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• SQL Sentry First Impressions

  - by AjarnMark

  After struggling to defend my SQL Servers from a political attack recently, I realized that I needed better tools to back me up, and SQL Sentry is the leading candidate. A couple of weeks ago, seemingly from out of nowhere, complaints from the business users started coming in that one of the core internal applications was running dramatically slower than normal, and fingers were being pointed at the SQL Server.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a production DBA whose entire job is to monitor and maintain our SQL Servers.  The responsibility falls to me to do the best I can, investing only a small portion of my time, because there are so many other responsibilities to take care of, and our industry is still deep in recession.  I inherited these SQL Servers and have made significant improvements in process and procedure, but I had not yet made the time to take real baseline measurements or keep a really close eye on the performance.  Like many DBAs, I wrote several of my own tools and used the “built-in tools” like Profiler, PerfMon, and sp_who2 (did I mention most of our instances are SQL Server 2000?).  These have all served me well for in-the-moment troubleshooting and maintenance, but they really fell down on the job when I was called upon to “prove” that SQL Server performance was acceptable and more importantly had not degraded recently (i.e. historical comparisons).  I really didn’t have anything from a historical comparison perspective, but I was able to show that current performance was acceptable, and deflect attention back onto other components (which in fact turned out to be the real culprit). That experience dramatically illustrated the need for better monitoring tools.  Coincidentally, I had been talking recently to my boss about the mini nightmare of monitoring several critical and interdependent overnight jobs that operate on separate instances of SQL Server.  Among other tools, I had been using Idera’s SQL Job Manager which is a free tool and did a nice job of showing me job schedules and histories in a nice calendar view.  This worked fairly well, and for the money (did I mention it was free?) it couldn’t be beat.  But it is based on the stored job history in MSDB, and there were other performance problems that we ran into when we started changing the settings for how much job history to retain, in order to be able to look back a month or more in the calendar view.  Another coincidence (if you believe in such things) was that when we had some of those performance challenges, I posted a couple of questions to the #sqlhelp hashtag on Twitter and Greg Gonzalez (@SQLSensei) suggested I check out SQL Sentry’s Event Manager.  At the time, I just thought he worked there, but later found out that he founded the company.  When I took a quick look at the features & benefits, the one that really jumped out at me is Chaining and Queueing which sounded like it would really help with our “interdependent jobs on different servers” issue. I know that is a lot of background story and coincidences, but hopefully you have stuck with me so far, and now we have arrived at the point where last week I downloaded and installed the 30-day trial of the SQL Sentry Power Suite, which is Event Manager plus Performance Advisor.  And I must say that I really like what I see so far.  Here are a few highlights: Great Support.  I had two issues getting the trial setup and monitoring a handful of our servers.  One of which was entirely my fault (missed a security setting in SQL 2008) and the other was mostly my fault (late change to some config settings that were apparently cached and did not get refreshed properly).  In both cases, the support staff at SQL Sentry were very responsive and rather quickly figured out what the cause and fix was for each of them.  This left me with a great impression of the company.  Kudos to them! Chaining and Queueing.  While I have not yet activated this feature, I am very excited about the possibilities.  We have jobs on three different instances of SQL Server that have to be run in a certain order, and each has to finish before the next can successfully begin, and I believe this feature will ensure just that.  It has been a real pain in the backside when one of those jobs runs just a little too long and does not finish before the job on another instance starts, thus triggering a chain reaction of either outright job failures, or worse, successful completion of completely invalid processing. Calendar View.  I really, really like the Event Manager calendar view where I can see all jobs and events across all instances and identify potential resource contention as well as windows of opportunity for maintenance activity.  Very well done, and based on Event Manager’s own database of accumulated historical information rather than querying the source instances every time. Performance Advisor Dashboard History View.  This view let’s me quickly select a date and time range and it displays graphs of key SQL Server and Windows metrics.  This is exactly the thing I needed to answer the “has performance changed recently” question at the beginning of this post. Reporting Services Subscription Jobs with Report Name.  This was a big and VERY pleasant surprise.  If you have ever looked at the list of SQL Server jobs that SQL Server Reporting Services creates when you make a Subscription, you will notice that they all have some sort of GUID as the name of the job.  This is really ugly, and really annoying because when you are just looking at the SQL Agent and Job Activity Monitor, if you see that Job X failed, you really do not have any indication in the name or the properties of the Job itself, as to what Report that was for.  But with SQL Sentry Event Manager you do.  The Jobs list in the Navigator pane in SQL Sentry, amazingly, displays the name of the Report that the Subscription Job is for.  And when you open it to see more details, it shows you the full Reporting Services path to that Report, so you can immediately track it down in the Report Manager in case you want to identify/notify the owner or edit the Subscription information.  I did not expect this at all, but I sure do like it.  HOORAY! That is just my first impressions from using the tools for a few days.  And I haven’t even gotten into how it showed me where I was completely mistaken about one aspect of my SQL Server disk configurations.  I’ll share that lesson in another blog entry.  But I have to say it again, the combination of Event Manager and Performance Advisor working together have really made me a fan.

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• Does Ubuntu Server have any sort of cron job to automatically clear /tmp?

  - by DWilliams

  I know it clears out /tmp on reboots, but I haven't been able to find any sort of cron job on my server that clears /tmp. I recently set up a script that writes lots of files to /tmp and my server usually goes several months between reboots so I'm concerned about it being cluttered. I've seen several other distros that have a tmpwatch script installed by default. Ubuntu's repository seems to have replaced tmpwatch with tmpreaper. Is there any mechanism in place on Ubuntu (8.04 currently, soon to be upgraded to 10.04 when I get around to it) to clean up temp files on a server that doesn't regularly reboot or do I need to install tmpreaper?

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• How to run "mongodb --repair" if it's an Upstart job?

  - by Wolfram Arnold

  My MongoDB server died. The log says something about an unclean shutdown and an existing mongodb.lock file. It recommends to remove the lock file, then restart the mongodb server with --repair. However, on my system (Ubuntu 10.10), I've installed MongoDB via an apt-get package, and it's set up as Upstart job. If I run mongodb from the command line, it won't find the data, none of the paths are set correctly. Surely, I could read the man page, try to emulate what Upstart would do, give it all the correct parameters plus --repair but that seems like a lot of trouble. There must be a simpler way, that's not fighting Upstart. What is it?

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• cron job executing every minute but should be setup to execute every 4 hours.

  - by Frank V

  Note: I've viewed cron: can’t lock /var/run/crond.pid, otherpid may be 3759 but I believe my question is different (but with the same resulting problem.) I'm very new to cron. I setup a script to run a python script every minute to test that everything was working. I did use crontab to accomplish this. It worked great, so I wanted to switch it to run every 4 hour. I changed my * * * * * {...} to * */4 * * * {...} but the job is continues to run every minute. It's been like this for the last hour or so. When I attempt to run cron restart (thinking that would solve the problem), I receive the following error message: cron: can't lock /var/run/crond.pid, otherpid may be 2311: Resource temporarily unavailable Is my cron syntax wrong? And why might I not be able to restart cron?

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• How can I run a job when the server load is low?

