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• Please recommend citations for source code documentation standards

  - by Aerik

  I'm trying to convince another group in my company that they need to provide more documentation in their source code (they want to hand off the code to my group) but they're treating it as a "nice to have". In my view, it's a necessity. I've run a source code analysis tool and it's showing about 10% comment lines - but looking at the source code, most of that is coming from entire functions that the author has commented out. Can anyone provide some authoritative citations / references for documentation / comment standards for source code? (In case it matters, we're a C# house, with a little Matlab thrown in).

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• Best development architecture for a small team of programmers

  - by Tio

  Hi all.. I'm in the first month of work in a new company.. and after I met the two programmer's and asked how things are organized in terms of projects inside the company, they simply shrug their shoulders, and said that nothing is organized.. I think my jaw hit the ground that same time.. ( I know some, of you think I should quit, but I'm on a privileged position, I'm the most experienced there, so there's room for me to grow inside the company, and I'm taking the high road ).. So I talked to the IT guy, and one of the programmers, and maybe this week I'm going to get a server all to myself to start organizing things. I've used various architectures in my previous work experiences, on one I was developing in a server on the network ( no source control of course ).. another experience I had was developing in my local computer, with no server on the network, just source control. And at home, I have a mix of the two, everything I code is on a server on the network, and I have those folders under source control, and I also have a no-ip account configured on that server so I can access it everywhere and I can show the clients anything. For me I think this last solution ( the one I have at home ) is the best: Network server with LAMP stack. The server as a public IP so we can access it by domain name. And use subdomains for each project. Everybody works directly on the network server. I think the problem arises, when two or more people want to work on the same project, in this case the only way to do this is by using source control and local repositories, this is great, but I think this turns development a lot more complicated. In the example I gave, to make a change to the code, I would simply need to open the file in my favorite editor, make the change, alter the database, check in the changes into source control and presto all done. Using local repositories, I would have to get the latest version, run the scripts on the local database to update it, alter the file, alter the database, check in the changes to the network server, update the database on the network server, see if everything is running well on the network server, and presto all done, to me this seems overcomplicated for a change on a simple php page. I could share the database for the local development and for the network server, that sure would help. Maybe the best way to do this is just simply: Network server with LAMP stack ( test server so to speak ), public server accessible trough the web. LAMP stack on every developer computer ( minus the database ) We develop locally, test, then check in the changes into the server test and presto. What do you think? Maybe I should start doing this at home.. Thanks and best regards...

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• What Functional features are worth a little OOP confusion for the benefits they bring?

  - by bonomo

  After learning functional programming in Haskell and F#, the OOP paradigm seems ass-backwards with classes, interfaces, objects. Which aspects of FP can I bring to work that my co-workers can understand? Are any FP styles worth talking to my boss about retraining my team so that we can use them? Possible aspects of FP: Immutability Partial Application and Currying First Class Functions (function pointers / Functional Objects / Strategy Pattern) Lazy Evaluation (and Monads) Pure Functions (no side effects) Expressions (vs. Statements - each line of code produces a value instead of, or in addition to causing side effects) Recursion Pattern Matching Is it a free-for-all where we can do whatever the programming language supports to the limit that language supports it? Or is there a better guideline?

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• Scrum for a single programmer?

  - by Rob Perkins

  I'm billed as the "Windows Expert" in my very small company, which consists of myself, a mechanical engineer working in a sales and training role, and the company's president, working in a design, development, and support role. My role is equally as general, but primarily I design and implement whatever programming on our product needs to get done in order for our stuff to run on whichever versions of Windows are current. I just finished watching a high-level overview of the Scrum paradigm, given in a webcast. My question is: Is it worth my time to learn more about this approach to product development, given that my development work items are usually given at a very high level, such as "internationalize and localize the product". If it is, how would you suggest adapting Scrum for the use of just one programmer? What tools, cloud-based or otherwise, would be useful to that end? If it is not, what approach would you suggest for a single programmer to organize his efforts from day to day? (Perhaps the question reduces to that simple question.)

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• “I could use a little help here” or “I can do it myself, thank you” for Cloud Projects

