormat(i)); } } } My first attempt I just looked at solving the problem – it works, and could be an acceptable solution but tonight I thought I would see how far  I could refactor it… The section I decided to focus on was the mass of if..else code in the NumberFormat method. Solution 2 – Replacing If…Else with a Dictionary public class FizzBuzzCalculator { private readonly Dictionary<Tuple<bool, bool>, string> _mappings; public FizzBuzzCalculator(Dictionary<Tuple<bool, bool>, string> mappings) { _mappings = mappings; } public string NumberFormat(int number) { var numDivisibleBy3 = (number % 3) == 0; var numDivisibleBy5 = (number % 5) == 0; var mappedKey = new Tuple<bool, bool>(numDivisibleBy3, numDivisibleBy5); return String.Format("{0} {1}", number, _mappings[mappedKey]); } } class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var mappings = new Dictionary<Tuple<bool, bool>, string> { { new Tuple<bool, bool>(true, true), "- FizzBuzz"}, { new Tuple<bool, bool>(true, false), "- Fizz"}, { new Tuple<bool, bool>(false, true), "- Buzz"}, { new Tuple<bool, bool>(false, false), ""} }; var fizzBuzz = new FizzBuzzCalculator(mappings); for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { Console.WriteLine(fizzBuzz.NumberFormat(i)); } Console.ReadLine(); } } In my second attempt I looked at removing the if else in the NumberFormat method. A dictionary proved to be useful for this – I added a constructor to the class and injected the dictionary mapping. One could argue that this is totally overkill, but if I was going to use this code in a large system an approach like this makes it easy to put this data in a configuration file, which would up its OC (Open for extensibility, closed for modification principle). I could of course take the OC principle even further – the check for divisibility by 3 and 5 is tightly coupled to this class. If I wanted to make it 4 instead of 3, I would need to adjust this class. This introduces my third refactoring. Solution 3 – Introducing Delegates and Injecting them into the class public delegate bool FizzBuzzComparison(int number); public class FizzBuzzCalculator { private readonly Dictionary<Tuple<bool, bool>, string> _mappings; private readonly FizzBuzzComparison _comparison1; private readonly FizzBuzzComparison _comparison2; public FizzBuzzCalculator(Dictionary<Tuple<bool, bool>, string> mappings, FizzBuzzComparison comparison1, FizzBuzzComparison comparison2) { _mappings = mappings; _comparison1 = comparison1; _comparison2 = comparison2; } public string NumberFormat(int number) { var mappedKey = new Tuple<bool, bool>(_comparison1(number), _comparison2(number)); return String.Format("{0} {1}", number, _mappings[mappedKey]); } } class Program { private static bool DivisibleByNum(int number, int divisor) { return number % divisor == 0; } public static bool Divisibleby3(int number) { return number % 3 == 0; } public static bool Divisibleby5(int number) { return number % 5 == 0; } static void Main(string[] args) { var mappings = new Dictionary<Tuple<bool, bool>, string> { { new Tuple<bool, bool>(true, true), "- FizzBuzz"}, { new Tuple<bool, bool>(true, false), "- Fizz"}, { new Tuple<bool, bool>(false, true), "- Buzz"}, { new Tuple<bool, bool>(false, false), ""} }; var fizzBuzz = new FizzBuzzCalculator(mappings, Divisibleby3, Divisibleby5); for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { Console.WriteLine(fizzBuzz.NumberFormat(i)); } Console.ReadLine(); } } I have taken this one step further and introduced delegates that are injected into the FizzBuzz Calculator class, from an OC principle perspective it has probably made it more compliant than the previous Solution 2, but there seems to be a lot of noise. Anonymous Delegates increase the readability level, which is what I have done in Solution 4. Solution 4 – Anon Delegates public delegate bool FizzBuzzComparison(int number); public class FizzBuzzCalculator { private readonly Dictionary<Tuple<bool, bool>, string> _mappings; private readonly FizzBuzzComparison _comparison1; private readonly FizzBuzzComparison _comparison2; public FizzBuzzCalculator(Dictionary<Tuple<bool, bool>, string> mappings, FizzBuzzComparison comparison1, FizzBuzzComparison comparison2) { _mappings = mappings; _comparison1 = comparison1; _comparison2 = comparison2; } public string NumberFormat(int number) { var mappedKey = new Tuple<bool, bool>(_comparison1(number), _comparison2(number)); return String.Format("{0} {1}", number, _mappings[mappedKey]); } } class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var mappings = new Dictionary<Tuple<bool, bool>, string> { { new Tuple<bool, bool>(true, true), "- FizzBuzz"}, { new Tuple<bool, bool>(true, false), "- Fizz"}, { new Tuple<bool, bool>(false, true), "- Buzz"}, { new Tuple<bool, bool>(false, false), ""} }; var fizzBuzz = new FizzBuzzCalculator(mappings, (n) => n % 3 == 0, (n) => n % 5 == 0); for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { Console.WriteLine(fizzBuzz.NumberFormat(i)); } Console.ReadLine(); } }   Using the anonymous delegates I think the noise level has now been reduced. This is where I am going to end this post, I have gone through 4 iterations of the code from the initial solution using If..Else to delegates and dictionaries. I think each approach would have it’s pro’s and con’s and depending on the intention of where the code would be used would be a large determining factor. If you can think of an alternative way to do FizzBuzz, add a comment!

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• Five Key Strategies in Master Data Management

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Here is a very interesting Profit Magazine article on MDM: A recent customer survey reveals the deleterious effects of data fragmentation. by Trevor Naidoo, December 2010   Across industries and geographies, IT organizations have grown in complexity, whether due to mergers and acquisitions, or decentralized systems supporting functional or departmental requirements. With systems architected over time to support unique, one-off process needs, they are becoming costly to maintain, and the Internet has only further added to the complexity. Data fragmentation has become a key inhibitor in delivering flexible, user-friendly systems. The Oracle Insight team conducted a survey assessing customers' master data management (MDM) capabilities over the past two years to get a sense of where they are in terms of their capabilities. The responses, by 27 respondents from six different industries, reveal five key areas in which customers need to improve their data management in order to get better financial results. 1. Less than 15 percent of organizations surveyed understand the sources and quality of their master data, and have a roadmap to address missing data domains. Examples of the types of master data domains referred to are customer, supplier, product, financial and site. Many organizations have multiple sources of master data with varying degrees of data quality in each source -- customer data stored in the customer relationship management system is inconsistent with customer data stored in the order management system. Imagine not knowing how many places you stored your customer information, and whether a customer's address was the most up to date in each source. In fact, more than 55 percent of the respondents in the survey manage their data quality on an ad-hoc basis. It is important for organizations to document their inventory of data sources and then profile these data sources to ensure that there is a consistent definition of key data entities throughout the organization. Some questions to ask are: How do we define a customer? What is a product? How do we define a site? The goal is to strive for one common repository for master data that acts as a cross reference for all other sources and ensures consistent, high-quality master data throughout the organization. 2. Only 18 percent of respondents have an enterprise data management strategy to ensure that data is treated as an asset to the organization. Most respondents handle data at the department or functional level and do not have an enterprise view of their master data. The sales department may track all their interactions with customers as they move through the sales cycle, the service department is tracking their interactions with the same customers independently, and the finance department also has a different perspective on the same customer. The salesperson may not be aware that the customer she is trying to sell to is experiencing issues with existing products purchased, or that the customer is behind on previous invoices. The lack of a data strategy makes it difficult for business users to turn data into information via reports. Without the key building blocks in place, it is difficult to create key linkages between customer, product, site, supplier and financial data. These linkages make it possible to understand patterns. A well-defined data management strategy is aligned to the business strategy and helps create the governance needed to ensure that data stewardship is in place and data integrity is intact. 3. Almost 60 percent of respondents have no strategy to integrate data across operational applications. Many respondents have several disparate sources of data with no strategy to keep them in sync with each other. Even though there is no clear strategy to integrate the data (see #2 above), the data needs to be synced and cross-referenced to keep the business processes running. About 55 percent of respondents said they perform this integration on an ad hoc basis, and in many cases, it is done manually with the help of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. For example, a salesperson needs a report on global sales for a specific product, but the product has different product numbers in different countries. Typically, an analyst will pull all the data into Excel, manually create a cross reference for that product, and then aggregate the sales. The exact same procedure has to be followed if the same report is needed the following month. A well-defined consolidation strategy will ensure that a central cross-reference is maintained with updates in any one application being propagated to all the other systems, so that data is synchronized and up to date. This can be done in real time or in batch mode using integration technology. 4. Approximately 50 percent of respondents spend manual efforts cleansing and normalizing data. Information stored in various systems usually follows different standards and formats, making it difficult to match the data. A customer's address can be stored in different ways using a variety of abbreviations -- for example, "av" or "ave" for avenue. Similarly, a product's attributes can be stored in a number of different ways; for example, a size attribute can be stored in inches and can also be entered as "'' ". These types of variations make it difficult to match up data from different sources. Today, most customers rely on manual, heroic efforts to match, cleanse, and de-duplicate data -- clearly not a scalable, sustainable model. To solve this challenge, organizations need the ability to standardize data for customers, products, sites, suppliers and financial accounts; however, less than 10 percent of respondents have technology in place to automatically resolve duplicates. It is no wonder, therefore, that we get communications about products we don't own, at addresses we don't reside, and using channels (like direct mail) we don't like. An all-too-common example of a potential challenge follows: Customers end up receiving duplicate communications, which not only impacts customer satisfaction, but also incurs additional mailing costs. Cleansing, normalizing, and standardizing data will help address most of these issues. 5. Only 10 percent of respondents have the ability to share data that was mastered in a master data hub. Close to 60 percent of respondents have efforts in place that profile, standardize and cleanse data manually, and the output of these efforts are stored in spreadsheets in various parts of the organization. This valuable information is not easily shared with the rest of the organization and, more importantly, this enriched information cannot be sent back to the source systems so that the data is fixed at the source. A key benefit of a master data management strategy is not only to clean the data, but to also share the data back to the source systems as well as other systems that need the information. Aside from the source systems, another key beneficiary of this data is the business intelligence system. Having clean master data as input to business intelligence systems provides more accurate and enhanced reporting.  Characteristics of Stellar MDM When deciding on the right master data management technology, organizations should look for solutions that have four main characteristics: enterprise-grade MDM performance complete technology that can be rapidly deployed and addresses multiple business issues end-to-end MDM process management with data quality monitoring and assurance pre-built MDM business relevant applications with data stores and workflows These master data management capabilities will aid in moving closer to a best-practice maturity level, delivering tremendous efficiencies and savings as well as revenue growth opportunities as a result of better understanding your customers.  Trevor Naidoo is a senior director in Industry Strategy and Insight at Oracle. 

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• Lenovo V570 CPU fan running constantly, CPU core 1 running over 90%!

  - by Rabbit2190

  I have seen that a lot of people are having this same issue. I am running a Lenovo V570 i5 4 core, 6 gigs of ram, and am running 11.10 Onieric Ocelot. On my system monitor graph it shows CPU at 20%, when I open the monitor it shows core #1 at around 90%, the other cores fluctuate at or below 5-12% if even. Now this seems like a really terrible balance of power between the cores, especially with so much stress on one core only, when these things are designed to work with 4 cores and not at such high temps. My current readings say 64 degrees Celsius, this does not seem normal for any cpu, and I am seriously considering, working on my windows7 partition until I see a real solution to this issue or upgrading to 12.04 right away when it comes out... I have seen countless things saying it has something to do with the Kernel, the kernel on mine is the same as when I upgraded, I really do not like messing with it, as when I had 11.04, I did tinker with it due to the freeze issues I was having, and that just made worse issues. I like this version 11.10 and would like to keep it for a while, but without the fear that my core is going to fry! So any help would be much appreciated! I did try changing a couple things in ACPI, and restarting this did not help, and here I am. I tried one thing prior to that that was listed under a different computer brand, but it would not do a make on the file. I really need help with this, I rely on this computer for a lot of things, and love this OS! Please help so I do not need to resort to my Microsoft partition! PLEASE! Here is the fwts cpufrequ- output: rabbit@rabbit-Lenovo-V570:~$ sudo fwts cpufreq - 00001 fwts Results generated by fwts: Version V0.23.25 (Thu Oct 6 15 00002 fwts :12:31 BST 2011). 00003 fwts 00004 fwts Some of this work - Copyright (c) 1999 - 2010, Intel Corp. 00005 fwts All rights reserved. 00006 fwts Some of this work - Copyright (c) 2010 - 2011, Canonical. 00007 fwts 00008 fwts This test run on 02/04/12 at 17:23:22 on host Linux 00009 fwts rabbit-Lenovo-V570 3.0.0-17-generic-pae #30-Ubuntu SMP Thu 00010 fwts Mar 8 17:53:35 UTC 2012 i686. 00011 fwts 00012 fwts Running tests: cpufreq. 00014 cpufreq CPU frequency scaling tests (takes ~1-2 mins). 00015 cpufreq --------------------------------------------------------- 00016 cpufreq Test 1 of 1: CPU P-State Checks. 00017 cpufreq For each processor in the system, this test steps through 00018 cpufreq the various frequency states (P-states) that the BIOS 00019 cpufreq advertises for the processor. For each processor/frequency 00020 cpufreq combination, a quick performance value is measured. The 00021 cpufreq test then validates that: 00022 cpufreq 1) Each processor has the same number of frequency states 00023 cpufreq 2) Higher advertised frequencies have a higher performance 00024 cpufreq 3) No duplicate frequency values are reported by the BIOS 00025 cpufreq 4) Is BIOS wrongly doing Sw_All P-state coordination across cores 00026 cpufreq 5) Is BIOS wrongly doing Sw_Any P-state coordination across cores 00027 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00028 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00029 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 100.0 % 00030 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 83.7 % 00031 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 69.2 % 00032 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 62.5 % 00033 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 55.2 % 00034 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.6 % 00035 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.8 % 00036 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.5 % 00037 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.6 % 00038 cpufreq 9 CPU frequency steps supported 00039 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00040 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00041 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 97.7 % 00042 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 83.7 % 00043 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 69.6 % 00044 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 63.3 % 00045 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 55.7 % 00046 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.7 % 00047 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.7 % 00048 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.5 % 00049 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.5 % 00050 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00051 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00052 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 97.7 % 00053 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 84.4 % 00054 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 69.6 % 00055 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 62.6 % 00056 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 55.9 % 00057 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.7 % 00058 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.7 % 00059 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.7 % 00060 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.8 % 00061 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00062 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00063 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 100.0 % 00064 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 82.6 % 00065 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 67.8 % 00066 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 61.4 % 00067 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 54.9 % 00068 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.3 % 00069 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00070 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.3 % 00071 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.4 % 00072 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00073 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00074 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 96.2 % 00075 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 82.5 % 00076 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 69.3 % 00077 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 62.7 % 00078 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 55.0 % 00079 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 47.4 % 00080 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00081 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.0 % 00082 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.2 % 00083 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00084 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00085 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 96.5 % 00086 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 83.6 % 00087 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 68.1 % 00088 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 61.7 % 00089 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 54.9 % 00090 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.0 % 00091 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00092 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.2 % 00093 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.8 % 00094 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00095 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00096 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 96.4 % 00097 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 82.6 % 00098 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 68.8 % 00099 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 60.5 % 00100 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 52.4 % 00101 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.8 % 00102 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00103 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.2 % 00104 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 26.4 % 00105 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00106 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00107 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 95.3 % 00108 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 82.5 % 00109 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 65.5 % 00110 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 62.8 % 00111 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 54.8 % 00112 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.0 % 00113 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.2 % 00114 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.2 % 00115 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.3 % 00116 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00117 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00118 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 96.3 % 00119 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 83.4 % 00120 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 68.3 % 00121 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 61.9 % 00122 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 54.9 % 00123 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 48.0 % 00124 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 41.1 % 00125 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 34.2 % 00126 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 27.3 % 00127 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00128 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00129 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 100.0 % 00130 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 77.9 % 00131 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 64.6 % 00132 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 54.0 % 00133 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 51.7 % 00134 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 45.2 % 00135 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.0 % 00136 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 33.1 % 00137 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 25.5 % 00138 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00139 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00140 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 93.4 % 00141 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 75.7 % 00142 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 64.5 % 00143 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 59.1 % 00144 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 51.4 % 00145 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 45.9 % 00146 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.3 % 00147 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 32.7 % 00148 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 25.8 % 00149 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00150 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00151 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 92.1 % 00152 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 78.1 % 00153 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 65.7 % 00154 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 58.6 % 00155 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 52.5 % 00156 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 45.7 % 00157 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.3 % 00158 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 32.7 % 00159 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 24.3 % 00160 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00161 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00162 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 88.9 % 00163 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 79.8 % 00164 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 58.4 % 00165 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 52.6 % 00166 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 46.9 % 00167 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 41.0 % 00168 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 35.1 % 00169 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 29.1 % 00170 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 22.9 % 00171 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00172 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00173 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 92.8 % 00174 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 80.1 % 00175 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 66.2 % 00176 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 59.5 % 00177 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 52.9 % 00178 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 46.2 % 00179 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.5 % 00180 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 32.9 % 00181 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 26.3 % 00182 cpufreq Frequency | Speed 00183 cpufreq -----------+--------- 00184 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 92.9 % 00185 cpufreq 2.45 Ghz | 79.5 % 00186 cpufreq 2.05 Ghz | 66.2 % 00187 cpufreq 1.85 Ghz | 59.6 % 00188 cpufreq 1.65 Ghz | 52.9 % 00189 cpufreq 1400 Mhz | 46.7 % 00190 cpufreq 1200 Mhz | 39.6 % 00191 cpufreq 1000 Mhz | 32.9 % 00192 cpufreq 800 Mhz | 26.3 % 00193 cpufreq FAILED [MEDIUM] CPUFreqCPUsSetToSW_ANY: Test 1, Processors 00194 cpufreq are set to SW_ANY. 00195 cpufreq FAILED [MEDIUM] CPUFreqSW_ANY: Test 1, Firmware not 00196 cpufreq implementing hardware coordination cleanly. Firmware using 00197 cpufreq SW_ANY instead?. 00198 cpufreq 00199 cpufreq ========================================================= 00200 cpufreq 0 passed, 2 failed, 0 warnings, 0 aborted, 0 skipped, 0 00201 cpufreq info only. 00202 cpufreq ========================================================= 00204 summary 00205 summary 0 passed, 2 failed, 0 warnings, 0 aborted, 0 skipped, 0 00206 summary info only. 00207 summary 00208 summary Test Failure Summary 00209 summary ==================== 00210 summary 00211 summary Critical failures: NONE 00212 summary 00213 summary High failures: NONE 00214 summary 00215 summary Medium failures: 2 00216 summary cpufreq test, at 1 log line: 193 00217 summary "Processors are set to SW_ANY." 00218 summary cpufreq test, at 1 log line: 195 00219 summary "Firmware not implementing hardware coordination cleanly. Firmware using SW_ANY instead?." 00220 summary 00221 summary Low failures: NONE 00222 summary 00223 summary Other failures: NONE 00224 summary 00225 summary Test |Pass |Fail |Abort|Warn |Skip |Info | 00226 summary ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ 00227 summary cpufreq | | 2| | | | | 00228 summary ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ 00229 summary Total: | 0| 2| 0| 0| 0| 0| 00230 summary ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ rabbit@rabbit-Lenovo-V570:~$