  - by jberryman

  I have a command that runs a disk snapshot (on EC2, freezing an XFS disk and running an EBS snapshot command), which is set to run on a regular schedule as a cron job. Ideally I would like to be able to have the command delayed for a period of time if the disk is being used heavily at the moment the task is scheduled to run. I'm afraid that using nice/ionice might not have the proper effect, as I would like the script to run with high priority while it is running (i.e. wait for a good time, then finish fast). Thanks.

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• How to reliably run a batch job every 5 seconds?

  - by Benjamin

  I'm building an application where the sending of all notifications (email, SMS, fax) will be asynchronous. The application will write the notifications to the database, and a batch job will read these notifications and send them with the appropriate transport. I was first reading at ways to run cron faster than the minute, and realized this was a bad idea. The batch scripts are written in PHP, and I guess that writing a proper daemon would be quite an overhead (though I'm open to any suggestion, as PHP car run indefinitely as well). What I have in mind is a solution that would: Run the PHP script every 5 seconds Check that the previous run has finished, or abort (never 2 concurrent batches running) Kill the script if live for more than x minutes (a security in case it hangs) Start with the system (if a reboot occurs) Any idea how to do this?

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• Rsync to take the newest file. And a cron job?

  - by user1704877

  I have a log file on two different servers. The servers are under a load balancer so half the traffic goes to one server, and half the traffic goes to the other server. I need to take the newest log file from one machine and transfer that log file to the other machine. So if one log file is changed on one server, it gets updated on the other server. I think I need to use rsync. And do I also need to put it in a cron job?

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• Strange results - I obtain same value for all keys

  - by Pietro Luciani

  I have a problem with mapreduce. Giving as input a list of song ("Songname"#"UserID"#"boolean") i must have as result a song list in which is specified how many time different useres listen them... so a output ("Songname","timelistening"). I used hashtable to allow only one couple . With short files it works well but when I put as input a list about 1000000 of records it returns me the same value (20) for all records. This is my mapper: public static class CanzoniMapper extends Mapper<Object, Text, Text, IntWritable>{ private IntWritable userID = new IntWritable(0); private Text song = new Text(); public void map(Object key, Text value, Context context) throws IOException, InterruptedException { /*StringTokenizer itr = new StringTokenizer(value.toString()); while (itr.hasMoreTokens()) { word.set(itr.nextToken()); context.write(word, one); }*/ String[] caratteri = value.toString().split("#"); if(caratteri[2].equals("1")){ song.set(caratteri[0]); userID.set(Integer.parseInt(caratteri[1])); context.write(song,userID); } } } This is my reducer: public static class CanzoniReducer extends Reducer<Text,IntWritable,Text,IntWritable> { private IntWritable result = new IntWritable(); public void reduce(Text key, Iterable<IntWritable> values, Context context) throws IOException, InterruptedException { Hashtable<IntWritable,Text> doppioni = new Hashtable<IntWritable,Text>(); for (IntWritable val : values) { doppioni.put(val,key); } result.set(doppioni.size()); //doppioni.clear(); context.write(key,result); } } and main: Configuration conf = new Configuration(); Job job = new Job(conf, "word count"); job.setJarByClass(Canzoni.class); job.setMapperClass(CanzoniMapper.class); //job.setCombinerClass(CanzoniReducer.class); //job.setNumReduceTasks(2); job.setReducerClass(CanzoniReducer.class); job.setOutputKeyClass(Text.class); job.setOutputValueClass(IntWritable.class); FileInputFormat.addInputPath(job, new Path(args[0])); FileOutputFormat.setOutputPath(job, new Path(args[1])); System.exit(job.waitForCompletion(true) ? 0 : 1); Any idea???

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• CakePHP: How can I change this find call to include all records that do not exist in the associated

  - by Stephen

  I have a few tables with the following relationships: Company hasMany Jobs, Employees, and Trucks, Users I've got all my foreign keys set up properly, along with the tables' Models, Controllers, and Views. Originally, the Jobs table had a boolean field called "assigned". The following find operation (from the JobsController) successfully returns all employees, all trucks, and any jobs that are not assigned and fall on a certain day for a single company (without returning users by utilizing the containable behavior): $this->set('resources', $this->Job->Company->find('first', array( 'conditions' => array( 'Company.id' => $company_id ), 'contain' => array( 'Employee', 'Truck', 'Job' => array( 'conditions' => array( 'Job.assigned' => false, 'Job.pickup_date' => date('Y-m-d', strtotime('Today')); ) ) ) ))); Now, since writing this code, I decided to do a lot more with the job assignments. So I've created a new model "Assignment" that belongsTo Truck and belongsTo Job. I've added the hasMany Assignments to both the Truck model and the Jobs Model. I have both foreign keys in the assignments table, along with some other assignment fields. Now, I'm trying to get the same information above, only instead of checking the assigned field from the job table, I want to check the assignments table to ensure that the job does not exist there. I can no longer use the containable behavior if I'm going to use the "joins" feature of the find method due to mysql errors (according to the cookbook). But, the following query returns all jobs, even if they fall on different days. $this->set('resources', $this->Job->Company->find('first', array( 'joins' => array( array( 'table' => 'employees', 'alias' => 'Employee', 'type' => 'LEFT', 'conditions' => array( 'Company.id = Employee.company_id' ) ), array( 'table' => 'trucks', 'alias' => 'Truck', 'type' => 'LEFT', 'conditions' => array( 'Company.id = Truck.company_id' ) ), array( 'table' => 'jobs', 'alias' => 'Job', 'type' => 'LEFT', 'conditions' => array( 'Company.id = Job.company_id' ) ), array( 'table' => 'assignments', 'alias' => 'Assignment', 'type' => 'LEFT', 'conditions' => array( 'Job.id = Assignment.job_id' ) ) ), 'conditions' => array( 'Job.pickup_date' => $day, 'Company.id' => $company_id, 'Assignment.job_id IS NULL' ) )));

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• How to set up a cron job for PHP on IIS?

  - by Probocop

  How would I go about setting up a PHP cron job in IIS?

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• what factors should a fresher(for programmer job) consider and learn before saying yes to employer f

  - by Senthil

  what factors should a fresher(for programmer job) consider and learn before saying yes to employer for job offer? and to contract? and most importantly how should one get the details?how can I approach them? I know some employers dont want to give such details..right? I have shortlisted by a Software COmpany..that is parter with microsoft. and works on technology like VB ADO.DOTNET,and some other reporting stuffs.,sql servers etc.,Tell me about scope of that..because They are asking me to sign for 2 year certificate bond agreement..I want to be a great programmer and Project Leader after 5 years..advise me guys..Language/OS not problem for me,As I curious to learn more things. Most of the SO members are programmers..so yours advice is greatly appreciated

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• How do I control output files name and content of an Hadoop streaming job?

  - by Eran Kampf

  Is there a way to control the output filenames of an Hadoop Streaming job? Specifically I would like my job's output files content and name to be organized by the ket the reducer outputs - each file would only contain values for one key and its name would be the key. Update: Just found the answer - Using a Java class that derives from MultipleOutputFormat as the jobs output format allows control of the output file names. http://hadoop.apache.org/core/docs/current/api/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/lib/MultipleOutputFormat.htmlhttp://hadoop.apache.org/core/docs/current/api/org/apache/hadoop/mapred/lib/MultipleOutputFormat.html I havent seen any samples for this out there... Can anyone point out to an Hadoop Streaming sample that makes use of a custom output format Java class?

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• Hudson, is it possible to make a plugin configuration non-visible depending on job type?

