Search Results

Search found 24073 results on 963 pages for 'mount point'.

Page 424/963 | < Previous Page | 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431  | Next Page >

• Moving from Tortoise to TFS

  - by MarkPearl

  The Past A few years ago my small software company made the jump from storing code on a shared folder to source code control. At the time we had evaluated a few of the options and settled on Tortoise SVN. The main motivation for going the SVN route was that we found a great plugin for Visual Studio that allowed us to avoid the command prompt for uploading changes (like I said we are windows programmers… command prompt bad!! ) and it was free. Up to now we have been pretty happy with SVN as it removed many of the worries that I had about how safe my code was on a shared folder and also gave us the opportunity to safely have several developers work on the same project at the same time. The only times when we have been unhappy has been when we have had SVN hell days – which pretty much occur when you are doing something out of the norm and suddenly SVN just won’t resolve conflicts or something along those lines. This happens once every 4 or 5 months and is not necessarily a problem caused directly by SVN – but a problem augmented by SVN. When you have SVN hell days you want to curse SVN! With that in mind I recently have been relooking at our source code control. I have explored using GIT and was very impressed by it and have also looked at TFS. From a source code control perspective I don’t want to get into a heated discussion on which one is better – but I do want to mention that I wear two hats in my organization – software developer & manager, and with the manager hat on I tend to sway the TFS route. So when I was given a coupon to test DiscountASP.Net Team Foundation Server Service for a year, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try TFS in a distributed environment and also make the first step towards having an integrated development management system. Some of the things that appeal to me about DiscountASP’s offering are the following… Basic management / planning facilities like to do lists inside Visual Studio Daily backup of data on the server – we are developers, not IT managers and so the more of this I could outsource the better Distributed solution – all of us work remotely and so this was a big one as well. Registering and Setting Up with DiscountASP.NET The whole registration process was simple and intuitive. The web interface is not the most visually impressive one, but it is functional and a few seconds after I clicked the last submit button a email was sitting in my inbox giving me my control panel username and suggesting that I read the “Getting Started” article. The getting started article was easy to read and understand so no complaints there either. Next to set my dev environment to work. With a few references to the getting started article I had completed the whole setup process in a matter of minutes. Ten minutes after initiating the whole thing I was logged into VS2010 and creating my first TFS project. With the service that I signed up for, I have access for 5 users – which is sufficient for my internal needs. So from what I can tell, to set the rest of us up on the system I just need to supply them with their user credentials and url. My Concerns Resolved 1) Security So, a few concerns I had about the service. First and foremost – is it secure? I would hate for someone to get access to our code and the whole idea of putting it up on the internet is a concern for me. Turning to the Knowledge Base on the DiscountASP website this is one of the first question I can see answered. According to them it is secure. I have extracted their comment below regarding this. Our TFS hosting service is secure. We only accept HTTPS connections ensuring that any client-server data transmission is encrypted. At the network level, all of our systems are protected by multiple Juniper firewalls, Tipping Point's Intrusion Detection System (see Tipping Point's case study of our use here), and we also employ DDoS mitigation to add extra layers of security. Additionally, physical access to the servers is tightly restricted. Please see the security section of this Knowledge Base article for further details. 2) Web Portal Access The other big concern I have is regarding web portal access. In the ideal world I would like to be able to give my end users access to a web portal for reporting bugs etc. When I initially read through the FAQ of the site it mentioned that there was web portal access – but from what I can see this is just for “users”. Since I am limited to 5 users for the account, it would not be practical to set up external users that we could get feedback from on bugs etc. I would be interested if this is possible – and if so if someone could post it in the comments it would be much appreciated. If this isn’t possible, it is a slight let down as we rely heavily on end user feedback to get feedback and it would have been ideal to have gotten this within the service. Other than those two items, I didn’t have any real concerns that were unresolved. So where do I go from here? So time passed by from the initial writing of this post and as work whirred in and out of my inbox I have still not had a proper opportunity to give the service a test run. Recently though things have began to slow down and then surprise surprise I had another SVN Hell day. With that experience I had a new found resolve to get our team on TFS and so today we are going to start to use the service as a team. I am hoping that I do not have TFS hell days – but if I do, I will be sure to write about them. In short - the verdict is still out on whether this service is going to be invaluable to my business or whether it will create more headaches than it is worth BUT I am hopping it will be an invaluable service. I will only really be able to determine that in a few months… till then!

  Read the article

• When is a Seek not a Seek?

