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  • Start a software company offshore

    - by Mascarpone
    Hello Everybody, I own a small, very young, EU based (Italy) company, and among other things, we sell IT solutions. I have a degree in applied mathematics, and I mainly deal with user interfaces, embedded systems, automation and web applications. You can say that I'm an enlightened entrepreneur because I work only with open source software (OS, IDE, I release under BSD , ... everything is free as in freedom), I give high importance to post sales services and customer satisfaction, plus I think I'm the best boss someone could desire (LOL), as I have google in mind when I think about IT workers rights. But the most beautiful thing is that, although everybody advised us not to use open source, is that we are quite profitable!!! (for the sixth trimester in a row). Now I offshore most of the work to an Indian company. I divide the work in modules and I outsource the longer or more trivial ones. I spend a lot of time defining the specifications and I leave the hard work to them. Using productivity bonuses, a lot of prototypes and third-party audits I think that my software has reached a very good quality level. I would like to start my own software development company, in order to improve control over process and cut costs. Obviously I can't afford the cost of labor in the EU, so I thought about opening a company in Asia. What I need Is: 1) Cheap labor - I can afford to give productivity bonuses and higher than average wages and stay profitable just because labor is cheap. 2) Many talents - I need a good level of tertiary education, and a good number of graduates, so I can hire junior developers and train and teach them according to my needs and philosophies (e.g.: open source mind) 3) Good infrastructure - buildings, transport, internet, .... everything that a company might need. I thought about 3 possible candidates: 1) India - I already work with indian people, I know that they are realiable and speak a good english. Big cities are too expensive, but maybe a small city like lucknow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucknow could suits my needs. 2) China - They say it's cheaper than India, but I everytime I worked with a chineese company the language was a big barrier. They work hard, are somewhat skilled and cheap but maybe it's a risky path. Plus I feel a little uncofortable with their lack of human rights. 3) Philippines - Same as china: cheaper than india, but maybe less educated. Where do you think it's the best place to start a software company? Any reading or book to advise? thank you very much

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  • selectOneMenu - java.lang.NullPointerException when adding record to the database (JSF2 and JPA2-OpenJPA)

    - by rogie
    Good day to all; I'm developing a program using JSF2 and JPA2 (OpenJPA). Im also using IBM Rapid App Dev't v8 with WebSphere App Server v8 test server. I have two simple entities, Employee and Department. Each Department has many Employees and each Employee belongs to a Department (using deptno and workdept). My problem occurs when i tried to add a new employee and selecting a department from a combo box (using selectOneMenu - populated from Department table): when i run the program, the following error messages appeared: An Error Occurred: java.lang.NullPointerException Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException - java.lang.NullPointerException I also tried to make another program using Deptno and Workdept as String instead of integer, still doesn't work. Pls help. Im also a newbie. Tnx and God bless. Below are my codes, configurations and setup. Just tell me if there are some codes that I forgot to include. Im also using Derby v10.5 as my database: CREATE SCHEMA RTS; CREATE TABLE RTS.DEPARTMENT (DEPTNO INTEGER NOT NULL GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY (START WITH 1, INCREMENT BY 1), DEPTNAME VARCHAR(30)); ALTER TABLE RTS.DEPARTMENT ADD CONSTRAINT PK_DEPARTMNET PRIMARY KEY (DEPTNO); CREATE TABLE RTS.EMPLOYEE (EMPNO INTEGER NOT NULL GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY (START WITH 1, INCREMENT BY 1), NAME VARCHAR(50), WORKDEPT INTEGER); ALTER TABLE RTS.EMPLOYEE ADD CONSTRAINT PK_EMPLOYEE PRIMARY KEY (EMPNO); Employee and Department Entities package rts.entities; import java.io.Serializable; import javax.persistence.*; @Entity public class Employee implements Serializable { private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L; @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY) private int empno; private String name; //bi-directional many-to-one association to Department @ManyToOne @JoinColumn(name="WORKDEPT") private Department department; ....... getter and setter methods package rts.entities; import java.io.Serializable; import javax.persistence.*; import java.util.List; @Entity public class Department implements Serializable { private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L; @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY) private int deptno; private String deptname; //bi-directional many-to-one association to Employee @OneToMany(mappedBy="department") private List<Employee> employees; ....... getter and setter methods JSF 2 snipet using combo box (populated from Department table) <tr> <td align="left">Department</td> <td style="width: 5px">&#160;</td> <td><h:selectOneMenu styleClass="selectOneMenu" id="department1" value="#{pc_EmployeeAdd.employee.department}"> <f:selectItems value="#{DepartmentManager.departmentSelectList}" id="selectItems1"></f:selectItems> </h:selectOneMenu></td> </tr> package rts.entities.controller; import com.ibm.jpa.web.JPAManager; import javax.persistence.EntityManager; import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory; import com.ibm.jpa.web.NamedQueryTarget; import com.ibm.jpa.web.Action; import javax.persistence.PersistenceUnit; import javax.annotation.Resource; import javax.transaction.UserTransaction; import rts.entities.Department; import java.util.List; import javax.persistence.Query; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.text.MessageFormat; import javax.faces.model.SelectItem; @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") @JPAManager(targetEntity = rts.entities.Department.class) public class DepartmentManager { ....... public List<SelectItem> getDepartmentSelectList() { List<Department> departmentList = getDepartment(); List<SelectItem> selectList = new ArrayList<SelectItem>(); MessageFormat mf = new MessageFormat("{0}"); for (Department department : departmentList) { selectList.add(new SelectItem(department, mf.format( new Object[] { department.getDeptname() }, new StringBuffer(), null).toString())); } return selectList; } Converter: package rts.entities.converter; import javax.faces.component.UIComponent; import javax.faces.context.FacesContext; import javax.faces.convert.Converter; import rts.entities.Department; import rts.entities.controller.DepartmentManager; import com.ibm.jpa.web.TypeCoercionUtility; public class DepartmentConverter implements Converter { public Object getAsObject(FacesContext facesContext, UIComponent arg1, String entityId) { DepartmentManager departmentManager = (DepartmentManager) facesContext .getApplication().createValueBinding("#{DepartmentManager}") .getValue(facesContext); int deptno = (Integer) TypeCoercionUtility.coerceType("int", entityId); Department result = departmentManager.findDepartmentByDeptno(deptno); return result; } public String getAsString(FacesContext arg0, UIComponent arg1, Object object) { if (object instanceof Department) { return "" + ((Department) object).getDeptno(); } else { throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid object type:" + object.getClass().getName()); } } } Method for Add button: public String createEmployeeAction() { EmployeeManager employeeManager = (EmployeeManager) getManagedBean("EmployeeManager"); try { employeeManager.createEmployee(employee); } catch (Exception e) { logException(e); } return ""; } faces-conf.xml <converter> <converter-for-class>rts.entities.Department</converter-for-class> <converter-class>rts.entities.converter.DepartmentConverter</converter-class> </converter> Stack trace javax.faces.FacesException: java.lang.NullPointerException at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.context.ExceptionHandlerImpl.wrap(ExceptionHandlerImpl.java:241) at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.context.ExceptionHandlerImpl.handle(ExceptionHandlerImpl.java:156) at org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.render(LifecycleImpl.java:258) at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.service(FacesServlet.java:191) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1147) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:722) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:449) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapperImpl.handleRequest(ServletWrapperImpl.java:178) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.invokeFilters(WebAppFilterManager.java:1020) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.CacheServletWrapper.handleRequest(CacheServletWrapper.java:87) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.WebContainer.handleRequest(WebContainer.java:886) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.WSWebContainer.handleRequest(WSWebContainer.java:1655) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.channel.WCChannelLink.ready(WCChannelLink.java:195) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleDiscrimination(HttpInboundLink.java:452) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleNewRequest(HttpInboundLink.java:511) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.processRequest(HttpInboundLink.java:305) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.ready(HttpInboundLink.java:276) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.sendToDiscriminators(NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.java:214) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.complete(NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.java:113) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.AioReadCompletionListener.futureCompleted(AioReadCompletionListener.java:165) at com.ibm.io.async.AbstractAsyncFuture.invokeCallback(AbstractAsyncFuture.java:217) at com.ibm.io.async.AsyncChannelFuture.fireCompletionActions(AsyncChannelFuture.java:161) at com.ibm.io.async.AsyncFuture.completed(AsyncFuture.java:138) at com.ibm.io.async.ResultHandler.complete(ResultHandler.java:204) at com.ibm.io.async.ResultHandler.runEventProcessingLoop(ResultHandler.java:775) at com.ibm.io.async.ResultHandler$2.run(ResultHandler.java:905) at com.ibm.ws.util.ThreadPool$Worker.run(ThreadPool.java:1650) Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException at rts.entities.converter.DepartmentConverter.getAsString(DepartmentConverter.java:29) at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.renderkit.RendererUtils.getConvertedStringValue(RendererUtils.java:656) at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.renderkit.html.HtmlRendererUtils.getSubmittedOrSelectedValuesAsSet(HtmlRendererUtils.java:444) at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.renderkit.html.HtmlRendererUtils.internalRenderSelect(HtmlRendererUtils.java:421) at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.renderkit.html.HtmlRendererUtils.renderMenu(HtmlRendererUtils.java:359) at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.renderkit.html.HtmlMenuRendererBase.encodeEnd(HtmlMenuRendererBase.java:76) at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.encodeEnd(UIComponentBase.java:519) at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:626) at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:622) at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:622) at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:622) at org.apache.myfaces.view.facelets.FaceletViewDeclarationLanguage.renderView(FaceletViewDeclarationLanguage.java:1320) at org.apache.myfaces.application.ViewHandlerImpl.renderView(ViewHandlerImpl.java:263) at org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.RenderResponseExecutor.execute(RenderResponseExecutor.java:85) at org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.render(LifecycleImpl.java:239) ... 24 more

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  • How can I explain to dspam that the user "brandon" is the same as "brandon@mydomain"

    - by Brandon Craig Rhodes
    I am using dspam for spam filtering by running the "dspamd" daemon under Ubuntu 9.10 and then setting up a Postfix rule that says: smtpd_recipient_restrictions = ... check_client_access pcre:/etc/postfix/dspam_everything ... where that PCRE map looks like this: /./ FILTER lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:11124 This works well, and means that all users on my system get all of their email, whether "dspam" thinks it is innocent or not, and have the option of filtering on its decisions or ignoring them. The problem comes when I want to train dspam using my email archives. After reading about the "dspam" command, I tried this on the files in my Inbox and spam boxes (which date from when I was using another filtering solution): for file in Mail/Inbox/*; do cat $file | dspam --class=innocent --source=corpus; done for file in Mail/spam/*; do cat $file | dspam --class=spam --source=corpus; done The symptom I noticed after doing all of this was that dspam was horrible at classifying spam — it couldn't find any! The problem, when I tracked it down, was that I was training the user "brandon" with the above commands, but the incoming email was instead compared against the username "brandon@mydomain", so it was running against a completely empty training database! So, what can I do to make the above commands actually train my fully-qualified email address rather than my bare username? I would like to avoid having to run "dspam" as root with a "--user" option. I would have expected that the "dspam" configuration files would have had an "append_domain" attribute or something with which to decorate local usernames with an appropriate email domain, but I can't find any such thing. When I used to use the Berkeley DB backend to "dspam", I solved this problem by creating a symlink from one of the databases to the other. :-) But that solution eventually died because the BDB backend is not thread-safe, so now I have moved to the PostgreSQL back-end and need a way to solve the problem there. And, no, the table where it keeps usernames has a UNIQUE constraint that prevents me from listing both usernames as mapping to the same ID. :-)

