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  • Windows Azure : « e-camp » gratuit mercredi sur la manière dont l'application CaptainDash utilise Windows 8 et Azure

    Windows Azure : « e-camp » gratuit ce mercredi Sur la manière dont la solution CaptainDash exploite Windows 8 et la plateforme Web Une semaine après un Dev Camp dédié à Azure, Microsft remet cela ce mercredi avec une e-session intitulée « Comment CaptainDash héberge son application Windows 8 sur Azure ». CaptainDASH est un service qui automatise la collecte de données hétérogènes (ERP, comptabilité, web, réseaux sociaux, méta-données, etc.) pour les centraliser et générer des reportings et des tableaux de bord marketing « simples et lisibles ». Une solution sous forme d'application Metro qui se positionne donc au croisement du Big Data, de la BI et de l'analyse Marketing.

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  • Getting Started with the SSAS Tabular Model

    SSAS Tabular models are in-memory databases that model data with relational constructs such as tables and relationships, in order to provide a rapid and powerful way of providing self-service BI to client applications such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Power View. You’ve deployed SSAS in tabular mode, and deployed Adventureworks into it. What next? Rob Sheldon explains all. Check SQL Server performance at a glanceWe consulted 1000 SQL Server professionals to make SQL Monitor’s UI as clear as possible. Start monitoring with a free trial.

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  • What is the best way to work with large databases in Java depending on context?

    - by user19000
    We are trying to figure out the best practice for working with very large DBs in Java. What we do is a kind of BI (business Intelligence), i.e analyzing very large DBs, and using them to create intermediate DBs that represent intelligent knowledge of the DBs. We are currently using JDBC, and just preforming queries using a ResultSet. As more and more data is being created, we are wondering whether more appropriate ways exist for parsing and manipulating these large DBs: We need to support 'chunk' manipulation and not an entire DB at once(e.g. limit in JDBC, very poor performance) We do not need to be constantly connected since we are just pulling results and creating new tables of our own. We want to understand JDBC alternatives, with respect to advantages and disadvantages. Whether you think JDBC is the way to go or not, what are the best practices to go by depending on context (e.g. for large DBs queried in chunks)?

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  • Need to add 30K new pages to a 10K page website - troubles ahead? (SEO)

    - by Jurga
    We have a situation with a website where we plan to add a huge amount of new pages. The domain is over 10 years old, approximately 10 thousand indexed pages, and the planned addition is approx. 30K new pages. Any idea how we should go about it? Must we schedule a gradual data release? Have you heard of any industry standards as to how many new pages per day / week / month should be added in order to appear natural and not get in trouble with Google? I.e. should we plan a bi-weekly addition of 5K?

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  • Windows Azure : un DevCamp 100 % en ligne le 1er juillet de 15h à 19h, des goodies à gagner et toujours 30 jours d'essai gratuit à la plateforme

    Windows Azure : un DevCamp 100 % en ligne le 1er juillet De 15h à 19h, des goodies à gagner, 30 jours d'essai gratuit à Azure et une remise de 150 € pendant cet essaiMicrosoft organise un événement 100 % en ligne autour de Windows Azure le 1er juillet prochain.Ce « DevCamp » sur la plateforme Cloud pour les développeurs se déroulera de 15h à 19h (mais il sera bien sûr possible de la rejoindre à tout moment).Au total, ce sont 8 sessions de 30 minutes chacune qui aborderont des thèmes aussi variés que la BI en mode Cloud (avec SharePoint), la gestion d'identité dans Azure et Office365, l'administration d'une infrastructure Cloud hybride, le Big Data ou les Backend pour les applis multidevice.

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  • Oracle s'associe à Nokia pour utiliser ses cartes dans ses applications d'entreprise, bonne nouvelle pour le Finlandais

    Oracle s'associe à Nokia pour utiliser ses cartes Dans ses applications d'entreprise, bonne nouvelle pour le Finlandais A mesure que la mobilité monte en puissance, les services de cartographie deviennent de plus en plus stratégique. En témoigne le récent abandon des Googles Maps par Apple dans iOS. Apple qui ne pouvait pas longtemps dépendre d'un concurrent dans ce domaine. Mais ce mouvement ne concerne pas que le grand public. Loin de là. Les CRM par exemple, sont de plus en plus portés sur tablette et les outils de BI prennent de plus en plus en compte des problématiques géospatiales (implantation de maga...

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  • Primavera P6 Cloud ??!P6 R8.3.2????!

    - by hhata
    ????Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) ????? 8.3.2???????????????????????????(SaaS)????????P6????????????????????SaaS???????????????????????P6??????????????????????????·???????????????????????????TCO(Total Cost of Ownership)???????????????OS?????????????????????Primavera?????????P6??????????????????? ??????PPM????????????????????????????? [????] ??????????????????????????????????????????????? [???] TCO????????????PPM????????????????????????????? [??] ?????????????????????????????????????????? [????] HW????????????????P6???????????????????????????? Primavera P6 ????????????????????????: Primavera P6 EPPM Primavera P6 Professional Primavera EPPM Web Services Primavera P6 Team Member Primavera Team Member for iPhone and iPad Primavera P6 Email Statusing Primavera P6 Progress Reporter Document Management BI Publisher WebLogic Application Server P6 Cloud Connect Primavera P6 Professional ????????????????????????????????P6??????????????P6 Cloud Connect???P6??????????????????P6????????????? ???iPad?iPhone???????Team Member?????????????????P6 Cloud??????????????????????????????????P6 Cloud?????Primavera Unifier??????????????????????? P6 Cloud?????????1???????1???????????????????????????????(????)???????????? ????????????Primavera ????????Primavera ????·?????????:??(03-6834-5241/[email protected])?????????????