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• Book Review: Brownfield Application Development in .NET

  - by DotNetBlues

  I recently finished reading the book Brownfield Application Development in .NET by Kyle Baley and Donald Belcham.  The book is available from Manning.  First off, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Manning as a publisher.  I've found their books to be top-quality, over all.  As a Kindle owner, I also appreciate getting an ebook copy along with the dead tree copy.  I find ebooks to be much more convenient to read, but hard-copies are easier to reference. The book covers, surprisingly enough, working with brownfield applications.  Which is well and good, if that term has meaning to you.  It didn't for me.  Without retreading a chunk of the first chapter, the authors break code bases into three broad categories: greenfield, brownfield, and legacy.  Greenfield is, essentially, new development that hasn't had time to rust and is (hopefully) being approached with some discipline.  Legacy applications are those that are more or less stable and functional, that do not expect to see a lot of work done to them, and are more likely to be replaced than reworked. Brownfield code is the gray (brown?) area between the two and the authors argue, quite effectively, that it is the most likely state for an application to be in.  Brownfield code has, in some way, been allowed to tarnish around the edges and can be difficult to work with.  Although I hadn't realized it, most of the code I've worked on has been brownfield.  Sometimes, there's talk of scrapping and starting over.  Sometimes, the team dismisses increased discipline as ivory tower nonsense.  And, sometimes, I've been the ignorant culprit vexing my future self. The book is broken into two major sections, plus an introduction chapter and an appendix.  The first section covers what the authors refer to as "The Ecosystem" which consists of version control, build and integration, testing, metrics, and defect management.  The second section is on actually writing code for brownfield applications and discusses object-oriented principles, architecture, external dependencies, and, of course, how to deal with these when coming into an existing code base. The ecosystem section is just shy of 140 pages long and brings some real meat to the matter.  The focus on "pain points" immediately sets the tone as problem-solution, rather than academic.  The authors also approach some of the topics from a different angle than some essays I've read on similar topics.  For example, the chapter on automated testing is on just that -- automated testing.  It's all well and good to criticize a project as conflating integration tests with unit tests, but it really doesn't make anyone's life better.  The discussion on testing is more focused on the "right" level of testing for existing projects.  Sometimes, an integration test is the best you can do without gutting a section of functional code.  Even if you can sell other developers and/or management on doing so, it doesn't actually provide benefit to your customers to rewrite code that works.  This isn't to say the authors encourage sloppy coding.  Far from it.  Just that they point out the wisdom of ignoring the sleeping bear until after you deal with the snarling wolf. The other sections take a similarly real-world, workable approach to the pain points they address.  As the section moves from technical solutions like version control and continuous integration (CI) to the softer, process issues of metrics and defect tracking, the authors begin to gently suggest moving toward a zero defect count.  While that really sounds like an unreasonable goal for a lot of ongoing projects, it's quite apparent that the authors have first-hand experience with taming some gruesome projects.  The suggestions are grounded and workable, and the difficulty of some situations is explicitly acknowledged. I have to admit that I started getting bored by the end of the ecosystem section.  No matter how valuable I think a good project manager or business analyst is to a successful ALM, at the end of the day, I'm a gear-head.  Also, while I agreed with a lot of the ecosystem ideas, in theory, I didn't necessarily feel that a lot of the single-developer projects that I'm often involved in really needed that level of rigor.  It's only after reading the sidebars and commentary in the coding section that I had the context for the arguments made in favor of a strong ecosystem supporting the development process.  That isn't to say that I didn't support good product management -- indeed, I've probably pushed too hard, on occasion, for a strong ALM outside of just development.  This book gave me deeper insight into why some corners shouldn't be cut and how damaging certain sins of omission can be. The code section, though, kept me engaged for its entirety.  Many technical books can be used as reference material from day one.  The authors were clear, however, that this book is not one of these.  The first chapter of the section (chapter seven, over all) addresses object oriented (OO) practices.  I've read any number of definitions, discussions, and treatises on OO.  None of the chapter was new to me, but it was a good review, and I'm of the opinion that it's good to review the foundations of what you do, from time to time, so I didn't mind. The remainder of the book is really just about how to apply OOP to existing code -- and, just because all your code exists in classes does not mean that it's object oriented.  That topic has the potential to be extremely condescending, but the authors miraculously managed to never once make me feel like a dolt or that they were wagging their finger at me for my prior sins.  Instead, they continue the "pain points" and problem-solution presentation to give concrete examples of how to apply some pretty academic-sounding ideas.  That's a point worth emphasizing, as my experience with most OO discussions is that they stay in the academic realm.  This book gives some very, very good explanations of why things like the Liskov Substitution Principle exist and why a corporate programmer should even care.  Even if you know, with absolute certainty, that you'll never have to work on an existing code-base, I would recommend this book just for the clarity it provides on OOP. This book goes beyond just theory, or even real-world application.  It presents some methods for fixing problems that any developer can, and probably will, encounter in the wild.  First, the authors address refactoring application layers and internal dependencies.  Then, they take you through those layers from the UI to the data access layer and external dependencies.  Finally, they come full circle to tie it all back to the overall process.  By the time the book is done, you're left with a lot of ideas, but also a reasonable plan to begin to improve an existing project structure. Throughout the book, it's apparent that the authors have their own preferred methodology (TDD and domain-driven design), as well as some preferred tools.  The "Our .NET Toolbox" is something of a neon sign pointing to that latter point.  They do not beat the reader over the head with anything resembling a "One True Way" mentality.  Even for the most emphatic points, the tone is quite congenial and helpful.  With some of the near-theological divides that exist within the tech community, I found this to be one of the more remarkable characteristics of the book.  Although the authors favor tools that might be considered Alt.NET, there is no reason the advice and techniques given couldn't be quite successful in a pure Microsoft shop with Team Foundation Server.  For that matter, even though the book specifically addresses .NET, it could be applied to a Java and Oracle shop, as well.

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• Why does Google mark one e-mail as spam while does not the other?

  - by nKn

  I've a Postfix installation which works fine, I don't get any trouble with mails sent through a mail client (in my case, Thunderbird or RoundCube) when the To: address is a GMail account. However, I recently needed to use the PHPMailer tool to send some e-mails to some GMail accounts, so I configured an account to be used via SASL authentication + TLS. I don't mean mass mailing, just 2-3 mails. If I send the e-mail from the Thunderbird or RoundCube clients, the mail is not marked as spam. However, if I use PHPMailer, it always gets catalogued as spam. So I compared both headers and I just can't find the reason why the second is marked as spam while the first one is just ok. The first header sent from a mail client which is not marked as spam: Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: by 10.76.153.102 with SMTP id vf6csp230573oab; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:08:19 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.60.23.39 with SMTP id j7mr45544050oef.20.1408471699715; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:08:19 -0700 (PDT) Return-Path: <[email protected]> Received: from mail.mydomain.com (X.ip-92-222-X.eu. [92.222.X.X]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id t5si27115082oej.10.2014.08.19.11.08.18 for <[email protected]> (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:08:19 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 92.222.X.X as permitted sender) client-ip=92.222.X.X; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 92.222.X.X as permitted sender) [email protected]; dkim=pass (test mode) [email protected] Received: by mail.mydomain.com (Postfix, from userid 111) id D8F69120293D; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 19:08:17 +0100 (BST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mydomain.com; s=mail; t=1408471697; bh=wKMX9gkQ7tCLv8ezrG5t4bICm/SSLQsNfTdZMToksWw=; h=Date:From:To:Subject:From; b=qRNcYVdmk+n3D1uuv0FInTx7/LzH2ojck9DgCmabFPvfke233lkojUOjezCUGx7iV DL8EayZ28mzzzHpB7ETeMzop/5OS3BmvFtGKVD9gzc78cDIFXTDoRFAnkRWDR2IOxI SOn5tiyODTFpkbDgJOndzQ6qL5K0S9ASNGCZrNL4= X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on vpsX.ovh.net X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=3.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,T_DKIM_INVALID autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from [192.168.1.111] (unknown [77.231.X.X]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) (Authenticated sender: [email protected]) by mail.mydomain.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 910341202624 for <[email protected]>; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 19:08:17 +0100 (BST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mydomain.com; s=mail; t=1408471697; bh=wKMX9gkQ7tCLv8ezrG5t4bICm/SSLQsNfTdZMToksWw=; h=Date:From:To:Subject:From; b=qRNcYVdmk+n3D1uuv0FInTx7/LzH2ojck9DgCmabFPvfke233lkojUOjezCUGx7iV DL8EayZ28mzzzHpB7ETeMzop/5OS3BmvFtGKVD9gzc78cDIFXTDoRFAnkRWDR2IOxI SOn5tiyODTFpkbDgJOndzQ6qL5K0S9ASNGCZrNL4= Message-ID: <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 19:08:24 +0100 From: My Name <[email protected]> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.6.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: My other account <[email protected]> Subject: . Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit . The second header sent from PHPMailer which is always marked as spam: Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: by 10.76.153.102 with SMTP id vf6csp230832oab; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:12:10 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.60.121.67 with SMTP id li3mr44086252oeb.17.1408471930520; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:12:10 -0700 (PDT) Return-Path: <[email protected]> Received: from mail.mydomain.com (X.ip-92-222-X.eu. [92.222.X.X]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id w8si27103806obn.30.2014.08.19.11.12.10 for <[email protected]> (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:12:10 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 92.222.X.X as permitted sender) client-ip=92.222.X.X; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 92.222.X.X as permitted sender) [email protected]; dkim=pass (test mode) [email protected] Received: by mail.mydomain.com (Postfix, from userid 111) id 1999D120293D; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 19:12:09 +0100 (BST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mydomain.com; s=mail; t=1408471929; bh=N1JuHq1S+8GrjHcEK3xn8P1JS+ygEBv5LKe0BiXuVJo=; h=Date:To:From:Reply-to:Subject:From; b=K7tcPyArzSTY91VEw6mAAFtDurSGwgTLGkfUZdC5mqsg0g/1LzmZkgwdjj4NdJa6M E2kDz3dwYN8FcZmbampJYFXxj4NQVtSnzjiWV40rpfOFqD2rXDGNIyB2QOjBZZ4WK3 7s4lyoJ/BrdQH4en8ctLVsDHed/KpHD4iGFEl67E= X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on vpsX.ovh.net X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=3.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,T_DKIM_INVALID autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from rpi.mydomain.com (unknown [77.231.X.X]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) (Authenticated sender: [email protected]) by mail.mydomain.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id B42AF1202624 for <[email protected]>; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 19:12:08 +0100 (BST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mydomain.com; s=mail; t=1408471928; bh=N1JuHq1S+8GrjHcEK3xn8P1JS+ygEBv5LKe0BiXuVJo=; h=Date:To:From:Reply-to:Subject:From; b=iXPM0tS36swudPTT4FOHHtPi5Ll6LbR60kNqCinZ8utcWoFE31SFTpoMEq5aCM5ux wQMdFiN8c6vkjRGabmvqFTTIbwJsrToHo/4+Lt5HEBoQQE2Y3T+xGmnmGAHCS6stKB yb7SVmtrIAsVtSMKA8VYIbmu2oYqV3afYt7g0OMQ= Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:12:07 +0200 To: [email protected] From: Trying another account <[email protected]> Reply-to: Trying another account <[email protected]> Subject: . Message-ID: <[email protected]> X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: PHPMailer 5.1 (phpmailer.sourceforge.net) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" . I also tried: Adding a User-Agent header to match the first one. Removing the X-Mailer header. No one of them made a difference. Is there some significant difference which is making the second e-mail to be marked as spam by Google?