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  • Automatically Kill/Restart Process(es) When Memory is Critically Low

    - by nemesisfixx
    I have a Debian Wheezy VPS box where am running a couple of Django apps in production. Ideally, would have tried addressed my current memory footprint issues by optimizing the apps, adding more RAM or augmenting with Swap. But the problem is that I doubt there's much memory optimization I'd milk from optimizing the Django apps (the stack being open-source and robust), and adding RAM is a cost constraint for me (this is a remote VPS), also, the host doesn't offer options to use Swap! So, in the meantime (as I wait to secure more resources to afford more RAM), I wish to mitigate the scenarios where the server runs out memory so that I just have to request a VPS restart (as in, at that point, I can't even SSH into the box!). So, what I would love in a solution is the ability to detect when a process (or generally, total system memory usage) exceeds a certain critical amount (for now, example the FREE RAM falls to say 10%) - which I've noticed occurs after the VPS's been up for long, and when also traffic is suddenly much to some of the heavy apps (most are just staging apps anyway). So, I wish to be able to kill/restart the offending process(es) - most likely Apache. Which solution when done manually in these situations has restored sane memory usage levels - a hint that possibly one or more of the Django apps has a memory leak? In brief: Monitor overall system RAM usage When FREE RAM falls below a given critical threshold (say below 10%), kill/restart the offending process(es) - or simpler, if we assume from my current log analysis (using linux-dash) that Apache is often the offender, then kill/restart it. Rinse and repeat...

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  • postgresql deleteing old tables

    - by BB
    I have a postgresql database which stores my radius connection information. What I want to do is only store a months worth of logs. How would I craft a sql statement that I can run from cron that would go and delete and rows that where older then a month? Format of the date in the table. that date is taken from acctstoptime collum Date format 2010-01-27 16:02:17-05 Format of the table in question. -- Table: radacct -- DROP TABLE radacct; CREATE TABLE radacct ( radacctid bigserial NOT NULL, acctsessionid character varying(32) NOT NULL, acctuniqueid character varying(32) NOT NULL, username character varying(253), groupname character varying(253), realm character varying(64), nasipaddress inet NOT NULL, nasportid character varying(15), nasporttype character varying(32), acctstarttime timestamp with time zone, acctstoptime timestamp with time zone, acctsessiontime bigint, acctauthentic character varying(32), connectinfo_start character varying(50), connectinfo_stop character varying(50), acctinputoctets bigint, acctoutputoctets bigint, calledstationid character varying(50), callingstationid character varying(50), acctterminatecause character varying(32), servicetype character varying(32), xascendsessionsvrkey character varying(10), framedprotocol character varying(32), framedipaddress inet, acctstartdelay integer, acctstopdelay integer, freesidestatus character varying(32), CONSTRAINT radacct_pkey PRIMARY KEY (radacctid) ) WITH (OIDS=FALSE); ALTER TABLE radacct OWNER TO radius; -- Index: freesidestatus -- DROP INDEX freesidestatus; CREATE INDEX freesidestatus ON radacct USING btree (freesidestatus); -- Index: radacct_active_user_idx -- DROP INDEX radacct_active_user_idx; CREATE INDEX radacct_active_user_idx ON radacct USING btree (username, nasipaddress, acctsessionid) WHERE acctstoptime IS NULL; -- Index: radacct_start_user_idx -- DROP INDEX radacct_start_user_idx; CREATE INDEX radacct_start_user_idx ON radacct USING btree (acctstarttime, username);

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  • HTML client-side portable file generation - no external resources or server calls

    - by awashburn
    I have the following situation: I have set up a series of Cron jobs on an internal company server to run various PHP scripts designed to check data integrity. Each PHP script queries a company database, formats the returned query data into an HTML file containing one or more <tables>, and then mails the HTML file to several client emails as an attachment. From my experience, most of the PHP scripts generate HTML files with only a few tables, however there are a few PHP scripts the create HTML files with around 30 tables. HTML files have been chosen as the distribution format of these scans because HTML makes it easy to view many tables at once in a browser window. I would like to add the functionality for the clients to download a table in the HTML file as a CSV file. I anticipate clients using this feature when they suspect a data integrity issue based on the table data. It would be ideal for them to be able to take the table in question, export the data out to a CSV file, and then study it further. Because need for exporting the data to CSV format is at the discretion of the client, unpredictable as to what table will be under scrutiny, and intermittently used I do not want to create CSV files for every table. Normally creating a CSV file wouldn't be too difficult, using JavaScript/jQuery to preform DOM traversal and generate the CSV file data into a string utilizing a server call or flash library to facilitate the download process; but I have one limiting constraint: The HTML file needs to be "portable." I would like the clients to be able to take their HTML file and preform analysis of the data outside the company intranet. Also it is likely these HTML files will be archived, so making the export functionality "self contained" in the HTML files is a highly desirable feature for the two previous reasons. The "portable" constraint of CSV file generation from a HTML file means: I cannot make a server call. This means ALL the file generation must be done client-side. I want the single HTML file attached to the email to contain all the resources to generate the CSV file. This means I cannot use jQuery or flash libraries to generate the file. I understand, for obvious security reasons, that writing out files to disk using JavaScript isn't supported by any browser. I don't want to create a file without the user knowledge; I would like to generate the file using JavaScript in memory and then prompt the user the "download" the file from memory. I have looked into generating the CSV file as a URI however, according to my research and testing, this approach has a few problems: URIs for files are not supported by IE (See Here) URIs in FireFox saves the file with a random file name and as a .part file As much as it pains me, I can accept the fact the IE<=v9 won't create a URI for files. I would like to create a semi-cross-browser solution in which Chrome, Firefox, and Safari create a URI to download the CSV file after JavaScript DOM traversal compiles the data. My Example Table: <table> <thead class="resulttitle"> <tr> <th style="text-align:center;" colspan="3"> NameOfTheTable</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class="resultheader"> <td>VEN_PK</td> <td>VEN_CompanyName</td> <td>VEN_Order</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='resultfield'>1</td> <td class='resultfield'>Brander Ranch</td> <td class='resultfield'>Beef</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='resultfield'>2</td> <td class='resultfield'>Super Tree Produce</td> <td class='resultfield'>Apples</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='resultfield'>3</td> <td class='resultfield'>John's Distilery</td> <td class='resultfield'>Beer</td> </tr> </tbody> <tfoot> <tr> <td colspan="3" style="text-align:right;"> <button onclick="doSomething(this);">Export to CSV File</button></td> </tr> </tfoot> </table> My Example JavaScript: <script type="text/javascript"> function doSomething(inButton) { /* locate elements */ var table = inButton.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode; var name = table.rows[0].cells[0].textContent; var tbody = table.tBodies[0]; /* create CSV String through DOM traversal */ var rows = tbody.rows; var csvStr = ""; for (var i=0; i < rows.length; i++) { for (var j=0; j < rows[i].cells.length; j++) { csvStr += rows[i].cells[j].textContent +","; } csvStr += "\n"; } /* temporary proof DOM traversal was successful */ alert("Table Name:\t" + name + "\nCSV String:\n" + csvStr); /* Create URI Here! * (code I am missing) */ /* Approach 1 : Auto-download * downloads CSV data but: * In FireFox downloads as randomCharacers.part instead of name.csv * In Chrome downloads without prompting the user * In Safari opens the files in browser (textfile) */ //var hrefData = "data:text/csv;charset=US-ASCII," + encodeURIComponent(csvStr); //document.location.href = hrefData; /* Approach 2 : Right-Click Save As... */ var hrefData = "data:text/csv;charset=US-ASCII," + encodeURIComponent(csvStr); var fileLink = document.createElement("a"); fileLink.href = hrefData; fileLink.innerHTML = "download"; parentTD = inButton.parentNode; parentTD.appendChild(fileLink); parentTD.removeChild(inButton); } </script> I am looking for an example solution in which the above example table can be downloaded as a CSV file: using a URI the user is prompted to save the file the default filename is the name of the table. code works as described in modern versions of FireFox, Safari, & Chrome I have added a <script> tag with the DOM traversal function doSomething(). The real help I need is with formatting the URI to what I want within the doSomething() function.

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  • postgresql deleteing old records from log tables

    - by Max
    I have a postgresql database which stores my radius connection information. What I want to do is only store a months worth of logs. How would I craft a sql statement that I can run from cron that would go and delete and rows that where older then a month? Format of the date in the table. that date is taken from acctstoptime collum Date format 2010-01-27 16:02:17-05 Format of the table in question. -- Table: radacct CREATE TABLE radacct ( radacctid bigserial NOT NULL, acctsessionid character varying(32) NOT NULL, acctuniqueid character varying(32) NOT NULL, username character varying(253), groupname character varying(253), realm character varying(64), nasipaddress inet NOT NULL, nasportid character varying(15), nasporttype character varying(32), acctstarttime timestamp with time zone, acctstoptime timestamp with time zone, acctsessiontime bigint, acctauthentic character varying(32), connectinfo_start character varying(50), connectinfo_stop character varying(50), acctinputoctets bigint, acctoutputoctets bigint, calledstationid character varying(50), callingstationid character varying(50), acctterminatecause character varying(32), servicetype character varying(32), xascendsessionsvrkey character varying(10), framedprotocol character varying(32), framedipaddress inet, acctstartdelay integer, acctstopdelay integer, freesidestatus character varying(32), CONSTRAINT radacct_pkey PRIMARY KEY (radacctid) ) WITH (OIDS=FALSE); ALTER TABLE radacct OWNER TO radius; -- Index: freesidestatus CREATE INDEX freesidestatus ON radacct USING btree (freesidestatus); -- Index: radacct_active_user_idx CREATE INDEX radacct_active_user_idx ON radacct USING btree (username, nasipaddress, acctsessionid) WHERE acctstoptime IS NULL; -- Index: radacct_start_user_idx CREATE INDEX radacct_start_user_idx ON radacct USING btree (acctstarttime, username);

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  • cloning a kvm guest os to a vmdk file

    - by Bond
    I have a production environment where I am having 4 Guest OS running on a Ubuntu server which uses kvm. These OS are in an LVM based setup.I want these Virtual Machines to be in a vmdk format also.Where people would do experiments with these Virtual Machines so this in a vmware environment (or it can be Xen too) would be different from the kvm server.I would not have any control on that other environment so I want to give people vmdk images of these virtual machines. The production Virtual Machines will still keep running on kvm server but the VMs on which experiments would be done would be of type vmdk.(vmdk is a constraint) Here is output of lvscan ACTIVE '/dev/abcd/lvm1' [100.00 GiB] inherit ACTIVE '/dev/abcd/lvm2' [150.00 GiB] inherit ACTIVE '/dev/abcd/lvm3' [50.00 GiB] inherit ACTIVE '/dev/abcd/lvm4' [100.00 GiB] inherit I was reading man page of qemu-img and what I understand is I need to first create a qcow image file which I need to populate and then convert that to a vmdk file. Is that understanding correct? Now suppose /dev/abcd/lvm4 is the virtual machine with which I am going to start this experiment.I can shutdown the production VMs for some time to do this. So is the following way correct to go on server 1 (where kvm is running) qemu-img convert -c -f raw -O vmdk /dev/abcd/lvm4 /backup/lvm4.img or it will affect the lvm4 on kvm server 1. I do not want the VM running on original server to at all loose its any of the content but also have a vmdk file for each of the Guest OS on kvm. Before I proceed with any of the above things on the production machine I just want to make sure that I am doing the correct thing so I asking here.