  - by Paul White

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

  Read the article

• Source-control 'wet-work'?

  - by Phil Factor

  When a design or creative work is flawed beyond remedy, it is often best to destroy it and start again. The other day, I lost the code to a long and intricate SQL batch I was working on. I’d thought it was impossible, but it happened. With all the technology around that is designed to prevent this occurring, this sort of accident has become a rare event.  If it weren’t for a deranged laptop, and my distraction, the code wouldn’t have been lost this time.  As always, I sighed, had a soothing cup of tea, and typed it all in again.  The new code I hastily tapped in  was much better: I’d held in my head the essence of how the code should work rather than the details: I now knew for certain  the start point, the end, and how it should be achieved. Instantly the detritus of half-baked thoughts fell away and I was able to write logical code that performed better.  Because I could work so quickly, I was able to hold the details of all the columns and variables in my head, and the dynamics of the flow of data. It was, in fact, easier and quicker to start from scratch rather than tidy up and refactor the existing code with its inevitable fumbling and half-baked ideas. What a shame that technology is now so good that developers rarely experience the cleansing shock of losing one’s code and having to rewrite it from scratch.  If you’ve never accidentally lost  your code, then it is worth doing it deliberately once for the experience. Creative people have, until Technology mistakenly prevented it, torn up their drafts or sketches, threw them in the bin, and started again from scratch.  Leonardo’s obsessive reworking of the Mona Lisa was renowned because it was so unusual:  Most artists have been utterly ruthless in destroying work that didn’t quite make it. Authors are particularly keen on writing afresh, and the results are generally positive. Lawrence of Arabia actually lost the entire 250,000 word manuscript of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by accidentally leaving it on a train at Reading station, before rewriting a much better version.  Now, any writer or artist is seduced by technology into altering or refining their work rather than casting it dramatically in the bin or setting a light to it on a bonfire, and rewriting it from the blank page.  It is easy to pick away at a flawed work, but the real creative process is far more brutal. Once, many years ago whilst running a software house that supplied commercial software to local businesses, I’d been supervising an accounting system for a farming cooperative. No packaged system met their needs, and it was all hand-cut code.  For us, it represented a breakthrough as it was for a government organisation, and success would guarantee more contracts. As you’ve probably guessed, the code got mangled in a disk crash just a week before the deadline for delivery, and the many backups all proved to be entirely corrupted by a faulty tape drive.  There were some fragments left on individual machines, but they were all of different versions.  The developers were in despair.  Strangely, I managed to re-write the bulk of a three-month project in a manic and caffeine-soaked weekend.  Sure, that elegant universally-applicable input-form routine was‘nt quite so elegant, but it didn’t really need to be as we knew what forms it needed to support.  Yes, the code lacked architectural elegance and reusability. By dawn on Monday, the application passed its integration tests. The developers rose to the occasion after I’d collapsed, and tidied up what I’d done, though they were reproachful that some of the style and elegance had gone out of the application. By the delivery date, we were able to install it. It was a smaller, faster application than the beta they’d seen and the user-interface had a new, rather Spartan, appearance that we swore was done to conform to the latest in user-interface guidelines. (we switched to Helvetica font to look more ‘Bauhaus’ ). The client was so delighted that he forgave the new bugs that had crept in. I still have the disk that crashed, up in the attic. In IT, we have had mixed experiences from complete re-writes. Lotus 123 never really recovered from a complete rewrite from assembler into C, Borland made the mistake with Arago and Quattro Pro  and Netscape’s complete rewrite of their Navigator 4 browser was a white-knuckle ride. In all cases, the decision to rewrite was a result of extreme circumstances where no other course of action seemed possible.   The rewrite didn’t come out of the blue. I prefer to remember the rewrite of Minix by young Linus Torvalds, or the rewrite of Bitkeeper by a slightly older Linus.  The rewrite of CP/M didn’t do too badly either, did it? Come to think of it, the guy who decided to rewrite the windowing system of the Xerox Star never regretted the decision. I’ll agree that one should often resist calls for a rewrite. One of the worst habits of the more inexperienced programmer is to denigrate whatever code he or she inherits, and then call loudly for a complete rewrite. They are buoyed up by the mistaken belief that they can do better. This, however, is a different psychological phenomenon, more related to the idea of some motorcyclists that they are operating on infinite lives, or the occasional squaddies that if they charge the machine-guns determinedly enough all will be well. Grim experience brings out the humility in any experienced programmer.  I’m referring to quite different circumstances here. Where a team knows the requirements perfectly, are of one mind on methodology and coding standards, and they already have a solution, then what is wrong with considering  a complete rewrite? Rewrites are so painful in the early stages, until that point where one realises the payoff, that even I quail at the thought. One needs a natural disaster to push one over the edge. The trouble is that source-control systems, and disaster recovery systems, are just too good nowadays.   If I were to lose this draft of this very blog post, I know I’d rewrite it much better. However, if you read this, you’ll know I didn’t have the nerve to delete it and start again.  There was a time that one prayed that unreliable hardware would deliver you from an unmaintainable mess of a codebase, but now technology has made us almost entirely immune to such a merciful act of God. An old friend of mine with long experience in the software industry has long had the idea of the ‘source-control wet-work’,  where one hires a malicious hacker in some wild eastern country to hack into one’s own  source control system to destroy all trace of the source to an application. Alas, backup systems are just too good to make this any more than a pipedream. Somehow, it would be difficult to promote the idea. As an alternative, could one construct a source control system that, on doing all the code-quality metrics, would systematically destroy all trace of source code that failed the quality test? Alas, I can’t see many managers buying into the idea. In reading the full story of the near-loss of Toy Story 2, it set me thinking. It turned out that the lucky restoration of the code wasn’t the happy ending one first imagined it to be, because they eventually came to the conclusion that the plot was fundamentally flawed and it all had to be rewritten anyway.  Was this an early  case of the ‘source-control wet-job’?’ It is very hard nowadays to do a rapid U-turn in a development project because we are far too prone to cling to our existing source-code.