  - by Haju

  With the plugin (SCM plugin) I'm working on the problem is that it doesn't work in any other job/project type than Freestyle-project. I'd like to hide the plugin configuration from project configuration page on other job/project types (maven, matrix etc), because it seems to distract people. I wonder if there's a "right" way of doing this, or any way at all? Currently the project type is checked in checkout-method as a first thing, and if it doesn't match, the build is failed instantly, but this is not completely satisfactory solution, since it causes a bit more work to the end user.

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• Start a job that does not end when my terminal session does?

  - by C. Ross

  How can I start a job on a *nix system that will not exit when my session exits?

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• Waiting for a submitted job to finish in Oracle PL/SQL?

  - by vicjugador

  I'm looking for the equivalent of Java's thread.join() in PL/SQL. I.e. I want to kick off a number of jobs (threads), and then wait for them to finish. How is this possible in PL/SQL? I'm thinking of using dbms_job.submit (I know it's deprecated). dbms_scheduler is also an alternative. My code: DECLARE jobno1 number; jobno2 number; BEGIN dbms_job.submit(jobno1,'begin dbms_lock.sleep(10); dbms_output.put_line(''job 1 exit'');end;'); dbms_job.submit(jobno2,'begin dbms_lock.sleep(10); dbms_output.put_line(''job 2 exit'');end;'); dbms_job.run(jobno1); dbms_job.run(jobno2); //Need code to Wait for jobno1 to finish //Need code to Wait for jobno2 to finish END;

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• Need help on a problemset in a programming contest

  - by topher

  I've attended a local programming contest on my country. The name of the contest is "ACM-ICPC Indonesia National Contest 2013". The contest has ended on 2013-10-13 15:00:00 (GMT +7) and I am still curious about one of the problems. You can find the original version of the problem here. Brief Problem Explanation: There are a set of "jobs" (tasks) that should be performed on several "servers" (computers). Each job should be executed strictly from start time Si to end time Ei Each server can only perform one task at a time. (The complicated thing goes here) It takes some time for a server to switch from one job to another. If a server finishes job Jx, then to start job Jy it will need an intermission time Tx,y after job Jx completes. This is the time required by the server to clean up job Jx and load job Jy. In other word, job Jy can be run after job Jx if and only if Ex + Tx,y = Sy. The problem is to compute the minimum number of servers needed to do all jobs. Example: For example, let there be 3 jobs S(1) = 3 and E(1) = 6 S(2) = 10 and E(2) = 15 S(3) = 16 and E(3) = 20 T(1,2) = 2, T(1,3) = 5 T(2,1) = 0, T(2,3) = 3 T(3,1) = 0, T(3,2) = 0 In this example, we need 2 servers: Server 1: J(1), J(2) Server 2: J(3) Sample Input: Short explanation: The first 3 is the number of test cases, following by number of jobs (the second 3 means that there are 3 jobs for case 1), then followed by Ei and Si, then the T matrix (sized equal with number of jobs). 3 3 3 6 10 15 16 20 0 2 5 0 0 3 0 0 0 4 8 10 4 7 12 15 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 8 10 4 7 12 15 1 4 0 50 50 50 50 0 50 50 50 50 0 50 50 50 50 0 Sample Output: Case #1: 2 Case #2: 1 Case #3: 4 Personal Comments: The time required can be represented as a graph matrix, so I'm supposing this as a directed acyclic graph problem. Methods I tried so far is brute force and greedy, but got Wrong Answer. (Unfortunately I don't have my code anymore) Could probably solved by dynamic programming too, but I'm not sure. I really have no clear idea on how to solve this problem. So a simple hint or insight will be very helpful to me.

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• Tweaking Hudson memory usage

  - by rovarghe

  Hudson 3.1 has some performance optimizations that greatly reduces its memory footprint. Prior to this Hudson used to always hold the entire data model (all jobs and all builds) in memory which affected scalability. Some installations configured heap sizes in excess of 1GB to counteract this. Hudson 3.1.x maintains an MRU cache and only loads jobs and builds as they are required. Because of the inability to change existing APIs and be backward compatible with plugins, there were limits to how far we could go with this approach. Memory optimizations almost always come with a related cost, in this case its additional I/O that has to be performed to load data on request. On a small site that has frequent traffic, this is usually not noticeable since the MRU cache will usually hold on to all the data. A large site with infrequent traffic might experience some delays when the first request hits the server after a long gap. If you have a large heap and are able to allocate more memory, the cache settings can be adjusted to take advantage of this and even go back to pre-3.1 behavior. All the cache settings can be passed as options to the JVM container (Tomcat or the default Jetty container) using the -D option. There are two caches, independant of each other, one for Jobs and the other for Builds. For the jobs cache: hudson.jobs.cache.evict_in_seconds ( default=60 ) Seconds from last access (could be because of a servlet request or a background cron thread) a job should be purged from the cache. Set this to 0 to never purge based on time. hudson.jobs.cache.initial_capacity ( default=1024 ) Initial number of jobs the cache can accomodate. Setting this to the number of jobs you typically display on your Hudson landing page or home page will speed up consecutive access to that page. If the default is too large you may consider downsizing and using that memory for the Builds cache instead. hudson.jobs.cache.max_entries ( default=1024) Maximum number of jobs in the cache. The default is large enough for most installations, but if you find I/O activity when always accessing the hudson home page you might consider increasing this, but first verify if the I/O is caused by frequent eviction (see above), rather than by the cache not being large enough. For the builds cache: The builds cache is used to store Build objects as they are read from storage. Typically this happens when a user drills down into the details of a particular Job from the hudson hom epage. The cache is shared among builds for different jobs since in most installations all jobs are not accessed with the same frequency, so a per-job builds cache would be a waste of memory. hudson.job.builds.cache.evict_in_seconds ( default=60 ) Same as the equivalent Job cache, applied to Build. hudson.job.builds.cache.initial_capacity" ( default=512 ) Same as equivalent Job cache setting. Note the smaller initial size. If your site stores a large number of builds and has frequent access to more builds you might consider bumping this up. hudson.job.builds.cache.max_entries ( default=10240 ) The default max is large enough for most installations, the builds cache has bigger sized objects, so be careful about increasing the upper limit on this. See section on monitoring below. Sample usage: java -jar hudson-war-3.1.2-SNAPSHOT.war -Dhudson.jobs.cache.evict_in_seconds=300 \ -Dhudson.job.builds.cache.evict_in_seconds=300 Monitoring cache usage The 'jmap' tool that comes with the JDK can be used to monitor cache performance in an indirect way by looking at the number of Job and Build objects in each cache. Find the PID of the hudson instance and run $ jmap -histo:live <pid | grep 'hudson.model.*Lazy.*Key$' Here's a sample output: num #instances #bytes class name 523: 28 896 hudson.model.RunMap$LazyRunValue$Key 1200: 3 96 hudson.model.LazyTopLevelItem$Key These are the keys to the Jobs (LazyTopLevelItem$Key) and Builds (RunMap$LazyRunValue$Key) in the caches, so counting the number of keys is a good indicator of the number of items in the cache at any given moment. The size in bytes can be ignored, they are just the size of the keys, not the actual sizes of the objects they hold. Those sizes can only be obtained with a profiler. With the output above we can conclude that there are 3 jobs and 28 builds in memory. The 28 builds can all be from 1 job or all 3 jobs. Over time on an idle system, these should get evicted and memory cache should be empty. In practice, because of background cron threads and triggers, jobs rarely fall down to zero. Access of a job or a build by a cron thread resets the eviction timer.