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  • How to deal with the extremely big *.ost files in a Terminal Server environment which is running out of space

    - by Wolfgang Kuehne
    Our Terminal Server is running out of hard disk space, and the major files which occupy most of the space are *.ost files of the Outook, which come form the users which use the Terminal Server all the time through remote desktop. The Outlook is installed on the Terminal Server and various users can use it. What would be a solution in this case. Is there a way to limit the size of the *.ost files? I read in forums that having the Outlook 2010 set up in Cached Exchange Mode isn't the best practice for an environment where the hdd space is a major constraint. First thing that came to my mind is using folder redirection, and place the ost files (together with the AppData forlder) in a network share, but this does not help, because the ost files are saved a part of the AppData folder which can not be redirected. Then I thought if it is possible to limit the size of the ost file? Or limit the time that it keeps emailed cached, say just emails from the last 6 months are sufficient. Another solutions that came to my mind, moving the ost files somewhere else, this required the old ost file to be removed, and creation of a new one. I am not quite sure if the new OST file will still have cached the emails which where available in the old ost, or will it start caching from where the other one left. What do you suggest?

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  • Deadlock in SQL Server 2005! Two real-time bulk upserts are fighting. WHY?

    - by skimania
    Here's the scenario: I've got a table called MarketDataCurrent (MDC) that has live updating stock prices. I've got one process called 'LiveFeed' which reads prices streaming from the wire, queues up inserts, and uses a 'bulk upload to temp table then insert/update to MDC table.' (BulkUpsert) I've got another process which then reads this data, computes other data, and then saves the results back into the same table, using a similar BulkUpsert stored proc. Thirdly, there are a multitude of users running a C# Gui polling the MDC table and reading updates from it. Now, during the day when the data is changing rapidly, things run pretty smoothly, but then, after market hours, we've recently started seeing an increasing number of Deadlock exceptions coming out of the database, nowadays we see 10-20 a day. The imporant thing to note here is that these happen when the values are NOT changing. Here's all the relevant info: Table Def: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[MarketDataCurrent]( [MDID] [int] NOT NULL, [LastUpdate] [datetime] NOT NULL, [Value] [float] NOT NULL, [Source] [varchar](20) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_MarketDataCurrent] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [MDID] ASC )WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY] ) ON [PRIMARY] - I've got a Sql Profiler Trace Running, catching the deadlocks, and here's what all the graphs look like. Process 258 is called the following 'BulkUpsert' stored proc, repeatedly, while 73 is calling the next one: ALTER proc [dbo].[MarketDataCurrent_BulkUpload] @updateTime datetime, @source varchar(10) as begin transaction update c with (rowlock) set LastUpdate = getdate(), Value = t.Value, Source = @source from MarketDataCurrent c INNER JOIN #MDTUP t ON c.MDID = t.mdid where c.lastUpdate < @updateTime and c.mdid not in (select mdid from MarketData where LiveFeedTicker is not null and PriceSource like 'LiveFeed.%') and c.value <> t.value insert into MarketDataCurrent with (rowlock) select MDID, getdate(), Value, @source from #MDTUP where mdid not in (select mdid from MarketDataCurrent with (nolock)) and mdid not in (select mdid from MarketData where LiveFeedTicker is not null and PriceSource like 'LiveFeed.%') commit And the other one: ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[MarketDataCurrent_LiveFeedUpload] AS begin transaction -- Update existing mdid UPDATE c WITH (ROWLOCK) SET LastUpdate = t.LastUpdate, Value = t.Value, Source = t.Source FROM MarketDataCurrent c INNER JOIN #TEMPTABLE2 t ON c.MDID = t.mdid; -- Insert new MDID INSERT INTO MarketDataCurrent with (ROWLOCK) SELECT * FROM #TEMPTABLE2 WHERE MDID NOT IN (SELECT MDID FROM MarketDataCurrent with (NOLOCK)) -- Clean up the temp table DELETE #TEMPTABLE2 commit To clarify, those Temp Tables are being created by the C# code on the same connection and are populated using the C# SqlBulkCopy class. To me it looks like it's deadlocking on the PK of the table, so I tried removing that PK and switching to a Unique Constraint instead but that increased the number of deadlocks 10-fold. I'm totally lost as to what to do about this situation and am open to just about any suggestion. HELP!! In response to the request for the XDL, here it is: <deadlock-list> <deadlock victim="processc19978"> <process-list> <process id="processaf0b68" taskpriority="0" logused="0" waitresource="KEY: 6:72057594090487808 (d900ed5a6cc6)" waittime="718" ownerId="1102128174" transactionname="user_transaction" lasttranstarted="2010-06-11T16:30:44.750" XDES="0xffffffff817f9a40" lockMode="U" schedulerid="3" kpid="8228" status="suspended" spid="73" sbid="0" ecid="0" priority="0" transcount="2" lastbatchstarted="2010-06-11T16:30:44.750" lastbatchcompleted="2010-06-11T16:30:44.750" clientapp=".Net SqlClient Data Provider" hostname="RISKAPPS_VM" hostpid="3836" loginname="RiskOpt" isolationlevel="read committed (2)" xactid="1102128174" currentdb="6" lockTimeout="4294967295" clientoption1="671088672" clientoption2="128056"> <executionStack> <frame procname="MKP_RISKDB.dbo.MarketDataCurrent_BulkUpload" line="28" stmtstart="1062" stmtend="1720" sqlhandle="0x03000600a28e5e4ef4fd8e00849d00000100000000000000"> UPDATE c WITH (ROWLOCK) SET LastUpdate = getdate(), Value = t.Value, Source = @source FROM MarketDataCurrent c INNER JOIN #MDTUP t ON c.MDID = t.mdid WHERE c.lastUpdate &lt; @updateTime and c.mdid not in (select mdid from MarketData where BloombergTicker is not null and PriceSource like &apos;Blbg.%&apos;) and c.value &lt;&gt; t.value </frame> <frame procname="adhoc" line="1" stmtstart="88" sqlhandle="0x01000600c1653d0598706ca7000000000000000000000000"> exec MarketDataCurrent_BulkUpload @clearBefore, @source </frame> <frame procname="unknown" line="1" sqlhandle="0x000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"> unknown </frame> </executionStack> <inputbuf> (@clearBefore datetime,@source nvarchar(10))exec MarketDataCurrent_BulkUpload @clearBefore, @source </inputbuf> </process> <process id="processc19978" taskpriority="0" logused="0" waitresource="KEY: 6:72057594090487808 (74008e31572b)" waittime="718" ownerId="1102128228" transactionname="user_transaction" lasttranstarted="2010-06-11T16:30:44.780" XDES="0x380be9d8" lockMode="U" schedulerid="5" kpid="8464" status="suspended" spid="248" sbid="0" ecid="0" priority="0" transcount="2" lastbatchstarted="2010-06-11T16:30:44.780" lastbatchcompleted="2010-06-11T16:30:44.780" clientapp=".Net SqlClient Data Provider" hostname="RISKBBG_VM" hostpid="4480" loginname="RiskOpt" isolationlevel="read committed (2)" xactid="1102128228" currentdb="6" lockTimeout="4294967295" clientoption1="671088672" clientoption2="128056"> <executionStack> <frame procname="MKP_RISKDB.dbo.MarketDataCurrentBlbgRtUpload" line="14" stmtstart="840" stmtend="1220" sqlhandle="0x03000600005f9d24c8878f00849d00000100000000000000"> UPDATE c WITH (ROWLOCK) SET LastUpdate = t.LastUpdate, Value = t.Value, Source = t.Source FROM MarketDataCurrent c INNER JOIN #TEMPTABLE2 t ON c.MDID = t.mdid; -- Insert new MDID </frame> <frame procname="adhoc" line="1" sqlhandle="0x010006004a58132228bf8d73000000000000000000000000"> MarketDataCurrentBlbgRtUpload </frame> </executionStack> <inputbuf> MarketDataCurrentBlbgRtUpload </inputbuf> </process> </process-list> <resource-list> <keylock hobtid="72057594090487808" dbid="6" objectname="MKP_RISKDB.dbo.MarketDataCurrent" indexname="PK_MarketDataCurrent" id="lock5ba77b00" mode="U" associatedObjectId="72057594090487808"> <owner-list> <owner id="processc19978" mode="U"/> </owner-list> <waiter-list> <waiter id="processaf0b68" mode="U" requestType="wait"/> </waiter-list> </keylock> <keylock hobtid="72057594090487808" dbid="6" objectname="MKP_RISKDB.dbo.MarketDataCurrent" indexname="PK_MarketDataCurrent" id="lock65dca340" mode="U" associatedObjectId="72057594090487808"> <owner-list> <owner id="processaf0b68" mode="U"/> </owner-list> <waiter-list> <waiter id="processc19978" mode="U" requestType="wait"/> </waiter-list> </keylock> </resource-list> </deadlock> </deadlock-list>

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  • Move OS from RAID5 array to RAID 1 arrays