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• Conducting Effective Web Meetings

  - by BuckWoody

  There are several forms of corporate communication. From immediate, rich communications like phones and IM messaging to historical transactions like e-mail, there are a lot of ways to get information to one or more people. From time to time, it's even useful to have a meeting. (This is where a witty picture of a guy sleeping in a meeting goes. I won't bother actually putting one here; you're already envisioning it in your mind) Most meetings are pointless, and a complete waste of time. This is the fault, completely and solely, of the organizer. It's because he or she hasn't thought things through enough to think about alternate forms of information passing. Here's the criteria for a good meeting - whether in-person or over the web: 100% of the content of a meeting should require the participation of 100% of the attendees for 100% of the time It doesn't get any simpler than that. If it doesn't meet that criteria, then don't invite that person to that meeting. If you're just conveying information and no one has the need for immediate interaction with that information (like telling you something that modifies the message), then send an e-mail. If you're a manager, and you need to get status from lots of people, pick up the phone.If you need a quick answer, use IM. I once had a high-level manager that called frequent meetings. His real need was status updates on various processes, so 50 of us would sit in a room while he asked each one of us questions. He believed this larger meeting helped us "cross pollinate ideas". In fact, it was a complete waste of time for most everyone, except in the one or two moments that they interacted with him. So I wrote some code for a Palm Pilot (which was a kind of SmartPhone but with no phone and no real graphics, but this was in the days when we had just discovered fire and the wheel, although the order of those things is still in debate) that took an average of the salaries of the people in the room (I guessed at it) and ran a timer which multiplied the number of people against the salaries. I left that running in plain sight for him, and when he asked about it, I explained how much the meetings were really costing the company. We had far fewer meetings after. Meetings are now web-enabled. I believe that's largely a good thing, since it saves on travel time and allows more people to participate, but I think the rule above still holds. And in fact, there are some other rules that you should follow to have a great meeting - and fewer of them. Be Clear About the Goal This is important in any meeting, but all of us have probably gotten an invite with a web link and an ambiguous title. Then you get to the meeting, and it's a 500-level deep-dive on something everyone expects you to know. This is unfair to the "expert" and to the participants. I always tell people that invite me to a meeting that I will be as detailed as I can - but the more detail they can tell me about the questions, the more detailed I can be in my responses. Granted, there are times when you don't know what you don't know, but the more you can say about the topic the better. There's another point here - and it's that you should have a clearly defined "win" for the meeting. When the meeting is over, and everyone goes back to work, what were you expecting them to do with the information? Have that clearly defined in your head, and in the meeting invite. Understand the Technology There are several web-meeting clients out there. I use them all, since I meet with clients all over the world. They all work differently - so I take a few moments and read up on the different clients and find out how I can use the tools properly. I do this with the technology I use for everything else, and it's important to understand it if the meeting is to be a success. If you're running the meeting, know the tools. I don't care if you like the tools or not, learn them anyway. Don't waste everyone else's time just because you're too bitter/snarky/lazy to spend a few minutes reading. Check your phone or mic. Check your video size. Install (and learn to use)  ZoomIT (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx). Format your slides or screen or output correctly. Learn to use the voting features of the meeting software, and especially it's whiteboard features. Figure out how multiple monitors work. Try a quick meeting with someone to test all this. Do this *before* you invite lots of other people to your meeting.   Use a WebCam I'm not a pretty man. I have a face fit for radio. But after attending a meeting with clients where one Microsoft person used a webcam and another did not, I'm convinced that people pay more attention when a face is involved. There are tons of studies around this, or you can take my word for it, but toss a shirt on over those pajamas and turn the webcam on. Set Up Early Whether you're attending or leading the meeting, don't wait to sign on to the meeting at the time when it starts. I can almost plan that a 10:00 meeting will actually start at 10:10 because the participants/leader is just now installing the web client for the meeting at 10:00. Sign on early, go on mute, and then wait for everyone to arrive. Mute When Not Talking No one wants to hear your screaming offspring / yappy dog / other cubicle conversations / car wind noise (are you driving in a desert storm or something?) while the person leading the meeting is trying to talk. I use the Lync software from Microsoft for my meetings, and I mute everyone by default, and then tell them to un-mute to talk to the group. Share Collateral If you have a PowerPoint deck, mail it out in case you have a tech failure. If you have a document, share it as an attachment to the meeting. Don't make people ask you for the information - that's why you're there to begin with. Even better, send it out early. "But", you say, "then no one will come to the meeting if they have the deck first!" Uhm, then don't have a meeting. Send out the deck and a quick e-mail and let everyone get on with their productive day. Set Actions At the Meeting A meeting should have some sort of outcome (see point one). That means there are actions to take, a follow up, or some deliverable. Otherwise, it's an e-mail. At the meeting, decide who will do what, when things are needed, and so on. And avoid, if at all possible, setting up another meeting, unless absolutely necessary. So there you have it. Whether it's on-premises or on the web, meetings are a necessary evil, and should be treated that way. Like politicians, you should have as few of them as are necessary to keep the roads paved and public libraries open.

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• Augmenting your Social Efforts via Data as a Service (DaaS)

  - by Mike Stiles

  The following is the 3rd in a series of posts on the value of leveraging social data across your enterprise by Oracle VP Product Development Don Springer and Oracle Cloud Data and Insight Service Sr. Director Product Management Niraj Deo. In this post, we will discuss the approach and value of integrating additional “public” data via a cloud-based Data-as-as-Service platform (or DaaS) to augment your Socially Enabled Big Data Analytics and CX Management. Let’s assume you have a functional Social-CRM platform in place. You are now successfully and continuously listening and learning from your customers and key constituents in Social Media, you are identifying relevant posts and following up with direct engagement where warranted (both 1:1, 1:community, 1:all), and you are starting to integrate signals for communication into your appropriate Customer Experience (CX) Management systems as well as insights for analysis in your business intelligence application. What is the next step? Augmenting Social Data with other Public Data for More Advanced Analytics When we say advanced analytics, we are talking about understanding causality and correlation from a wide variety, volume and velocity of data to Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to achieve and optimize business value. And in some cases, to predict future performance to make appropriate course corrections and change the outcome to your advantage while you can. The data to acquire, process and analyze this is very nuanced: It can vary across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data It can span across content, profile, and communities of profiles data It is increasingly public, curated and user generated The key is not just getting the data, but making it value-added data and using it to help discover the insights to connect to and improve your KPIs. As we spend time working with our larger customers on advanced analytics, we have seen a need arise for more business applications to have the ability to ingest and use “quality” curated, social, transactional reference data and corresponding insights. The challenge for the enterprise has been getting this data inline into an easily accessible system and providing the contextual integration of the underlying data enriched with insights to be exported into the enterprise’s business applications. The following diagram shows the requirements for this next generation data and insights service or (DaaS): Some quick points on these requirements: Public Data, which in this context is about Common Business Entities, such as - Customers, Suppliers, Partners, Competitors (all are organizations) Contacts, Consumers, Employees (all are people) Products, Brands This data can be broadly categorized incrementally as - Base Utility data (address, industry classification) Public Master Reference data (trade style, hierarchy) Social/Web data (News, Feeds, Graph) Transactional Data generated by enterprise process, workflows etc. This Data has traits of high-volume, variety, velocity etc., and the technology needed to efficiently integrate this data for your needs includes - Change management of Public Reference Data across all categories Applied Big Data to extract statics as well as real-time insights Knowledge Diagnostics and Data Mining As you consider how to deploy this solution, many of our customers will be using an online “cloud” service that provides quality data and insights uniformly to all their necessary applications. In addition, they are requesting a service that is: Agile and Easy to Use: Applications integrated with the service can obtain data on-demand, quickly and simply Cost-effective: Pre-integrated into applications so customers don’t have to Has High Data Quality: Single point access to reference data for data quality and linkages to transactional, curated and social data Supports Data Governance: Becomes more manageable and cost-effective since control of data privacy and compliance can be enforced in a centralized place Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) Just as the cloud has transformed and now offers a better path for how an enterprise manages its IT from their infrastructure, platform, and software (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS), the next step is data (DaaS). Over the last 3 years, we have seen the market begin to offer a cloud-based data service and gain initial traction. On one side of the DaaS continuum, we see an “appliance” type of service that provides a single, reliable source of accurate business data plus social information about accounts, leads, contacts, etc. On the other side of the continuum we see more of an online market “exchange” approach where ISVs and Data Publishers can publish and sell premium datasets within the exchange, with the exchange providing a rich set of web interfaces to improve the ease of data integration. Why the difference? It depends on the provider’s philosophy on how fast the rate of commoditization of certain data types will occur. How do you decide the best approach? Our perspective, as shown in the diagram below, is that the enterprise should develop an elastic schema to support multi-domain applicability. This allows the enterprise to take the most flexible approach to harness the speed and breadth of public data to achieve value. The key tenet of the proposed approach is that an enterprise carefully federates common utility, master reference data end points, mobility considerations and content processing, so that they are pervasively available. One way you may already be familiar with this approach is in how you do Address Verification treatments for accounts, contacts etc. If you design and revise this service in such a way that it is also easily available to social analytic needs, you could extend this to launch geo-location based social use cases (marketing, sales etc.). Our fundamental belief is that value-added data achieved through enrichment with specialized algorithms, as well as applying business “know-how” to weight-factor KPIs based on innovative combinations across an ever-increasing variety, volume and velocity of data, will be where real value is achieved. Essentially, Data-as-a-Service becomes a single entry point for the ever-increasing richness and volume of public data, with enrichment and combined capabilities to extract and integrate the right data from the right sources with the right factoring at the right time for faster decision-making and action within your core business applications. As more data becomes available (and in many cases commoditized), this value-added data processing approach will provide you with ongoing competitive advantage. Let’s look at a quick example of creating a master reference relationship that could be used as an input for a variety of your already existing business applications. In phase 1, a simple master relationship is achieved between a company (e.g. General Motors) and a variety of car brands’ social insights. The reference data allows for easy sort, export and integration into a set of CRM use cases for analytics, sales and marketing CRM. In phase 2, as you create more data relationships (e.g. competitors, contacts, other brands) to have broader and deeper references (social profiles, social meta-data) for more use cases across CRM, HCM, SRM, etc. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as the amount of master reference relationships is constrained only by your imagination and the availability of quality curated data you have to work with. DaaS is just now emerging onto the marketplace as the next step in cloud transformation. For some of you, this may be the first you have heard about it. Let us know if you have questions, or perspectives. In the meantime, we will continue to share insights as we can.Photo: Erik Araujo, stock.xchng

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• Master-slave vs. peer-to-peer archictecture: benefits and problems

  - by Ashok_Ora

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Almost two decades ago, I was a member of a database development team that introduced adaptive locking. Locking, the most popular concurrency control technique in database systems, is pessimistic. Locking ensures that two or more conflicting operations on the same data item don’t “trample” on each other’s toes, resulting in data corruption. In a nutshell, here’s the issue we were trying to address. In everyday life, traffic lights serve the same purpose. They ensure that traffic flows smoothly and when everyone follows the rules, there are no accidents at intersections. As I mentioned earlier, the problem with typical locking protocols is that they are pessimistic. Regardless of whether there is another conflicting operation in the system or not, you have to hold a lock! Acquiring and releasing locks can be quite expensive, depending on how many objects the transaction touches. Every transaction has to pay this penalty. To use the earlier traffic light analogy, if you have ever waited at a red light in the middle of nowhere with no one on the road, wondering why you need to wait when there’s clearly no danger of a collision, you know what I mean. The adaptive locking scheme that we invented was able to minimize the number of locks that a transaction held, by detecting whether there were one or more transactions that needed conflicting eyou could get by without holding any lock at all. In many “well-behaved” workloads, there are few conflicts, so this optimization is a huge win. If, on the other hand, there are many concurrent, conflicting requests, the algorithm gracefully degrades to the “normal” behavior with minimal cost. We were able to reduce the number of lock requests per TPC-B transaction from 178 requests down to 2! Wow! This is a dramatic improvement in concurrency as well as transaction latency. The lesson from this exercise was that if you can identify the common scenario and optimize for that case so that only the uncommon scenarios are more expensive, you can make dramatic improvements in performance without sacrificing correctness. So how does this relate to the architecture and design of some of the modern NoSQL systems? NoSQL systems can be broadly classified as master-slave sharded, or peer-to-peer sharded systems. NoSQL systems with a peer-to-peer architecture have an interesting way of handling changes. Whenever an item is changed, the client (or an intermediary) propagates the changes synchronously or asynchronously to multiple copies (for availability) of the data. Since the change can be propagated asynchronously, during some interval in time, it will be the case that some copies have received the update, and others haven’t. What happens if someone tries to read the item during this interval? The client in a peer-to-peer system will fetch the same item from multiple copies and compare them to each other. If they’re all the same, then every copy that was queried has the same (and up-to-date) value of the data item, so all’s good. If not, then the system provides a mechanism to reconcile the discrepancy and to update stale copies. So what’s the problem with this? There are two major issues: First, IT’S HORRIBLY PESSIMISTIC because, in the common case, it is unlikely that the same data item will be updated and read from different locations at around the same time! For every read operation, you have to read from multiple copies. That’s a pretty expensive, especially if the data are stored in multiple geographically separate locations and network latencies are high. Second, if the copies are not all the same, the application has to reconcile the differences and propagate the correct value to the out-dated copies. This means that the application program has to handle discrepancies in the different versions of the data item and resolve the issue (which can further add to cost and operation latency). Resolving discrepancies is only one part of the problem. What if the same data item was updated independently on two different nodes (copies)? In that case, due to the asynchronous nature of change propagation, you might land up with different versions of the data item in different copies. In this case, the application program also has to resolve conflicts and then propagate the correct value to the copies that are out-dated or have incorrect versions. This can get really complicated. My hunch is that there are many peer-to-peer-based applications that don’t handle this correctly, and worse, don’t even know it. Imagine have 100s of millions of records in your database – how can you tell whether a particular data item is incorrect or out of date? And what price are you willing to pay for ensuring that the data can be trusted? Multiple network messages per read request? Discrepancy and conflict resolution logic in the application, and potentially, additional messages? All this overhead, when all you were trying to do was to read a data item. Wouldn’t it be simpler to avoid this problem in the first place? Master-slave architectures like the Oracle NoSQL Database handles this very elegantly. A change to a data item is always sent to the master copy. Consequently, the master copy always has the most current and authoritative version of the data item. The master is also responsible for propagating the change to the other copies (for availability and read scalability). Client drivers are aware of master copies and replicas, and client drivers are also aware of the “currency” of a replica. In other words, each NoSQL Database client knows how stale a replica is. This vastly simplifies the job of the application developer. If the application needs the most current version of the data item, the client driver will automatically route the request to the master copy. If the application is willing to tolerate some staleness of data (e.g. a version that is no more than 1 second out of date), the client can easily determine which replica (or set of replicas) can satisfy the request, and route the request to the most efficient copy. This results in a dramatic simplification in application logic and also minimizes network requests (the driver will only send the request to exactl the right replica, not many). So, back to my original point. A well designed and well architected system minimizes or eliminates unnecessary overhead and avoids pessimistic algorithms wherever possible in order to deliver a highly efficient and high performance system. If you’ve every programmed an Oracle NoSQL Database application, you’ll know the difference! /* 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-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