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure allows you to write code in languages within the .NET stack, you can use Java, C++, PHP, NodeJS and others. Code is code - other than keeping things stateless, using a Web or Worker Role in Azure is not all that different from working with an on-premises system. However…. Working in a scalable, component-based stateless architecture that can use federated security is not all that common for many developers. Some are used to owning the server, scaling up, and state-full paradigms that have a single security domain. Making the transition whilst trying to create a new software application or even port a previous one can be daunting. Sure, we have absolutely tons of free training, kits, videos, online books and more to learn on your own, but some things like architecture can be pivotal as you move along. So the question is, should you just strike out on your own for a Cloud project, or get Microsoft Consulting Services or another partner to work with you on your first one? I use a few decision points to help guide the projects I assist in. Note: I’m a huge fan of having help that ends up giving you training and leaves you in charge. If you do engage with someone to help you, make sure you keep this clear and take more and more ownership yourself as the project progresses. How much time do you have? Usually the first thing I ask is about the timeline for the project. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, if you have a short window to get things done it’s better to get help - especially if this is your first cloud project. Having someone that knows the platform well can save you amazing amounts of time. If you have longer, then start with the training in the link above and once you feel confident, jump in. How complex is the project? If there are a lot of moving parts, it’s best to engage a partner. The reason is that certain interactions - particularly things like Service Bus or Data Integration  - can be quite different than what you may have encountered before. How many people do you have? I have a “pizza rule” about projects I’ve used in my career - if it takes over two pizzas to feed everyone on the project, it’s too big and will fail. That being said, one developer and a one-week deadline does not a good project make, usually. It’s best to have at least one architect (or someone in that role) guiding the project along, and at least two developers to work on a cloud project. That’s a generalization of course, since I’ve seen great software on Azure with one developer writing code all by herself, but for more complex projects, more (to a point) is better. The nice thing about bringing on a partner is that you don’t have to hire them full time - they help you and then they go away. How critical is the project? There’s no shame in using some help. If the platform is new, if the project is large and complex, and if it is critical to the business, you should engage a partner. That’s regardless of Cloud or anything else - get some help. You don’t want to hit your company’s bottom line in a negative way, but you have to innovate and get them a competitive advantage. Do your research, make sure the partner is qualified to help you, and get it done. Don’t let these questions scare you off. There are lots of projects you can implement on Windows and SQL Azure with nothing other than the Software Development Kit (SDK) that you get for free with Windows Azure. And assistance comes in many forms - sometimes just phone support, a friend you can ask. Microsoft Consulting Services or any of our great partners. You can get help on just the architecture piece or have them show you how to write the code. They’ll get involved as little or as much as you like.

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• Is the “jQuery programming style” a kind of Reactive programming?

  - by Peter Krauss

  jQuery is a Javascript library and framework, but when we are programming with jQuery into DOM problems/solutions, we can practice a style quite different of programming... We can read about jQuery at Wikipedia, The set of jQuery core features — DOM element selections, traversal and manipulation —, enabled by its selector engine (...), created a new "programming style", fusing algorithms and DOM-data-structures This question is similar to the "subquestion-3" of this question but not so generic. The focus here is about this new kind of "programming style"... So, the question: Is the "jQuery programming style in DOM context" a new paradign? Or it is more one example of reactive programming (not "cell-oriented" but "DOM-node oriented") or another one? We have no "standard taxonomy of paradigms", so, please, in your answer, indicate also your "best choice for Wikipedia Paradign". Example: if you understand that "jQuery programming DOM" is like "awk filtering data", your choice can be event-driven.

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• Combining multiple sprites vs separate sprites

  - by david oliver

  I have a character which can hold ten types of weapons. Should I: Create ten sets of animations for the character with each weapon Create animations for each weapon, and programmatically draw them on the character Option 1 is simpler in general, but requires more work on the artist, and results in larger game size. Option 2, to me, is a programming nightmare... Whats the better practice in general? Thanks.

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• Oracle collaborates with leading IT vendors on Cloud Management Standards

  - by Anand Akela

  During the last couple of days, two key specifications for cloud management standards have been announced. Oracle collaborated with leading technology vendors from the IT industry on both of these cloud management specifications. One of the specifications focuses "Infrastructure as a Service" ( IaaS )  cloud service model , while the other specification announced today focuses on "Platform as a Service" ( PaaS ) cloud service model. Please see The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing to learn more about IaaS and PaaS . Earlier today Oracle , CloudBees, Cloudsoft, Huawei, Rackspace, Red Hat, and Software AG   announced the Cloud Application Management for Platforms (CAMP) specification that will be submitted to Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) for development of an industry standard, in an effort to help ensure interoperability for deploying and managing applications across cloud environments.  Typical PaaS architecture - Source : CAMP specification The CAMP specification defines the artifacts and APIs that need to be offered by a PaaS cloud to manage the building, running, administration, monitoring and patching of applications in the cloud. Its purpose is to enable interoperability among self-service interfaces to PaaS clouds by defining artifacts and formats that can be used with any conforming cloud and enable independent vendors to create tools and services that interact with any conforming cloud using the defined interfaces. Cloud vendors can use these interfaces to develop new PaaS offerings that will interact with independently developed tools and components. In a separate cloud standards announcement yesterday, the Distributed Management Task Force ( DMTF ), the organization bringing the IT industry together to collaborate on systems management standards development, validation, promotion and adoption, released the new Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface (CIMI) specification. Oracle collaborated with various technology vendors and industry organizations on this specification. CIMI standardizes interactions between cloud environments to achieve interoperable cloud infrastructure management between service providers and their consumers and developers, enabling users to manage their cloud infrastructure use easily and without complexity. DMTF developed CIMI as a self-service interface for infrastructure clouds ( IaaS focus ) , allowing users to dynamically provision, configure and administer their cloud usage with a high-level interface that greatly simplifies cloud systems management. Mark Carlson, Principal Cloud Strategist at Oracle provides more details about CAMP  and CIMI his blog . Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

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• What books should I read to be be able to communicate with programmers? [migrated]

  - by Zak833

  My experience is in online marketing, UI/UX and web design, but I know virtually no programming. I have recently been hired to build a new, fairly complex site from scratch, for which I will be working with an experienced programmer with whom I have worked extensively in the past. Although I have a decent understanding of certain technical concepts relating to web development, I would like to build a better appreciation of the programmer's craft, in order to improve communication with my programmer, as well as the client. I have heard Code Complete is quite a good book for this. Other than reading this and learning some basic programming, are there any other books or resources that could be recommended to the non-programmer who does not wish to become a programmer, yet wishes to understand the most common concepts involved in building software, web-based or otherwise?