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  • Could not synchronize database state with session

    - by user359427
    Hello all, I'm having trouble trying to persist an entity which ID is a generated value. This entity (A), at persistence time, has to persist in cascade another entity(B). The relationship within A and B is OneToMany, and the property related in B is part of a composite key. I'm using Eclipse, JBOSS Runtime, JPA/Hibernate Here is my code: Entity A: @Entity public class Cambios implements Serializable { private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L; @SequenceGenerator(name="CAMBIOS_GEN",sequenceName="CAMBIOS_SEQ",allocationSize=1) @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.SEQUENCE, generator="CAMBIOS_GEN") @Column(name="ID_CAMBIO") private Long idCambio; //bi-directional many-to-one association to ObjetosCambio @OneToMany(cascade={CascadeType.PERSIST},mappedBy="cambios") private List<ObjetosCambio> objetosCambioList; public Cambios() { } ... } Entity B: @Entity @Table(name="OBJETOS_CAMBIO") public class ObjetosCambio implements Serializable { private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L; @EmbeddedId private ObjetosCambioPK id; //bi-directional many-to-one association to Cambios @ManyToOne @JoinColumn(name="ID_CAMBIO", insertable=false, updatable=false) private Cambios cambios; //bi-directional many-to-one association to Objetos @ManyToOne @JoinColumn(name="ID_OBJETO", insertable=false, updatable=false) private Objetos objetos; public ObjetosCambio() { } ... Entity B PK: @Embeddable public class ObjetosCambioPK implements Serializable { //default serial version id, required for serializable classes. private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L; @Column(name="ID_OBJETO") private Long idObjeto; @Column(name="ID_CAMBIO") private Long idCambio; public ObjetosCambioPK() { } Client: public String generarCambio(){ ServiceLocator serviceLocator = null; try { serviceLocator = serviceLocator.getInstance(); FachadaLocal tcLocal; tcLocal = (FachadaLocal)serviceLocator.getFacadeService("java:comp/env/negocio/Fachada"); Cambios cambio = new Cambios(); Iterator it = objetosLocal.iterator(); //OBJETOSLOCAL IS ALREADY POPULATED OUTSIDE OF THIS METHOD List<ObjetosCambio> ocList = new ArrayList(); while (it.hasNext()){ Objetos objeto = (Objetos)it.next(); ObjetosCambio objetosCambio = new ObjetosCambio(); objetosCambio.setCambios(cambio); //AT THIS TIME THIS "CAMBIO" DOES NOT HAVE ITS ID, ITS SUPPOSED TO BE GENERATED AT PERSISTENCE TIME ObjetosCambioPK ocPK = new ObjetosCambioPK(); ocPK.setIdObjeto(objeto.getIdObjeto()); objetosCambio.setId(ocPK); ocList.add(objetosCambio); } cambio.setObjetosCambioList(ocList); tcLocal.persistEntity(cambio); return "exito"; } catch (NamingException e) { // TODO e.printStackTrace(); } return null; } ERROR: 15:23:25,717 WARN [JDBCExceptionReporter] SQL Error: 1400, SQLState: 23000 15:23:25,717 ERROR [JDBCExceptionReporter] ORA-01400: no se puede realizar una inserción NULL en ("CDC"."OBJETOS_CAMBIO"."ID_CAMBIO") 15:23:25,717 WARN [JDBCExceptionReporter] SQL Error: 1400, SQLState: 23000 15:23:25,717 ERROR [JDBCExceptionReporter] ORA-01400: no se puede realizar una inserción NULL en ("CDC"."OBJETOS_CAMBIO"."ID_CAMBIO") 15:23:25,717 ERROR [AbstractFlushingEventListener] Could not synchronize database state with session org.hibernate.exception.ConstraintViolationException: Could not execute JDBC batch update at org.hibernate.exception.SQLStateConverter.convert(SQLStateConverter.java:94) at org.hibernate.exception.JDBCExceptionHelper.convert(JDBCExceptionHelper.java:66) at org.hibernate.jdbc.AbstractBatcher.executeBatch(AbstractBatcher.java:275) at org.hibernate.engine.ActionQueue.executeActions(ActionQueue.java:266) at org.hibernate.engine.ActionQueue.executeActions(ActionQueue.java:167) at org.hibernate.event.def.AbstractFlushingEventListener.performExecutions(AbstractFlushingEventListener.java:321) at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultFlushEventListener.onFlush(DefaultFlushEventListener.java:50) at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.flush(SessionImpl.java:1027) at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.managedFlush(SessionImpl.java:365) at org.hibernate.ejb.AbstractEntityManagerImpl$1.beforeCompletion(AbstractEntityManagerImpl.java:504) at com.arjuna.ats.internal.jta.resources.arjunacore.SynchronizationImple.beforeCompletion(SynchronizationImple.java:101) at com.arjuna.ats.arjuna.coordinator.TwoPhaseCoordinator.beforeCompletion(TwoPhaseCoordinator.java:269) at com.arjuna.ats.arjuna.coordinator.TwoPhaseCoordinator.end(TwoPhaseCoordinator.java:89) at com.arjuna.ats.arjuna.AtomicAction.commit(AtomicAction.java:177) at com.arjuna.ats.internal.jta.transaction.arjunacore.TransactionImple.commitAndDisassociate(TransactionImple.java:1423) at com.arjuna.ats.internal.jta.transaction.arjunacore.BaseTransaction.commit(BaseTransaction.java:137) at com.arjuna.ats.jbossatx.BaseTransactionManagerDelegate.commit(BaseTransactionManagerDelegate.java:75) at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxPolicy.endTransaction(TxPolicy.java:170) at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxPolicy.invokeInOurTx(TxPolicy.java:87) at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxInterceptor$Required.invoke(TxInterceptor.java:190) at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:102) at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxPropagationInterceptor.invoke(TxPropagationInterceptor.java:76) at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:102) at org.jboss.ejb3.tx.NullInterceptor.invoke(NullInterceptor.java:42) at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:102) at org.jboss.ejb3.security.Ejb3AuthenticationInterceptorv2.invoke(Ejb3AuthenticationInterceptorv2.java:186) at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:102) at org.jboss.ejb3.ENCPropagationInterceptor.invoke(ENCPropagationInterceptor.java:41) at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:102) at org.jboss.ejb3.BlockContainerShutdownInterceptor.invoke(BlockContainerShutdownInterceptor.java:67) at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:102) at org.jboss.aspects.currentinvocation.CurrentInvocationInterceptor.invoke(CurrentInvocationInterceptor.java:67) at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:102) at org.jboss.ejb3.session.SessionSpecContainer.invoke(SessionSpecContainer.java:176) at org.jboss.ejb3.session.SessionSpecContainer.invoke(SessionSpecContainer.java:216) at org.jboss.ejb3.proxy.impl.handler.session.SessionProxyInvocationHandlerBase.invoke(SessionProxyInvocationHandlerBase.java:207) at org.jboss.ejb3.proxy.impl.handler.session.SessionProxyInvocationHandlerBase.invoke(SessionProxyInvocationHandlerBase.java:164) at $Proxy298.persistEntity(Unknown Source) at backing.SolicitudCambio.generarCambio(SolicitudCambio.java:521) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source) at com.sun.faces.el.MethodBindingImpl.invoke(MethodBindingImpl.java:146) at com.sun.faces.application.ActionListenerImpl.processAction(ActionListenerImpl.java:92) at javax.faces.component.UICommand.broadcast(UICommand.java:332) at javax.faces.component.UIViewRoot.broadcastEvents(UIViewRoot.java:287) at javax.faces.component.UIViewRoot.processApplication(UIViewRoot.java:401) at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.InvokeApplicationPhase.execute(InvokeApplicationPhase.java:95) at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.phase(LifecycleImpl.java:245) at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.execute(LifecycleImpl.java:110) at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.service(FacesServlet.java:213) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206) at org.apache.myfaces.webapp.filter.ExtensionsFilter.doFilter(ExtensionsFilter.java:301) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:235) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.filters.ReplyHeaderFilter.doFilter(ReplyHeaderFilter.java:96) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:235) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:235) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:191) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityAssociationValve.invoke(SecurityAssociationValve.java:190) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.JaccContextValve.invoke(JaccContextValve.java:92) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityContextEstablishmentValve.process(SecurityContextEstablishmentValve.java:126) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityContextEstablishmentValve.invoke(SecurityContextEstablishmentValve.java:70) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:127) at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.jca.CachedConnectionValve.invoke(CachedConnectionValve.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:330) at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:829) at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:598) at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:447) at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) Caused by: java.sql.BatchUpdateException: ORA-01400: no se puede realizar una inserción NULL en ("CDC"."OBJETOS_CAMBIO"."ID_CAMBIO") Thanks in advance! JM.-