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• Google Analytics on Android

  - by pjv

  There is a specific and official analytics SDK for native Android apps (note that I'm not talking about webpages in apps on a phone). This library basically sends pages and events to Google Analytics and you can view your analytics in exactly the same dashboard as for websites. Since my background is apps rather than websites, and since a lot of the Google Analytics terminology seems particularly inapplicable to a native app, I need some pointers. Please discuss my remarks, provide some clarification where you think I'm off-track, and above all share good experiences! 1. Page Views Pages mostly can match different Activities (and Dialogs) being displayed. Activities can be visible behind non-full-screen Activities however, though only the top-level Activity can be interacted. This sort-off clashes with a "(page) view". You'd also want at least one page view for each visit and therefore put one page view tracker in the Application class. However this does not constitute a window or sorts. Usually an Activity will open at the same time, so the time spent on that page will have been 0. This will influence your "time spent" statistics. How are these counted anyway? Moreover, there is a loose coupling between the Activities, by means of Intents. A user can, much like on any website, step in at any Activity, although usually this then concerns resuming the application where he left off. This makes that the hierarchy of Activities usually is very flat. And since there are no url's involved. What meaning would using slashes in page titles have, such as "/Home"? All pages would appear on an equal level in the reports, so no content drilldown. Non-unique page views seem to be counted as some kind of indicator of successfulness: how often does the visitor revisit the page. When the user rotates the screen however usually an Activity resumes again, thus making it a new page view. This happens a lot. Maybe a well-thought-through placement of the call might solve this, or placing several, I'm not sure. How to deal with Page Views? 2. Events I'd say there are two sorts: A user event Something that happened, usually as an indirect consequence of the above. The latter particularly is giving me headaches. First of all, many events aren't written in code any more, but pieced logically together by means of Intents. This means that there is no place to put the analytics call. You'd either have to give up this advantage and start doing it the old-fashioned way in favor of good analytics, or, just be missing some events. Secondly, as a developer you're not so much interested in when a user clicks a button, but if the action that should have been performed really was performed and what the result was. There seems to be no clear way to get resulting data into Google Analytics (what's up with the integers? I want to put in Strings!). The same that applies to the flat pages hierarchy, also goes for the event categories. You could do "vertical" categories (topically, that is), but some code is shared "horizontally" and the tracking will be equally shared. Just as with the Intents mechanism, inheritance makes it hard for you to put the tracking in the right places at all times. And I can't really imagine "horizontal" categories. Unless you start making really small categories, such as all the items form the same menu in one category, I have a hard time grasping the concept. Finally, how do you deal with cancelling? Usually you both have an explicit cancel mechanism by ways of a button, as well as the implicit cancel when the "back"-button is pressed to leave the activity and there were no changes. The latter also applies to "saves", when the back button is pressed and there ARE changes. How are you consequently going to catch all these if not by doing all the "back"-button work yourself? How to deal with events? 3. Goals For goal types I have choice of: URL Destination, Time on Site, and Pages/Visit. Most apps don't have a funnel that leads the user to some "registration done" or "order placed" page. Apps have either already been bought (in which case you want to stimulate the user to love your app, so that he might bring on new buyers) or are paid for by in-app ads. So URL Destination is not a very important goal. Time on Site also seems troublesome. First, I have some doubt on how this would be measured. Second, I don't necessarily want my user to spend a lot of time in my already paid app, just be active and content. Equivalently, why not mention how frequent a user uses your app? Regarding Pages/Visit I already mentioned how screen orientation changes blow up the page view numbers. In an app I'd be most interested in events/visit to measure the user's involvement/activity. If he's intensively using the app then he must be loving it right? Furthermore, I also have some small funnels (that do not lead to conversion though) that I want to see streamlined. In my mind those funnels would end in events rather than page views but that seems not to be possible. I could also measure clickthroughs on in-app ads, but then I'd need to track those as Page Views rather than Events, in view of "URL Destination". What are smart goals for apps and how can you fit them on top of Analytics? 4. Optimisation Is there a smart way to manually do what "Website Optimiser" does for websites? Most importantly, how would I track different landing page designs? 5. Traffic Sources Referrals deal with installation time referrals, if you're smart enough to get them included. But perhaps I'd also want to get some data which third-party app sends users to my app to perform some actions (this app interoperability is possible via Intents). Many of the terminologies related to "Traffic Sources" seem totally meaningless and there is no possibility of connecting in AdSense. What are smart uses of this data? 6. Visitors Of the "Browser capabilities", "Network Properties" and "Mobile" tabs, many things are pointless as they have no influence on / relation with my mostly offline app that won't use flash anyway. Only if you drill down far enough, can you get to OS versions, which do matter a lot. I even forgot where you could check what exact Android devices visited. What are smart uses of this data? How can you make the relevant info more prominent? 7. Other No in-page analytics. I have to register my app as a web-url (What!?)?

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• Windows Azure – Write, Run or Use Software

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure is a platform that has you covered, whether you need to write software, run software that is already written, or Install and use “canned” software whether you or someone else wrote it. Like any platform, it’s a set of tools you can use where it makes sense to solve a problem. The primary location for Windows Azure information is located at http://windowsazure.com. You can find everything there from the development kits for writing software to pricing, licensing and tutorials on all of that. I have a few links here for learning to use Windows Azure – although it’s best if you focus not on the tools, but what you want to solve. I’ve got it broken down here into various sections, so you can quickly locate things you want to know. I’ll include resources here from Microsoft and elsewhere – I use these same resources in the Architectural Design Sessions (ADS) I do with my clients worldwide. Write Software Also called “Platform as a Service” (PaaS), Windows Azure has lots of components you can use together or separately that allow you to write software in .NET or various Open Source languages to work completely online, or in partnership with code you have on-premises or both – even if you’re using other cloud providers. Keep in mind that all of the features you see here can be used together, or independently. For instance, you might only use a Web Site, or use Storage, but you can use both together. You can access all of these components through standard REST API calls, or using our Software Development Kit’s API’s, which are a lot easier. In any case, you simply use Visual Studio, Eclipse, Cloud9 IDE, or even a text editor to write your code from a Mac, PC or Linux.  Components you can use: Azure Web Sites: Windows Azure Web Sites allow you to quickly write an deploy websites, without setting a Virtual Machine, installing a web server or configuring complex settings. They work alone, with other Windows Azure Web Sites, or with other parts of Windows Azure. Web and Worker Roles: Windows Azure Web Roles give you a full stateless computing instance with Internet Information Services (IIS) installed and configured. Windows Azure Worker Roles give you a full stateless computing instance without Information Services (IIS) installed, often used in a "Services" mode. Scale-out is achieved either manually or programmatically under your control. Storage: Windows Azure Storage types include Blobs to store raw binary data, Tables to use key/value pair data (like NoSQL data structures), Queues that allow interaction between stateless roles, and a relational SQL Server database. Other Services: Windows Azure has many other services such as a security mechanism, a Cache (memcacheD compliant), a Service Bus, a Traffic Manager and more. Once again, these features can be used with a Windows Azure project, or alone based on your needs. Various Languages: Windows Azure supports the .NET stack of languages, as well as many Open-Source languages like Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, NodeJS, C++ and more.   Use Software Also called “Software as a Service” (SaaS) this often means consumer or business-level software like Hotmail or Office 365. In other words, you simply log on, use the software, and log off – there’s nothing to install, and little to even configure. For the Information Technology professional, however, It’s not quite the same. We want software that provides services, but in a platform. That means we want things like Hadoop or other software we don’t want to have to install and configure.  Components you can use: Kits: Various software “kits” or packages are supported with just a few clicks, such as Umbraco, Wordpress, and others. Windows Azure Media Services: Windows Azure Media Services is a suite of services that allows you to upload media for encoding, processing and even streaming – or even one or more of those functions. We can add DRM and even commercials to your media if you like. Windows Azure Media Services is used to stream large events all the way down to small training videos. High Performance Computing and “Big Data”: Windows Azure allows you to scale to huge workloads using a few clicks to deploy Hadoop Clusters or the High Performance Computing (HPC) nodes, accepting HPC Jobs, Pig and Hive Jobs, and even interfacing with Microsoft Excel. Windows Azure Marketplace: Windows Azure Marketplace offers data and programs you can quickly implement and use – some free, some for-fee.   Run Software Also known as “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS), this offering allows you to build or simply choose a Virtual Machine to run server-based software.  Components you can use: Persistent Virtual Machines: You can choose to install Windows Server, Windows Server with Active Directory, with SQL Server, or even SharePoint from a pre-configured gallery. You can configure your own server images with standard Hyper-V technology and load them yourselves – and even bring them back when you’re done. As a new offering, we also even allow you to select various distributions of Linux – a first for Microsoft. Windows Azure Connect: You can connect your on-premises networks to Windows Azure Instances. Storage: Windows Azure Storage can be used as a remote backup, a hybrid storage location and more using software or even hardware appliances.   Decision Matrix With all of these options, you can use Windows Azure to solve just about any computing problem. It’s often hard to know when to use something on-premises, in the cloud, and what kind of service to use. I’ve used a decision matrix in the last couple of years to take a particular problem and choose the proper technology to solve it. It’s all about options – there is no “silver bullet”, whether that’s Windows Azure or any other set of functions. I take the problem, decide which particular component I want to own and control – and choose the column that has that box darkened. For instance, if I have to control the wiring for a solution (a requirement in some military and government installations), that means the “Networking” component needs to be dark, and so I select the “On Premises” column for that particular solution. If I just need the solution provided and I want no control at all, I can look as “Software as a Service” solutions. Security, Pricing, and Other Info  Security: Security is one of the first questions you should ask in any distributed computing environment. We have certification info, coding guidelines and more, even a general “Request for Information” RFI Response already created for you.   Pricing: Are there licenses? How much does this cost? Is there a way to estimate the costs in this new environment? New Features: Many new features were added to Windows Azure - a good roundup of those changes can be found here. Support: Software Support on Virtual Machines, general support.    

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• Webcast Q&A: Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  Last Thursday we had the second webcast in our WebCenter in Action webcast series, "Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter, where customer Michael Chander from Qualcomm and Vince Casarez & Gourav Goyal from Oracle Partner Keste shared how Oracle WebCenter is powering Qualcomm’s externally facing website and providing a seamless experience for their customers. In case you missed it, here's a recap of the Q&A.   Mike Chandler, Qualcomm Q: Did you run into any issues when integrating all of the different applications together?A: Definitely, our main challenges were in the area of user provisioning and security propagation, all the standard stuff you might expect when hooking up SSO for authentication and authorization. In addition, we spent several iterations getting the UI’s in sync. While everyone was given the same digital material to build too, each team interpreted and implemented it their own way. Initially as a user navigated, if you were looking for it, you could slight variations in color or font or width , stuff like that. So we had to pull all the developers responsible for the UI together and get pixel level agreement on a lot of things so we could ensure seamless transitions across applications. Q: What has been the biggest benefit your end users have seen?A: Wow, there have been several. An SSO enabled environment was huge a win for our users. The portal application that this replaced had not really been invested in by the business. With this project, we had full business participation and backing, and it really showed in some key areas like the shopping experience. For example, while ordering in the previous site, the items did not have any pictures or really usable descriptions. A tremendous amount of work was done to try and make the site more intuitive and user friendly. Site performance has also drastically improved thanks to new hardware, improved database design, and of course the fact that ADF has made great strides in runtime performance. Q: Was there any resistance internally when implementing the solution? If so, how did you overcome that?A: Within a large company, I’m sure there is always going to be competition for large projects, as there was here. Once we got through the technical analysis and settled on the technology choices, it was actually no resistance to implementing the solution. This project was fully driven by the business with the aim of long term growth. I can confidently say that the fact that this project was given the utmost importance by both the business and IT really help put down any resistance that you would typically see while implementing a new solution. Q: Given the performance, what do you estimate to be the top end capacity of the system? A:I think our top end capacity is really only limited by our hardware. I’m comfortable saying we could grow 10x on our current hardware, both in terms of transactions and users. We can easily spin up new JVM instances if needed. We already use less JVM’s than we had planned. In addition, ADF is doing a very good job with his connection pooling and application module pooling, so we see a very good ratio of users connected to the systems vs db connections, without impacting performace. Q: What's the overview or summary of feedback from the users interacting with the site?A: Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from both the business and our customers. They’re very happy with the new SSO environment , the new LAF, and the performance of the site. Of course, it’s not all roses. No matter what, there are always going to be people that don’t like the layout or the color scheme, etc. By and large though, customers are happy and the business is happy. Q: Can you describe the impressions about the site before and after the project within Qualcomm?A: Before the project, the site worked and people were using it, but most people were not happy with it. It was slow and tended to be a bit tempermental, for example a user would perform a transaction and the system would throw and unexpected error. The user could back up and retry the steps and things would work fine, so why didn’t work the first time?. From a UI perspective, we’d hear comments like it looked like it was built by a high school student.  Vince Casarez & Gourav Goyal, Keste Q: Did you run into any obstacles when implementing the solution?A: It's interesting some people call them "obstacles" on this project we just called them "dependencies".  There were both technical and business related dependencies that we had to work out. Mike points out the SSO dependencies and the coordination and synchronization between the teams to have a seamless login experience and a seamless end user experience.  There was also a set of dependencies on the User Acceptance testing to make sure that everyone understood the use cases for how the system would be used.  With a branching into a new market and trying to match a simple user experience as many consumer sites have today, there was always a tendency for the team members to provide their suggestions on how things could be simpler.  But with all the work up front on the user design and getting the business driving this set of experiences, this minimized the downstream suggestions that tend to distract a team.  In this case, all the work up front allowed us to enumerate the "dependencies" and keep the distractions to a minimum. Q: Was there a lot of custom work that needed to be done for this particular solution?A: The focus for this particular solution was really on the custom processes. The interesting thing is that with the data flows and the integration with applications, there are some pre-built integrations, but realistically for the process flow, we had to build those. The framework and tooling we used made things easier so we didn’t have to implement core functionality, like transitioning from screen to screen or from flow to flow. The design feature of Task Flows really helped speed the development and keep the component infrastructure in line with the dynamic processes.  Task flows and other elements like Skins are core to the infrastructure or technology stack of Oracle. This then allowed the team to center the project focus around the business flows and use cases to meet the core requirements and keep the project on time. Q: What do you think were the keys to success for rolling out WebCenter?A:  The 5 main keys to success were: 1) Sponsorship from the whole organization around this project from senior executive agreement, business owners driving functionality, and IT development alignment; 2) Upfront design planning and use case definition to clearly define the project scope and requirements; 3) Focussed development and project management aligned with the top level goals and drivers; 4) User acceptance and usability testing along the way to identify potential issues and direct resolution of the issues;  and 5) Constant prioritization of the issues for development to fix by the business.  It also helps to have great team chemistry and really smart people working on the project. If you missed the webcast, be sure to catch the replay to see a live demonstration of WebCenter in action!  Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter from Oracle WebCenter

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• Building an OpenStack Cloud for Solaris Engineering, Part 1