  Read the article

• Orchestrating the Virtual Enterprise

  - by John Murphy

  During the American Industrial Revolution, the Ford Motor Company did it all. It turned raw materials into a showroom full of Model Ts. It owned a steel mill, a glass factory, and an automobile assembly line. The company was both self-sufficient and innovative and went on to become one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. Nowadays, it's unusual for any business to follow this vertical integration model because its much harder to be best in class across such a wide a range of capabilities and services. Instead, businesses focus on their core competencies and outsource other business functions to specialized suppliers. They exchange vertical integration for collaboration. When done well, all parties benefit from this arrangement and the collaboration leads to the creation of an agile, lean and successful "virtual enterprise." Case in point: For Sun hardware, Oracle outsources most of its manufacturing and all of its logistics to third parties. These are vital activities, but ones where Oracle doesn't have a core competency, so we shift them to business partners who do. Within our enterprise, we always retain the core functions of product development, support, and most of the sales function, because that's what constitutes our core value to our customers. This is a perfect example of a virtual enterprise.  What are the implications of this? It means that we must exchange direct internal control for indirect external collaboration. This fundamentally changes the relative importance of different business processes, the boundaries of security and information sharing, and the relationship of the supply chain systems to the ERP. The challenge is that the systems required to support this virtual paradigm are still mired in "island enterprise" thinking. But help is at hand. Developments such as the Web, social networks, collaboration, and rules-based orchestration offer great potential to fundamentally re-architect supply chain systems to better support the virtual enterprise.  Supply Chain Management Systems in a Virtual Enterprise Historically enterprise software was constructed to automate the ERP - and then the supply chain systems extended the ERP. They were joined at the hip. In virtual enterprises, the supply chain system needs to be ERP agnostic, sitting above each of the ERPs that are distributed across the virtual enterprise - most of which are operating in other businesses. This is vital so that the supply chain system can manage the flow of material and the related information through the multiple enterprises. It has to have strong collaboration tools. It needs to be highly flexible. Users need to be able to see information that's coming from multiple sources and be able to react and respond to events across those sources.  Oracle Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO) is a perfect example of a supply chain system designed to operate in this virtual way. DOO embraces the idea that a company's fulfillment challenge is a distributed, multi-enterprise problem. It enables users to manage the process and the trading partners in a uniform way and deliver a consistent user experience while operating over a heterogeneous, virtual enterprise. This is a fundamental shift at the core of managing supply chains. It forces virtual enterprises to think architecturally about how best to construct their supply chain systems.  Case in point, almost everyone has ordered from Amazon.com at one time or another. Our orders are as likely to be fulfilled by third parties as they are by Amazon itself. To deliver the order promptly and efficiently, Amazon has to send it to the right fulfillment location and know the availability in that location. It needs to be able to track status of the fulfillment and deal with exceptions. As a virtual enterprise, Amazon's operations, using thousands of trading partners, requires a very different approach to fulfillment than the traditional 'take an order and ship it from your own warehouse' model. Amazon had no choice but to develop a complex, expensive and custom solution to tackle this problem as there used to be no product solution available. Now, other companies who want to follow similar models have a better off-the-shelf choice -- Oracle Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO).  Consider how another of our customers is using our distributed orchestration solution. This major airplane manufacturer has a highly complex business and interacts regularly with the U.S. Government and major airlines. It sits in the middle of an intricate supply chain and needed to improve visibility across its many different entities. Oracle Fusion DOO gives the company an orchestration mechanism so it could improve quality, speed, flexibility, and consistency without requiring an organ transplant of these highly complex legacy systems. Many retailers face the challenge of dealing with brick and mortar, Web, and reseller channels. They all need to be knitted together into a virtual enterprise experience that is consistent for their customers. When a large U.K. grocer with a strong brick and mortar retail operation added an online business, they turned to Oracle Fusion DOO to bring these entities together. Disturbing the Peace with Acquisitions Quite often a company's ERP system is disrupted when it acquires a new company. An acquisition can inject a new set of processes and systems -- or even introduce an entirely new business like Sun's hardware did at Oracle. This challenge has been a driver for some of our DOO customers. A large power management company is using Oracle Fusion DOO to provide the flexibility to rapidly integrate additional products and services into its central fulfillment operation. The Flip Side of Fulfillment Meanwhile, we haven't ignored similar challenges on the supply side of the equation. Specifically, how to manage complex supply in a flexible way when there are multiple trading parties involved? How to manage the supply to suppliers? How to manage critical components that need to merge in a tier two or tier three supply chain? By investing in supply orchestration solutions for the virtual enterprise, we plan to give users better visibility into their network of suppliers to help them drive down costs. We also think this technology and full orchestration process can be applied to the financial side of organizations. An example is transactions that flow through complex internal structures to minimize tax exposure. We can help companies manage those transactions effectively by thinking about the internal organization as a virtual enterprise and bringing the same solution set to this internal challenge.  The Clear Front Runner No other company is investing in solving the virtual enterprise supply chain issues like Oracle is. Oracle is in a unique position to become the gold standard in this market space. We have the infrastructure of Oracle technology. We already have an Oracle Fusion DOO application which embraces the best of what's required in this area. And we're absolutely committed to extending our Fusion solution to other use cases and delivering even more business value.