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• mysql: job failded to start. mysqld.sock is missing

  - by Freefri

  How can I fix this and start mysql-server? After /etc/init.d/mysql start or service mysql start I get the message start: "Job failed to start" And after # mysqld I get this: mysqld 121123 11:33:33 [ERROR] Can't find messagefile '/usr/share/mysql/errmsg.sys' 121123 11:33:33 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled. mysqld: Unknown error 1146 121123 11:33:33 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it. 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3.4 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda. 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Waiting for the background threads to start 121123 11:33:34 InnoDB: 1.1.8 started; log sequence number 1595675 121123 11:33:34 [ERROR] Aborting 121123 11:33:34 InnoDB: Starting shutdown... 121123 11:33:35 InnoDB: Shutdown completed; log sequence number 1595675 121123 11:33:35 [Note] I try to do what mysql say me to do: mysql_upgrade Looking for 'mysql' as: mysql Looking for 'mysqlcheck' as: mysqlcheck Running 'mysqlcheck' with connection arguments: '--port=3306' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' mysqlcheck: Got error: 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2) when trying to connect FATAL ERROR: Upgrade failed And yes, /var/run/mysql is empty: mysql_upgrade Looking for 'mysql' as: mysql Looking for 'mysqlcheck' as: mysqlcheck Running 'mysqlcheck' with connection arguments: '--port=3306' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' mysqlcheck: Got error: 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2) when trying to connect FATAL ERROR: Upgrade failed And this is my file /etc/mysql/my.cnf # cat /etc/mysql/my.cnf |grep sock # Remember to edit /etc/mysql/debian.cnf when changing the socket location. socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock Then I try to reinstall mysql from cero: apt-get purge mysql-client mysql-common mysql-server rm -R /var/lib/mysql rm -R /etc/mysql rm -R /var/run/mysqld userdel mysql apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client Then, after typing my root password for mysql I get this error: | Unable to set password for the MySQL "root" user ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ An error occurred while setting the password for the MySQL administrative ¦ ¦ user. This may have happened because the account already has a password, or ¦ ¦ because of a communication problem with the MySQL server. ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ You should check the account's password after the package installation. ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ Please read the /usr/share/doc/mysql-server-5.5/README.Debian file for more ¦ ¦ information. And again I can't start mysql getting the same messages.

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• Reading Data from DDFS ValueError: No JSON object could be decoded