  - by Dave Miner

  One of the signature features of the recently-released Solaris 11.2 is the OpenStack cloud computing platform.  Over on the Solaris OpenStack blog the development team is publishing lots of details about our version of OpenStack Havana as well as some tips on specific features, and I highly recommend reading those to get a feel for how we've leveraged Solaris's features to build a top-notch cloud platform.  In this and some subsequent posts I'm going to look at it from a different perspective, which is that of the enterprise administrator deploying an OpenStack cloud.  But this won't be just a theoretical perspective: I've spent the past several months putting together a deployment of OpenStack for use by the Solaris engineering organization, and now that it's in production we'll share how we built it and what we've learned so far.In the Solaris engineering organization we've long had dedicated lab systems dispersed among our various sites and a home-grown reservation tool for developers to reserve those systems; various teams also have private systems for specific testing purposes.  But as a developer, it can still be difficult to find systems you need, especially since most Solaris changes require testing on both SPARC and x86 systems before they can be integrated.  We've added virtual resources over the years as well in the form of LDOMs and zones (both traditional non-global zones and the new kernel zones).  Fundamentally, though, these were all still deployed in the same model: our overworked lab administrators set up pre-configured resources and we then reserve them.  Sounds like pretty much every traditional IT shop, right?  Which means that there's a lot of opportunity for efficiencies from greater use of virtualization and the self-service style of cloud computing.  As we were well into development of OpenStack on Solaris, I was recruited to figure out how we could deploy it to both provide more (and more efficient) development and test resources for the organization as well as a test environment for Solaris OpenStack.At this point, let's acknowledge one fact: deploying OpenStack is hard.  It's a very complex piece of software that makes use of sophisticated networking features and runs as a ton of service daemons with myriad configuration files.  The web UI, Horizon, doesn't often do a good job of providing detailed errors.  Even the command-line clients are not as transparent as you'd like, though at least you can turn on verbose and debug messaging and often get some clues as to what to look for, though it helps if you're good at reading JSON structure dumps.  I'd already learned all of this in doing a single-system Grizzly-on-Linux deployment for the development team to reference when they were getting started so I at least came to this job with some appreciation for what I was taking on.  The good news is that both we and the community have done a lot to make deployment much easier in the last year; probably the easiest approach is to download the OpenStack Unified Archive from OTN to get your hands on a single-system demonstration environment.  I highly recommend getting started with something like it to get some understanding of OpenStack before you embark on a more complex deployment.  For some situations, it may in fact be all you ever need.  If so, you don't need to read the rest of this series of posts!In the Solaris engineering case, we need a lot more horsepower than a single-system cloud can provide.  We need to support both SPARC and x86 VM's, and we have hundreds of developers so we want to be able to scale to support thousands of VM's, though we're going to build to that scale over time, not immediately.  We also want to be able to test both Solaris 11 updates and a release such as Solaris 12 that's under development so that we can work out any upgrade issues before release.  One thing we don't have is a requirement for extremely high availability, at least at this point.  We surely don't want a lot of down time, but we can tolerate scheduled outages and brief (as in an hour or so) unscheduled ones.  Thus I didn't need to spend effort on trying to get high availability everywhere.The diagram below shows our initial deployment design.  We're using six systems, most of which are x86 because we had more of those immediately available.  All of those systems reside on a management VLAN and are connected with a two-way link aggregation of 1 Gb links (we don't yet have 10 Gb switching infrastructure in place, but we'll get there).  A separate VLAN provides "public" (as in connected to the rest of Oracle's internal network) addresses, while we use VxLANs for the tenant networks. One system is more or less the control node, providing the MySQL database, RabbitMQ, Keystone, and the Nova API and scheduler as well as the Horizon console.  We're curious how this will perform and I anticipate eventually splitting at least the database off to another node to help simplify upgrades, but at our present scale this works.I had a couple of systems with lots of disk space, one of which was already configured as the Automated Installation server for the lab, so it's just providing the Glance image repository for OpenStack.  The other node with lots of disks provides Cinder block storage service; we also have a ZFS Storage Appliance that will help back-end Cinder in the near future, I just haven't had time to get it configured in yet.There's a separate system for Neutron, which is our Elastic Virtual Switch controller and handles the routing and NAT for the guests.  We don't have any need for firewalling in this deployment so we're not doing so.  We presently have only two tenants defined, one for the Solaris organization that's funding this cloud, and a separate tenant for other Oracle organizations that would like to try out OpenStack on Solaris.  Each tenant has one VxLAN defined initially, but we can of course add more.  Right now we have just a single /24 network for the floating IP's, once we get demand up to where we need more then we'll add them.Finally, we have started with just two compute nodes; one is an x86 system, the other is an LDOM on a SPARC T5-2.  We'll be adding more when demand reaches the level where we need them, but as we're still ramping up the user base it's less work to manage fewer nodes until then.My next post will delve into the details of building this OpenStack cloud's infrastructure, including how we're using various Solaris features such as Automated Installation, IPS packaging, SMF, and Puppet to deploy and manage the nodes.  After that we'll get into the specifics of configuring and running OpenStack itself.

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• Blogging locally and globally–my experience

  - by DigiMortal

  In Baltic MVP Summit 2011 there was discussion about having two blogs - one for local and another for global audience – and how to publish once written information in these blogs. There are many ways how to optimize your blogging activities if you have more than one audience and here you can find my experiences, best practices and advices about this topic. My two blogs I have to working blogs: this one here technology and programming blog for local market My local blog is almost five years old and it makes it one of the oldest company blogs in Estonia. It is still active and I write there as much as I have time for it. This blog here is active since September 2007, so it is about 3.5 years old right now. Both of these blogs are  my major hits in my MVP carrier and they have very good web statistics too. My local blog My local blog is about programming, web and technology. It has way wider target audience then this blog here has. By example, in my local blog I blog also about local events, cool new concept phones, different webs providing some interesting services etc. But local guys can find there also my postings about how to solve one or another programming problem and postings about Microsoft technologies I am playing with. This far my local blog has a lot of readers for such a small country that Estonia is. This blog has made me a lot of cool contacts and I have had there a lot of interesting discussions about different technical topics. Why I started this blog? Living in small country is different than living in big country. In small country you have less people and therefore smaller audience so you have to target more than one technical topic to find enough readers. In a same time you are still interested in your main topics and you want to reach to more people who are sharing same interests with you. Practically one day y will grow out from local market and you go global. This is how this blog was born. Was it worth to create, promote and mess with it? Every second I have put on my time to this blog has been worth of it. Thanks to this blog I have found new good friends and without them I think it is more boring to work on different problems and solutions. Defining target audiences One thing you should always do when having more than one blog is defining target audiences. If you are just technomaniac interested in sharing your stuff and make some new friends and have something to write to your MVP nomination form then you don’t have to go through complex targeting process. You can do it simple way and same effectively. Here is how I defined target audiences to my blogs: local blog – reader of my local blog is IT professional, software developer, technology innovator or just some guy who is interested in technology,   this blog – reader of this blog is experienced professional software developer who works on Microsoft technologies or software developer who is open minded and open to new technologies and interesting solutions to development problems. You can see how local blog – due to small market with less people – has wider definition for audience while this blog is heavily targeted to Microsoft technologies and specially to software development. On practical side these decisions are also made well I think because it is very hard to build up popular common IT blog. On global level it is better to target some specific niche and find readers who are professionals on your favorite topics. Thanks to this blog I have found new friends who are professional developers and I am very happy about all the discussions I have had with them. Publishing content to different blogs My local blog and this blog have some overlapping topics like .NET, databases and SEO. Due to this overlapping there is question: when I write posting to my local blog then should I have to publish same thing in my global blog? And if I write something to my global blog then should I publish same thing also in my local blog? Well, it really depends on the definition of your target audiences. If they match then of course it is good idea to translate you post and publish it also to another blog. But if you have different audiences then you may need to modify your posting before publishing it. The questions you have to answer are: is target audience interested in this topic? is target audience expecting more specific and deeper handling of this topic or are they expecting more general handling of topic? is the problem you are discussing actual for target audience or not? You have to answer these questions and after that make your decision. If you need to modify your original posting then take some time and do it. Provide quality to all your readers because they will respect you if you respect them. Cross-posting and referencing It is tempting to save time that preparing some blog post takes and if you have are done with posting in one blog it may seem like good idea to make short posting to another blog and add reference to first one where topic is discussed longer. Well, don’t do it – all your readers expect good quality content from you and jumping from one blog post to another is disturbing for them. Of course, there is problem with differences between target audiences. You may have wider target audience and some people may be interested in more specific handling of topic. In this case feel free to refer your blog you are writing in english. This is not working very well in opposite direction because almost all my global blog readers understand english but not estonian. By example, estonian language is complex one and online translating tools make very poor translations from estonian language. This is why I don’t even plan to publish postings here that refer to my local blog for more information. I am keeping these two blogs as two different worlds and if there is posting that fits well to both blogs I will write my posting to one blog and then answer previous three questions before posting same thing to another blog. Conclusion Growing out of your local market is not anything mysterious if you are living in small country. As it is harder to find people there who are interested in same topics with you then sooner or later you will start finding these new contacts from global audience. Global audience is bigger and to be visible there you must provide high quality content to your audience. It is something you will learn over time and you will learn every day something new when you are posting to your global blog. You may ask: if global blog is much more complex thing to do then is it worth to do at all? My answer is: yes, do it for sure. It is not easy thing to do when you start but if you work on your global blog and improve it over time you will get over all obstacles pretty soon. Just don’t forget one thing – content is king and your readers expect high quality from you.

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• Code Contracts: How they look after compiling?

  - by DigiMortal

  When you are using new tools that make also something at code level then it is good idea to check out what additions are made to code during compilation. Code contracts have simple syntax when we are writing code at Visual Studio but what happens after compilation? Are our methods same as they look in code or are they different after compilation? In this posting I will show you how code contracts look after compiling. In my previous examples about code contracts I used randomizer class with method called GetRandomFromRangeContracted. public int GetRandomFromRangeContracted(int min, int max) {     Contract.Requires<ArgumentOutOfRangeException>(         min < max,         "Min must be less than max"     );       Contract.Ensures(         Contract.Result<int>() >= min &&         Contract.Result<int>() <= max,         "Return value is out of range"     );       return _generator.Next(min, max); } Okay, it is nice to dream about similar code when we open our assembly with Reflector and disassemble it. But… this time we have something interesting. While reading this code don’t feel uncomfortable about the names of variables. This is disassembled code. .NET Framework internally allows these names. It is our compilators that doesn’t accept them when we are building our code. public int GetRandomFromRangeContracted(int min, int max) {     int Contract.Old(min);     int Contract.Old(max);     if (__ContractsRuntime.insideContractEvaluation <= 4)     {         try         {             __ContractsRuntime.insideContractEvaluation++;             __ContractsRuntime.Requires<ArgumentOutOfRangeException>(                min < max,                "Min must be less than max", "min < max");         }         finally         {             __ContractsRuntime.insideContractEvaluation--;         }     }     try     {         Contract.Old(min) = min;     }     catch (Exception exception1)     {         if (exception1 == null)         {             throw;         }     }     try     {         Contract.Old(max) = max;         catch (Exception exception2)     {         if (exception2 == null)         {             throw;         }     }     int CS$1$0000 = this._generator.Next(min, max);     int Contract.Result<int>() = CS$1$0000;     if (__ContractsRuntime.insideContractEvaluation <= 4)     {         try         {             __ContractsRuntime.insideContractEvaluation++;             __ContractsRuntime.Ensures(                (Contract.Result<int>() >= Contract.Old(min)) &&                (Contract.Result<int>() <= Contract.Old(max)),                "Return value is out of range",                "Contract.Result<int>() >= min && Contract.Result<int>() <= max");         }         finally         {             __ContractsRuntime.insideContractEvaluation--;         }     }     return Contract.Result<int>(); } As we can see then contracts are not simply if-then-else checks and exceptions throwing. We can see that there is counter that is incremented before checks and decremented after these whatever the result of check was. One thing that is annoying for me are null checks for exception1 and exception2. Is there really some situation possible when null is thrown instead of some instance that is Exception or that inherits from exception? Conclusion Code contracts are more complex mechanism that it seems when we look at it on our code level. Internally there are done more things than we know. I don’t say it is wrong, it is just good to know how our code looks after compiling. Looking at this example it is sure we need also performance tests for contracted code to see how heavy is their impact to system performance when we run code that makes heavy use of code contracts.

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• Getting Started with jqChart for ASP.NET Web Forms

  - by jqChart

  Official Site | Samples | Download | Documentation | Forum | Twitter Introduction jqChart takes advantages of HTML5 Canvas to deliver high performance client-side charts and graphs across browsers (IE 6+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari) and devices, including iOS and Android mobile devices. Some of the key features are: High performance rendering. Animaitons. Scrolling/Zoooming. Support for unlimited number of data series and data points. Support for unlimited number of chart axes. True DateTime Axis. Logarithmic and Reversed axis scale. Large set of chart types - Bar, Column, Pie, Line, Spline, Area, Scatter, Bubble, Radar, Polar. Financial Charts - Stock Chart and Candlestick Chart. The different chart types can be easily combined.  System Requirements Browser Support jqChart supports all major browsers: Internet Explorer - 6+ Firefox Google Chrome Opera Safari jQuery version support jQuery JavaScript framework is required. We recommend using the latest official stable version of the jQuery library. Visual Studio Support jqChart for ASP.NET does not require using Visual Studio. You can use your favourite code editor. Still, the product has been tested with several versions of Visual Studio .NET and you can find the list of supported versions below: Visual Studio 2008 Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio 2012 ASP.NET Web Forms support Supported version - ASP.NET Web Forms 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5 Installation Download and unzip the contents of the archive to any convenient location. The package contains the following folders: [bin] - Contains the assembly DLLs of the product (JQChart.Web.dll) for WebForms 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5. This is the assembly that you can reference directly in your web project (or better yet, add it to your ToolBox and then drag & drop it from there). [js] - The javascript files of jqChart and jqRangeSlider (and the needed libraries). You need to include them in your ASPX page, in order to gain the client side functionality of the chart. The first file is "jquery-1.5.1.min.js" - this is the official jQuery library. jqChart is built upon jQuery library version 1.4.3. The second file you need is the "excanvas.js" javascript file. It is used from the versions of IE, which dosn't support canvas graphics. The third is the jqChart javascript code itself, located in "jquery.jqChart.min.js". The last one is the jqRangeSlider javascript, located in "jquery.jqRangeSlider.min.js". It is used when the chart zooming is enabled. [css] - Contains the Css files that the jqChart and the jqRangeSlider need. [samples] - Contains some examples that use the jqChart. For full list of samples plese visit - jqChart for ASP.NET Samples. [themes] - Contains the themes shipped with the products. It is used from the jqRangeSlider. Since jqRangeSlider supports jQuery UI Themeroller, any theme compatible with jQuery UI ThemeRoller will work for jqRangeSlider as well. You can download any additional themes directly from jQuery UI's ThemeRoller site available here: http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/ or reference them from Microsoft's / Google's CDN. <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.ui/1.8.21/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css" /> The final result you will have in an ASPX page containing jqChart would be something similar to that (assuming you have copied the [js] to the Script folder and [css] to Content folder of your ASP.NET site respectively). <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="samples_cs.Default" %> <%@ Register Assembly="JQChart.Web" Namespace="JQChart.Web.UI.WebControls" TagPrefix="jqChart" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html > <head runat="server"> <title>jqChart ASP.NET Sample</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/Content/jquery.jqChart.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/Content/jquery.jqRangeSlider.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/Content/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui-1.8.21.css" /> <script src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery-1.5.1.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery.jqRangeSlider.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery.jqChart.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> <!--[if IE]><script lang="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/excanvas.js") %>"></script><![endif]--> </head> <body> <form id="form1" runat="server"> <asp:ObjectDataSource ID="ObjectDataSource1" runat="server" SelectMethod="GetData" TypeName="SamplesBrowser.Models.ChartData"></asp:ObjectDataSource> <jqChart:Chart ID="Chart1" Width="500px" Height="300px" runat="server" DataSourceID="ObjectDataSource1"> <Title Text="Chart Title"></Title> <Animation Enabled="True" Duration="00:00:01" /> <Axes> <jqChart:CategoryAxis Location="Bottom" ZoomEnabled="true"> </jqChart:CategoryAxis> </Axes> <Series> <jqChart:ColumnSeries XValuesField="Label" YValuesField="Value1" Title="Column"> </jqChart:ColumnSeries> <jqChart:LineSeries XValuesField="Label" YValuesField="Value2" Title="Line"> </jqChart:LineSeries> </Series> </jqChart:Chart> </form> </body> </html>   Official Site | Samples | Download | Documentation | Forum | Twitter