  Read the article

• Conducting Effective Web Meetings

  - by BuckWoody

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

  Read the article

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

  - by Mike Stiles

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

  Read the article

• Building an OpenStack Cloud for Solaris Engineering, Part 1

  - by Dave Miner

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

  Read the article

• PASS Summit – looking back on my first time

  - by Fatherjack

    So I was lucky enough to get my first experience of PASS Summit this year and took some time beforehand to read some blogs and reference material to get an idea on what to do and how to get the best out of my visit. Having been to other conferences – technical and non-technical – I had a reasonable idea on the routine and what to expect in general. Here is a list of a few things that I have learned/remembered as the week has gone by. Wear comfortable shoes. This actually needs to be broadened to Take several pairs of comfortable shoes. You will be spending many many hours, for several days one after another. Having comfortable feet that can literally support you for the duration will make the week in general a whole lot better. Not only at the conference but getting to and from you could well be walking. In the evenings you will be walking around town and standing talking in various bars and clubs. Looking back, on some days I was on my feet for over 20 hours. Make friends. This is a given for the long term benefits it brings but there is also an immediate reward in being at a conference with a friend or two. Some events are bigger and more popular than others and some have the type of session that every single attendee will want to be in. This is great for those that get in but if you are in the bathroom or queuing for coffee and you miss out it sucks. Having a friend that can get in to a room and reserve you a seat is a great advantage to make sure you get the content that you want to see and still have the coffee that you need. Don’t go to every session you want to see This might sound counter intuitive and it relies on the sessions being recorded in some way to guarantee you don’t totally miss out. Both PASS Summit and SQL Bits sessions are recorded (summit is audio, SQLBits is video) and this means that if you get into a good conversation with someone over a coffee you don’t have to break it up to go to a session. Obviously there is a trade-off here and you need to decide on the tipping point for yourself but a conversation at a place like this could make a big difference to the next contract or employer you have or it might simply be great catching up with some friends you don’t see so often. Go to at least one session you don’t want to Again, this will seem to be contrary to normal logic but there is no reason why you shouldn’t learn about a part of SQL Server that isn’t part of your daily routine. Not only will you learn something new but you will also pick up on the feelings and attitudes of the people in the session. So, if you are a DBA, head off to a BI session and so on. You’ll hear BI speakers speaking to a BI audience and get to understand their point of view and reasoning for making the decisions they do. You will also appreciate the way that your decisions and instructions affect the way they have to work. This will help you a lot when you are on a project, working with multiple teams and make you all more productive. Socialise While you are at the conference venue, speak to people. Ask questions, be interested in whoever you are speaking to. You get chances to talk to new friends at breakfast, dinner and every break between sessions. The only people that might not talk to you would be speakers that are about to go and give a session, in most cases speakers like peace and quiet before going on stage. Other than that the people around you are just waiting for someone to talk to them so make the first move. There is a whole lot going on outside of the conference hours and you should make an effort to join in with some of this too. At karaoke evenings or just out for a quiet drink with a few of the people you meet at the conference. Either way, don’t be a recluse and hide in your room or be alone out in the town. Don’t talk to people Once again this sounds wrong but stay with me. I have spoken to a number of speakers since Summit 2013 finished and they have all mentioned the time it has taken them to move about the conference venue due to people stopping them for a chat or to ask a question. 