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  • Business Intelligence Development Studio encounter error on Rendering

    - by user366796
    I try to develop a data processing extension for SSRS 2008 in order to access database through an entity framework. But when I copy and register the extension in BI Development Studio, it gives me an error message while loading the extension". I built it with targeting framework 4.0 by using Visual Studio 2010 because my data model class library was built with that version of target framework. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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  • Non-relational database modeling tool?

    - by Angel Escobedo
    Hey guys, please recommend some tools you have used succesfully on DW, DataMart, BI an non-relational modeling. Example for automatic creation of snow-flake Schemas, dimensions and facts tables. Wich tools makes you sense familiarity with the diagrams and surrogates keys and it will have the option for export or connect to SQL Server 2008. Thanks

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  • iphone uiwebview inital white view

    - by BahaiResearch.com
    My app's main view has a uiwebview. It is white for a split second before it has time to render the HTML the app generates. Is there a way to make the uiwebview black, or another color, before it renders? The flash of white isn't part of my plan for a smooth visual transition. Objective-C or MonoTouch answers are fine, I am bi-lingual.

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  • Are there any general guidelines for increasing the generation of reports?

    - by David Thielen
    Yes a lot of what you need to do is specific not only to the vendor you use, but also to the specific reports you are creating. However, there are also good general rules that hold for most reports. Vendor Best Practices BIRT Best Practices (more why you need a 3 day class to learn all of them) Crystal Reports Best Practices Microsoft Sql Server Best Practices Oracle B.I. Publisher Best Practices Windward Reports Best Practices General tips on designing a report Note: posted to self answer

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  • Fast inter-process (inter-threaded) communications IPC on large multi-cpu system.

    - by IPC
    What would be the fastest portable bi-directional communication mechanism for inter-process communication where threads from one application need to communicate to multiple threads in another application on the same computer, and the communicating threads can be on different physical CPUs). I assume that it would involve a shared memory and a circular buffer and shared synchronization mechanisms. But shared mutexes are very expensive (and there are limited number of them too) to synchronize when threads are running on different physical CPUs.

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  • What is the current status on Microsoft ProClarity?

    - by Ali_Abadani
    I don't really know how to compose this question. My complay has been using Microsoft ProClarity for few years and we have a quite a few users using it publising books and doing ad-hoc analysis. With the new Microsoft BI solutions, it seems like they are completely going away from ProClarity and replacing the OLAP analysis with Excel. I understand the with SharePoint and integration with PerformancePoint and reporting services the dashboards and reports would be done in SharePoint but what about the analysis? Any ideas?

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  • What is your reporting tool of choice?

    - by jms
    Every project invariably needs some type of reporting functionality. From a foreach loop in your language of choice to a full blow BI platform. To get the job done what tools, widgets, platforms has the group used with success, frustration and failure?

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  • how can i show ccessarychecked cell values in alertbox