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• Online ALTER TABLE in MySQL 5.6

  - by Marko Mäkelä

  This is the low-level view of data dictionary language (DDL) operations in the InnoDB storage engine in MySQL 5.6. John Russell gave a more high-level view in his blog post April 2012 Labs Release – Online DDL Improvements. MySQL before the InnoDB Plugin Traditionally, the MySQL storage engine interface has taken a minimalistic approach to data definition language. The only natively supported operations were CREATE TABLE, DROP TABLE and RENAME TABLE. Consider the following example: CREATE TABLE t(a INT); INSERT INTO t VALUES (1),(2),(3); CREATE INDEX a ON t(a); DROP TABLE t; The CREATE INDEX statement would be executed roughly as follows: CREATE TABLE temp(a INT, INDEX(a)); INSERT INTO temp SELECT * FROM t; RENAME TABLE t TO temp2; RENAME TABLE temp TO t; DROP TABLE temp2; You could imagine that the database could crash when copying all rows from the original table to the new one. For example, it could run out of file space. Then, on restart, InnoDB would roll back the huge INSERT transaction. To fix things a little, a hack was added to ha_innobase::write_row for committing the transaction every 10,000 rows. Still, it was frustrating that even a simple DROP INDEX would make the table unavailable for modifications for a long time. Fast Index Creation in the InnoDB Plugin of MySQL 5.1 MySQL 5.1 introduced a new interface for CREATE INDEX and DROP INDEX. The old table-copying approach can still be forced by SET old_alter_table=0. This interface is used in MySQL 5.5 and in the InnoDB Plugin for MySQL 5.1. Apart from the ability to do a quick DROP INDEX, the main advantage is that InnoDB will execute a merge-sort algorithm before inserting the index records into each index that is being created. This should speed up the insert into the secondary index B-trees and potentially result in a better B-tree fill factor. The 5.1 ALTER TABLE interface was not perfect. For example, DROP FOREIGN KEY still invoked the table copy. Renaming columns could conflict with InnoDB foreign key constraints. Combining ADD KEY and DROP KEY in ALTER TABLE was problematic and not atomic inside the storage engine. The ALTER TABLE interface in MySQL 5.6 The ALTER TABLE storage engine interface was completely rewritten in MySQL 5.6. Instead of introducing a method call for every conceivable operation, MySQL 5.6 introduced a handful of methods, and data structures that keep track of the requested changes. In MySQL 5.6, online ALTER TABLE operation can be requested by specifying LOCK=NONE. Also LOCK=SHARED and LOCK=EXCLUSIVE are available. The old-style table copying can be requested by ALGORITHM=COPY. That one will require at least LOCK=SHARED. From the InnoDB point of view, anything that is possible with LOCK=EXCLUSIVE is also possible with LOCK=SHARED. Most ALGORITHM=INPLACE operations inside InnoDB can be executed online (LOCK=NONE). InnoDB will always require an exclusive table lock in two phases of the operation. The execution phases are tied to a number of methods: handler::check_if_supported_inplace_alter Checks if the storage engine can perform all requested operations, and if so, what kind of locking is needed. handler::prepare_inplace_alter_table InnoDB uses this method to set up the data dictionary cache for upcoming CREATE INDEX operation. We need stubs for the new indexes, so that we can keep track of changes to the table during online index creation. Also, crash recovery would drop any indexes that were incomplete at the time of the crash. handler::inplace_alter_table In InnoDB, this method is used for creating secondary indexes or for rebuilding the table. This is the ‘main’ phase that can be executed online (with concurrent writes to the table). handler::commit_inplace_alter_table This is where the operation is committed or rolled back. Here, InnoDB would drop any indexes, rename any columns, drop or add foreign keys, and finalize a table rebuild or index creation. It would also discard any logs that were set up for online index creation or table rebuild. The prepare and commit phases require an exclusive lock, blocking all access to the table. If MySQL times out while upgrading the table meta-data lock for the commit phase, it will roll back the ALTER TABLE operation. In MySQL 5.6, data definition language operations are still not fully atomic, because the data dictionary is split. Part of it is inside InnoDB data dictionary tables. Part of the information is only available in the *.frm file, which is not covered by any crash recovery log. But, there is a single commit phase inside the storage engine. Online Secondary Index Creation It may occur that an index needs to be created on a new column to speed up queries. But, it may be unacceptable to block modifications on the table while creating the index. It turns out that it is conceptually not so hard to support online index creation. All we need is some more execution phases: Set up a stub for the index, for logging changes. Scan the table for index records. Sort the index records. Bulk load the index records. Apply the logged changes. Replace the stub with the actual index. Threads that modify the table will log the operations to the logs of each index that is being created. Errors, such as log overflow or uniqueness violations, will only be flagged by the ALTER TABLE thread. The log is conceptually similar to the InnoDB change buffer. The bulk load of index records will bypass record locking. We still generate redo log for writing the index pages. It would suffice to log page allocations only, and to flush the index pages from the buffer pool to the file system upon completion. Native ALTER TABLE Starting with MySQL 5.6, InnoDB supports most ALTER TABLE operations natively. The notable exceptions are changes to the column type, ADD FOREIGN KEY except when foreign_key_checks=0, and changes to tables that contain FULLTEXT indexes. The keyword ALGORITHM=INPLACE is somewhat misleading, because certain operations cannot be performed in-place. For example, changing the ROW_FORMAT of a table requires a rebuild. Online operation (LOCK=NONE) is not allowed in the following cases: when adding an AUTO_INCREMENT column, when the table contains FULLTEXT indexes or a hidden FTS_DOC_ID column, or when there are FOREIGN KEY constraints referring to the table, with ON…CASCADE or ON…SET NULL option. The FOREIGN KEY limitations are needed, because MySQL does not acquire meta-data locks on the child or parent tables when executing SQL statements. Theoretically, InnoDB could support operations like ADD COLUMN and DROP COLUMN in-place, by lazily converting the table to a newer format. This would require that the data dictionary keep multiple versions of the table definition. For simplicity, we will copy the entire table, even for DROP COLUMN. The bulk copying of the table will bypass record locking and undo logging. For facilitating online operation, a temporary log will be associated with the clustered index of table. Threads that modify the table will also write the changes to the log. When altering the table, we skip all records that have been marked for deletion. In this way, we can simply discard any undo log records that were not yet purged from the original table. Off-page columns, or BLOBs, are an important consideration. We suspend the purge of delete-marked records if it would free any off-page columns from the old table. This is because the BLOBs can be needed when applying changes from the log. We have special logging for handling the ROLLBACK of an INSERT that inserted new off-page columns. This is because the columns will be freed at rollback.

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• Calculated Fields - Idiosyncracies

  - by PointsToShare

  © 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Calculated Fields and some of their Idiosyncrasies Did you try to write a calculate field formula directly into the screen? Good Luck – You’ll need it! Calculated Fields are a sophisticated OOB feature of SharePoint, so you could think that they are best left to the end users – at least to the power users. But they reach their limits before the “Professionals “do, and the tough ones come back to us anyway. Back to business; the simpler the formula, the easier it is. Still, use your favorite editor to write it, then cut it and paste it to the ridiculously small window. What about complex formulae? Write them in steps! Here is a case in point and an idiosyncrasy or two. Our welders need to be certified and recertified every two years. Some of them are certifiable…., but I digress. To be certified you need to pass an eye exam, and two more tests – test A and test B. for each of those you have an expiry date. When renewed, each expiry date is advanced by two years from the date of renewal. My users wanted a visual clue so that when the supervisor looks at the list, she’ll have a KPI symbol telling her if anything expired (Red), is going to expire within the next 90 days (Yellow) or is not to be worried about (green). Not all the dates are filled and any blank date implies a complete lack of certification in the particular requirement. Obviously, I needed to figure the minimal of these 3 dates – a simple enough formula: =MIN([Date_EyeExam], {Date_TestA], [Date_TestB]). Aha! Here is idiosyncrasy #1. When one of the dates is a null, MIN(Date1, Date2) returns the non null date. Null is construed as “Far, far away”. The funny thing is that when you compare it to Today, the null is the lesser one. So a null it is less than today, but not when MIN is calculated. Now, to me the fact that the welder does not have an exam date, is synonymous with his exam being prehistoric, or at least past due. So here is what I did: Solution: Let’s set a blank date to 1/1/1800. How will we do that? Use the IF. IF([Field] rel relValue, TrueValue, FalseValue). rel is any relationship operator <, >, <=, >=, =, <>. If the field is related to the relValue as prescribed, the “IF” returns the TrueValue, otherwise it returns the FalseValue. Thus: =IF([SomeDate]="",1/1/1800,[SomeDate]) will return 1/1/1800 if the date is blank and the date itself if not. So, using this formula, if the welder missed an exam, the returned exam date will be far in the past. It would be nice if we could take such a formula and make it into a reusable function. Alas, here is a calculated field serious shortcoming: You cannot write subs and functions!! Aha, but we can use interim calculated fields! So let’s create 3 calculated fields as follows: 1: c_DateTestA as a calculated field of the date type, with the formula:  IF([Date_TestA]="",1/1/1800,[Date_TestA]) 2: c_DateTestB as a calculated field of the date type, with the formula:  IF([Date_TestB]="",1/1/1800,[Date_TestB]) 3: c_DateEyeExam as a calculated field of the date type, with the formula:  IF([Date_EyeExam]="",1/1/1800,[Date_EyeExam]) And now use these to get c_MinDate. This is again a calculated field of type date with the formula: MIN(c_DateTestA, cDateTestB, c_DateEyeExam) Note that I missed the square parentheses. In “properly named fields – where there are no embedded spaces, we don’t need the square parentheses. I actually strongly recommend using underscores in place of spaces in all the field names in your lists. Among other things, it makes using CAML much simpler. Now, we still need to apply the KPI to this minimal date. I am going to use the available KPI graphics that come with SharePoint and are always available in your 12 hive. "/_layouts/images/kpidefault-2.gif" is the Red KPI "/_layouts/images/kpidefault-1.gif" is the Yellow KPI "/_layouts/images/kpidefault-0.gif" is the Green KPI And here is the nested IF formula that will do the trick: =IF(c_MinDate<=Today,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-2.gif", IF(cMinDate<Today+90,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-1.gif","/_layouts/images/kpidefault-0.gif")) Nice! BUT when I tested, it did not work! This is Idiosyncrasy #2: A calculated field based on a calculated field based on a calculated field does not work. You have to stop at two levels! Back to the drawing board: We have to reduce by one level. How? We’ll eliminate the c_DateX items in the formula and replace them with the proper IF formulae. Notice that this needs to be done with precision. You are much better off in doing it in your favorite line editor, than inside the cramped space that SharePoint gives you. So here is the result: MIN(IF([Date_TestA]="",1/1/1800,[ Date_TestA]), IF([Date_TestB]="",1/1/1800,[ Date_TestB]), 1/1/1800), IF([Date_EyeExam]="",1/1/1800,[Date_EyeExam])) Note that I bolded the parentheses and painted them red. They have to match for this formula to work. Now we can leave the KPI formula as is and test again. This time with SUCCESS! Conclusion: build the inner functions first, and then embed them inside the outer formulae. Do this as long as necessary. Use your favorite line editor. Limit yourself to 2 levels. That’s all folks! Almost! As soon as I finished doing all of the above, my users added yet another level of complexity. They added another test, a test that must be passed, but never expires and asked for yet another KPI, this time in Black to denote that any test is not just past due, but altogether missing. I just finished this. Let’s hope it ends here! And OH, the formula  =IF(c_MinDate<=Today,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-2.gif",IF(cMinDate<Today+90,"/_layouts/images/kpidefault-1.gif","/_layouts/images/kpidefault-0.gif")) Deals with “Today” and this is a subject deserving a discussion of its own!  That’s all folks?! (and this time I mean it)

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• Let your Signature Experience drive IT-decision making

  - by Tania Le Voi

  Today’s CIO job description:  ‘’Align IT infrastructure and solutions with business goals and objectives ; AND while doing so reduce costs; BUT ALSO, be innovative, ensure the architectures are adaptable and agile as we need to act today on the changes that we may request tomorrow.”   Sound like an unachievable request? The fact is, reality dictates that CIO’s are put under this type of pressure to deliver more with less. In a past career phase I spent a few years as an IT Relationship Manager for a large Insurance company. This is a role that we see all too infrequently in many of our customers, and it’s a shame.  The purpose of this role was to build a bridge, a relationship between IT and the business. Key to achieving that goal was to ensure the same language was being spoken and more importantly that objectives were commonly understood - hence service and projects were delivered to time, to budget and actually solved the business problems. In reality IT and the business are already married, but the relationship is most often defined as ‘supplier’ of IT rather than a ‘trusted partner’. To deliver business value they need to understand how to work together effectively to attain this next level of partnership. The Business cannot compete if they do not get a new product to market ahead of the competition, or for example act in a timely manner to address a new industry problem such as a legislative change. An even better example is when the Application or Service fails and the Business takes a hit by bad publicity, being trending topics on social media and losing direct revenue from online channels. For this reason alone Business and IT need the alignment of their priorities and deliverables now more than ever! Take a look at Forrester’s recent study that found ‘many IT respondents considering themselves to be trusted partners of the business but their efforts are impaired by the inadequacy of tools and organizations’.  IT Meet the Business; Business Meet IT So what is going on? We talk about aligning the business with IT but the reality is it’s difficult to do. Like any relationship each side has different goals and needs and language can be a barrier; business vs. technology jargon! What if we could translate the needs of both sides into actionable information, backed by data both sides understand, presented in a meaningful way?  Well now we can with the Business-Driven Application Management capabilities in Oracle Enterprise Manager 12cR2! Enterprise Manager’s Business-Driven Application Management capabilities provide the information that IT needs to understand the impact of its decisions on business criteria.  No longer does IT need to be focused solely on speeds and feeds, performance and throughput – now IT can understand IT’s impact on business KPIs like inventory turns, order-to-cash cycle, pipeline-to-forecast, and similar.  Similarly, now the line of business can understand which IT services are most critical for the KPIs they care about. There are a good deal of resources on Oracle Technology Network that describe the functionality of these products, so I won’t’ rehash them here.  What I want to talk about is what you do with these products. What’s next after we meet? Where do you start? Step 1:  Identify the Signature Experience. This is THE business process (or set of processes) that is core to the business, the one that drives the economic engine, the process that a customer recognises the company brand for, reputation, the customer experience, the process that a CEO would state as his number one priority. The crème de la crème of your business! Once you have nailed this it gets easy as Enterprise Manager 12c makes it easy. Step 2:  Map the Signature Experience to underlying IT.  Taking the signature experience, map out the touch points of the components that play a part in ensuring this business transaction is successful end to end, think of it like mapping out a critical path; the applications, middleware, databases and hardware. Use the wealth of Enterprise Manager features such as Systems, Services, Business Application Targets and Business Transaction Management (BTM) to assist you. Adding Real User Experience Insight (RUEI) into the mix will make the end to end customer satisfaction story transparent. Work with the business and define meaningful key performance indicators (KPI’s) and thresholds to enable you to report and action upon. Step 3:  Observe the data over time.  You now have meaningful insight into every step enabling your signature experience and you understand the implication of that experience on your underlying IT.  Watch if for a few months, see what happens and reconvene with your business stakeholders and set clear and measurable targets which can re-define service levels.  Step 4:  Change the information about which you and the business communicate.  It’s amazing what happens when you and the business speak the same language.  You’ll be able to make more informed business and IT decisions. From here IT can identify where/how budget is spent whether on the level of support, performance, capacity, HA, DR, certification etc. IT SLA’s no longer need be focused on metrics such as %availability but structured around business process requirements. The power of this way of thinking doesn’t end here. IT staff get to see and understand how their own role contributes to the business making them accountable for the business service. Take a step further and appraise your staff on the business competencies that are linked to the service availability. For the business, the language barrier is removed by producing targeted reports on the signature experience core to the business and therefore key to the CEO. Chargeback or show back becomes easier to justify as the ‘cost of day per outage’ can be more easily calculated; the business will be able to translate the cost to the business to the cost/value of the underlying IT that supports it. Used this way, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c is a key enabler to a harmonious relationship between the end customer the business and IT to deliver ultimate service and satisfaction. Just engage with the business upfront, make the signature experience visible and let Enterprise Manager 12c do the rest. In the next blog entry we will cover some of the Enterprise Manager features mentioned to enable you to implement this new way of working.  