  - by secumind

  I'm running dozens of map reduce jobs for a number of different purposes using disco. My data has grown enormous and I thought I would try using DDFS for a change rather than standard txt files. I've followed the DISCO map/reduce example Counting Words as a map/reduce job, without to much difficulty and with the help of others, Reading JSON specific data into DISCO I've gotten past one of my latest problems. I'm trying to read data in/out of ddfs to better chunk and distribute it but am having a bit of trouble. Here's an example file: file.txt {"favorited": false, "in_reply_to_user_id": null, "contributors": null, "truncated": false, "text": "I'll call him back tomorrow I guess", "created_at": "Mon Feb 13 05:34:27 +0000 2012", "retweeted": false, "in_reply_to_status_id_str": null, "coordinates": null, "in_reply_to_user_id_str": null, "entities": {"user_mentions": [], "hashtags": [], "urls": []}, "in_reply_to_status_id": null, "id_str": "168931016843603968", "place": null, "user": {"follow_request_sent": null, "profile_use_background_image": true, "profile_background_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/305726905/FASHION-3.png", "verified": false, "profile_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1818996723/image_normal.jpg", "profile_sidebar_fill_color": "292727", "is_translator": false, "id": 113532729, "profile_text_color": "000000", "followers_count": 78, "protected": false, "location": "With My Niggas In Paris!", "default_profile_image": false, "listed_count": 0, "utc_offset": -21600, "statuses_count": 6733, "description": "Made in CHINA., Educated && Making My Own $$. Fear GOD && Put Him 1st. #TeamFollowBack #TeamiPhone\n", "friends_count": 74, "profile_link_color": "b03f3f", "profile_image_url": "http://a2.twimg.com/profile_images/1818996723/image_normal.jpg", "notifications": null, "show_all_inline_media": false, "geo_enabled": true, "profile_background_color": "1f9199", "id_str": "113532729", "profile_background_image_url": "http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/305726905/FASHION-3.png", "name": "Bee'Jay", "lang": "en", "profile_background_tile": true, "favourites_count": 19, "screen_name": "OohMyBEEsNice", "url": "http://www.bitchimpaid.org", "created_at": "Fri Feb 12 03:32:54 +0000 2010", "contributors_enabled": false, "time_zone": "Central Time (US & Canada)", "profile_sidebar_border_color": "000000", "default_profile": false, "following": null}, "in_reply_to_screen_name": null, "retweet_count": 0, "geo": null, "id": 168931016843603968, "source": "<a href=\"http://twitter.com/#!/download/iphone\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter for iPhone</a>"} {"favorited": false, "in_reply_to_user_id": 50940453, "contributors": null, "truncated": false, "text": "@LegaMrvica @MimozaBand makasi om artis :D kadoo kadoo", "created_at": "Mon Feb 13 05:34:27 +0000 2012", "retweeted": false, "in_reply_to_status_id_str": "168653037894770688", "coordinates": null, "in_reply_to_user_id_str": "50940453", "entities": {"user_mentions": [{"indices": [0, 11], "screen_name": "LegaMrvica", "id": 50940453, "name": "Lega_thePianis", "id_str": "50940453"}, {"indices": [12, 23], "screen_name": "MimozaBand", "id": 375128905, "name": "Mimoza", "id_str": "375128905"}], "hashtags": [], "urls": []}, "in_reply_to_status_id": 168653037894770688, "id_str": "168931016868761600", "place": null, "user": {"follow_request_sent": null, "profile_use_background_image": true, "profile_background_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/347686061/Galungan_dan_Kuningan.jpg", "verified": false, "profile_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1803845596/Picture_20124_normal.jpg", "profile_sidebar_fill_color": "DDFFCC", "is_translator": false, "id": 48293450, "profile_text_color": "333333", "followers_count": 182, "protected": false, "location": "\u00dcT: -6.906799,107.622383", "default_profile_image": false, "listed_count": 0, "utc_offset": -28800, "statuses_count": 3052, "description": "Fashion design maranatha '11 // traditional dancer (bali) at sanggar tampak siring & Natya Nataraja", "friends_count": 206, "profile_link_color": "0084B4", "profile_image_url": "http://a3.twimg.com/profile_images/1803845596/Picture_20124_normal.jpg", "notifications": null, "show_all_inline_media": false, "geo_enabled": true, "profile_background_color": "9AE4E8", "id_str": "48293450", "profile_background_image_url": "http://a0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/347686061/Galungan_dan_Kuningan.jpg", "name": "nana afiff", "lang": "en", "profile_background_tile": true, "favourites_count": 2, "screen_name": "hasnfebria", "url": null, "created_at": "Thu Jun 18 08:50:29 +0000 2009", "contributors_enabled": false, "time_zone": "Pacific Time (US & Canada)", "profile_sidebar_border_color": "BDDCAD", "default_profile": false, "following": null}, "in_reply_to_screen_name": "LegaMrvica", "retweet_count": 0, "geo": null, "id": 168931016868761600, "source": "<a href=\"http://blackberry.com/twitter\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter for BlackBerry\u00ae</a>"} {"favorited": false, "in_reply_to_user_id": 27260086, "contributors": null, "truncated": false, "text": "@justinbieber u were born to be somebody, and u're super important in beliebers' life. thanks for all biebs. I love u. follow me? 84", "created_at": "Mon Feb 13 05:34:27 +0000 2012", "retweeted": false, "in_reply_to_status_id_str": null, "coordinates": null, "in_reply_to_user_id_str": "27260086", "entities": {"user_mentions": [{"indices": [0, 13], "screen_name": "justinbieber", "id": 27260086, "name": "Justin Bieber", "id_str": "27260086"}], "hashtags": [], "urls": []}, "in_reply_to_status_id": null, "id_str": "168931016856178688", "place": null, "user": {"follow_request_sent": null, "profile_use_background_image": true, "profile_background_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/416005864/Captura.JPG", "verified": false, "profile_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1808883280/Captura6_normal.JPG", "profile_sidebar_fill_color": "f5e7f3", "is_translator": false, "id": 406750700, "profile_text_color": "333333", "followers_count": 1122, "protected": false, "location": "Adentro de una supra.", "default_profile_image": false, "listed_count": 0, "utc_offset": -14400, "statuses_count": 20966, "description": "Mi \u00eddolo es @justinbieber , si te gusta \u00a1genial!, si no, solo respetalo. El cambi\u00f3 mi vida completamente y mi sue\u00f1o es conocerlo #TrueBelieber . ", "friends_count": 1015, "profile_link_color": "9404b8", "profile_image_url": "http://a1.twimg.com/profile_images/1808883280/Captura6_normal.JPG", "notifications": null, "show_all_inline_media": false, "geo_enabled": false, "profile_background_color": "f9fcfa", "id_str": "406750700", "profile_background_image_url": "http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/416005864/Captura.JPG", "name": "neversaynever,right?", "lang": "es", "profile_background_tile": false, "favourites_count": 22, "screen_name": "True_Belieebers", "url": "http://www.wehavebieber-fever.tumblr.com", "created_at": "Mon Nov 07 04:17:40 +0000 2011", "contributors_enabled": false, "time_zone": "Santiago", "profile_sidebar_border_color": "C0DEED", "default_profile": false, "following": null}, "in_reply_to_screen_name": "justinbieber", "retweet_count": 0, "geo": null, "id": 168931016856178688, "source": "<a href=\"http://yfrog.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">Yfrog</a>"} I load it into DDFS with: # ddfs chunk data:test1 ./file.txt created: disco://localhost/ddfs/vol0/blob/44/file_txt-0$549-db27b-125e1 I test that the file is indeed loaded into ddfs with: # ddfs xcat data:test1 {"favorited": false, "in_reply_to_user_id": null, "contributors": null, "truncated": false, "text": "I'll call him back tomorrow I guess", "created_at": "Mon Feb 13 05:34:27 +0000 2012", "retweeted": false, "in_reply_to_status_id_str": null, "coordinates": null, "in_reply_to_user_id_str": null, "entities": {"user_mentions": [], "hashtags": [], "urls": []}, "in_reply_to_status_id": null, "id_str": "168931016843603968", "place": null, "user": {"follow_request_sent": null, "profile_use_background_image": true, "profile_background_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/305726905/FASHION-3.png", "verified": false, "profile_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1818996723/image_normal.jpg", "profile_sidebar_fill_color": "292727", "is_translator": false, "id": 113532729, "profile_text_color": "000000", "followers_count": 78, "protected": false, "location": "With My Niggas In Paris!", "default_profile_image": false, "listed_count": 0, "utc_offset": -21600, "statuses_count": 6733, "description": "Made in CHINA., Educated && Making My Own $$. Fear GOD && Put Him 1st. #TeamFollowBack #TeamiPhone\n", "friends_count": 74, "profile_link_color": "b03f3f", "profile_image_url": "http://a2.twimg.com/profile_images/1818996723/image_normal.jpg", "notifications": null, "show_all_inline_media": false, "geo_enabled": true, "profile_background_color": "1f9199", "id_str": "113532729", "profile_background_image_url": "http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/305726905/FASHION-3.png", "name": "Bee'Jay", "lang": "en", "profile_background_tile": true, "favourites_count": 19, "screen_name": "OohMyBEEsNice", "url": "http://www.bitchimpaid.org", "created_at": "Fri Feb 12 03:32:54 +0000 2010", "contributors_enabled": false, "time_zone": "Central Time (US & Canada)", "profile_sidebar_border_color": "000000", "default_profile": false, "following": null}, "in_reply_to_screen_name": null, "retweet_count": 0, "geo": null, "id": 168931016843603968, "source": "<a href=\"http://twitter.com/#!