    - by Antoine
    I want to give a last boost to my old ProLiant ML350 G5 server which just needs to be reliable for a few more year only ! With a defined budget of about 1500$ (I do not have more), i plan to replace the CPU (+ adding a second one), the battery cache of my raid controller (E200i), double the RAM, and change all hard drives. I have 7 HDD (SAS 10krpm, 72Gb) + 1 spare in RAID5, and my system is all FULL (no empty tray, full disks). in my current RAID5 array, I have 2 partitions: - 1 OS partition, 20Gb - 1 data partition, 350 Gb I plan to replace these 8 disks with : - 2 x 300Gb SAS 15krpm in RAID 1 (= 1 partition for OS) - 2 x 2Tb SATA 7.2krpm in RAID 1 (= 1 partition for DATA) My biggest constraint is that I have only 01 day to upgrade my server. Therefore, I'm looking for cloning all my files (OS + data partition) to my new arrays, i.e : - the OS partition shall be cloned to the RAID1 "2x300Gb array" - the data partition shall be cloned to the RAID1 "2x2Tb array" My second problem is that I need to physically remove all the old hard drives before inserting the new ones. I'm running Windows Server 2003 R2, and even if MS support will expire soon, I cannot buy a new licence and spent time in configuration. Obviously, with 1500$, I cannot also buy a new server that I could start configuring from now ! Thought about ASR (NTBackup), but I have no floppy drive (and do not really want to invest in one !) Thought about a clonezilla clone, and read this interesting link : Windows Server 2003 - move C: partition to a new SAS disk , but i'm not so confident in using Clonezilla with RAID5. What should be the best option to quickly and easily (if possible!) "copy/paste" my OS (so no need to reinstall and reconfigure all) and DATA / programs / services, etc... ? Thanks for your comments

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  • JBoss https on port other than 8080 not working

    - by MilindaD
    We have a server with two JBoss instances where one runs on 8080, the other on 8081. We need to have HTTPS enabled for the 8081 server, firstly we tried enabling https on the 8080 port instance by generating the keystore and editing the server.xml and it successfully worked. However when we tried the same thing for 8081 it did not, note that we removed https for the 8080 server first before enabling it for 8081. This is what was used for both server.xml for 8080 and 8081. The only difference was that the port was changed from 8080 to 8081 when trying to enable https for 8081 port instance. What am I doing wrong and what needs to be changed? NOTE : When I meant enabled for 8080 I meant when you visit https:// URL:8484 you will actually be visiting the 8080 port instance. However when ssl is enabled for 8081 and I visit https:// URL:8484 I get that the web page is unavailable. COMMENTLESS VERSION <Server> <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener" SSLEngine="on" /> <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.JasperListener" /> <Service name="jboss.web"> <!-- https --> <Connector port="8080" address="${jboss.bind.address}" maxThreads="350" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192" emptySessionPath="true" protocol="HTTP/1.1" enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="100" connectionTimeout="20000" disableUploadTimeout="true" compression="on" ompressableMimeType="text/html,text/css,text/javascript,application/json,text/xml,text/plain,application/x-javascript,application/javascript"/> <Connector port="8443" protocol="HTTP/1.1" SSLEnabled="true" maxThreads="150" scheme="https" secure="true" clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" address="${jboss.bind.address}" keystoreFile="${jboss.server.home.dir}/conf/supun1.keystore" keystorePass="aaaaaa" truststoreFile="${jboss.server.home.dir}/conf/supun1.keystore" truststorePass="aaaaaa" /> <!-- https1 --> <Connector port="8009" address="${jboss.bind.address}" protocol="AJP/1.3" emptySessionPath="true" enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" /> <Engine name="jboss.web" defaultHost="localhost" jvmRoute="khms1"> <Realm className="org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.JBossSecurityMgrRealm" certificatePrincipal="org.jboss.security.auth.certs.SubjectDNMapping" allRolesMode="authOnly" /> <Host name="localhost" autoDeploy="false" deployOnStartup="false" deployXML="false" configClass="org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.config.JBossContextConfig" > <Valve className="org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.sso.ClusteredSingleSignOn" /> <Valve className="org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.jca.CachedConnectionValve" cachedConnectionManagerObjectName="jboss.jca:service=CachedConnectionManager" transactionManagerObjectName="jboss:service=TransactionManager" /> </Host> </Engine> </Service> </Server> WITH COMMENTS VERSION <Server> <!--APR library loader. Documentation at /docs/apr.html --> <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener" SSLEngine="on" /> <!--Initialize Jasper prior to webapps are loaded. Documentation at /docs/jasper-howto.html --> <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.JasperListener" /> <!-- Use a custom version of StandardService that allows the connectors to be started independent of the normal lifecycle start to allow web apps to be deployed before starting the connectors. --> <Service name="jboss.web"> <!-- A "Connector" represents an endpoint by which requests are received and responses are returned. Documentation at : Java HTTP Connector: /docs/config/http.html (blocking & non-blocking) Java AJP Connector: /docs/config/ajp.html APR (HTTP/AJP) Connector: /docs/apr.html Define a non-SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8080 --> <Connector port="8080" address="${jboss.bind.address}" maxThreads="350" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192" emptySessionPath="true" protocol="HTTP/1.1" enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="100" connectionTimeout="20000" disableUploadTimeout="true" compression="on" ompressableMimeType="text/html,text/css,text/javascript,application/json,text/xml,text/plain,application/x-javascript,application/javascript"/> <!-- Define a SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8443 This connector uses the JSSE configuration, when using APR, the connector should be using the OpenSSL style configuration described in the APR documentation --> <!-- <Connector port="8443" protocol="HTTP/1.1" SSLEnabled="true" maxThreads="150" scheme="https" secure="true" keystoreFile="${jboss.server.home.dir}/conf/zara.keystore" keystorePass="zara2010" clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" compression="on" /> --> <Connector port="8443" protocol="HTTP/1.1" SSLEnabled="true" maxThreads="150" scheme="https" secure="true" clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" address="${jboss.bind.address}" keystoreFile="${jboss.server.home.dir}/conf/supun1.keystore" keystorePass="aaaaaa" truststoreFile="${jboss.server.home.dir}/conf/supun1.keystore" truststorePass="aaaaaa" /> <!-- Define an AJP 1.3 Connector on port 8009 --> <Connector port="8009" address="${jboss.bind.address}" protocol="AJP/1.3" emptySessionPath="true" enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" /> <Engine name="jboss.web" defaultHost="localhost" jvmRoute="khms1"> <!-- The JAAS based authentication and authorization realm implementation that is compatible with the jboss 3.2.x realm implementation. - certificatePrincipal : the class name of the org.jboss.security.auth.certs.CertificatePrincipal impl used for mapping X509[] cert chains to a Princpal. - allRolesMode : how to handle an auth-constraint with a role-name=*, one of strict, authOnly, strictAuthOnly + strict = Use the strict servlet spec interpretation which requires that the user have one of the web-app/security-role/role-name + authOnly = Allow any authenticated user + strictAuthOnly = Allow any authenticated user only if there are no web-app/security-roles --> <Realm className="org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.JBossSecurityMgrRealm" certificatePrincipal="org.jboss.security.auth.certs.SubjectDNMapping" allRolesMode="authOnly" /> <!-- A subclass of JBossSecurityMgrRealm that uses the authentication behavior of JBossSecurityMgrRealm, but overrides the authorization checks to use JACC permissions with the current java.security.Policy to determine authorized access. - allRolesMode : how to handle an auth-constraint with a role-name=*, one of strict, authOnly, strictAuthOnly + strict = Use the strict servlet spec interpretation which requires that the user have one of the web-app/security-role/role-name + authOnly = Allow any authenticated user + strictAuthOnly = Allow any authenticated user only if there are no web-app/security-roles <Realm className="org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.JaccAuthorizationRealm" certificatePrincipal="org.jboss.security.auth.certs.SubjectDNMapping" allRolesMode="authOnly" /> --> <Host name="localhost" autoDeploy="false" deployOnStartup="false" deployXML="false" configClass="org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.config.JBossContextConfig" > <!-- Uncomment to enable request dumper. This Valve "logs interesting contents from the specified Request (before processing) and the corresponding Response (after processing). It is especially useful in debugging problems related to headers and cookies." --> <!-- <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RequestDumperValve" /> --> <!-- Access logger --> <!-- <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve" prefix="localhost_access_log." suffix=".log" pattern="common" directory="${jboss.server.log.dir}" resolveHosts="false" /> --> <!-- Uncomment to enable single sign-on across web apps deployed to this host. Does not provide SSO across a cluster. If this valve is used, do not use the JBoss ClusteredSingleSignOn valve shown below. A new configuration attribute is available beginning with release 4.0.4: cookieDomain configures the domain to which the SSO cookie will be scoped (i.e. the set of hosts to which the cookie will be presented). By default the cookie is scoped to "/", meaning the host that presented it. Set cookieDomain to a wider domain (e.g. "xyz.com") to allow an SSO to span more than one hostname. --> <!-- <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.authenticator.SingleSignOn" /> --> <!-- Uncomment to enable single sign-on across web apps deployed to this host AND to all other hosts in the cluster. If this valve is used, do not use the standard Tomcat SingleSignOn valve shown above. Valve uses a JBossCache instance to support SSO credential caching and replication across the cluster. The JBossCache instance must be configured separately. By default, the valve shares a JBossCache with the service that supports HttpSession replication. See the "jboss-web-cluster-service.xml" file in the server/all/deploy directory for cache configuration details. Besides the attributes supported by the standard Tomcat SingleSignOn valve (see the Tomcat docs), this version also supports the following attributes: cookieDomain see above treeCacheName JMX ObjectName of the JBossCache MBean used to support credential caching and replication across the cluster. If not set, the default value is "jboss.cache:service=TomcatClusteringCache", the standard ObjectName of the JBossCache MBean used to support session replication. --> <Valve className="org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.sso.ClusteredSingleSignOn" /> <!-- Check for unclosed connections and transaction terminated checks in servlets/jsps. Important: The dependency on the CachedConnectionManager in META-INF/jboss-service.xml must be uncommented, too --> <Valve className="org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.jca.CachedConnectionValve" cachedConnectionManagerObjectName="jboss.jca:service=CachedConnectionManager" transactionManagerObjectName="jboss:service=TransactionManager" /> </Host> </Engine> </Service> </Server>

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  • ProCurve ACL to prevent a subnet from leaving the switch

    - by kce
    I have a single HP ProCurve 2610 in a remote location that is connected in with the rest of the network via SHDSL. There are two Layer-3 networks on this segment. ACLs are setup to deny one subnet (192.0.2.0/24) from ever being able to leave the switch by virtue of being applied to port attached to the upstream connection. The other subnet should be permitted to freely leave the switch. Both subnets are on the same VLAN. Unfortunately SFlow very clearly show broadcast traffic from 192.0.2.0/24 on the upstream connection. ProCurve ACLs are not my strong suit but I feel like I'm missing something very simple here. ip access-list extended "Filter for Camera Network" deny ip 192.0.2.0 0.0.0.255 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 log permit ip 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 exit interface 24 name "DSL - UPLINK" access-group "Filter for Camera Network" in exit Unless I am mistaken traffic from 192.0.2.0/24 should be dropped as it crosses the uplink port (int 24) whereas all other traffic will be permited by the following default allow rule. What exactly am I missing here? EDIT: Firstly, why do you have two subnets contained in the same VLAN? Because that's how it was configured by a previous administrator and while it makes conceptual sense that a single subnet is "mapped" to a single VLAN there's no technical constraint that I am aware of that makes this have to be the case. Instead of filtering inbound traffic on your uplink, you should be filtering outbound traffic. The HP2600 series can only filter inbound traffic on interfaces. Should I change my filter to deny any to 192.0.2.0/24?