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• Good fix vs Quick fix [duplicate]

  - by Andrea Girardi

  This question already has an answer here: Does craftsmanship pay off? [duplicate] 16 answers Good design: How much hackyness is acceptable? [duplicate] 9 answers How do you balance between “do it right” and “do it ASAP” in your daily work? 14 answers Let's start from this principle: quality is a feature that you can't add to a project in the middle of the development process. This is the scenario: two weeks to go live with my project and, one of the developers added a specific method used only for one web application to our framework (Our framework is a bounce of java classes used to extract content from MongoDB, Alfresco, mySql and it's used by web applications). I'm the team leader and I told him to generalize the method to keep the framework to keep reusable but he said "no, I prefer don't do that because there are a lot of bugs that need to be fixed". The manager is agree with him and of course I'm not. Is it better to made extra effort to keep a framework free from any specific implementation (probably used only by one web application) or just add the methods because it works? So, my question is: is it correct to write code that only works or is better to write code that works but it doesn't sucks (i.e. adding embedded value, specific methods, extra classes, add column to database, etc)? How is it possible to justify the extra time (to be honest, this kind of fix requires 10 minutes extra to write a good generic code) to the management? How is possible to argue it's the right way to write code to young developers and PM? in general, good fix or quick fix? Ah, 10 minutes after I get the email from PM, he asked me why on a url of application 2 there was the name of application 1 during the login? I like to quote Jeff Atwood: "Don't leave "broken windows" (bad designs, wrong decisions, or poor code) unrepaired. Fix each one as soon as it is discovered. " Excerpt From: Hyperink. "How-To-Stop-Sucking-And-Be-Awesome-Instead." iBooks.

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• Microsoft SQL Server High-Availability Videos and Q&A Log

  - by KKline

  You Want Videos? We Got Videos! I always enjoy getting the chance to catch up with author, consultant, and Microsoft Clustering MVP Allan Hirt . Allan and I recently presented two sessions covering an overview of high availability in Microsoft SQL Server and, the following week, a demo of how to implement several different kinds of high availability techniques including database mirroring, transactional replication, and Windows clustering services. You can see videos of these presentations at the...(read more)

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• How to train yourself to avoid writing “clever” code?

  - by Dan Abramov

  Do you know that feeling when you just need to show off that new trick with Expressions or generalize three different procedures? This does not have to be on Architecture Astronaut scale and in fact may be helpful but I can't help but notice someone else would implement the same class or package in a more clear, straightforward (and sometimes boring) manner. I noticed I often design programs by oversolving the problem, sometimes deliberately and sometimes out of boredom. In either case, I usually honestly believe my solution is crystal clear and elegant, until I see evidence to the contrary but it's usually too late. There is also a part of me that prefers undocumented assumptions to code duplication, and cleverness to simplicity. What can I do to resist the urge to write “cleverish” code and when should the bell ring that I am Doing It Wrong? The problem is getting even more pushing as I'm now working with a team of experienced developers, and sometimes my attempts at writing smart code seem foolish even to myself after time dispels the illusion of elegance.

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• What do you do with coder's block?

  - by Garet Claborn

  Lately it has been a bit rough. I basically know all the things I need and all the avenues to get there for work. There's been no real issue of a problem with too high complexity, and performance is good. Still, after three major projects this year, my mind is behaving a little strange. It's like I'm used to working in O(1+log(N-neatTricks)) but for some reason it processes in O(N^2)! I've experienced a sort of burnout after long deadlines and drudging projects before, but when it turns into a longer experience, I haven't found the usual suspects to be helpful. Take more walks Work on other code Overdesign everything until I feel intensely driven to just make it (sorta works) How can a programmer recoup from the specific hole in your head programming leaves after being mentally ransacked by these bloody corporations and their fancy money? Hopefully some of you have some better ideas, because I could really use another round of being looted and pillaged.I've often wondered if there are special puzzles or some kind of activity that would de-stress the tangled balance of left and right braininess programmers often deal with. Do any special techniques, activities, anything seem to help with the developer's mindset especially?

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• Best methods for Lazy Initialization with properties

  - by Stuart Pegg

  I'm currently altering a widely used class to move as much of the expensive initialization from the class constructor into Lazy Initialized properties. Below is an example (in c#): Before: public class ClassA { public readonly ClassB B; public void ClassA() { B = new ClassB(); } } After: public class ClassA { private ClassB _b; public ClassB B { get { if (_b == null) { _b = new ClassB(); } return _b; } } } There are a fair few more of these properties in the class I'm altering, and some are not used in certain contexts (hence the Laziness), but if they are used they're likely to be called repeatedly. Unfortunately, the properties are often also used inside the class. This means there is a potential for the private variable (_b) to be used directly by a method without it being initialized. Is there a way to make only the public property (B) available inside the class, or even an alternative method with the same initialized-when-needed?