    - by adnan
    i have created uitableview and cell in uitableview are accessarychecked . i have implemented an action named -(IBAction) checkBoxClicked . what i need is that i wanted to show accessarychecked cell values in alertbox when i click on button this is the code which i have written #import "ViewController.h" @implementation ViewController @synthesize cell; - (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section { return 7; } - (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { cell= [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"cell"]; if (cell == nil) { cell = [[ UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:@"cell"]; } cell.textLabel.text = [myarray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row]; /* NSString *imagefile = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"cellimage" ofType:@"png"]; UIImage *ui = [[UIImage alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:imagefile]; cell.imageView.image = ui;*/ NSString *check = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"checkbox_not_ticked" ofType:@"png"]; UIImage *bi = [[UIImage alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:check]; cell.imageView.image = bi; cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryNone; return cell; [cell release]; } - (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { cell = [tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath]; if (cell.accessoryType == UITableViewCellAccessoryNone) { cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryCheckmark; } else { cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryNone; } } -(IBAction) checkBoxClicked { NSArray *array = [[NSArray alloc] initWithArray:[myarray objectAtIndex:cell.accessoryType]:UITableViewCellAccessoryCheckmark]; if (array.cell.accessoryType == UITableViewCellAccessoryCheckmark) { UIAlertView *msg = [[ UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"selected items are given: " message:array delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil, nil ]; [msg show ]; [msg release]; [myarray release]; } } //-(IBAction)checkBoxClicked{} - (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning { [super didReceiveMemoryWarning]; // Release any cached data, images, etc that aren't in use. } #pragma mark - View lifecycle - (void)viewDidLoad { myarray = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:@"mondey",@"tuesday", @"wednesday",@"thursday",@"friday",@"saturday",@"sundey", nil]; [super viewDidLoad]; // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib. } - (void)viewDidUnload { [myarray release]; [super viewDidUnload]; // Release any retained subviews of the main view. // e.g. self.myOutlet = nil; } - (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated { [super viewWillAppear:animated]; } - (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated { [super viewDidAppear:animated]; } - (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated { [super viewWillDisappear:animated]; } - (void)viewDidDisappear:(BOOL)animated { [super viewDidDisappear:animated]; } - (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation { // Return YES for supported orientations return (interfaceOrientation != UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown); } @end

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  • Upload File to Windows Azure Blob in Chunks through ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript and HTML5