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  • Reverse web proxy with time constraints

    - by user2893458
    I have a web application which produces several unique URLs of the type http://service.company.com/service.html?type=aaaa&key=jfiZm6u6cW where the last part is a randomly generated key. Each such URL provides access to an instance of the service provided. I am looking for a way to restrict access to those URLs based on time constraints, as an example URL#1 should be available between 8:00AM and 10:00AM on May 30, URL#2 should be available between 10:30AM and 12:00PM on May 31, and so on. I already have a resource scheduling application based on Drupal and would like to find a way to include those URLs as scheduled resources. The web application is deployed on Apache Tomcat, so I don't have the knowledge or the resources to alter it, therefore I thought that I could put some sort of reverse proxy in front of the web app that could implement the time constraint feature. In my thoughts the reverse proxy would allow or disallow access to each URL based on the rules that my scheduling application would provide. There may be other ways to deliver such a solution, but I can't think of anything better, so the question is: is there a reverse web proxy architecture that could allow access to the destination URLs based on time and date rules? Any other ideas are more than welcome.

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  • How can I import tasks into Project that have already been started?

    - by unknown
    I am writing a feature to import tasks from an online bug tracking / project management tool into Microsoft Project, primarily for resource leveling. Currently I am importing all tasks in as Fixed work, and giving them an assignment to a single resource for 100% of the work. The duration is then dynamically calculated, which at import time is equal to the amount of work. However, I am not a project manager by any means, and am having difficulty on how to get the start dates to calculate correctly. I've never used Project either. I am using Schedule From Start and setting the Project Start Date to the date the contract was signed / work was approved. However, this can be in the past, and I do not want current tasks scheduled from that date. Should it be today then? Another problem I have is with tasks that were already started. I have remaining work set, and I was placing a constraint on them to be started on the day the work was first applied. However, the remaining work for the task would be scheduled from that date, which was sometimes in the past. Using task constraints, a project start date, and whatever other settings available to me that I don't know about, what is the correct way to have the tasks scheduled?

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  • How TiVo is messing up customer support.

    - by James Fleming
    Ok,  So I've gotten a TiVo and overall, I'm happy, but there have been issues and I suspect I've a defective unit. - Now the nice folks after many service calls were happy to swap it out, and to ensure continuity of service, they sent me a new unit (after a $109 deposit).  That was yesterday. Today, when we go to watch a little TV, and wait for our replacement unit to arrive we find our TiVo service has been suspended. WTF? They have an exchange program, but your unit your waiting to exchange is as dead as a doornail until the replacement arrives. How hard is it to keep the old unit active for an extra week? Here is the exchange w/Tivo below... You are currently number 1 in the queue. We apologize for the delay. We will assign you to an agent as soon as one is available.The average amount of time a customer has to wait is 00:13.  Kaylene (Listening)  Kaylene: Thank you for contacting TiVo! My name is Kaylene. So that I may better assist you, are you an existing customer?  james Fleming: yes I am, but I'm now having second thoughts about being one    Kaylene: Thank you for verifying your information. How may I assist you today James?  james Fleming: I've been having issues w/a tivo box & I'm getting a replacement sent out to me (after paying an additional deposit) and now my current unit is no longer activated  Kaylene: I can help you today!  Kaylene: When we process an exchange we do transfer over the service to the replacement box so it is active and ready to go when you receive it.  james Fleming: which is to say you also make my current box worthless until such time I receive a new box?!?!?  Kaylene: I apologize that your original box was deactivated so we could activate your replacement box.  james Fleming: Why on Earth would I bother to pay in advance for a new box if you were going to kill my existing box.  Kaylene: What features are you needing to use on your current box?  james Fleming: I need to be able to access my netflix subscription (if I'm lucky enough to have it work without rebooting)  Kaylene: Can I have you verify the TiVo Service Number of your TiVo box please?  james Fleming: 7460011906979b4  Kaylene: We have your current box temporary service but not all features are available with temporary service as it is not paid for service.  Kaylene: If you like I can transfer your service back to your current box for now. Then once you receive the new box you will have to call in and have the service transferred back to the new box.  james Fleming: Not paid for? Let's see> one tivo box + 3 year service plan + monthly service + $109 deposit on a second box = what?  Kaylene: Would you like me to transfer your service back to your current box?  james Fleming: Yes - that would be helpful  Kaylene: All you will need to do is contact us again once you receive the new box so we can transfer it back.  Kaylene: I have put your service back on TiVo box 7460011906979b4.  james Fleming: What would also be helpful is your firm informing me to how you'd be cutting service in the interim.  james Fleming: Again - I opted to pay to have a second box delivered BEFORE returning the box I have - thus trying to have a continuity of service..  Kaylene: This is not something we normally do so it is important when you contact us to transfer the service back to the new box when you receive it that you reference this case number: 110622-006089.  Kaylene: I apologize about the inconvenience. You may need  force a few connections for the box to recognize the service again.  james Fleming: If it's not something you normally do than WHY would you have a $109 fee and a term for the service.  james Fleming: I am not mad at you, but your company is not impressing me and I'm blogging about this experience  Kaylene: Again I apologize about the inconvenience but you should be good to go now. Is there anything else I can help you with today?  james Fleming: so I need to go through the re-actviate process or is that somethign you do  Kaylene: When you receive the new TiVo box you need to contact us so we can transfer the service to the new box for you.  james Fleming: sure  Kaylene: Is there anything else I can help you with today James?  james Fleming: Nope - please email this transcript to me  Kaylene: I apologize but we do not have the ability to e-mail you a copy of this transcript. You can view it online at  http://www.tivo.com when you sign into your account or you can copy and paste it now to save it.  Kaylene: Thank you for contacting TiVo today. Your reference number for our conversation is 110622-006089. You can save this for your records, and if necessary, provide this to a later agent to pull up what we discussed. There will be a brief satisfaction survey emailed to you. We would appreciate any feedback on your TiVo Chat Support experience today.  Kaylene: Thank you for using TiVo Chat and have a great day James! Good-bye.  Kaylene has disconnected.

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  • Forcing an External Activation with Service Broker

    - by Davide Mauri
    In these last days I’ve been working quite a lot with Service Broker, a technology I’m really happy to work with, since it can give a lot of satisfaction. The scale-out solution one can easily build is simply astonishing. I’m helping a company to build a very scalable and – yet almost inexpensive – invoicing system that has to be able to scale out using commodity hardware. To offload the work from the main server to satellite “compute nodes” (yes, I’ve borrowed this term from PDW) we’re using Service Broker and the External Activator application available in the SQL Server Feature Pack. For those who are not used to work with SSB, the External Activation is a feature that allows you to intercept the arrival of a message in a queue right from your application code. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171617.aspx (Look for “Event-Based Activation”) In order to make life even more easier, Microsoft released the External Activation application that saves you even from writing even this code. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sql_service_broker/archive/tags/external+activator/ The External Activator application can be configured to execute your own application so that each time a message – an invoice in my case – arrives in the target queue, the invoking application is executed and the invoice is calculated. The very nice feature of External Activator is that it can automatically execute as many configured application in order to process as many messages as your system can handle.  This also a lot of create a scale-out solution, leaving to the developer only a fraction of the problems that usually came with asynchronous programming. Developers are also shielded from Service Broker since everything can be encapsulated in Stored Procedures, so that – for them – developing such scale-out asynchronous solution is not much more complex than just executing a bunch of Stored Procedures. Now, if everything works correctly, you don’t have to bother of anything else. You put messages in the queue and your application, invoked by the External Activator, process them. But what happen if for some reason your application fails to process the messages. For examples, it crashes? The message is safe in the queue so you just need to process it again. But your application is invoked by the External Activator application, so now the question is, how do you wake up that app? Service Broker will engage the activation process only if certain conditions are met: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171601.aspx But how we can invoke the activation process manually, without having to wait for another message to arrive (the arrival of a new message is a condition that can fire the activation process)? The “trick” is to do manually with the activation process does: sending a system message to a queue in charge of handling External Activation messages: declare @conversationHandle uniqueidentifier; declare @n xml = N' <EVENT_INSTANCE>   <EventType>QUEUE_ACTIVATION</EventType>   <PostTime>' + CONVERT(CHAR(24),GETDATE(),126) + '</PostTime>   <SPID>' + CAST(@@SPID AS VARCHAR(9)) + '</SPID>   <ServerName>[your_server_name]</ServerName>   <LoginName>[your_login_name]</LoginName>   <UserName>[your_user_name]</UserName>   <DatabaseName>[your_database_name]</DatabaseName>   <SchemaName>[your_queue_schema_name]</SchemaName>   <ObjectName>[your_queue_name]</ObjectName>   <ObjectType>QUEUE</ObjectType> </EVENT_INSTANCE>' begin dialog conversation     @conversationHandle from service        [<your_initiator_service_name>] to service          '<your_event_notification_service>' on contract         [http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/PostEventNotification] with     encryption = off,     lifetime = 6000 ; send on conversation     @conversationHandle message type     [http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/EventNotification] (@n) ;     end conversation @conversationHandle; That’s it! Put the code in a Stored Procedure and you can add to your application a button that says “Force Queue Processing” (or something similar) in order to start the activation process whenever you need it (which should not occur too frequently but it may happen). PS I know that the “fire-and-forget” (ending the conversation without waiting for an answer) technique is not a best practice, but in this case I don’t see how it can hurts so I decided to stay very close to the KISS principle []

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  • Training on Demand Certification Packages for DBAs