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• Japan Welcomes Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c

  - by Anand Akela

  Following Oracle’s grand unveiling of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 in San Francisco, Oracle Japan just completed their launch for the product. Leng Tan, Oracle VP of Products, delivered the keynote with collaboration from a number of key partners in the region. From left to right: Leng Tan, VP of Products, Oracle; Shinyashiki-san, Assistant General Manager, NEC; Fuketa-san, General Manager, HITACHI; Fujii-san, General Manager, Fujitsu; Misawa-san, VP of Alliances, Oracle Japan NEC, Hitachi and Fujitsu have been among Oracle’s most active partners in the Japan region. They have received key awards from Oracle Japan for their efforts. NEC received the partner of the year award for 2010 and 2011. Hitachi received the partner of the year award for Oracle Enterprise Manager in 2011. Fujitsu received awards in the areas of Database and Oracle Exadata in 2011. All three partners were active participants in Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c beta program. According to Hirai-san, the technical lead at the event, there were over 200 attendees. “The event was so well-attended; there was no room to stand.” Said Hirai-san. Hirai-san demonstrating Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c at the Oracle Japan launch Here’s the highlight of the presentations made by the Oracle partners during this launch. NEC has developed an Oracle Enterprise Manager Plug-in for iStorage (NEC SAN Storage product). Additionally, NEC’s WebSAM Invariant Analyzer management tool is now capable of integrating with Oracle Enterprise Manager HITACHI demonstrated monitoring capabilities for Oracle Exadata through Oracle Enterprise Manager in their JP1 system management tool Fujitsu’s Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g adapter for their SystemWalker tool has now been enhanced to work with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. Following a very successful launch in Japan, Oracle’s Total Cloud Control road show and additional Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c launches continue in the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions. This week Sushil Kumar, VP of Product Strategy and Business Development is scheduled to deliver the keynotes at several cities in India. Also this week, Richard Sarwal, SVP of Products, is scheduled to deliver a keynote at the DOAG conference in Nuremburg, Germany. Richard is also delivering the Oracle Enterprise Manger 12c launch event keynote in Paris on November 18th. Check out our event schedule for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c events across the globe! For more information, please go to Oracle Enterprise Manager  web page or  follow us at :  Twitter   Facebook YouTube Linkedin

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• Install and upgrade strategies for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c - Upcoming Webcasts with live demos

  - by Anand Akela

  At Oracle Open World 2011, we launched the Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c , the only complete cloud management solution for your enterprise cloud. With the new release of Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c, the installation and upgrade process has been enhanced to provide a fast and smooth install experience. In the upcoming webcasts, Oracle Enterprise Manager experts will discuss the installation and upgrade strategies for Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c . These webcasts will include live demonstrations of the install and upgrade processes. In the Webcast on November 17th, we will cover the installation steps and provide recommendations to setup a new Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c environment. We'll also provide a live demonstration of the complete installation process.   Upgrading your Oracle Enterprise Manager environment can be a challenging and complex task especially with large environments consisting of hundreds or thousands of targets. In the webcast on November 18th, we'll describe key facts that administrators must know before upgrading their Enterprise Manager system as well as introduce the different approaches for an upgrade. We'll also walk you through the key steps for upgrading an existing Enterprise Manager 11g (or 10g) Grid Control to Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c. In addition to the live webcasts on Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c install and upgrade processes, please consider attending the replay of  Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center webcast with live Q&A . Schedule and registration links of upcoming webcasts  :- Topics Schedule Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center: Global Systems Management Made Easy (Replay) November 17 10 a.m PT December 1 10 a.m PT Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Installation Overview November 17 8 a.m PT Upgrade Smoothly to Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c November 18 8 a.m PT For more information, please go to Oracle Enterprise Manager  web page or  follow us at :  Twitter   Facebook YouTube Linkedin

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• How to be more logical? (less bugs/errors)

  - by SamB

  I have been programming for 6 years and I am in high school (I prefer not to disclose my age). I have dabbled in many different languages. Just to list a few: Java, PHP, C++, Python, Autohotkey, Mathematica and many more. I have a very good understanding of the basics of general programming. The only problem is I still create bugs all the time. I think too often. Do you have any hints besides continuing to program that will help me become a better programmer and make less errors?

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• Deleting Team Project in Team Foundation Server 2010

  - by Hosam Kamel

  I’m seeing a lot of people still using some old ways ported from TFS 2008 to delete a team project like TFSDeleteProject utility.   In TFS 2010 the administration tasks are made very easy to help you in a lot of administration stuff, for the deletion point specially you can navigate to the Administration Console then Select Team Project Collection Select the project collection contains the project you want to delete then navigate to Team Projects. Select the project then click Delete, you will have the option to delete any external artifacts and workspace too.   Hope it helps. Originally posted at "Hosam Kamel| Developer & Platform Evangelist"

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• New TFS Template Available - "Agile Dev in a Waterfall Environment"–GovDev