/download/iphone\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter for iPhone</a>"} {"favorited": false, "in_reply_to_user_id": 50940453, "contributors": null, "truncated": false, "text": "@LegaMrvica @MimozaBand makasi om artis :D kadoo kadoo", "created_at": "Mon Feb 13 05:34:27 +0000 2012", "retweeted": false, "in_reply_to_status_id_str": "168653037894770688", "coordinates": null, "in_reply_to_user_id_str": "50940453", "entities": {"user_mentions": [{"indices": [0, 11], "screen_name": "LegaMrvica", "id": 50940453, "name": "Lega_thePianis", "id_str": "50940453"}, {"indices": [12, 23], "screen_name": "MimozaBand", "id": 375128905, "name": "Mimoza", "id_str": "375128905"}], "hashtags": [], "urls": []}, "in_reply_to_status_id": 168653037894770688, "id_str": "168931016868761600", "place": null, "user": {"follow_request_sent": null, "profile_use_background_image": true, "profile_background_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/347686061/Galungan_dan_Kuningan.jpg", "verified": false, "profile_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1803845596/Picture_20124_normal.jpg", "profile_sidebar_fill_color": "DDFFCC", "is_translator": false, "id": 48293450, "profile_text_color": "333333", "followers_count": 182, "protected": false, "location": "\u00dcT: -6.906799,107.622383", "default_profile_image": false, "listed_count": 0, "utc_offset": -28800, "statuses_count": 3052, "description": "Fashion design maranatha '11 // traditional dancer (bali) at sanggar tampak siring & Natya Nataraja", "friends_count": 206, "profile_link_color": "0084B4", "profile_image_url": "http://a3.twimg.com/profile_images/1803845596/Picture_20124_normal.jpg", "notifications": null, "show_all_inline_media": false, "geo_enabled": true, "profile_background_color": "9AE4E8", "id_str": "48293450", "profile_background_image_url": "http://a0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/347686061/Galungan_dan_Kuningan.jpg", "name": "nana afiff", "lang": "en", "profile_background_tile": true, "favourites_count": 2, "screen_name": "hasnfebria", "url": null, "created_at": "Thu Jun 18 08:50:29 +0000 2009", "contributors_enabled": false, "time_zone": "Pacific Time (US & Canada)", "profile_sidebar_border_color": "BDDCAD", "default_profile": false, "following": null}, "in_reply_to_screen_name": "LegaMrvica", "retweet_count": 0, "geo": null, "id": 168931016868761600, "source": "<a href=\"http://blackberry.com/twitter\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter for BlackBerry\u00ae</a>"} {"favorited": false, "in_reply_to_user_id": 27260086, "contributors": null, "truncated": false, "text": "@justinbieber u were born to be somebody, and u're super important in beliebers' life. thanks for all biebs. I love u. follow me? 84", "created_at": "Mon Feb 13 05:34:27 +0000 2012", "retweeted": false, "in_reply_to_status_id_str": null, "coordinates": null, "in_reply_to_user_id_str": "27260086", "entities": {"user_mentions": [{"indices": [0, 13], "screen_name": "justinbieber", "id": 27260086, "name": "Justin Bieber", "id_str": "27260086"}], "hashtags": [], "urls": []}, "in_reply_to_status_id": null, "id_str": "168931016856178688", "place": null, "user": {"follow_request_sent": null, "profile_use_background_image": true, "profile_background_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/416005864/Captura.JPG", "verified": false, "profile_image_url_https": "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1808883280/Captura6_normal.JPG", "profile_sidebar_fill_color": "f5e7f3", "is_translator": false, "id": 406750700, "profile_text_color": "333333", "followers_count": 1122, "protected": false, "location": "Adentro de una supra.", "default_profile_image": false, "listed_count": 0, "utc_offset": -14400, "statuses_count": 20966, "description": "Mi \u00eddolo es @justinbieber , si te gusta \u00a1genial!, si no, solo respetalo. El cambi\u00f3 mi vida completamente y mi sue\u00f1o es conocerlo #TrueBelieber . ", "friends_count": 1015, "profile_link_color": "9404b8", "profile_image_url": "http://a1.twimg.com/profile_images/1808883280/Captura6_normal.JPG", "notifications": null, "show_all_inline_media": false, "geo_enabled": false, "profile_background_color": "f9fcfa", "id_str": "406750700", "profile_background_image_url": "http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/416005864/Captura.JPG", "name": "neversaynever,right?", "lang": "es", "profile_background_tile": false, "favourites_count": 22, "screen_name": "True_Belieebers", "url": "http://www.wehavebieber-fever.tumblr.com", "created_at": "Mon Nov 07 04:17:40 +0000 2011", "contributors_enabled": false, "time_zone": "Santiago", "profile_sidebar_border_color": "C0DEED", "default_profile": false, "following": null}, "in_reply_to_screen_name": "justinbieber", "retweet_count": 0, "geo": null, "id": 168931016856178688, "source": "<a href=\"http://yfrog.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">Yfrog</a> At this point everything is great, I load up the script that resulted from a previous Stack Post: from disco.core import Job, result_iterator import gzip def map(line, params): import unicodedata import json r = json.loads(line).get('text') s = unicodedata.normalize('NFD', r).encode('ascii', 'ignore') for word in s.split(): yield word, 1 def reduce(iter, params): from disco.util import kvgroup for word, counts in kvgroup(sorted(iter)): yield word, sum(counts) if __name__ == '__main__': job = Job().run(input=["tag://data:test1"], map=map, reduce=reduce) for word, count in result_iterator(job.wait(show=True)): print word, count NOTE: That this script runs file if the input=["file.txt"], however when I run it with "tag://data:test1" I get the following error: # DISCO_EVENTS=1 python count_normal_words.py Job@549:db30e:25bd8: Status: [map] 0 waiting, 1 running, 0 done, 0 failed 2012/11/25 21:43:26 master New job initialized! 2012/11/25 21:43:26 master Starting job 2012/11/25 21:43:26 master Starting map phase 2012/11/25 21:43:26 master map:0 assigned to solice 2012/11/25 21:43:26 master ERROR: Job failed: Worker at 'solice' died: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/DISCO/data/solice/01/Job@549:db30e:25bd8/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/disco/worker/__init__.py", line 329, in main job.worker.start(task, job, **jobargs) File "/home/DISCO/data/solice/01/Job@549:db30e:25bd8/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/disco/worker/__init__.py", line 290, in start self.run(task, job, **jobargs) File "/home/DISCO/data/solice/01/Job@549:db30e:25bd8/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/disco/worker/classic/worker.py", line 286, in run getattr(self, task.mode)(task, params) File "/home/DISCO/data/solice/01/Job@549:db30e:25bd8/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/disco/worker/classic/worker.py", line 299, in map for key, val in self['map'](entry, params): File "count_normal_words.py", line 12, in map File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/json/__init__.py", line 326, in loads return _default_decoder.decode(s) File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/json/decoder.py", line 366, in decode obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end()) File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/json/decoder.py", line 384, in raw_decode raise ValueError("No JSON object could be decoded") ValueError: No JSON object could be decoded 2012/11/25 21:43:26 master WARN: Job killed Status: [map] 1 waiting, 0 running, 0 done, 1 failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "count_normal_words.py", line 28, in <module> for word, count in result_iterator(job.wait(show=True)): File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/disco/core.py", line 348, in wait timeout, poll_interval * 1000) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/disco/core.py", line 309, in check_results raise JobError(Job(name=jobname, master=self), "Status %s" % status) disco.error.JobError: Job Job@549:db30e:25bd8 failed: Status dead The Error states: ValueError: No JSON object could be decoded. Again, this works fine using the text file as input but now DDFS. Any ideas, I'm open to suggestions?