    - by Antoinette O'Sullivan
    The demand for Database Administrators continues to grow.*Almost two-thirds of IT hiring managers indicate that they highly value certifications in validatingIT skills and expertise.** * Job satisfaction and DBA work growth rate: CNN Money's 2011 Best Jobs in America survey.** Survey among nearly 1,700 respondents by CompTIA, the nonprofit trade association for the IT industry, cited in Certification Magazine, Feb. 14 th., 2012. Get Certified with Training on DemandAre you an experienced Database professional eager to achieve certification?Is time your most precious resource?Then try our new Training On Demand Certification Value Package with 20% discount. These all-in-one packages give you everything you need to get certified with success: Why Training On Demand:  Expert training from Oracle’s top instructors Sophisticated streaming video recording Available for 90 days, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week White boarding and training labs for hands-on experience Start, stop, pause, jump or rewind sections of the course as needed  Oracle University instructor Q&A  A full-text search leads to the right video fragment in a matter of seconds. Watch this demo to see how it works. Additional Certification resources: Benefits of Oracle Certification Database Certification Paths Available Database Certification Exams Getting certified has never been easier!For assistance contact your local Oracle University Service Desk. Many organizations deploy both Oracle Database and MySQL side by side to serve different needs, and as a database professional you can find training courses on both topics at Oracle University! Check out the upcoming Oracle Database 11g training courses and MySQL training courses. Even if you're only managing Oracle Databases at this point of time, getting familiar with MySQL Database will broaden your career path with growing job demand. These Value Packages are also available with the following training formats: In-Class, Live Virtual Class and Self Study: MySQL Database Administration Value Packages Your Savings plus get a FREE Retake  save 5% save 20% save 20% save 20%   In Class Edition Live Virtual Class Edition Self-Study Edition Training On Demand MySQL Database Administrator Certification Value Package View Package View Package View Package View Package MySQL Developer Value Packages Your Savings plus get a FREE Retake  save 5% save 20% save 20% save 20%   In Class Edition Live Virtual Class Edition Self-Study Edition Training On Demand       MySQL Developer Certification Value Package View Package View Package     Oracle Database 10g Value Packages Your Savings plus get a FREE Retake  save 5% save 20% save 20% save 20%   In Class Edition Live Virtual Class Edition Self-Study Edition Training On Demand Oracle Database 10g Administrator Certified Associate Certification Value Package View Package View Package View Package   Oracle Database 10g Administrator Certified Professional Certification Value Package View Package View Package View Package   Oracle Database 11g Value Packages Your Savings plus get a FREE Retake  save 5% save 20% save 20% save 20%   In Class Edition Live Virtual Class Edition Self-Study Edition Training On Demand Oracle Database 11g Administrator Certified Associate Certification Value Package View Package View Package View Package View Package Oracle Database 11g Administrator Certified Professional Certification Value Package View Package View Package View Package View Package Exam Prep Seminar Value Package: Oracle Database Admin 1       View Package Oracle Database 11g Administrator Certified Professional UPGRADE Certification Value Package       View Package Oracle Real Application Clusters 11g and Grid Infrastructure Administraton Certified Expert Certification Value Package       View Package Exam Prep Seminar Value Package: Oracle Database Admin 2        View Package Exam Prep Seminar Value Package: Oracle RAC 11g and Grid Infrastructure Administration       View Package Exam Prep Seminar Value Package: Upgrade Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) to Oracle Database 11g       View Package SQL and PL/SQL Value Packages Your Savings plus get a FREE Retake  save 5% save 20% save 20% save 20%   In Class Edition Live Virtual Class Edition Self-Study Edition Training On Demand Oracle Database Sql Expert Certification Value Package View Package View Package View Package View Package Exam Prep Seminar Value Package: Oracle Database SQL       View Package View our Certification Value Packages Mention this code at the time of booking: E1245 Connect For a full list of MySQL Training courses and events, go to http://oracle.com/education/mysql.

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  • Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: The Insurance Industry’s Dream

    - by Jenna Danko
    On June 3rd, I saw the Gaylord Resort Centre in Washington D.C. become the hub of C level executives and managers of insurance carriers for the IASA 2013 Conference.  Insurance Accounting/Regulation and Technology sessions took the focus, but there were plenty of tertiary sessions for career development, which complemented the overall strong networking side of the conference.  As an exhibitor, Oracle, along with several hundred other product providers, welcomed the opportunity to display and demonstrate our solutions and we were encouraged by hustle and bustle of the exhibition floor.  The IASA organizers had pre-arranged fast track tours whereby interested conference delegates could sign up for a series of like-themed presentations from Vendors, giving them a level of 'Speed Dating' introductions to possible solutions and services.  Oracle participated in a number of these, which were very well subscribed.  Clearly, the conference had a strong business focus; however, attendees saw technology as a key enabler to get their processes done smarter, faster and cheaper.  As we navigated through the exhibition, it became clear from the inquiries that came to us that insurance carriers are gravitating to a number of focus areas: Navigating the maze of upcoming regulatory reporting changes. For US carriers with European holdings, Solvency II carries a myriad of rules and reporting requirements. Alignment across the globe of the Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) processes brings to the fore the National Insurance of Insurance commissioners' (NAIC) recent guidance manual publication. Doing more with less and to certainly expect more from technology for less dollars. The overall cost of IT, in particular hardware, has dropped in real terms (though the appetite for more has risen: more CPU, more RAM, more storage), but software has seen less change. Clearly, customers expect either to pay less or get a lot more from their software solutions for the same buck. Doing things smarter – A recognition that with the advance of technology to stand still no longer means you are technically going backwards. Technology and, in particular technology interactions with human business processes, has undergone incredible change over the past 5 years. Consumer usage (iPhones, etc.) has been at the forefront, but now at the Enterprise level ever more effective technology exploitation is beginning to take place. That data and, in particular gleaning knowledge from data, is refining and improving business processes.  Organizations are now consuming more data than ever before, and it is set to grow exponentially for some time to come.  Amassing large volumes of data is one thing, but effectively analyzing that data is another.  It is the results of such analysis that leads to improvements both in terms of insurance product offerings and the processes to support them. Regulatory Compliance, damned if you do and damned if you don’t! Clearly, around the globe at lot is changing from a regulatory perspective and it is evident that in terms of regulatory requirements, whilst there is a greater convergence across jurisdictions bringing uniformity, there is also a lot of work to be done in the next 5 years. Just like the big data, hidden behind effective regulatory compliance there often lies golden nuggets that can give competitive advantages. From Oracle's perspective, our Rating Engine, Billing, Document Management and Insurance Analytics solutions on display served to strike up good conversations and, as is always the case at conferences, it was a great opportunity to meet and speak with existing Oracle customers that we might not have otherwise caught up with for a while. Fortunately, I was able to catch up on a few sessions at the close of the Exhibition.  The speaker quality was high and the audience asked challenging, but pertinent, questions.  During Dr. Jackie Freiberg’s keynote “Bye Bye Business as Usual,” the author discussed 8 strategies to help leaders create a culture where teams consistently deliver innovative ideas by disrupting the status quo.  The very first strategy: Get wired for innovation.  Freiberg admitted that folks in the insurance and financial services industry understand and know innovation is important, but oftentimes they are slow adopters.  Today, technology and innovation go hand in hand. In speaking to delegates during and after the conference, a high degree of satisfaction could be measured from their positive comments of speaker sessions and the exhibitors. I suspect many will be back in 2014 with Indianapolis as the conference location. Did you attend the IASA Conference in Washington D.C.?  If so, I would love to hear your comments. Andrew Collins is the Director, Solvency II of Oracle Financial Services. He can be reached at andrew.collins AT oracle.com.

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  • Weekend With #iPad

    - by andrewbrust
    Saturday morning, I got up, got dressed and took a 7-minute walk up to the Apple Store in New York’s Meatpacking District to pick up my reserved iPad.  This precinct, which borders Greenwich Village (where I live and grew up) was, when I was a kid, a very industrial and smelly neighborhood during the day  and a rough neighborhood at night.  So imagine my sense of irony as I walked up Hudson Street towards 14th Street, to go wait in line with a bunch of hipsters to buy an iPad on launch day. Numerous blue T-shirt-clad Apple store workers were on hand to check people in to the line specifically identified for people who had reserved an iPad.  Others workers passed out water and all of them, I kid you not, applauded people as they got their chance to go into the store and buy their devices.  They also cheered people and yelled “congratulations” as they left.  The event had all the charm of a mass wedding officiated by Reverend Sung Myung Moon.  Once inside, a nice dude named Trey, with lots of tattoos on his calves, helped me and I acquired my device in short order.  Another guy helped me activate the device, which was comical, because that has to be done through iTunes, which I hadn’t logged into in a while. Turns out my user id was my email address from the company I sold 5 1/2 years ago.  Who knew?  Regardless, I go the device working, packed up and left the store, shuddering as I was cheered and congratulated.  By this time (about 10:30am) the line for reserved units and even walk-ins, was gone.  The iPhone launch this was not. As much as I detested the Apple Store experience, I must say the device is really nice.  the screen is bright, the colors are bold, and the experience is ultra-smooth.  I quickly tested Safari, YouTube, Google Maps, and then installed a few apps, including the New York Times Editors’ Choice and a couple of Twitter clients. Some initial raves: Google Maps and Street View on the iPad is just amazing.  The screen is full-size like a PC or Mac, but it’s right in front of you and responding to taps and flicks and pinches and it’s really engulfing.  Video and photos are really nice on this device, despite the fact that 16:9 and anamorphic aspect ration content is letter boxed.  It still looks amazing.  And apps that are designed especially for the iPad, including The Weather Channel and Gilt and Kayak just look stunning.  The richness, the friendly layout, the finger-friendly UIs, and the satisfaction of not having a keyboard between you and the information you’re managing, while you sit on a couch or an easy chair, is just really a beautiful thing.  The mere experience of seeing these apps’ splash screens causes a shiver and Goosebumps.  Truly.  The iPad is not a desktop machine, and it’s not pocket device.  That doesn’t mean it’s useless though.  It’s the perfect “couchtop” computer. Now some downsides: the WiFi radio seems a bit flakey.  More than a few times, I have had to toggle the WiFi off and back on to get it to connect properly.  Worse yet, the iPad is totally bamboozled by the fact that I have four WiFi access points in my house, each with the same SSID.  My laptops are smart enough to roam from one to the other, but the iPad seems to maintain an affinity for the downstairs access point, even if I’m turning it on two flights up.  Telling the iPad to “forget” my WiFi network and then re-associate with it doesn’t help. More downers: as you might expect, there are far more applications developed for the iPhone than the iPad.  And although iPhone apps run on the iPad, that provides about the same experience as watching standard def on a big HD flat panel, complete with the lousy choice of thick black borders or zooming the picture in to fill the screen.  And speaking of iPhone Apps, I can’t get the Sonos one to work.  Ideally, they’d have a dedicated iPad app and it would work on the first try.  And the iPad is just as bad as any netbook when it comes to being a magnet for fingerprints.  The lack of multi-tasking is quite painful too – truly, I don’t mind if only one app can be active at once, but the lack of ability to switch between apps, and the requirement to return to the home screen and re-launch a previous app to switch back, is already old and I’ve had the thing less than 48 hours. These are just initial impressions.  I’ll have a fuller analysis soon, after I’ve had some more break-in time with my new toy.  I’ll be thinking not just about the iPad and iPhone but also about Android, the 2.1 update for which was pushed to my Droid today, and Windows Phone 7, whose “hub” concept I now understand the value of.  This has been a great year for alternative computing devices, and I see no net downside for Apple, Google or Microsoft.  Exciting times.