  - by Hosam Kamel

    Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 is the collaboration platform at the core of Microsoft’s application lifecycle management solution. In addition to core features like source control, build automation and work-item tracking, TFS enables teams to align projects with industry processes such as Agile, Scrum and CMMi via the use of customable XML Process Templates. Since 2005, TFS has been a welcomed addition to the Microsoft developer tool line-up by Government Agencies of all sizes and missions. However, many government development teams consistently struggle with leveraging an iterative development process all while providing the structure, visibility and status reporting that is required by many Government, waterfall-centric, project methodologies. GovDev is an open source, TFS Process Template that combines the formality of CMMi/Waterfall with the flexibility of Agile/Iterative: The GovDev for TFS Accelerator also implements two new custom reports to support the customized process and provide the real-time visibility across the lifecycle with full traceability and drill down to tasks, tests and code: The TFS Accelerator contains: A custom TFS process template that implements a requirements centric, yet iterative process with extreme traceability throughout the lifecycle. A custom “Requirements Traceability Report” that provides a single view of traceability for the project.   Within the Traceability Report, you can also view live status indicators and “click-through” to the individual assets (even changesets). A custom report that focuses on “Contributions by Team Member” tracking things like “number of check-ins” and “Net lines added”.  Fully integrated documentation on the entire process and features. For a 45min demo of GovDev, visit: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032508359&culture=en-us Download it from Codeplex here.     Originally posted at "Hosam Kamel| Developer & Platform Evangelist" http://blogs.msdn.com/hkamel

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• Oracle User Communities and Enterprise Manager

  - by Anand Akela

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Contributed by Joe Dimmer, Senior Business Development Manager, Oracle Enterprise Manager Heightened interest and adoption of Oracle Enterprise Manager has led to keen interest in “manageability” within the user group community.  In response, user groups are equipping their membership with the right tools for implementation and use manageability through education opportunities and Special Interest Groups.  Manageability is increasingly viewed not only as a means to enable the Oracle environment to become a competitive business advantage for organizations, but also as a means to advance the individual careers of those who embrace enterprise management.  Two Oracle user groups – the Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG) and the United Kingdom Oracle User Group (UKOUG) – each have Special Interest Groups where manageability is prominently featured.  There are also efforts underway to establish similarly charted SIGs that will be reported in future blogs.  The good news is, there’s a lot of news! First off, the IOUG will be hosting a Summer Series of live webcasts:  “Configuring and Managing a Private Cloud with Enterprise Manager 12c” by Kai Yu of Dell, Inc.              Wednesday, June 20th from Noon – 1 PM CDT , Click here for details & registration “What is User Experience Monitoring and What is Not? A case study of Oracle Global IT’s implementation of Enterprise Manager 12c and RUEI” by Eric Tran Le of Oracle            Wednesday, July 18th from Noon – 1 PM CDT , Click here for details & registration “Shed some light on the ‘bumps in the night’ with Enterprise Manager 12c” by David Start of Johnson Controls            Wednesday, August 22nd from Noon – 1 PM CDT, Click here for details & registration   In addition, the UKOUG Availability and Infrastructure Management (AIM) SIG is hosting its next meeting on Tuesday, July 3rd at the Met in Leeds where EM 12c Cloud Management will be presented.  Click here for details & registration.  In future posts from Joe, look for news related to the following: ·         IOUG Community Page and Newsletter devoted to manageability ·         Full day of manageability featured during Oracle OpenWorld 2012 “SIG Sunday” ·         Happenings from other regional User Groups that feature manageability Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

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• Partition Wise Joins

  - by jean-pierre.dijcks

  Some say they are the holy grail of parallel computing and PWJ is the basis for a shared nothing system and the only join method that is available on a shared nothing system (yes this is oversimplified!). The magic in Oracle is of course that is one of many ways to join data. And yes, this is the old flexibility vs. simplicity discussion all over, so I won't go there... the point is that what you must do in a shared nothing system, you can do in Oracle with the same speed and methods. The Theory A partition wise join is a join between (for simplicity) two tables that are partitioned on the same column with the same partitioning scheme. In shared nothing this is effectively hard partitioning locating data on a specific node / storage combo. In Oracle is is logical partitioning. If you now join the two tables on that partitioned column you can break up the join in smaller joins exactly along the partitions in the data. Since they are partitioned (grouped) into the same buckets, all values required to do the join live in the equivalent bucket on either sides. No need to talk to anyone else, no need to redistribute data to anyone else... in short, the optimal join method for parallel processing of two large data sets. PWJ's in Oracle Since we do not hard partition the data across nodes in Oracle we use the Partitioning option to the database to create the buckets, then set the Degree of Parallelism (or run Auto DOP - see here) and get our PWJs. The main questions always asked are: How many partitions should I create? What should my DOP be? In a shared nothing system the answer is of course, as many partitions as there are nodes which will be your DOP. In Oracle we do want you to look at the workload and concurrency, and once you know that to understand the following rules of thumb. Within Oracle we have more ways of joining of data, so it is important to understand some of the PWJ ideas and what it means if you have an uneven distribution across processes. Assume we have a simple scenario where we partition the data on a hash key resulting in 4 hash partitions (H1 -H4). We have 2 parallel processes that have been tasked with reading these partitions (P1 - P2). The work is evenly divided assuming the partitions are the same size and we can scan this in time t1 as shown below. Now assume that we have changed the system and have a 5th partition but still have our 2 workers P1 and P2. The time it takes is actually 50% more assuming the 5th partition has the same size as the original H1 - H4 partitions. In other words to scan these 5 partitions, the time t2 it takes is not 1/5th more expensive, it is a lot more expensive and some other join plans may now start to look exciting to the optimizer. Just to post the disclaimer, it is not as simple as I state it here, but you get the idea on how much more expensive this plan may now look... Based on this little example there are a few rules of thumb to follow to get the partition wise joins. First, choose a DOP that is a factor of two (2). So always choose something like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and so on... Second, choose a number of partitions that is larger or equal to 2* DOP. Third, make sure the number of partitions is divisible through 2 without orphans. This is also known as an even number... Fourth, choose a stable partition count strategy, which is typically hash, which can be a sub partitioning strategy rather than the main strategy (range - hash is a popular one). Fifth, make sure you do this on the join key between the two large tables you want to join (and this should be the obvious one...). Translating this into an example: DOP = 8 (determined based on concurrency or by using Auto DOP with a cap due to concurrency) says that the number of partitions >= 16. Number of hash (sub) partitions = 32, which gives each process four partitions to work on. This number is somewhat arbitrary and depends on your data and system. In this case my main reasoning is that if you get more room on the box you can easily move the DOP for the query to 16 without repartitioning... and of course it makes for no leftovers on the table... And yes, we recommend up-to-date statistics. And before you start complaining, do read this post on a cool way to do stats in 11.