    - by Shaun
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2013/07/01/upload-file-to-windows-azure-blob-in-chunks-through-asp.net.aspxMany people are using Windows Azure Blob Storage to store their data in the cloud. Blob storage provides 99.9% availability with easy-to-use API through .NET SDK and HTTP REST. For example, we can store JavaScript files, images, documents in blob storage when we are building an ASP.NET web application on a Web Role in Windows Azure. Or we can store our VHD files in blob and mount it as a hard drive in our cloud service. If you are familiar with Windows Azure, you should know that there are two kinds of blob: page blob and block blob. The page blob is optimized for random read and write, which is very useful when you need to store VHD files. The block blob is optimized for sequential/chunk read and write, which has more common usage. Since we can upload block blob in blocks through BlockBlob.PutBlock, and them commit them as a whole blob with invoking the BlockBlob.PutBlockList, it is very powerful to upload large files, as we can upload blocks in parallel, and provide pause-resume feature. There are many documents, articles and blog posts described on how to upload a block blob. Most of them are focus on the server side, which means when you had received a big file, stream or binaries, how to upload them into blob storage in blocks through .NET SDK.  But the problem is, how can we upload these large files from client side, for example, a browser. This questioned to me when I was working with a Chinese customer to help them build a network disk production on top of azure. The end users upload their files from the web portal, and then the files will be stored in blob storage from the Web Role. My goal is to find the best way to transform the file from client (end user’s machine) to the server (Web Role) through browser. In this post I will demonstrate and describe what I had done, to upload large file in chunks with high speed, and save them as blocks into Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Traditional Upload, Works with Limitation The simplest way to implement this requirement is to create a web page with a form that contains a file input element and a submit button. 1: @using (Html.BeginForm("About", "Index", FormMethod.Post, new { enctype = "multipart/form-data" })) 2: { 3: <input type="file" name="file" /> 4: <input type="submit" value="upload" /> 5: } And then in the backend controller, we retrieve the whole content of this file and upload it in to the blob storage through .NET SDK. We can split the file in blocks and upload them in parallel and commit. The code had been well blogged in the community. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public ActionResult About(HttpPostedFileBase file) 3: { 4: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 5: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 6: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(file.FileName); 7: var blockDataList = new Dictionary<string, byte[]>(); 8: using (var stream = file.InputStream) 9: { 10: var blockSizeInKB = 1024; 11: var offset = 0; 12: var index = 0; 13: while (offset < stream.Length) 14: { 15: var readLength = Math.Min(1024 * blockSizeInKB, (int)stream.Length - offset); 16: var blockData = new byte[readLength]; 17: offset += stream.Read(blockData, 0, readLength); 18: blockDataList.Add(Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)), blockData); 19:  20: index++; 21: } 22: } 23:  24: Parallel.ForEach(blockDataList, (bi) => 25: { 26: blob.PutBlock(bi.Key, new MemoryStream(bi.Value), null); 27: }); 28: blob.PutBlockList(blockDataList.Select(b => b.Key).ToArray()); 29:  30: return RedirectToAction("About"); 31: } This works perfect if we selected an image, a music or a small video to upload. But if I selected a large file, let’s say a 6GB HD-movie, after upload for about few minutes the page will be shown as below and the upload will be terminated. In ASP.NET there is a limitation of request length and the maximized request length is defined in the web.config file. It’s a number which less than about 4GB. So if we want to upload a really big file, we cannot simply implement in this way. Also, in Windows Azure, a cloud service network load balancer will terminate the connection if exceed the timeout period. From my test the timeout looks like 2 - 3 minutes. Hence, when we need to upload a large file we cannot just use the basic HTML elements. Besides the limitation mentioned above, the simple HTML file upload cannot provide rich upload experience such as chunk upload, pause and pause-resume. So we need to find a better way to upload large file from the client to the server.   Upload in Chunks through HTML5 and JavaScript In order to break those limitation mentioned above we will try to upload the large file in chunks. This takes some benefit to us such as - No request size limitation: Since we upload in chunks, we can define the request size for each chunks regardless how big the entire file is. - No timeout problem: The size of chunks are controlled by us, which means we should be able to make sure request for each chunk upload will not exceed the timeout period of both ASP.NET and Windows Azure load balancer. It was a big challenge to upload big file in chunks until we have HTML5. There are some new features and improvements introduced in HTML5 and we will use them to implement our solution.   In HTML5, the File interface had been improved with a new method called “slice”. It can be used to read part of the file by specifying the start byte index and the end byte index. For example if the entire file was 1024 bytes, file.slice(512, 768) will read the part of this file from the 512nd byte to 768th byte, and return a new object of interface called "Blob”, which you can treat as an array of bytes. In fact,  a Blob object represents a file-like object of immutable, raw data. The File interface is based on Blob, inheriting blob functionality and expanding it to support files on the user's system. For more information about the Blob please refer here. File and Blob is very useful to implement the chunk upload. We will use File interface to represent the file the user selected from the browser and then use File.slice to read the file in chunks in the size we wanted. For example, if we wanted to upload a 10MB file with 512KB chunks, then we can read it in 512KB blobs by using File.slice in a loop.   Assuming we have a web page as below. User can select a file, an input box to specify the block size in KB and a button to start upload. 1: <div> 2: <input type="file" id="upload_files" name="files[]" /><br /> 3: Block Size: <input type="number" id="block_size" value="512" name="block_size" />KB<br /> 4: <input type="button" id="upload_button_blob" name="upload" value="upload (blob)" /> 5: </div> Then we can have the JavaScript function to upload the file in chunks when user clicked the button. 1: <script type="text/javascript"> 1: 2: $(function () { 3: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 4: }); 5: });</script> Firstly we need to ensure the client browser supports the interfaces we are going to use. Just try to invoke the File, Blob and FormData from the “window” object. If any of them is “undefined” the condition result will be “false” which means your browser doesn’t support these premium feature and it’s time for you to get your browser updated. FormData is another new feature we are going to use in the future. It could generate a temporary form for us. We will use this interface to create a form with chunk and associated metadata when invoked the service through ajax. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 4: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 5: } 6: else { 7: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 8: return; 9: } 10: }); Each browser supports these interfaces by their own implementation and currently the Blob, File and File.slice are supported by Chrome 21, FireFox 13, IE 10, Opera 12 and Safari 5.1 or higher. After that we worked on the files the user selected one by one since in HTML5, user can select multiple files in one file input box. 1: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 2: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 3: var file = files[i]; 4: var fileSize = file.size; 5: var fileName = file.name; 6: } Next, we calculated the start index and end index for each chunks based on the size the user specified from the browser. We put them into an array with the file name and the index, which will be used when we upload chunks into Windows Azure Blob Storage as blocks since we need to specify the target blob name and the block index. At the same time we will store the list of all indexes into another variant which will be used to commit blocks into blob in Azure Storage once all chunks had been uploaded successfully. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10:  11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 14: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 15: var blocks = []; 16: var offset = 0; 17: var index = 0; 18: var list = ""; 19: while (offset < fileSize) { 20: var start = offset; 21: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 22:  23: blocks.push({ 24: name: fileName, 25: index: index, 26: start: start, 27: end: end 28: }); 29: list += index + ","; 30:  31: offset = end; 32: index++; 33: } 34: } 35: }); Now we have all chunks’ information ready. The next step should be upload them one by one to the server side, and at the server side when received a chunk it will upload as a block into Blob Storage, and finally commit them with the index list through BlockBlobClient.PutBlockList. But since all these invokes are ajax calling, which means not synchronized call. So we need to introduce a new JavaScript library to help us coordinate the asynchronize operation, which named “async.js”. You can download this JavaScript library here, and you can find the document here. I will not explain this library too much in this post. We will put all procedures we want to execute as a function array, and pass into the proper function defined in async.js to let it help us to control the execution sequence, in series or in parallel. Hence we will define an array and put the function for chunk upload into this array. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4:  5: // start to upload each files in chunks 6: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 7: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 8: var file = files[i]; 9: var fileSize = file.size; 10: var fileName = file.name; 11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: ... ... 14:  15: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 16: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 17: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 18: }); 19: }); 20: } 21: }); 22: }); As you can see, I used File.slice method to read each chunks based on the start and end byte index we calculated previously, and constructed a temporary HTML form with the file name, chunk index and chunk data through another new feature in HTML5 named FormData. Then post this form to the backend server through jQuery.ajax. This is the key part of our solution. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 15: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 16: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 17: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 18: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 19: var fd = new FormData(); 20: fd.append("name", block.name); 21: fd.append("index", block.index); 22: fd.append("file", blob); 23: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 24: $.ajax({ 25: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 26: data: fd, 27: processData: false, 28: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 29: type: "POST", 30: success: function (result) { 31: if (!result.success) { 32: alert(result.error); 33: } 34: callback(null, block.index); 35: } 36: }); 37: }); 38: }); 39: } 40: }); Then we will invoke these functions one by one by using the async.js. And once all functions had been executed successfully I invoked another ajax call to the backend service to commit all these chunks (blocks) as the blob in Windows Azure Storage. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); That’s all in the client side. The outline of our logic would be - Calculate the start and end byte index for each chunks based on the block size. - Defined the functions of reading the chunk form file and upload the content to the backend service through ajax. - Execute the functions defined in previous step with “async.js”. - Commit the chunks by invoking the backend service in Windows Azure Storage finally.   Save Chunks as Blocks into Blob Storage In above we finished the client size JavaScript code. It uploaded the file in chunks to the backend service which we are going to implement in this step. We will use ASP.NET MVC as our backend service, and it will receive the chunks, upload into Windows Azure Bob Storage in blocks, then finally commit as one blob. As in the client side we uploaded chunks by invoking the ajax call to the URL "/Home/UploadInFormData", I created a new action under the Index controller and it only accepts HTTP POST request. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: } 8: catch (Exception e) 9: { 10: error = e.ToString(); 11: } 12:  13: return new JsonResult() 14: { 15: Data = new 16: { 17: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 18: error = error 19: } 20: }; 21: } Then I retrieved the file name, index and the chunk content from the Request.Form object, which was passed from our client side. And then, used the Windows Azure SDK to create a blob container (in this case we will use the container named “test”.) and create a blob reference with the blob name (same as the file name). Then uploaded the chunk as a block of this blob with the index, since in Blob Storage each block must have an index (ID) associated with so that finally we can put all blocks as one blob by specifying their block ID list. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 9: var file = Request.Files[0]; 10: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 11:  12: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 13: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 14: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 15: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 16: } 17: catch (Exception e) 18: { 19: error = e.ToString(); 20: } 21:  22: return new JsonResult() 23: { 24: Data = new 25: { 26: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 27: error = error 28: } 29: }; 30: } Next, I created another action to commit the blocks into blob once all chunks had been uploaded. Similarly, I retrieved the blob name from the Request.Form. I also retrieved the chunks ID list, which is the block ID list from the Request.Form in a string format, split them as a list, then invoked the BlockBlob.PutBlockList method. After that our blob will be shown in the container and ready to be download. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult Commit() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 9: var ids = list 10: .Split(',') 11: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 12: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 13: .ToArray(); 14:  15: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 16: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 17: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 18: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 19: } 20: catch (Exception e) 21: { 22: error = e.ToString(); 23: } 24:  25: return new JsonResult() 26: { 27: Data = new 28: { 29: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 30: error = error 31: } 32: }; 33: } Now we finished all code we need. The whole process of uploading would be like this below. Below is the full client side JavaScript code. 1: <script type="text/javascript" src="~/Scripts/async.js"></script> 2: <script type="text/javascript"> 3: $(function () { 4: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 5: // assert the browser support html5 6: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 7: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 8: } 9: else { 10: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 11: return; 12: } 13:  14: // start to upload each files in chunks 15: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 16: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 17: var file = files[i]; 18: var fileSize = file.size; 19: var fileName = file.name; 20:  21: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 22: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 23: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 24: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 25: var blocks = []; 26: var offset = 0; 27: var index = 0; 28: var list = ""; 29: while (offset < fileSize) { 30: var start = offset; 31: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 32:  33: blocks.push({ 34: name: fileName, 35: index: index, 36: start: start, 37: end: end 38: }); 39: list += index + ","; 40:  41: offset = end; 42: index++; 43: } 44:  45: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 46: var putBlocks = []; 47: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 48: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 49: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 50: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 51: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 52: var fd = new FormData(); 53: fd.append("name", block.name); 54: fd.append("index", block.index); 55: fd.append("file", blob); 56: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 57: $.ajax({ 58: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 59: data: fd, 60: processData: false, 61: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 62: type: "POST", 63: success: function (result) { 64: if (!result.success) { 65: alert(result.error); 66: } 67: callback(null, block.index); 68: } 69: }); 70: }); 71: }); 72:  73: // invoke the functions one by one 74: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 75: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 76: var data = { 77: name: fileName, 78: list: list 79: }; 80: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 81: if (!result.success) { 82: alert(result.error); 83: } 84: else { 85: alert("done!"); 86: } 87: }); 88: }); 89: } 90: }); 91: }); 92: </script> And below is the full ASP.NET MVC controller code. 1: public class HomeController : Controller 2: { 3: private CloudStorageAccount _account; 4: private CloudBlobClient _client; 5:  6: public HomeController() 7: : base() 8: { 9: _account = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(CloudConfigurationManager.GetSetting("DataConnectionString")); 10: _client = _account.CreateCloudBlobClient(); 11: } 12:  13: public ActionResult Index() 14: { 15: ViewBag.Message = "Modify this template to jump-start your ASP.NET MVC application."; 16:  17: return View(); 18: } 19:  20: [HttpPost] 21: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 22: { 23: var error = string.Empty; 24: try 25: { 26: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 27: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 28: var file = Request.Files[0]; 29: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 30:  31: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 32: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 33: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 34: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 35: } 36: catch (Exception e) 37: { 38: error = e.ToString(); 39: } 40:  41: return new JsonResult() 42: { 43: Data = new 44: { 45: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 46: error = error 47: } 48: }; 49: } 50:  51: [HttpPost] 52: public JsonResult Commit() 53: { 54: var error = string.Empty; 55: try 56: { 57: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 58: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 59: var ids = list 60: .Split(',') 61: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 62: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 63: .ToArray(); 64:  65: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 66: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 67: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 68: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 69: } 70: catch (Exception e) 71: { 72: error = e.ToString(); 73: } 74:  75: return new JsonResult() 76: { 77: Data = new 78: { 79: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 80: error = error 81: } 82: }; 83: } 84: } And if we selected a file from the browser we will see our application will upload chunks in the size we specified to the server through ajax call in background, and then commit all chunks in one blob. Then we can find the blob in our Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Optimized by Parallel Upload In previous example we just uploaded our file in chunks. This solved the problem that ASP.NET MVC request content size limitation as well as the Windows Azure load balancer timeout. But it might introduce the performance problem since we uploaded chunks in sequence. In order to improve the upload performance we could modify our client side code a bit to make the upload operation invoked in parallel. The good news is that, “async.js” library provides the parallel execution function. If you remembered the code we invoke the service to upload chunks, it utilized “async.series” which means all functions will be executed in sequence. Now we will change this code to “async.parallel”. This will invoke all functions in parallel. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallel(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); In this way all chunks will be uploaded to the server side at the same time to maximize the bandwidth usage. This should work if the file was not very large and the chunk size was not very small. But for large file this might introduce another problem that too many ajax calls are sent to the server at the same time. So the best solution should be, upload the chunks in parallel with maximum concurrency limitation. The code below specified the concurrency limitation to 4, which means at the most only 4 ajax calls could be invoked at the same time. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallelLimit(putBlocks, 4, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: });   Summary In this post we discussed how to upload files in chunks to the backend service and then upload them into Windows Azure Blob Storage in blocks. We focused on the frontend side and leverage three new feature introduced in HTML 5 which are - File.slice: Read part of the file by specifying the start and end byte index. - Blob: File-like interface which contains the part of the file content. - FormData: Temporary form element that we can pass the chunk alone with some metadata to the backend service. Then we discussed the performance consideration of chunk uploading. Sequence upload cannot provide maximized upload speed, but the unlimited parallel upload might crash the browser and server if too many chunks. So we finally came up with the solution to upload chunks in parallel with the concurrency limitation. We also demonstrated how to utilize “async.js” JavaScript library to help us control the asynchronize call and the parallel limitation.   Regarding the chunk size and the parallel limitation value there is no “best” value. You need to test vary composition and find out the best one for your particular scenario. It depends on the local bandwidth, client machine cores and the server side (Windows Azure Cloud Service Virtual Machine) cores, memory and bandwidth. Below is one of my performance test result. The client machine was Windows 8 IE 10 with 4 cores. I was using Microsoft Cooperation Network. The web site was hosted on Windows Azure China North data center (in Beijing) with one small web role (1.7GB 1 core CPU, 1.75GB memory with 100Mbps bandwidth). The test cases were - Chunk size: 512KB, 1MB, 2MB, 4MB. - Upload Mode: Sequence, parallel (unlimited), parallel with limit (4 threads, 8 threads). - Chunk Format: base64 string, binaries. - Target file: 100MB. - Each case was tested 3 times. Below is the test result chart. Some thoughts, but not guidance or best practice: - Parallel gets better performance than series. - No significant performance improvement between parallel 4 threads and 8 threads. - Transform with binaries provides better performance than base64. - In all cases, chunk size in 1MB - 2MB gets better performance.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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  • WWDC and Tech Ed: A Tale of Two DevCons