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• Understanding the value of Customer Experience & Loyalty for the Telecommunications Industry

  - by raul.goycoolea

  Worried by economic woes and market forces, especially in mature markets, communications service providers (CSPs) increasingly focus on improving customer experience. In fact, it seems difficult to find a major message by a C-level executive in the developed world that does not include something on "meeting and exceeding customers' needs". Frequently in customer satisfaction studies by prominent firms, CSPs fall short of the leadership demonstrated by other industries that take customer-centric approaches to their bottom-line strategies. Consider the following:Despite the continued impact of global economic crisis, in July 2010, Apple Computer posted record revenue and net quarterly profit. Those who attribute the results primarily to the iPhone 4 launch should note that Apple also shipped around 30% more Macintosh computers than the same period the previous year. Even sales of the iPod line increased by 8% in a highly commoditized, shrinking media player market. Finally, Apple began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of more than 3 million units. What does Apple have that the others lack? Well, some great products (and services) to be sure, but it also excels at customer service and support, marketing, and distribution, and has one of the strongest brands globally. Its products are useful, simple to use, easy to acquire and augment, high quality, and considered very cool. They also evoke such an emotional response from many of Apple's customers, which they turn up their noses at competitive products.In other words, Apple appears to have mastered virtually every aspect of customer experience and the resultant loyalty of its customer base - even in difficult financial times. Through that unwavering customer focus, Apple continues to drive its revenues and profits to new heights. Other customer loyalty leaders like Wal-Mart, Google, Toyota and Honda are also doing well by focusing on customer experience as an essential driver of profitability. Service providers should note this performance and ask themselves how they might leverage the same principles to increase their own profitability. After all, that is what customer experience and loyalty are all about: profitability.To successfully manage all the critical touch points of customer experience, CSPs must shun the one-size-fits-all approach. They can no longer afford to view customer service fundamentally as an act of altruism - which mentality dates back to the industry's civil service days, when CSPs were typically government organizations that were critical to economic development and public safety.As regulators and public officials have pushed, and continue to push, service providers to new heights of reliability - using incentives and punishments - most CSPs already have some of the fundamental building blocks of customer service in place. Yet despite that history and experience, service providers still lag other industries in providing what is seen as good customer service.As we observed in the TMF's 2009 Insights Research report, Customer Experience Management: Driving Loyalty & Profitability there has been resurgence in interest by CSPs. More and more of them have stated ambitions to catch up other industries, and they are realizing that good customer service is a powerful strategy for increasing business performance and profitability, not an act of good will.CSPs are recognizing the connection between customer experience and profitability, as demonstrated in many studies. For example, according to research by Bain & Company, a 5 percent improvement in customer retention rates can yield as much as a 75 percent increase in profits for companies across a range of industries.After decades of customer experience strategy formulation, Bain partner and business author, Frederick Reichheld, considers "would you recommend us to a friend?" as the ultimate question for a customer. How many times have you or your friends recommended an iPod, iPhone or a Mac? What do your children recommend to their peers? Their peers to them?There are certain steps service providers have to take to create more personalized relationships with their customers, as well as reduce churn and increase profitability, all while becoming leaner and more agile. First, they have to define customer experience, we define it as the result of the sum of observations, perceptions, thoughts and feelings arising from interactions and relationships between customers and their service provider(s). Virtually every customer touch point - whether directly or indirectly linked to service providers and their partners - contributes to customer perception, satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately profitability. Gaining leadership in customer experience and satisfaction will not be a simple task, as it is affected by virtually every customer-facing aspect of the service provider, and in turn impacts the service provider deeply - especially on the all-important bottom line. The scope of issues affecting customer experience is complex and dynamic.With new services, devices and applications extending the basis of customer experience to domains beyond the direct control of the service provider, it is likely to increase in complexity and dynamism.Customer loyalty = increased profitsAs stated earlier, customer experience programs are not fundamentally altruistic exercises, but a strategic means of improving competitiveness and profitability in the short and long term. Loyalty is essential to deriving long term profits from customers.Some of the earliest loyalty programs date back to the 1930s, when packaged goods companies offered embedded coupons for rewards to buyers, and eventually retail chains began offering reward programs to frequent shoppers. These programs continued for decades but were leapfrogged in the 1980s by more aggressive programs from the airlines.This movement was led by American Airlines, which launched the first full-scale loyalty marketing program of the modern era with the AAdvantage frequent flyer scheme. It was the first to reward frequent fliers with notional air miles that could be accumulated and later redeemed for free travel. Figure 1: Opportunities example of Customer loyalty driven profitOther airlines and travel providers were quick to grasp the incredible value of providing customers with an incentive to use their company exclusively. Within a few years, dozens of travel industry companies launched similar initiatives and now loyalty programs are achieving near-ubiquity in many service industries, especially those in which it is difficult to differentiate offerings by product attributes.The belief is that increased profitability will result from customer retention efforts because:•    The cost of acquisition occurs only at the beginning of a relationship: the longer the relationship, the lower the amortized cost;•    Account maintenance costs decline as a percentage of total costs, or as a percentage of revenue, over the lifetime of the relationship;•    Long term customers tend to be less inclined to switch and less price sensitive which can result in stable unit sales volume and increases in dollar-sales volume;•    Long term customers may initiate word-of-mouth promotions and referrals, which cost the company nothing and arguably are the most effective form of advertising;•    Long-term customers are more likely to buy ancillary products and higher margin supplemental products;•    Long term customers tend to be satisfied with their relationship with the company and are less likely to switch to competitors, making market entry or competitors gaining market share difficult;•    Regular customers tend to be less expensive to service, as they are familiar with the processes involved, require less 'education', and are consistent in their order placement;•    Increased customer retention and loyalty makes the employees' jobs easier and more satisfying. In turn, happy employees feed back into higher customer satisfaction in a virtuous circle. Figure 2: The virtuous circle of customer loyaltyFigure 2 represents a high-level example of a virtuous cycle driven by customer satisfaction and loyalty, depicting how superiority in product and service offerings, as well as strong customer support by competent employees, lead to higher sales and ultimately profitability. As stated above, this is not a new concept, but succeeding with it is difficult. It has eluded many a company driven to achieve profitability goals. Of course, for this circle to be virtuous, the customer relationship(s) must be profitable.Trying to maintain the loyalty of unprofitable customers is not a viable business strategy. It is, therefore, important that marketers can assess the profitability of each customer (or customer segment), and either improve or terminate relationships that are not profitable. This means each customer's 'relationship costs' must be understood and compared to their 'relationship revenue'. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the most commonly used metric here, as it is generally accepted as a representation of exactly how much each customer is worth in monetary terms, and therefore a determinant of exactly how much a service provider should be willing to spend to acquire or retain that customer.CLV models make several simplifying assumptions and often involve the following inputs:•    Churn rate represents the percentage of customers who end their relationship with a company in a given period;•    Retention rate is calculated by subtracting the churn rate percentage from 100;•    Period/horizon equates to the units of time into which a customer relationship can be divided for analysis. A year is the most commonly used period for this purpose. Customer lifetime value is a multi-period calculation, often projecting three to seven years into the future. In practice, analysis beyond this point is viewed as too speculative to be reliable. The model horizon is the number of periods used in the calculation;•    Periodic revenue is the amount of revenue collected from a customer in a given period (though this is often extended across multiple periods into the future to understand lifetime value), such as usage revenue, revenues anticipated from cross and upselling, and often some weighting for referrals by a loyal customer to others; •    Retention cost describes the amount of money the service provider must spend, in a given period, to retain an existing customer. Again, this is often forecast across multiple periods. Retention costs include customer support, billing, promotional incentives and so on;•    Discount rate means the cost of capital used to discount future revenue from a customer. Discounting is an advanced method used in more sophisticated CLV calculations;•    Profit margin is the projected profit as a percentage of revenue for the period. This may be reflected as a percentage of gross or net profit. Again, this is generally projected across the model horizon to understand lifetime value.A strong focus on managing these inputs can help service providers realize stronger customer relationships and profits, but there are some obstacles to overcome in achieving accurate calculations of CLV, such as the complexity of allocating costs across the customer base. There are many costs that serve all customers which must be properly allocated across the base, and often a simple proportional allocation across the whole base or a segment may not accurately reflect the true cost of serving that customer;  This is made worse by the fragmentation of customer information, which is likely to be across a variety of product or operations groups, and may be difficult to aggregate due to different representations.In addition, there is the complexity of account relationships and structures to take into consideration. Complex account structures may not be understood or properly represented. For example, a profitable customer may have a separate account for a second home or another family member, which may appear to be unprofitable. If the service provider cannot relate the two accounts, CLV is not properly represented and any resultant cancellation of the apparently unprofitable account may result in the customer churning from the profitable one.In summary, if service providers are to realize strong customer relationships and their attendant profits, there must be a very strong focus on data management. This needs to be coupled with analytics that help business managers and those who work in customer-facing functions offer highly personalized solutions to customers, while maintaining profitability for the service provider. It's clear that acquiring new customers is expensive. Advertising costs, campaign management expenses, promotional service pricing and discounting, and equipment subsidies make a serious dent in a new customer's profitability. That is especially true given the rising subsidies for Smartphone users, which service providers hope will result in greater profits from profits from data services profitability in future.  The situation is made worse by falling prices and greater competition in mature markets.Customer acquisition through industry consolidation isn't cheap either. A North American service provider spent about $2,000 per subscriber in its acquisition of a smaller company earlier this year. While this has allowed it to leapfrog to become the largest mobile service provider in the country, it required a total investment of more than $28 billion (including assumption of the acquiree's debt).While many operating cost synergies clearly made this deal more attractive to the acquiring company, this is certainly an expensive way to acquire customers: the cost per subscriber in this case is not out of line with the prices others have paid for acquisitions.While growth by acquisition certainly increases overall revenues, it often creates tremendous challenges for profitability. Organic growth through increased customer loyalty and retention is a more effective driver of profit, as well as a stronger predictor of future profitability. Service providers, especially those in mature markets, are increasingly recognizing this and taking steps toward a creating a more personalized, flexible and satisfying experience for their customers.In summary, the clearest path to profitability for companies in virtually all industries is through customer retention and maximization of lifetime value. Service providers would do well to recognize this and focus attention on profitable customer relationships.