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• Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Integration With Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g

  - by Scott Elvington

  In a blog entry earlier this year, we announced the availability of the Ops Center 11g plug-in for Enterprise Manager 12c. In this article I will walk you through the process of deploying the plug-in on your existing Enterprise Manager agents and show you some of the capabilities the plug-in provides. We'll also look at the integration from the Ops Center perspective. I will show you how to set up the connection to Enterprise Manager and give an overview of the information that is available. Installing and Configuring the Ops Center Plug-in The plug-in is available for download from the Self Update page (Setup ? Extensibility ? Self Update). The plug-in name is “Ops Center Infrastructure stack”. Once you have downloaded the plug-in you can navigate to the Plug-In management page (Setup ? Extensibility ? Plug-ins) to begin deployment. The plug-in must first be deployed on the Management Server. You will need to provide the repository password of the SYS user in order to deploy the plug-in to the Management Server. There are a few pre-requisites that need to be completed on the Ops Center side before the plug-in can be deployed and configured on the desired Enterprise Manager agents. Any servers, whether physical or virtual, for which you wish to see metrics and alerts need to be managed by Ops Center. This means that the Operating System needs to have an Ops Center management agent installed as a minimum. The plug-in can provide even more value when Ops Center is also managing the other “layers of the stack”, for example the service processor, the blade chassis or the XSCF of an M-Series server. The more information that Ops Center has about the stack, the more information that will be visible within Enterprise Manager via the plug-in. In order to access the information within Ops Center, the plug-in requires a user to connect as. This user does not require any particular Ops Center permissions or roles, it simply needs to exist. You can create a specific “EMPlugin” user within Ops Center or use an existing user. Oracle recommends creating a specific, non-privileged user account within Ops Center for this purpose. From the Ops Center Administration section, select Enterprise Controller, click the Users tab and finally click the Add User icon to create the desired user account. For the purpose of this article I have discovered and managed the OS and service processor of the server where my Enterprise Manager 12c installation is hosted. With the plug-in deployed to the Management Server and the setup done within Ops Center, we're now ready to deploy the plug-in to the agents and configure the targets to communicate with the Ops Center Enterprise Controller. From the Setup menu select Add Targets then Add Targets Manually. Select the bottom radio button “Add Targets Manually by Specifying Target Monitoring Properties”, select Infrastructure Stack from the Target Type dropdown and finally, select the Monitoring Agent where you wish to deploy the plug-in. Click the Add Manually.... button and fill in the details for the new target using the appropriate hostname for your Enterprise Controller and the user and password details for the plug-in access user. After the target has been added to the agent you will need to allow a few minutes for the initial data collection to complete. Once completed you can see the new target in the All Targets list. All metric collections are enabled by default except one. To enable Infrastructure Stack Alarms collection, navigate to the newly added target and then to Target ? Monitoring ? Metric and Collection Settings. There you can click the “Disabled” link under Collection Schedule to enable collection and set your desired collection frequency. By default, a Warning level alert in Ops Center will equate to a Warning level event in Enterprise Manager and a Critical alert will equate to a Critical event. This mapping can be altered in the Metric and Collection Settings also. The default incident rules in Enterprise Manager only create incidents from Critical events so keep this in mind in case you want to see incidents generated for Warning or Info level alerts from Ops Center. Also, because Enterprise Manager already monitors the OS through it's Host target type, the plug-in does not pull OS alerts from Ops Center so as to prevent duplication. In addition to alert propagation, the plug-in also provides data for several reports detailing the topology and configuration of the stack as well as any hardware sensor data that is available. These are available from the Information Publisher Reports. Navigate there from the Enterprise ? Reports menu or directly from the Infrastructure Stack target of interest. As an example, here is a sample of the Hardware Sensors report showing some of the available sensor data. The report can also be exported to a CSV file format if desired. Connecting Ops Center to Enterprise Manager Repository For an Enterprise Manager user, the plug-in provides a deeper visibility to the state of the infrastructure underlying the databases and middleware. On the Ops Center side, there is also a greater visibility to the targets running on the infrastructure. To set up the Ops Center data collection, just navigate to the Administration section and select the Grid Control link. Select the Configure/Connect action from the right-hand menu and complete the wizard forms to enable the connection to the Enterprise Manager repository and UI. Be sure to use the sysman account when configuring the database connection. Once the job completes and the initial data synchronization is done you will see new Target tabs on your OS assets. The new tab lists all the Enterprise Manager targets and any alerts, availability and performance data specific to the selected target. It is also possible to use the GoTo icon to launch the Enterprise Manager BUI in context of the specific target or alert to drill into more detail. Hopefully this brief overview of the integration between Enterprise Manager and Ops Center has provided a jumpstart to getting a more complete view of the full stack of your enterprise systems.