    - by andrewbrust
    Next week marks the first full week of June.  Summer will feel in full swing and it will be a pretty big season for technology.  In seeming acknowledgement of that very fact, both Apple and Microsoft will be holding large developers conferences starting Monday.  Apple will hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in lovely San Francisco and Microsoft will hold its Tech Ed conference in muggy, oil-laden yet soulful New Orleans.  A brief survey of each show reveals much about the differences in each company’s offerings, strategy, and approach to customers and partners. In the interest of full disclosure, I must explain that I will be speaking at Microsoft’s Tech Ed show, and have done so, on and off, since 2003.  I have never been to an Apple conference and, as readers of this blog may know, I acquired my first ever Apple product 2 months ago when I bought an iPad on the day of that product’s launch.  I think I have keen insights into Microsoft’s conference.  My ability to comment on Apple’s event ranges somewhere between backseat driver and naive observer.  Just so you know. Although both shows cater to their respective company’s developers, there are a number of differences in the events’ purposes and content approaches.  First off, let’s consider each show as a news and PR vehicle.  WWDC will feature Steve Jobs’ keynote address and most likely will be where Apple officially reveals details of its 4th-generation iPhone. Jobs will likely also provide deep background information on the corresponding iPhone OS release.  These presumed announcements will make the show a magnet for the tech press and tech blogger elite.  Apple’s customers will be interested too, especially since the iPhone OS release will likely be made available to owners of existing iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad devices. Tech Ed, on the other hand, may not be especially newsworthy at all.  The keynote address will be given by Bob Muglia, who is President of the company’s Server and Tools Division, and he’ll likely be reviewing things more than previewing them. That’s because the company has, in the last 6-8 months, already released new versions of a majority of its products, including Windows, Office, SharePoint, SQL Server, Exchange, its Azure cloud platform, its .NET software development layer, its Silverlight Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology and its Visual Studio developer suite.  Redmond’s product pipeline has functioned more like a firehose of late, and the company has a ton of work to do to get developers up to speed on everything that’s new. I know I keep saying “developers,” but in Tech Ed’s case, that’s not really accurate.  In North America, Tech Ed caters to both developers and IT pros (i.e. technologists who work with physical IT infrastructure, as well as security and administration of the server software that runs on it).  This pairing has, since its inception, struck some as anomalous and others, including many exhibitors, as very smart. Certainly, it means Tech Ed ends up being a confab for virtually all professionals in Microsoft’s ecosystem.  And this year, Microsoft’s Business Intelligence (BI) conference will be co-located with Tech Ed, further enhancing that fusion effect. Clearly then, Microsoft’s show will focus on education, as its name assures us.  Apple’s will serve as both a press event and an opportunity to get its own App Store developer channel synced up with its newest technology advances.  For example, we already know that iPhone OS 4.0 will provide for a limited multitasking capability; that will only work well if people know how to code to it in a capable way.  Apple also told us its iAd advertising platform will be part of the new OS, and Steve Jobs insists that’s to provide a revenue opportunity for developers.  This too, then, needs to be explicated and soaked up buy the faithful. A look at each show’s breakout session lineup provides some interesting takeaways.  WWDC will have very few Mac-specific sessions on offer, and virtually no sessions that at are IT- or “Enterprise-“ related.  It’s all about the phone, music players and tablets.  However, WWDC will have plenty of low-level, hardcore tech coverage of such things as Advanced Memory Analysis and Creating Secure Applications, as well as lots of rich media-related content like Core Animation and Game Design and Development.  Beyond Apple’s proprietary platform, WWDC will also feature an array of sessions on HTML 5 and other Web standards.  In all, WWDC offers over 100 technical sessions and hands-on labs. What about Tech Ed’s editorial content?  Like the target audience, it really runs the gamut.  The show has 21 tracks (versus WWDC’s 5) and more than 745 “learning opportunities” which include breakout sessions, demo stations, hands-on labs and BIrds of a Feather discussion sessions.  Topics range from Architecture talks like Patterns of Parallel Programming to cloud computing talks like Building High Capacity Compute Applications with Windows Azure to IT-focused topics like Virtualization of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Farm Architecture.  I also count 19 sessions on Windows Phone 7.  Unfortunately, with regard to Web standards and HTML 5, only a few sessions are offered, all of them specific to Internet Explorer. All-in-all, Apple’s show looks more exciting and “sexier” than Tech Ed. Microsoft’s show seems a lot more enterprise-focused than WWDC. This is, of course, well in sync with each company’s approach and products.  Microsoft’s content is much wider ranging and bests WWDC in sheer volume of sessions and labs.  I suppose some might argue that less is more; others that Apple’s consumer-focused offerings simply don’t provide for the same depth of coverage to a business audience.  Microsoft has a serious focus on the cloud and  a paucity of coverage on client-side Web standards; Apple has virtually no cloud offering at all.  Again, this reflects each tech titan’s go-to-market strategy. My own take is that employees of each company should attend the other’s event.  The amount of mutual exclusivity in content may make sense in terms of corporate philosophy, but the reality is that each company could stand to diversify into the other’s territory, at least somewhat. My own talk at Tech Ed will focus on competitive analysis around Microsoft’s BI products.  Apple does not today figure into that analysis. Maybe one day it will.