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• Introduction to Human Workflow 11g

  - by agiovannetti

  Human Workflow is a component of SOA Suite just like BPEL, Mediator, Business Rules, etc. The Human Workflow component allows you to incorporate human intervention in a business process. You can use Human Workflow to create a business process that requires a manager to approve purchase orders greater than $10,000; or a business process that handles article reviews in which a group of reviewers need to vote/approve an article before it gets published. Human Workflow can handle the task assignment and routing as well as the generation of notifications to the participants. There are three common patterns or usages of Human Workflow: 1) Approval Scenarios: manage documents and other transactional data through approval chains . For example: approve expense report, vacation approval, hiring approval, etc. 2) Reviews by multiple users or groups: group collaboration and review of documents or proposals. For example, processing a sales quote which is subject to review by multiple people. 3) Case Management: workflows around work management or case management. For example, processing a service request. This could be routed to various people who all need to modify the task. It may also incorporate ad hoc routing which is unknown at design time. SOA 11g Human Workflow includes the following features: Assignment and routing of tasks to the correct users or groups. Deadlines, escalations, notifications, and other features required for ensuring the timely performance of a task. Presentation of tasks to end users through a variety of mechanisms, including a Worklist application. Organization, filtering, prioritization and other features required for end users to productively perform their tasks. Reports, reassignments, load balancing and other features required by supervisors and business owners to manage the performance of tasks. Human Workflow Architecture The Human Workflow component is divided into 3 modules: the service interface, the task definition and the client interface module. The Service Interface handles the interaction with BPEL and other components. The Client Interface handles the presentation of task data through clients like the Worklist application, portals and notification channels. The task definition module is in charge of managing the lifecycle of a task. Who should get the task assigned? What should happen next with the task? When must the task be completed? Should the task be escalated?, etc Stages and Participants When you create a Human Task you need to specify how the task is assigned and routed. The first step is to define the stages and participants. A stage is just a logical group. A participant can be a user, a group of users or an application role. The participants indicate the type of assignment and routing that will be performed. Stages can be sequential or in parallel. You can combine them to create any usage you require. See diagram below: Assignment and Routing There are different ways a task can be assigned and routed: Single Approver: task is assigned to a single user, group or role. For example, a vacation request is assigned to a manager. If the manager approves or rejects the request, the employee is notified with the decision. If the task is assigned to a group then once one of managers acts on it, the task is completed. Parallel : task is assigned to a set of people that must work in parallel. This is commonly used for voting. For example, a task gets approved once 50% of the participants approve it. You can also set it up to be a unanimous vote. Serial : participants must work in sequence. The most common scenario for this is management chain escalation. FYI (For Your Information) : task is assigned to participants who can view it, add comments and attachments, but can not modify or complete the task. Task Actions The following is the list of actions that can be performed on a task: Claim : if a task is assigned to a group or multiple users, then the task must be claimed first to be able to act on it. Escalate : if the participant is not able to complete a task, he/she can escalate it. The task is reassigned to his/her manager (up one level in a hierarchy). Pushback : the task is sent back to the previous assignee. Reassign :if the participant is a manager, he/she can delegate a task to his/her reports. Release : if a task is assigned to a group or multiple users, it can be released if the user who claimed the task cannot complete the task. Any of the other assignees can claim and complete the task. Request Information and Submit Information : use when the participant needs to supply more information or to request more information from the task creator or any of the previous assignees. Suspend and Resume :if a task is not relevant, it can be suspended. A suspension is indefinite. It does not expire until Resume is used to resume working on the task. Withdraw : if the creator of a task does not want to continue with it, for example, he wants to cancel a vacation request, he can withdraw the task. The business process determines what happens next. Renew : if a task is about to expire, the participant can renew it. The task expiration date is extended one week. Notifications Human Workflow provides a mechanism for sending notifications to participants to alert them of changes on a task. Notifications can be sent via email, telephone voice message, instant messaging (IM) or short message service (SMS). Notifications can be sent when the task status changes to any of the following: Assigned/renewed/delegated/reassigned/escalated Completed Error Expired Request Info Resume Suspended Added/Updated comments and/or attachments Updated Outcome Withdraw Other Actions (e.g. acquiring a task) Here is an example of an email notification: Worklist Application Oracle BPM Worklist application is the default user interface included in SOA Suite. It allows users to access and act on tasks that have been assigned to them. For example, from the Worklist application, a loan agent can review loan applications or a manager can approve employee vacation requests. Through the Worklist Application users can: Perform authorized actions on tasks, acquire and check out shared tasks, define personal to-do tasks and define subtasks. Filter tasks view based on various criteria. Work with standard work queues, such as high priority tasks, tasks due soon and so on. Work queues allow users to create a custom view to group a subset of tasks in the worklist, for example, high priority tasks, tasks due in 24 hours, expense approval tasks and more. Define custom work queues. Gain proxy access to part of another user's tasks. Define custom vacation rules and delegation rules. Enable group owners to define task dispatching rules for shared tasks. Collect a complete workflow history and audit trail. Use digital signatures for tasks. Run reports like Unattended tasks, Tasks productivity, etc. Here is a screenshoot of what the Worklist Application looks like. On the right hand side you can see the tasks that have been assigned to the user and the task's detail. References Introduction to SOA Suite 11g Human Workflow Webcast Note 1452937.2 Human Workflow Information Center Using the Human Workflow Service Component 11.1.1.6 Human Workflow Samples Human Workflow APIs Java Docs

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• Organization &amp; Architecture UNISA Studies &ndash; Chap 4

  - by MarkPearl

  Learning Outcomes Explain the characteristics of memory systems Describe the memory hierarchy Discuss cache memory principles Discuss issues relevant to cache design Describe the cache organization of the Pentium Computer Memory Systems There are key characteristics of memory… Location – internal or external Capacity – expressed in terms of bytes Unit of Transfer – the number of bits read out of or written into memory at a time Access Method – sequential, direct, random or associative From a users perspective the two most important characteristics of memory are… Capacity Performance – access time, memory cycle time, transfer rate The trade off for memory happens along three axis… Faster access time, greater cost per bit Greater capacity, smaller cost per bit Greater capacity, slower access time This leads to people using a tiered approach in their use of memory   As one goes down the hierarchy, the following occurs… Decreasing cost per bit Increasing capacity Increasing access time Decreasing frequency of access of the memory by the processor The use of two levels of memory to reduce average access time works in principle, but only if conditions 1 to 4 apply. A variety of technologies exist that allow us to accomplish this. Thus it is possible to organize data across the hierarchy such that the percentage of accesses to each successively lower level is substantially less than that of the level above. A portion of main memory can be used as a buffer to hold data temporarily that is to be read out to disk. This is sometimes referred to as a disk cache and improves performance in two ways… Disk writes are clustered. Instead of many small transfers of data, we have a few large transfers of data. This improves disk performance and minimizes processor involvement. Some data designed for write-out may be referenced by a program before the next dump to disk. In that case the data is retrieved rapidly from the software cache rather than slowly from disk. Cache Memory Principles Cache memory is substantially faster than main memory. A caching system works as follows.. When a processor attempts to read a word of memory, a check is made to see if this in in cache memory… If it is, the data is supplied, If it is not in the cache, a block of main memory, consisting of a fixed number of words is loaded to the cache. Because of the phenomenon of locality of references, when a block of data is fetched into the cache, it is likely that there will be future references to that same memory location or to other words in the block. Elements of Cache Design While there are a large number of cache implementations, there are a few basic design elements that serve to classify and differentiate cache architectures… Cache Addresses Cache Size Mapping Function Replacement Algorithm Write Policy Line Size Number of Caches Cache Addresses Almost all non-embedded processors support virtual memory. Virtual memory in essence allows a program to address memory from a logical point of view without needing to worry about the amount of physical memory available. When virtual addresses are used the designer may choose to place the cache between the MMU (memory management unit) and the processor or between the MMU and main memory. The disadvantage of virtual memory is that most virtual memory systems supply each application with the same virtual memory address space (each application sees virtual memory starting at memory address 0), which means the cache memory must be completely flushed with each application context switch or extra bits must be added to each line of the cache to identify which virtual address space the address refers to. Cache Size We would like the size of the cache to be small enough so that the overall average cost per bit is close to that of main memory alone and large enough so that the overall average access time is close to that of the cache alone. Also, larger caches are slightly slower than smaller ones. Mapping Function Because there are fewer cache lines than main memory blocks, an algorithm is needed for mapping main memory blocks into cache lines. The choice of mapping function dictates how the cache is organized. Three techniques can be used… Direct – simplest technique, maps each block of main memory into only one possible cache line Associative – Each main memory block to be loaded into any line of the cache Set Associative – exhibits the strengths of both the direct and associative approaches while reducing their disadvantages For detailed explanations of each approach – read the text book (page 148 – 154) Replacement Algorithm For associative and set associating mapping a replacement algorithm is needed to determine which of the existing blocks in the cache must be replaced by a new block. There are four common approaches… LRU (Least recently used) FIFO (First in first out) LFU (Least frequently used) Random selection Write Policy When a block resident in the cache is to be replaced, there are two cases to consider If no writes to that block have happened in the cache – discard it If a write has occurred, a process needs to be initiated where the changes in the cache are propagated back to the main memory. There are several approaches to achieve this including… Write Through – all writes to the cache are done to the main memory as well at the point of the change Write Back – when a block is replaced, all dirty bits are written back to main memory The problem is complicated when we have multiple caches, there are techniques to accommodate for this but I have not summarized them. Line Size When a block of data is retrieved and placed in the cache, not only the desired word but also some number of adjacent words are retrieved. As the block size increases from very small to larger sizes, the hit ratio will at first increase because of the principle of locality, which states that the data in the vicinity of a referenced word are likely to be referenced in the near future. As the block size increases, more useful data are brought into cache. The hit ratio will begin to decrease as the block becomes even bigger and the probability of using the newly fetched information becomes less than the probability of using the newly fetched information that has to be replaced. Two specific effects come into play… Larger blocks reduce the number of blocks that fit into a cache. Because each block fetch overwrites older cache contents, a small number of blocks results in data being overwritten shortly after they are fetched. As a block becomes larger, each additional word is farther from the requested word and therefore less likely to be needed in the near future. The relationship between block size and hit ratio is complex, and no set approach is judged to be the best in all circumstances.   Pentium 4 and ARM cache organizations The processor core consists of four major components: Fetch/decode unit – fetches program instruction in order from the L2 cache, decodes these into a series of micro-operations, and stores the results in the L2 instruction cache Out-of-order execution logic – Schedules execution of the micro-operations subject to data dependencies and resource availability – thus micro-operations may be scheduled for execution in a different order than they were fetched from the instruction stream. As time permits, this unit schedules speculative execution of micro-operations that may be required in the future Execution units – These units execute micro-operations, fetching the required data from the L1 data cache and temporarily storing results in registers Memory subsystem – This unit includes the L2 and L3 caches and the system bus, which is used to access main memory when the L1 and L2 caches have a cache miss and to access the system I/O resources

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• At times, you need to hire a professional.