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  • Spotlight on Claims: Serving Customers Under Extreme Conditions

    - by [email protected]
    Oracle Insurance's director of marketing for EMEA, John Sinclair, recently attended the CII Spotlight on Claims event in London. Bad weather and its implications for the insurance industry have become very topical as the frequency and diversity of natural disasters - including rains, wind and snow - has surged across Europe this winter. On England's wettest day on record, the county of Cumbria was flooded with 12 inches of rain within 24 hours. Freezing temperatures wreaked havoc on European travel, causing high speed TVG trains to break down and stranding hundreds of passengers under the English Chanel in a tunnel all night long without heat or electricity. A storm named Xynthia thrashed France and surrounding countries with hurricane force, flooding ports and killing 51 people. After the Spring Equinox, insurers may have thought the worst had past. Then came along Eyjafjallajökull, spewing out vast quantities of volcanic ash in what is turning out to be one of most costly natural disasters in history. Such extreme events challenge insurance companies' ability to service their customers just when customers need their help most. When you add economic downturn and competitive pressures to the mix, insurers are further stretched and required to continually learn and innovate to meet high customer expectations with reduced budgets. These and other issues were hot topics of discussion at the recent "Spotlight on Claims" seminar in London, focused on how weather is affecting claims and the insurance industry. The event was organized by the CII (Chartered Insurance Institute), a group with 90,000 members. CII has been at the forefront in setting professional standards for the insurance industry for over a century. Insurers came to the conference to hear how they could better serve their customers under extreme weather conditions, learn from the experience of their peers, and hear about technological breakthroughs in climate modeling, geographic intelligence and IT. Customer case studies at the conference highlighted the importance of effective and constant communication in handling the overflow of catastrophe related claims. First and foremost is the need to rapidly establish initial communication with claimants to build their confidence in a positive outcome. Ongoing communication then needs to be continued throughout the claims cycle to mange expectations and maintain ownership of the process from start to finish. Strong internal communication to support frontline staff was also deemed critical to successful crisis management, as was communication with the broader insurance ecosystem to tap into extended resources and business intelligence. Advances in technology - such web based systems to access policies and enter first notice of loss in the field - as well as customer-focused self-service portals and multichannel alerts, are instrumental in improving customer satisfaction and helping insurers to deal with the claims surge, which often can reach four or more times normal workloads. Dynamic models of the global climate system can now be used to better understand weather-related risks, and as these models mature it is hoped that they will soon become more accurate in predicting the timing of catastrophic events. Geographic intelligence is also being used within a claims environment to better assess loss reserves and detect fraud. Despite these advances in dealing with catastrophes and predicting their occurrence, there will never be a substitute for qualified front line staff to deal with customers. In light of pressures to streamline efficiency, there was debate as to whether outsourcing was the solution, or whether it was better to build on the people you have. In the final analysis, nearly everybody agreed that in the future insurance companies would have to work better and smarter to keep on top. An appeal was also made for greater collaboration amongst industry participants in dealing with the extreme conditions and systematic stress brought on by natural disasters. It was pointed out that the public oftentimes judged the industry as a whole rather than the individual carriers when it comes to freakish events, and that all would benefit at such times from the pooling of limited resources and professional skills rather than competing in silos for competitive advantage - especially the end customer. One case study that stood out was on how The Motorists Insurance Group was able to power through one of the most devastating catastrophes in recent years - Hurricane Ike. The keys to Motorists' success were superior people, processes and technology. They did a lot of upfront planning and invested in their people, creating a healthy team environment that delivered "max service" even when they were experiencing the same level of devastation as the rest of the population. Processes were rapidly adapted to meet the challenge of the catastrophe and continually adapted to Ike's specific conditions as they evolved. Technology was fundamental to the execution of their strategy, enabling them anywhere access, on the fly reassigning of resources and rapid training to augment the work force. You can learn more about the Motorists experience by watching this video. John Sinclair is marketing director for Oracle Insurance in EMEA. He has more than 20 years of experience in insurance and financial services.

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  • 2012 Oracle Fusion Innovation Awards - Part 2

    - by Michelle Kimihira
    Author: Moazzam Chaudry Continuing from Friday's blog on 2012 Oracle Fusion Innovation Awards, this blog (Part 2) will provide more details around the customers. It was a tremendous honor to be in single room of winners. We only wish we could have had more time to share stories from all the winners.  We received great insight from all the innovative solutions that our customers deploy and would like to share them broadly, so that others can benefit from best practices. There was a customer panel session joined by Ingersoll Rand, Nike and Motability and here is what was discussed: Barry Bonar, Enterprise Architect from Ingersoll Rand shared details around their solution, comprised of Oracle Exalogic, Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle SOA Suite. This combined solutoin enabled their business transformation to increase decision-making, speed and efficiency, resulting in 40% reduced IT spend, 41X Faster response time and huge cost savings. Ashok Balakrishnan, Architect from Nike shared how they leveraged Oracle Coherence to analyze their digital "footprint" of activities. This helps them compete, collaborate and compare athletic data over time. Lastly, Ashley Doodly, Head of IT from Motability shared details around their solution compromised of Oracle SOA Suite, Service Bus, ADF, Coherence, BO and E-Business Suite. This solution helped Motability achieve 100% ROI within the first few months, performance in seconds vs. 10's of minutes and tremendous improvement in throughput that increased up to 50%.  This year's winners by category are: Oracle Exalogic Customer Results using Fusion Middleware Netshoes ATG on Exalogic: 6X Reduced H/W foot print, 6.2X increased throughput and 3 weeks time to market Claro Part of America Movil, running mission critical Java Application on Exalogic with 35X Faster Java response time, 5X Throughput Underwriters Laboratories Exalogic as an Apps Consolidation platform to power tremendous growth Ingersoll Rand EBS on Exalogic: Up to 40% Reduction in overall IT budget, 3x reduced foot print Oracle Cloud Application Foundation Customer Results using Fusion Middleware  Mazda Motor Corporation Tuxedo ART Batch runtime environment to migrate their batch apps on new open environment and reduce main frame cost. HOTELBEDS Technology Open Source to WebLogic transformation Globalia Corporation Introduced Oracle Coherence to fully reengineer DTH system and provide multiple business and technical benefits Nike Nike+, digital sports platform, has 8M users and is expecting an 5X increase in users, many of who will carry multiple devices that frequently sync data with the Digital Sport platform Comcast Corporation The solution is expected to increase availability, continuity, performance, and simplify and make the code at the application layer more flexible. Oracle SOA and Oracle BPM Customer Results using Fusion Middleware NTT Docomo Network traffic solution based on Oracle event processing and coherence - massive in scale: 12M users (50M in future) - 800,000 events/sec. Schneider National, Inc. SOA/B2B/ADF/Data Integration to orchestrate key order processes across Siebel, OTM & EBS.  Platform runs 60M trans/day and  50 million composite SOA instances per day across 10G and 11G Amadeus Oracle BPM solution: Business Rules and processes vary across local (80), regional (~10) and corporate approval process. Up to 10 levels of approval. Plans to deploy across 20+ markets Navitar SOA solution integrates a fully non-Oracle legacy application/ERP environment using Oracle’s SOA Suite and Oracle AIA Foundation Pack. Motability Uses SOA Suite to synchronize data across the systems and to manage the vehicle remarketing process Oracle WebCenter Customer Results using Fusion Middleware  News Limited Single platform running websites for 50% of Australia's newspapers University of Louisville “Facebook for Medicine”: Oracle Webcenter platform and Oracle BIEE to analyze patient test data and uncover potential health issues. Expecting annualized ROI of 277% China Mobile Jiangsu Company portal (25k users) to drive collaboration & productivity Life Technologies Portal for remotely monitoring & repairing biotech instruments LA Dept. of Water & Power Oracle WebCenter Portal to power ladwp.com on desktop and mobile for 1.6million users Oracle Identity Management Customer Results using Fusion Middleware Education Testing Service Identity Management platform for provisioning & SSO of 6 million GRE, GMAT, TOEFL customers Avea Oracle Identity Manager allowing call center personnel to quickly change Identity Profile to handle varying call loads based on a user self service interface. Decreased Admin Cost by 30% Oracle Data Integration Customer Results using Fusion Middleware Raymond James Near real-time integration for improved systems (throughput & performance) and enhanced operational flexibility in a 24 X 7 environment Wm Morrison Supermarkets Electronic Point of Sale integration handling over 80 million transactions a day in near real time (15 min intervals) Oracle Application Development Framework and Oracle Fusion Development Customer Results using Fusion Middleware Qualcomm Incorporated Solution providing  immediate business value enabling a self-service model necessary for growing the new customer base, an increase in customer satisfaction, reduced “time-to-deliver” Micros Systems, Inc. ADF, SOA Suite, WebCenter  enables services that include managing distribution of hotel rooms availability and rates to channels such as Hotel Web-site, Expedia, etc. Marfin Egnatia Bank A new web 2.0 UI provides a much richer experience through the ADF solution with the end result being one of boosting end-user productivity    Business Analytics (Oracle BI, Oracle EPM, Oracle Exalytics) Customer Results using Fusion Middleware INC Research Self-service customer portal delivering 5–10% of the overall revenue - expected to grow fast with the BI solution Experian Reduction in Time to Complete the Financial Close Process Hologic Inc Solution, saving months of decision-making uncertainty! We look forward to seeing many more innovative nominations. The nominatation process for 2013 begins in April 2013.    Additional Information: Blog: Oracle WebCenter Award Winners Blog: Oracle Identity Management Winners Blog: Oracle Exalogic Winners Blog: SOA, BPM and Data Integration will be will feature award winners in its respective areas this week Subscribe to our regular Fusion Middleware Newsletter Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

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  • User Experience Fundamentals