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  • Big Data – Is Big Data Relevant to me? – Big Data Questionnaires – Guest Post by Vinod Kumar

    - by Pinal Dave
    This guest post is by Vinod Kumar. Vinod Kumar has worked with SQL Server extensively since joining the industry over a decade ago. Working on various versions of SQL Server 7.0, Oracle 7.3 and other database technologies – he now works with the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) as a Technology Architect. Let us read the blog post in Vinod’s own voice. I think the series from Pinal is a good one for anyone planning to start on Big Data journey from the basics. In my daily customer interactions this buzz of “Big Data” always comes up, I react generally saying – “Sir, do you really have a ‘Big Data’ problem or do you have a big Data problem?” Generally, there is a silence in the air when I ask this question. Data is everywhere in organizations – be it big data, small data, all data and for few it is bad data which is same as no data :). Wow, don’t discount me as someone who opposes “Big Data”, I am a big supporter as much as I am a critic of the abuse of this term by the people. In this post, I wanted to let my mind flow so that you can also think in the direction I want you to see these concepts. In any case, this is not an exhaustive dump of what is in my mind – but you will surely get the drift how I am going to question Big Data terms from customers!!! Is Big Data Relevant to me? Many of my customers talk to me like blank whiteboard with no idea – “why Big Data”. They want to jump into the bandwagon of technology and they want to decipher insights from their unexplored data a.k.a. unstructured data with structured data. So what are these industry scenario’s that come to mind? Here are some of them: Financials Fraud detection: Banks and Credit cards are monitoring your spending habits on real-time basis. Customer Segmentation: applies in every industry from Banking to Retail to Aviation to Utility and others where they deal with end customer who consume their products and services. Customer Sentiment Analysis: Responding to negative brand perception on social or amplify the positive perception. Sales and Marketing Campaign: Understand the impact and get closer to customer delight. Call Center Analysis: attempt to take unstructured voice recordings and analyze them for content and sentiment. Medical Reduce Re-admissions: How to build a proactive follow-up engagements with patients. Patient Monitoring: How to track Inpatient, Out-Patient, Emergency Visits, Intensive Care Units etc. Preventive Care: Disease identification and Risk stratification is a very crucial business function for medical. Claims fraud detection: There is no precise dollars that one can put here, but this is a big thing for the medical field. Retail Customer Sentiment Analysis, Customer Care Centers, Campaign Management. Supply Chain Analysis: Every sensors and RFID data can be tracked for warehouse space optimization. Location based marketing: Based on where a check-in happens retail stores can be optimize their marketing. Telecom Price optimization and Plans, Finding Customer churn, Customer loyalty programs Call Detail Record (CDR) Analysis, Network optimizations, User Location analysis Customer Behavior Analysis Insurance Fraud Detection & Analysis, Pricing based on customer Sentiment Analysis, Loyalty Management Agents Analysis, Customer Value Management This list can go on to other areas like Utility, Manufacturing, Travel, ITES etc. So as you can see, there are obviously interesting use cases for each of these industry verticals. These are just representative list. Where to start? A lot of times I try to quiz customers on a number of dimensions before starting a Big Data conversation. Are you getting the data you need the way you want it and in a timely manner? Can you get in and analyze the data you need? How quickly is IT to respond to your BI Requests? How easily can you get at the data that you need to run your business/department/project? How are you currently measuring your business? Can you get the data you need to react WITHIN THE QUARTER to impact behaviors to meet your numbers or is it always “rear-view mirror?” How are you measuring: The Brand Customer Sentiment Your Competition Your Pricing Your performance Supply Chain Efficiencies Predictive product / service positioning What are your key challenges of driving collaboration across your global business?  What the challenges in innovation? What challenges are you facing in getting more information out of your data? Note: Garbage-in is Garbage-out. Hold good for all reporting / analytics requirements Big Data POCs? A number of customers get into the realm of setting a small team to work on Big Data – well it is a great start from an understanding point of view, but I tend to ask a number of other questions to such customers. Some of these common questions are: To what degree is your advanced analytics (natural language processing, sentiment analysis, predictive analytics and classification) paired with your Big Data’s efforts? Do you have dedicated resources exploring the possibilities of advanced analytics in Big Data for your business line? Do you plan to employ machine learning technology while doing Advanced Analytics? How is Social Media being monitored in your organization? What is your ability to scale in terms of storage and processing power? Do you have a system in place to sort incoming data in near real time by potential value, data quality, and use frequency? Do you use event-driven architecture to manage incoming data? Do you have specialized data services that can accommodate different formats, security, and the management requirements of multiple data sources? Is your organization currently using or considering in-memory analytics? To what degree are you able to correlate data from your Big Data infrastructure with that from your enterprise data warehouse? Have you extended the role of Data Stewards to include ownership of big data components? Do you prioritize data quality based on the source system (that is Facebook/Twitter data has lower quality thresholds than radio frequency identification (RFID) for a tracking system)? Do your retention policies consider the different legal responsibilities for storing Big Data for a specific amount of time? Do Data Scientists work in close collaboration with Data Stewards to ensure data quality? How is access to attributes of Big Data being given out in the organization? Are roles related to Big Data (Advanced Analyst, Data Scientist) clearly defined? How involved is risk management in the Big Data governance process? Is there a set of documented policies regarding Big Data governance? Is there an enforcement mechanism or approach to ensure that policies are followed? Who is the key sponsor for your Big Data governance program? (The CIO is best) Do you have defined policies surrounding the use of social media data for potential employees and customers, as well as the use of customer Geo-location data? How accessible are complex analytic routines to your user base? What is the level of involvement with outside vendors and third parties in regard to the planning and execution of Big Data projects? What programming technologies are utilized by your data warehouse/BI staff when working with Big Data? These are some of the important questions I ask each customer who is actively evaluating Big Data trends for their organizations. These questions give you a sense of direction where to start, what to use, how to secure, how to analyze and more. Sign off Any Big data is analysis is incomplete without a compelling story. The best way to understand this is to watch Hans Rosling – Gapminder (2:17 to 6:06) videos about the third world myths. Don’t get overwhelmed with the Big Data buzz word, the destination to what your data speaks is important. In this blog post, we did not particularly look at any Big Data technologies. This is a set of questionnaire one needs to keep in mind as they embark their journey of Big Data. I did write some of the basics in my blog: Big Data – Big Hype yet Big Opportunity. Do let me know if these questions make sense?  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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