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• What design patters are the worst or most narrowly defined?

  - by Akku

  For every programming project, Managers with past programming experience try to shine when they recommend some design patterns for your project. I like design patterns when they make sense or if you need a scalbale solution. I've used Proxies, Observers and Command patterns in a positive way for example, and do so every day. But I'm really hesitant to use say a Factory pattern if there's only one way to create an object, as a factory might make it all easier in the future, but complicates the code and is pure overhead. So, my question is in respect to my future career and my answer to manager types throwing random pattern-names around: Which design patterns did you use, that threw you back overall? Which are the worst design patterns, that you shouldn't have a look at if it's not that only single situation where it makes sense (read: which design patterns are very narrowly defined)? (It's like I was looking for the negative reviews of an overall good product of amazon to see what bugged people most in using design patterns). And I'm not talking about Anti-Patterns here, but about Patterns that are usually thought of as "good" patterns.

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• A client wants us to screen work machines for pornography. Is it possible?

  - by Scant Roger

  A long-time client has asked us to help screen their work machines for pornography. They're worried about liability if sensitive materials were found. Their main concerns (for obvious reasons) are video, audio, and image files. If possible, they'd also like to scan text-based documents for inappropriate content. They have a hierarchy of not-for-work content starting with blatantly illegal (I don't have to list details), moving down to obviously offensive, and also including things that may be offensive to some - think lingerie ads, joke cards featuring butt cracks, and anything related to Howie Mandel. My questions are: Is this ethical? I think it is since every employee legally agrees that their work machine belongs to the company and is subject to search. The screenings are not to occur on personal machines brought to work. Is it feasible? I've done a lot of image processing/indexing but this seems like a whole new world of complexity. Any references to successful techniques for discovering porn? Is it appropriate for me to archive the results when something is discovered?

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• EM12c Release 4: Cloud Control to Major Tom...