    - by ultan o'broin
    Understanding what user experience means in the modern work environment is central to building great-looking usable applications on the desktop or mobile devices. What better place to start a series of blog posts on such Applications User Experience team enablement for customers and partners than by sharing what the term really means, writes team member Karen Scipi. Applications UX have gained valuable insights into developing a user experience that reflects the experience of today’s worker. We have observed real workers performing real tasks in real work environments, and we have developed a set of new standards of application design that have been scientifically proven to be beneficial to enable today’s workers. We share such expertise to enable our customers and partners to benefit from our insights and to further their return on investment when building Oracle applications. So, What is User Experience? ?The user interface (UI) is about the on-screen user context provided by the layout of widgets (such as icons, fields, and buttons and more) and the visual impact of colors, typographic choices, and so on. The UI comprises the “look and feel” of the application that users interact with, and reflects, in essence, the most immediate aspects of usability we can now all relate to.  User experience, on the other hand, is about understanding the whole context of the world of work, how workers go about completing tasks, crossing all sorts of boundaries along the way. It is a study of how business processes and workers goals coincide, how users work with technology or other tools to get their jobs done, their interactions with other users, and their response to the technical, physical, and cultural environment around them. User experience is all about how users work—their work environments, office layouts, desk tools, types of devices, their working day, and more. Even their job aids, such as sticky notes, offer insight for UX innovation. User experience matters because businesses needs to be efficient, work must be productive, and users now demand to be satisfied by the applications they work with. In simple terms, tasks finished quickly and accurately for a business evokes organization and worker satisfaction, which in turn makes workers feel good and more than willing to use the application again tomorrow. Design Principles for the Enterprise Worker The consumerization of information technology has raised the bar for enterprise applications. Applications must be consistent, simple, intuitive, but above all contextual, reflecting how and when workers work, in the office or on the go. For example, the Google search experience with its type-ahead keyword-prompting feature is how workers expect to be able to discover enterprise information, too. Type-ahead in PeopleSoft 9.1 To build software that enables workers to be productive, our design principles meet modern work requirements about consistency, with well-organized, context-driven information, geared for a working world of discovery and collaboration. Our applications must also behave in a simple, web-like way just like Amazon, Google, and Apple products that workers use at home or on the go. Our user experience must also reflect workers’ needs for flexibility and well-loved enterprise practices such as using popular desktop tools like Microsoft Excel or Outlook as required. Building User Experience Productively The building blocks of Oracle Fusion Applications are the user experience design patterns. Based on the Oracle Fusion Middleware technology used to build Oracle Fusion Applications, the patterns are reusable solutions to common usability challenges that ADF developers typically face as they build applications, extensions, and integrations. Developers use the patterns as part of their Oracle toolkits to realize great usability consistently and in a productive way. Our design pattern creation process is informed by user experience research and science, an understanding of our technology’s capabilities, the demands for simplification and intuitiveness from users, and the best of Oracle’s acquisitions strategy (an injection of smart people and smart innovation). The patterns are supported by usage guidelines and are tested in our labs and assembled into a library of proven resources we used to build own Oracle Fusion Applications and other Oracle applications user experiences. The design patterns library is now available to the ADF community and to our partners and customers, for free. Developers with ADF skills and other technology skills can now offer more than just coding and functionality and still use the best in enterprise methodologies to ensure that a great user experience is easily applied, scaled, and maintained, whether it be for SaaS or on-premise deployments for Oracle Fusion Applications, for applications coexistence, or for partner integrations scenarios.  Oracle partners and customers already using our design patterns to build solutions and win business in smart and productive ways are now sharing their experiences and insights on pattern use to benefit your entire business. Applications UX is going global with the message and the means. Our hands-on user experience enablement through ADF  is expanding. So, stay tuned to Misha Vaughan's Voice of User Experience (VOX) blog and follow along on Twitter at @usableapps for news of outreach events and other learning opportunities. Interested in Learning More? Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience Patterns and Guidelines Library Shout-outs for Oracle UX Design Patterns Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience Design Patterns: Productivity Realized

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  • Forcing an External Activation with Service Broker

    - by Davide Mauri
    In these last days I’ve been working quite a lot with Service Broker, a technology I’m really happy to work with, since it can give a lot of satisfaction. The scale-out solution one can easily build is simply astonishing. I’m helping a company to build a very scalable and – yet almost inexpensive – invoicing system that has to be able to scale out using commodity hardware. To offload the work from the main server to satellite “compute nodes” (yes, I’ve borrowed this term from PDW) we’re using Service Broker and the External Activator application available in the SQL Server Feature Pack. For those who are not used to work with SSB, the External Activation is a feature that allows you to intercept the arrival of a message in a queue right from your application code. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171617.aspx (Look for “Event-Based Activation”) In order to make life even more easier, Microsoft released the External Activation application that saves you even from writing even this code. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sql_service_broker/archive/tags/external+activator/ The External Activator application can be configured to execute your own application so that each time a message – an invoice in my case – arrives in the target queue, the invoking application is executed and the invoice is calculated. The very nice feature of External Activator is that it can automatically execute as many configured application in order to process as many messages as your system can handle.  This also a lot of create a scale-out solution, leaving to the developer only a fraction of the problems that usually came with asynchronous programming. Developers are also shielded from Service Broker since everything can be encapsulated in Stored Procedures, so that – for them – developing such scale-out asynchronous solution is not much more complex than just executing a bunch of Stored Procedures. Now, if everything works correctly, you don’t have to bother of anything else. You put messages in the queue and your application, invoked by the External Activator, process them. But what happen if for some reason your application fails to process the messages. For examples, it crashes? The message is safe in the queue so you just need to process it again. But your application is invoked by the External Activator application, so now the question is, how do you wake up that app? Service Broker will engage the activation process only if certain conditions are met: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171601.aspx But how we can invoke the activation process manually, without having to wait for another message to arrive (the arrival of a new message is a condition that can fire the activation process)? The “trick” is to do manually with the activation process does: sending a system message to a queue in charge of handling External Activation messages: declare @conversationHandle uniqueidentifier; declare @n xml = N' <EVENT_INSTANCE>   <EventType>QUEUE_ACTIVATION</EventType>   <PostTime>' + CONVERT(CHAR(24),GETDATE(),126) + '</PostTime>   <SPID>' + CAST(@@SPID AS VARCHAR(9)) + '</SPID>   <ServerName>[your_server_name]</ServerName>   <LoginName>[your_login_name]</LoginName>   <UserName>[your_user_name]</UserName>   <DatabaseName>[your_database_name]</DatabaseName>   <SchemaName>[your_queue_schema_name]</SchemaName>   <ObjectName>[your_queue_name]</ObjectName>   <ObjectType>QUEUE</ObjectType> </EVENT_INSTANCE>' begin dialog conversation     @conversationHandle from service        [<your_initiator_service_name>] to service          '<your_event_notification_service>' on contract         [http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/PostEventNotification] with     encryption = off,     lifetime = 6000 ; send on conversation     @conversationHandle message type     [http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/EventNotification] (@n) ;     end conversation @conversationHandle; That’s it! Put the code in a Stored Procedure and you can add to your application a button that says “Force Queue Processing” (or something similar) in order to start the activation process whenever you need it (which should not occur too frequently but it may happen). PS I know that the “fire-and-forget” (ending the conversation without waiting for an answer) technique is not a best practice, but in this case I don’t see how it can hurts so I decided to stay very close to the KISS principle []

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  • SQLAuthority News – #TechEdIn – TechEd India 2012 Memories and Photos

    - by pinaldave
    TechEd India 2012 was held in Bangalore last March 21 to 23, 2012. Just like every year, this event is bigger, grander and inspiring. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2012 Family Event Every single year, TechEd is a special affair for my entire family.  Four months before the start of TechEd, I usually start to build the mental image of the event. I start to think  about various things. For the most part, what excites me most is presenting a session and meeting friends. Seriously, I start thinking about presenting my session 4 months earlier than the event!  I work on my presentation day and night. I want to make sure that what I present is accurate and that I have experienced it firsthand. My wife and my daughter also contribute to my efforts. For us, TechEd is a family event, and the two of them feel equally responsible as well. They give up their family time so I can bring out the best content for the Community. Pinal, Shaivi and Nupur at TechEd India 2012 Guinea Pigs (My Experiment Victims) I do not rehearse my session, ever. However, I test my demo almost every single day till the last moment that I have to present it already. I sometimes go over the demo more than 2-3 times a day even though the event is more than a month away. I have two “guinea pigs”: 1) Nupur Dave and 2) Vinod Kumar. When I am at home, I present my demos to my wife Nupur. At times I feel that people often backup their demo, but in my case, I have backup demo presenters. In the office during lunch time, I present the demos to Vinod. I am sure he can walk my demos easily with eyes closed. Pinal and Vinod at TechEd India 2012 My Sessions I’ve been determined to present my sessions in a real and practical manner. I prefer to present the subject that I myself would be eager to attend to and sit through if I were an audience. Just keeping that principle in mind, I have created two sessions this year. SQL Server Misconception and Resolution Pinal and Vinod at TechEd India 2012 We believe all kinds of stuff – that the earth is flat, or that the forbidden fruit is apple, or that the big bang theory explains the origin of the universe, and so many other things. Just like these, we have plenty of misconceptions in SQL Server as well. I have had this dream of co-presenting a session with Vinod Kumar for the past 3 years. I have been asking him every year if we could present a session together, but we never got it to work out, until this year came. Fortunately, we got a chance to stand on the same stage and present a single subject.  I believe that Vinod Kumar and I have an excellent synergy when we are working together. We know each other’s strengths and weakness. We know when the other person will speak and when he will keep quiet. The reason behind this synergy is that we have worked on 2 Video Learning Courses (SQL Server Indexes and SQL Server Questions and Answers) and authored 1 book (SQL Server Questions and Answers) together. Crowd Outside Session Hall This session was inspired from the “Laurel and Hardy” show so we performed a role-playing of those famous characters. We had an excellent time at the stage and, for sure, the audience had a wonderful time, too. We had an extremely large audience for this session and had a great time interacting with them. Speed Up! – Parallel Processes and Unparalleled Performance Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2012 I wanted to approach this session at level 400 and I was very determined to do so. The biggest challenge I had was that this was a total of 60 minutes of session and the audience profile was very generic. I had to present at level 100 as well at 400. I worked hard to tune up these demos. I wanted to make sure that my messages would land perfectly to the minds of the attendees, and when they walk out of the session, they could use the knowledge I shared on their servers. After the session, I felt an extreme satisfaction as I received lots of positive feedback at the event. At one point, so many people rushed towards me that I was a bit scared that the stage might break and someone would get injured. Fortunately, nothing like that happened and I was able to shake hands with everybody. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2012 Crowd rushing to Pinal at TechEd India 2012 Networking This is one of the primary reasons many of us visit the annual TechEd event. I had a fantastic time meeting SQL Server enthusiasts. Well, it was a terrific time meeting old friends, user group members, MVPs and SQL Enthusiasts. I have taken many photographs with lots of people, but I have received a very few back. If you are reading this blog and have a photo of us at the event, would you please send it to me so I could keep it in my memory lane? SQL Track Speaker: Jacob and Pinal at TechEd India 2012 SQL Community: Pinal, Tejas, Nakul, Jacob, Balmukund, Manas, Sudeepta, Sahal at TechEd India 2012 Star Speakers: Amit and Balmukund at TechEd India 2012 TechED Rockstars: Nakul, Tejas and Pinal at TechEd India 2012 I guess TechEd is a mix of family affair and culture for me! Hamara TechEd (Our TechEd) Please tell me which photo you like the most! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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