  - by Phil Factor

  After months of increasingly demanding toil, the development team I belonged to was told that the project was to be canned and the whole team would be fired.  I’d been brought into the team as an expert in the data implications of a business re-engineering of a major financial institution. Nowadays, you’d call me a data architect, I suppose.  I’d spent a happy year being paid consultancy fees solving a succession of interesting problems until the point when the company lost is nerve, and closed the entire initiative. The IT industry was in one of its characteristic mood-swings downwards.  After the announcement, we met in the canteen. A few developers had scented the smell of death around the project already hand had been applying unsuccessfully for jobs. There was a sense of doom in the mass of dishevelled and bleary-eyed developers. After giving vent to anger and despair, talk turned to getting new employment. It was then that I perked up. I’m not an obvious choice to give advice on getting, or passing,  IT interviews. I reckon I’ve failed most of the job interviews I’ve ever attended. I once even failed an interview for a job I’d already been doing perfectly well for a year. The jobs I’ve got have mostly been from personal recommendation. Paradoxically though, from years as a manager trying to recruit good staff, I know a lot about what IT managers are looking for.  I gave an impassioned speech outlining the important factors in getting to an interview.  The most important thing, certainly in my time at work is the quality of the résumé or CV. I can’t even guess the huge number of CVs (résumés) I’ve read through, scanning for candidates worth interviewing.  Many IT Developers find it impossible to describe their  career succinctly on two sides of paper.  They leave chunks of their life out (were they in prison?), get immersed in detail, put in irrelevancies, describe what was going on at work rather than what they themselves did, exaggerate their importance, criticize their previous employers, aren’t  aware of the important aspects of a role to a potential employer, suffer from shyness and modesty,  and lack any sort of organized perspective of their work. There are many ways of failing to write a decent CV. Many developers suffer from the delusion that their worth can be recognized purely from the code that they write, and shy away from anything that seems like self-aggrandizement. No.  A resume must make a good impression, which means presenting the facts about yourself in a clear and positive way. You can’t do it yourself. Why not have your resume professionally written? A good professional CV Writer will know the qualities being looked for in a CV and interrogate you to winkle them out. Their job is to make order and sense out of a confused career, to summarize in one page a mass of detail that presents to any recruiter the information that’s wanted. To stand back and describe an accurate summary of your skills, and work-experiences dispassionately, without rancor, pity or modesty. You are no more capable of producing an objective documentation of your career than you are of taking your own appendix out.  My next recommendation was more controversial. This is to have a professional image overhaul, or makeover, followed by a professionally-taken photo portrait. I discovered this by accident. It is normal for IT professionals to face impossible deadlines and long working hours by looking more and more like something that had recently blocked a sink. Whilst working in IT, and in a state of personal dishevelment, I’d been offered the role in a high-powered amateur production of an old ex- Broadway show, purely for my singing voice. I was supposed to be the presentable star. When the production team saw me, the air was thick with tension and despair. I was dragged kicking and protesting through a succession of desperate grooming, scrubbing, dressing, dieting. I emerged feeling like “That jewelled mass of millinery, That oiled and curled Assyrian bull, Smelling of musk and of insolence.” (Tennyson Maud; A Monodrama (1855) Section v1 stanza 6) I was then photographed by a professional stage photographer.  When the photographs were delivered, I was amazed. It wasn’t me, but it looked somehow respectable, confident, trustworthy.   A while later, when the show had ended, I took the photos, and used them for work. They went with the CV to job applications. It did the trick better than I could ever imagine.  My views went down big with the developers. Old rivalries were put immediately to one side. We voted, with a show of hands, to devote our energies for the entire notice period to getting employable. We had a team sourcing the CV Writer,  a team organising the make-overs and photographer, and a third team arranging  mock interviews. A fourth team determined the best websites and agencies for recruitment, with the help of friends in the trade.  Because there were around thirty developers, we were in a good negotiating position.  Of the three CV Writers we found who lived locally, one proved exceptional. She was an ex-journalist with an eye to detail, and years of experience in manipulating language. We tried her skills out on a developer who seemed a hopeless case, and he was called to interview within a week.  I was surprised, too, how many companies were experts at image makeovers. Within the month, we all looked like those weird slick  people in the ‘Office-tagged’ stock photographs who stare keenly and interestedly at PowerPoint slides in sleek chromium-plated high-rise offices. The portraits we used still adorn the entries of many of my ex-colleagues in LinkedIn. After a months’ worth of mock interviews, and technical Q&A, our stutters, hesitations, evasions and periphrastic circumlocutions were all gone.  There is little more to relate. With the résumés or CVs, mugshots, and schooling in how to pass interviews, we’d all got new and better-paid jobs well  before our month’s notice was ended. Whilst normally, an IT team under the axe is a sad and depressed place to belong to, this wonderful group of people had proved the power of organized group action in turning the experience to advantage. It left us feeling slightly guilty that we were somehow cheating, but I guess we were merely leveling the playing-field.

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• FOUR questions to ask if you are implementing DATABASE-AS-A-SERVICE

  - by Sudip Datta

  During my ongoing tenure at Oracle, I have met all types of DBAs. Happy DBAs, unhappy DBAs, proud DBAs, risk-loving DBAs, cautious DBAs. These days, as Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) becomes more mainstream, I find some complacent DBAs who are basking in their achievement of having implemented DBaaS. Some others, however, are not that happy. They grudgingly complain that they did not have much of a say in the implementation, they simply had to follow what their cloud architects (mostly infrastructure admins) offered them. In most cases it would be a database wrapped inside a VM that would be labeled as “Database as a Service”. In other cases, it would be existing brute-force automation simply exposed in a portal. As much as I think that there is more to DBaaS than those approaches and often get tempted to propose Enterprise Manager 12c, I try to be objective. Neither do I want to dampen the spirit of the happy ones, nor do I want to stoke the pain of the unhappy ones. As I mentioned in my previous post, I don’t deny vanilla automation could be useful. I like virtualization too for what it has helped us accomplish in terms of resource management, but we need to scrutinize its merit on a case-by-case basis and apply it meaningfully. For DBAs who either claim to have implemented DBaaS or are planning to do so, I simply want to provide four key questions to ponder about: 1. Does it make life easier for your end users? Database-as-a-Service can have several types of end users. Junior DBAs, QA Engineers, Developers- each having their own skillset. The objective of DBaaS is to make their life simple, so that they can focus on their core responsibilities without having to worry about additional stuff. For example, if you are a Developer using Oracle Application Express (APEX), you want to deal with schema, objects and PL/SQL code and not with datafiles or listener configuration. If you are a QA Engineer needing database copies for functional testing, you do not want to deal with underlying operating system patching and compliance issues. The question to ask, therefore, is, whether DBaaS makes life easier for those users. It is often convenient to give them VM shells to deal with a la Amazon EC2 IaaS, but is that what they really want? Is it a productive use of a developer's time if he needs to apply RPM errata to his Linux operating system. Asking him to keep the underlying operating system current is like making a guest responsible for a restaurant's decor. 2. Does it make life easier for your administrators? Cloud, in general, is supposed to free administrators from attending to mundane tasks like provisioning services for every single end user request. It is supposed to enable a readily consumable platform and enforce standardization in the process. For example, if a Service Catalog exposes DBaaS of specific database versions and configurations, it, by its very nature, enforces certain discipline and standardization within the IT environment. What if, instead of specific database configurations, cloud allowed each end user to create databases of their liking resulting in hundreds of version and patch levels and thousands of individual databases. Therefore the right question to ask is whether the unwanted consequence of DBaaS is OS and database sprawl. And if so, who is responsible for tracking them, backing them up, administering them? Studies have shown that these administrative overheads increase exponentially with new targets, and it could result in a management nightmare. That leads us to our next question. 3. Does it satisfy your Security Officers and Compliance Auditors? Compliance Auditors need to know who did what and when. They also want the cloud platform to be secure, so that end users have little freedom in tampering with it. Dealing with VM sprawl is not the easiest of challenges, let alone dealing with them as they keep getting reconfigured and moved around. This leads to the proverbial needle in the haystack problem, and all it needs is one needle to cause a serious compliance issue in the enterprise. Bottomline is, flexibility and agility should not come at the expense of compliance and it is very important to get the balance right. Can we have security and isolation without creating compliance challenges? Instead of a ‘one size fits all approach’ i.e. OS level isolation, can we think smartly about database isolation or schema based isolation? This is where the appropriate resource modeling needs to be applied. The usual systems management vendors out there with heterogeneous common-denominator approach have compromised on these semantics. If you follow Enterprise Manager’s DBaaS solution, you will see that we have considered different models, not precluding virtualization, for different customer use cases. The judgment to use virtual assemblies versus databases on physical RAC versus Schema-as-a-Service in a single database, should be governed by the need of the applications and not by putting compliance considerations in the backburner. 4. Does it satisfy your CIO? Finally, does it satisfy your higher ups? As the sponsor of cloud initiative, the CIO is expected to lead an IT transformation project, not merely a run-of-the-mill IT operations. Simply virtualizing server resources and delivering them through self-service is a good start, but hardly transformational. CIOs may appreciate the instant benefit from server consolidation, but studies have revealed that the ROI from consolidation would flatten out at 20-25%. The question would be: what next? As we go higher up in the stack, the need to virtualize, segregate and optimize shifts to those layers that are more palpable to the business users. As Sushil Kumar noted in his blog post, " the most important thing to note here is the enterprise private cloud is not just an IT project, rather it is a business initiative to create an IT setup that is more aligned with the needs of today's dynamic and highly competitive business environment." Business users could not care less about infrastructure consolidation or virtualization - they care about business agility and service level assurance. Last but not the least, lot of CIOs get miffed if we ask them to throw away their existing hardware investments for implementing DBaaS. In Oracle, we always emphasize on freedom of choosing a platform; hence Enterprise Manager’s DBaaS solution is platform neutral. It can work on any Operating System (that the agent is certified on) Oracle’s hardware as well as 3rd party hardware. As a parting note, I urge you to remember these 4 questions. Remember that your satisfaction as an implementer lies in the satisfaction of others.

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• Having trouble with pathfinding

  - by user2144536

  I'm trying to implement pathfinding in a game I'm programming using this method. I'm implementing it with recursion but some of the values after the immediate circle of tiles around the player are way off. For some reason I cannot find the problem with it. This is a screen cap of the problem: The pathfinding values are displayed in the center of every tile. Clipped blocks are displayed with the value of 'c' because the values were too high and were covering up the next value. The red circle is the first value that is incorrect. The code below is the recursive method. //tileX is the coordinates of the current tile, val is the current pathfinding value, used[][] is a boolean //array to keep track of which tiles' values have already been assigned public void pathFind(int tileX, int tileY, int val, boolean[][] used) { //increment pathfinding value int curVal = val + 1; //set current tile to true if it hasn't been already used[tileX][tileY] = true; //booleans to know which tiles the recursive call needs to be used on boolean topLeftUsed = false, topUsed = false, topRightUsed = false, leftUsed = false, rightUsed = false, botomLeftUsed = false, botomUsed = false, botomRightUsed = false; //set value of top left tile if necessary if(tileX - 1 >= 0 && tileY - 1 >= 0) { //isClipped(int x, int y) returns true if the coordinates givin are in a tile that can't be walked through (IE walls) //occupied[][] is an array that keeps track of which tiles have an enemy in them // //if the tile is not clipped and not occupied set the pathfinding value if(isClipped((tileX - 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY - 1) * 50 + 25) == false && occupied[tileX - 1][tileY - 1] == false && !(used[tileX - 1][tileY - 1])) { pathFindingValues[tileX - 1][tileY - 1] = curVal; topLeftUsed = true; used[tileX - 1][tileY - 1] = true; } //if it is occupied set it to an arbitrary high number so enemies find alternate routes if the best is clogged if(occupied[tileX - 1][tileY - 1] == true) pathFindingValues[tileX - 1][tileY - 1] = 1000000000; //if it is clipped set it to an arbitrary higher number so enemies don't travel through walls if(isClipped((tileX - 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY - 1) * 50 + 25) == true) pathFindingValues[tileX - 1][tileY - 1] = 2000000000; } //top middle if(tileY - 1 >= 0 ) { if(isClipped(tileX * 50 + 25, (tileY - 1) * 50 + 25) == false && occupied[tileX][tileY - 1] == false && !(used[tileX][tileY - 1])) { pathFindingValues[tileX][tileY - 1] = curVal; topUsed = true; used[tileX][tileY - 1] = true; } if(occupied[tileX][tileY - 1] == true) pathFindingValues[tileX][tileY - 1] = 1000000000; if(isClipped(tileX * 50 + 25, (tileY - 1) * 50 + 25) == true) pathFindingValues[tileX][tileY - 1] = 2000000000; } //top right if(tileX + 1 <= used.length && tileY - 1 >= 0) { if(isClipped((tileX + 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY - 1) * 50 + 25) == false && occupied[tileX + 1][tileY - 1] == false && !(used[tileX + 1][tileY - 1])) { pathFindingValues[tileX + 1][tileY - 1] = curVal; topRightUsed = true; used[tileX + 1][tileY - 1] = true; } if(occupied[tileX + 1][tileY - 1] == true) pathFindingValues[tileX + 1][tileY - 1] = 1000000000; if(isClipped((tileX + 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY - 1) * 50 + 25) == true) pathFindingValues[tileX + 1][tileY - 1] = 2000000000; } //left if(tileX - 1 >= 0) { if(isClipped((tileX - 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY) * 50 + 25) == false && occupied[tileX - 1][tileY] == false && !(used[tileX - 1][tileY])) { pathFindingValues[tileX - 1][tileY] = curVal; leftUsed = true; used[tileX - 1][tileY] = true; } if(occupied[tileX - 1][tileY] == true) pathFindingValues[tileX - 1][tileY] = 1000000000; if(isClipped((tileX - 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY) * 50 + 25) == true) pathFindingValues[tileX - 1][tileY] = 2000000000; } //right if(tileX + 1 <= used.length) { if(isClipped((tileX + 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY) * 50 + 25) == false && occupied[tileX + 1][tileY] == false && !(used[tileX + 1][tileY])) { pathFindingValues[tileX + 1][tileY] = curVal; rightUsed = true; used[tileX + 1][tileY] = true; } if(occupied[tileX + 1][tileY] == true) pathFindingValues[tileX + 1][tileY] = 1000000000; if(isClipped((tileX + 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY) * 50 + 25) == true) pathFindingValues[tileX + 1][tileY] = 2000000000; } //botom left if(tileX - 1 >= 0 && tileY + 1 <= used[0].length) { if(isClipped((tileX - 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY + 1) * 50 + 25) == false && occupied[tileX - 1][tileY + 1] == false && !(used[tileX - 1][tileY + 1])) { pathFindingValues[tileX - 1][tileY + 1] = curVal; botomLeftUsed = true; used[tileX - 1][tileY + 1] = true; } if(occupied[tileX - 1][tileY + 1] == true) pathFindingValues[tileX - 1][tileY + 1] = 1000000000; if(isClipped((tileX - 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY + 1) * 50 + 25) == true) pathFindingValues[tileX - 1][tileY + 1] = 2000000000; } //botom middle if(tileY + 1 <= used[0].length) { if(isClipped((tileX) * 50 + 25, (tileY + 1) * 50 + 25) == false && occupied[tileX][tileY + 1] == false && !(used[tileX][tileY + 1])) { pathFindingValues[tileX][tileY + 1] = curVal; botomUsed = true; used[tileX][tileY + 1] = true; } if(occupied[tileX][tileY + 1] == true) pathFindingValues[tileX][tileY + 1] = 1000000000; if(isClipped((tileX) * 50 + 25, (tileY + 1) * 50 + 25) == true) pathFindingValues[tileX][tileY + 1] = 2000000000; } //botom right if(tileX + 1 <= used.length && tileY + 1 <= used[0].length) { if(isClipped((tileX + 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY + 1) * 50 + 25) == false && occupied[tileX + 1][tileY + 1] == false && !(used[tileX + 1][tileY + 1])) { pathFindingValues[tileX + 1][tileY + 1] = curVal; botomRightUsed = true; used[tileX + 1][tileY + 1] = true; } if(occupied[tileX + 1][tileY + 1] == true) pathFindingValues[tileX + 1][tileY + 1] = 1000000000; if(isClipped((tileX + 1) * 50 + 25, (tileY + 1) * 50 + 25) == true) pathFindingValues[tileX + 1][tileY + 1] = 2000000000; } //call the method on the tiles that need it if(tileX - 1 >= 0 && tileY - 1 >= 0 && topLeftUsed) pathFind(tileX - 1, tileY - 1, curVal, used); if(tileY - 1 >= 0 && topUsed) pathFind(tileX , tileY - 1, curVal, used); if(tileX + 1 <= used.length && tileY - 1 >= 0 && topRightUsed) pathFind(tileX + 1, tileY - 1, curVal, used); if(tileX - 1 >= 0 && leftUsed) pathFind(tileX - 1, tileY, curVal, used); if(tileX + 1 <= used.length && rightUsed) pathFind(tileX + 1, tileY, curVal, used); if(tileX - 1 >= 0 && tileY + 1 <= used[0].length && botomLeftUsed) pathFind(tileX - 1, tileY + 1, curVal, used); if(tileY + 1 <= used[0].length && botomUsed) pathFind(tileX, tileY + 1, curVal, used); if(tileX + 1 <= used.length && tileY + 1 <= used[0].length && botomRightUsed) pathFind(tileX + 1, tileY + 1, curVal, used); }

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