  - by abulloch

  With the latest release of Enterprise Manager 12c, Release 4 (12.1.0.4) the EM development team has added new functionality to assist the EM Administrator to monitor the health of the EM infrastructure.   Taking feedback delivered from customers directly and through customer advisory boards some nice enhancements have been made to the “Manage Cloud Control” sections of the UI, commonly known in the EM community as “the MTM pages” (MTM stands for Monitor the Monitor).  This part of the EM Cloud Control UI is viewed by many as the mission control for EM Administrators. In this post we’ll highlight some of the new information that’s on display in these redesigned pages and explain how the information they present can help EM administrators identify potential bottlenecks or issues with the EM infrastructure. The first page we’ll take a look at is the newly designed Repository information page.  You can get to this from the main Setup menu, through Manage Cloud Control, then Repository.  Once this page loads you’ll see the new layout that includes 3 tabs containing more drill-down information. The Repository Tab The first tab, Repository, gives you a series of 6 panels or regions on screen that display key information that the EM Administrator needs to review from time to time to ensure that their infrastructure is in good health. Rather than go through every panel let’s call out a few and let you explore the others later yourself on your own EM site.  Firstly, we have the Repository Details panel. At a glance the EM Administrator can see the current version of the EM repository database and more critically, three important elements of information relating to availability and reliability :- Is the database in Archive Log mode ? Is the database using Flashback ? When was the last database backup taken ? In this test environment above the answers are not too worrying, however, Production environments should have at least Archivelog mode enabled, Flashback is a nice feature to enable prior to upgrades (for fast rollback) and all Production sites should have a backup.  In this case the backup information in the Control file indicates there’s been no recorded backups taken. The next region of interest to note on this page shows key information around the Repository configuration, specifically, the initialisation parameters (from the spfile). If you’re storing your EM Repository in a Cluster Database you can view the parameters on each individual instance using the Instance Name drop-down selector in the top right of the region. Additionally, you’ll note there is now a check performed on the active configuration to ensure that you’re using, at the very least, Oracle minimum recommended values.  Should the values in your EM Repository not meet these requirements it will be flagged in this table with a red X for non-compliance.  You can of-course change these values within EM by selecting the Database target and modifying the parameters in the spfile (and optionally, the run-time values if the parameter allows dynamic changes). The last region to call out on this page before moving on is the new look Repository Scheduler Job Status region. This region is an update of a similar region seen on previous releases of the MTM pages in Cloud Control but there’s some important new functionality that’s been added that customers have requested. First-up - Restarting Repository Jobs.  As you can see from the graphic, you can now optionally select a job (by selecting the row in the UI table element) and click on the Restart Job button to take care of any jobs which have stopped or stalled for any reason.  Previously this needed to be done at the command line using EMDIAG or through a PL/SQL package invocation.  You can now take care of this directly from within the UI. Next, you’ll see that a feature has been added to allow the EM administrator to customise the run-time for some of the background jobs that run in the Repository.  We heard from some customers that ensuring these jobs don’t clash with Production backups, etc is a key requirement.  This new functionality allows you to select the pencil icon to edit the schedule time for these more resource intensive background jobs and modify the schedule to avoid clashes like this. Moving onto the next tab, let’s select the Metrics tab. The Metrics Tab There’s some big changes here, this page contains new information regions that help the Administrator understand the direct impact the in-bound metric flows are having on the EM Repository.  Many customers have provided feedback that they are in the dark about the impact of adding new targets or large numbers of new hosts or new target types into EM and the impact this has on the Repository.  This page helps the EM Administrator get to grips with this.  Let’s take a quick look at two regions on this page. First-up there’s a bubble chart showing a comprehensive view of the top resource consumers of metric data, over the last 30 days, charted as the number of rows loaded against the number of collections for the metric.  The size of the bubble indicates a relative volume.  You can see from this example above that a quick glance shows that Host metrics are the largest inbound flow into the repository when measured by number of rows.  Closely following behind this though are a large number of collections for Oracle Weblogic Server and Application Deployment.  Taken together the Host Collections is around 0.7Mb of data.  The total information collection for Weblogic Server and Application Deployments is 0.38Mb and 0.37Mb respectively. If you want to get this information breakdown on the volume of data collected simply hover over the bubble in the chart and you’ll get a floating tooltip showing the information. Clicking on any bubble in the chart takes you one level deeper into a drill-down of the Metric collection. Doing this reveals the individual metric elements for these target types and again shows a representation of the relative cost - in terms of Number of Rows, Number of Collections and Storage cost of data for each Metric type. Looking at another panel on this page we can see a different view on this data. This view shows a view of the Top N metrics (the drop down allows you to select 10, 15 or 20) and sort them by volume of data.  In the case above we can see the largest metric collection (by volume) in this case (over the last 30 days) is the information about OS Registered Software on a Host target. Taken together, these two regions provide a powerful tool for the EM Administrator to understand the potential impact of any new targets that have been discovered and promoted into management by EM12c.  It’s a great tool for identifying the cause of a sudden increase in Repository storage consumption or Redo log and Archive log generation. Using the information on this page EM Administrators can take action to mitigate any load impact by deploying monitoring templates to the targets causing most load if appropriate.   The last tab we’ll look at on this page is the Schema tab. The Schema Tab Selecting this tab brings up a window onto the SYSMAN schema with a focus on Space usage in the EM Repository.  Understanding what tablespaces are growing, at what rate, is essential information for the EM Administrator to stay on top of managing space allocations for the EM Repository so that it works as efficiently as possible and performs well for the users.  Not least because ensuring storage is managed well ensures continued availability of EM for monitoring purposes. The first region to highlight here shows the trend of space usage for the tablespaces in the EM Repository over time.  You can see the upward trend here showing that storage in the EM Repository is being consumed on an upward trend over the last few days here. This is normal as this EM being used here is brand new with Agents being added daily to bring targets into monitoring.  If your Enterprise Manager configuration has reached a steady state over a period of time where the number of new inbound targets is relatively small, the metric collection settings are fairly uniform and standardised (using Templates and Template Collections) you’re likely to see a trend of space allocation that plateau’s. The table below the trend chart shows the Top 20 Tables/Indexes sorted descending by order of space consumed.  You can switch the trend view chart and corresponding detail table by choosing a different tablespace in the EM Repository using the drop-down picker on the top right of this region. The last region to highlight on this page is the region showing information about the Purge policies in effect in the EM Repository. This information is useful to illustrate to EM Administrators the default purge policies in effect for the different categories of information available in the EM Repository.  Of course, it’s also been a long requested feature to have the ability to modify these default retention periods.  You can also do this using this screen.  As there are interdependencies between some data elements you can’t modify retention policies on a feature by feature basis.  Instead, retention policies take categories of information and bundles them together in Groups.  Retention policies are modified at the Group Level.  Understanding the impact of this really deserves a blog post all on it’s own as modifying these can have a significant impact on both the EM Repository’s storage footprint and it’s performance.  For now, we’re just highlighting the features visibility on these new pages. As a user of EM12c we hope the new features you see here address some of the feedback that’s been given on these pages over the past few releases.  We’ll look out for any comments or feedback you have on these pages ! 

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