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• How important is the programming language when you choose a new job?

  - by Luhmann

  We are currently hiring at the company where I work, and here the codebase is in VB.Net. We are worried that we miss out on a lot of brilliant programmers, who would never ever consider working with VB.Net. My own background is Java and C#, and I was somewhat sceptical as to whether it would work out with VB, as - to be honest - i didn't care much for VB. After a month or so, I was completely fluent in VB, and a few months later i discovered to my surprise, that I actually like VB. I still code my free time projects in C# and Boo though. So my question is firstly, how important is language for you, when you choose a new programming job? Lets say if its a great company, salary is good, and generally an attractive work-place. Would you say no to the perfect job, if the language wasn't your preferred dialect? VB or C# is one thing, but how about Java or C# etc. Secondly if the best developers won't join your company because of your language or platform, would you consider changing, to get the right people? (This is not a language bashing thread, so please no religious language wars) NB: This is Community Wiki

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• How important is the .NET programming language when you choose a new job?

  - by Luhmann

  We are currently hiring at the company where I work, and here the codebase is in VB.Net. We are worried that we miss out on a lot of brilliant programmers, who would never ever consider working with VB.Net. My own background is Java and C#, and I was somewhat sceptical as to whether it would work out with VB, as - to be honest - i didn't care much for VB. After a month or so, I was completely fluent in VB, and a few months later i discovered to my surprise, that I actually like VB. I still code my free time projects in C# and Boo though. So my question is firstly, how important is language for you, when you choose a new programming job? Lets say if its a great company, salary is good, and generally an attractive work-place. Would you say no to the perfect job, if the language wasn't your preferred dialect? VB or C# is one thing, but how about Java or C# etc. Secondly if the best developers won't join your company because of your language or platform, would you consider changing, to get the right people? (This is not a language bashing thread, so please no religious language wars) NB: This is Community Wiki

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• Unable to execute gs program: No such file or directory

  - by Imran

  I've setup CUPS + Avahi on my NAS box in order to enable AirPrint with my existing network printer. Printing a test page via CUPS and printing us lp works fine, and I am able to see my printer on the printer list on my iOS device. However when sending a print job from my iOS device the printer status is set to paused and doesnt print anything. When checking the error_logs I have found this line which I believe is causing the error. D [04/Sep/2012:03:20:25 +0100] [Job 11] Started filter gs (PID 7485) D [04/Sep/2012:03:20:25 +0100] [Job 11] Started filter pstops (PID 7486) D [04/Sep/2012:03:20:25 +0100] [Job 11] Set job-printer-state-message to "Unable to execute gs program: No such file or directory", current level=ERROR D [04/Sep/2012:03:20:25 +0100] [Job 11] PID 7485 (gs) stopped with status 1! D [04/Sep/2012:03:20:25 +0100] [Job 11] PID 7486 (pstops) stopped with status 1! D [04/Sep/2012:03:20:25 +0100] [Job 11] Backend returned status 1 (failed) D [04/Sep/2012:03:20:25 +0100] [Job 11] Printer stopped due to backend errors; please consult the error_log file for details. I have installed Ghostscript, so I'm not quite sure why its saying its unable to execute the program, unless there are configurations for GS that I havent set yet. Any ideas?

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• Hadoop streaming with Python and python subprocess

  - by Ganesh

  I have established a basic hadoop master slave cluster setup and able to run mapreduce programs (including python) on the cluster. Now I am trying to run a python code which accesses a C binary and so I am using the subprocess module. I am able to use the hadoop streaming for a normal python code but when I include the subprocess module to access a binary, the job is getting failed. As you can see in the below logs, the hello executable is recognised to be used for the packaging, but still not able to run the code. . . packageJobJar: [/tmp/hello/hello, /app/hadoop/tmp/hadoop-unjar5030080067721998885/] [] /tmp/streamjob7446402517274720868.jar tmpDir=null JarBuilder.addNamedStream hello . . 12/03/07 22:31:32 INFO mapred.FileInputFormat: Total input paths to process : 1 12/03/07 22:31:32 INFO streaming.StreamJob: getLocalDirs(): [/app/hadoop/tmp/mapred/local] 12/03/07 22:31:32 INFO streaming.StreamJob: Running job: job_201203062329_0057 12/03/07 22:31:32 INFO streaming.StreamJob: To kill this job, run: 12/03/07 22:31:32 INFO streaming.StreamJob: /usr/local/hadoop/bin/../bin/hadoop job -Dmapred.job.tracker=master:54311 -kill job_201203062329_0057 12/03/07 22:31:32 INFO streaming.StreamJob: Tracking URL: http://master:50030/jobdetails.jsp?jobid=job_201203062329_0057 12/03/07 22:31:33 INFO streaming.StreamJob: map 0% reduce 0% 12/03/07 22:32:05 INFO streaming.StreamJob: map 100% reduce 100% 12/03/07 22:32:05 INFO streaming.StreamJob: To kill this job, run: 12/03/07 22:32:05 INFO streaming.StreamJob: /usr/local/hadoop/bin/../bin/hadoop job -Dmapred.job.tracker=master:54311 -kill job_201203062329_0057 12/03/07 22:32:05 INFO streaming.StreamJob: Tracking URL: http://master:50030/jobdetails.jsp?jobid=job_201203062329_0057 12/03/07 22:32:05 ERROR streaming.StreamJob: Job not Successful! 12/03/07 22:32:05 INFO streaming.StreamJob: killJob... Streaming Job Failed! Command I am trying is : hadoop jar contrib/streaming/hadoop-*streaming*.jar -mapper /home/hduser/MARS.py -reducer /home/hduser/MARS_red.py -input /user/hduser/mars_inputt -output /user/hduser/mars-output -file /tmp/hello/hello -verbose where hello is the C executable. It is a simple helloworld program which I am using to check the basic functioning. My Python code is : #!/usr/bin/env python import subprocess subprocess.call(["./hello"]) Any help with how to get the executable run with Python in hadoop streaming or help with debugging this will get me forward in this. Thanks, Ganesh

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• How do I use LINQPad to do execute batch job?

  - by cchang

  I recently found that LINQPad can execute shell commands. Can someone show me an example how to use LINQPad queries to execute batch job?

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