45 minutes to walk from a session room to the speaker room in one case. Wow. While none of the speakers were upset about this sort of delay I think delegates should take the situation into account and possibly defer their question to an email or to a time when the person they want is clearly less in demand. Give them a chance to enjoy the conference in the same way that you are, they may actually want to go to a session or just have a rest after giving their session – talking for 75 minutes is hard work, taking an extra 45 minutes right after is unbelievable. I certainly hope that they get good feedback on their sessions and perhaps if you spoke to a speaker outside a session you can give them a mention in the ‘any other comments’ part of the feedback, just to convey your gratitude for them giving up their time and expertise for free. Say thank you I just mentioned giving the speakers a clear, visible ‘thank you’ in the feedback but there are plenty of people that help make any conference the success it is that would really appreciate hearing that their efforts are valued. People on the registration desk, volunteers giving schedule guidance and directions, people on the community zone are all volunteers giving their time to help you have the best experience possible. Send an email to PASS and convey your thoughts about the work that was done. Maybe you want to be a volunteer next time so you could enquire how you get into that position at the same time. This isn’t an exclusive list and you may agree or disagree with the points I have made, please add anything you think is good advice in the comments. I’d like to finish by saying a huge thank you to all the people involved in planning, facilitating and executing the PASS Summit 2013, it was an excellent event and I know many others think it was a totally worthwhile event to attend.

  Read the article

• Multiple setInterval in a HTML5 Canvas game

  - by kushsolitary

  I'm trying to achieve multiple animations in a game that I am creating using Canvas (it is a simple ping-pong game). This is my first game and I am new to canvas but have created a few experiments before so I have a good knowledge about how canvas work. First, take a look at the game here. The problem is, when the ball hits the paddle, I want a burst of n particles at the point of contact but that doesn't came right. Even if I set the particles number to 1, they just keep coming from the point of contact and then hides automatically after some time. Also, I want to have the burst on every collision but it occurs on first collision only. I am pasting the code here: //Initialize canvas var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas"), ctx = canvas.getContext("2d"), W = window.innerWidth, H = window.innerHeight, particles = [], ball = {}, paddles = [2], mouse = {}, points = 0, fps = 60, particlesCount = 50, flag = 0, particlePos = {}; canvas.addEventListener("mousemove", trackPosition, true); //Set it's height and width to full screen canvas.width = W; canvas.height = H; //Function to paint canvas function paintCanvas() { ctx.globalCompositeOperation = "source-over"; ctx.fillStyle = "black"; ctx.fillRect(0, 0, W, H); } //Create two paddles function createPaddle(pos) { //Height and width this.h = 10; this.w = 100; this.x = W/2 - this.w/2; this.y = (pos == "top") ? 0 : H - this.h; } //Push two paddles into the paddles array paddles.push(new createPaddle("bottom")); paddles.push(new createPaddle("top")); //Setting up the parameters of ball ball = { x: 2, y: 2, r: 5, c: "white", vx: 4, vy: 8, draw: function() { ctx.beginPath(); ctx.fillStyle = this.c; ctx.arc(this.x, this.y, this.r, 0, Math.PI*2, false); ctx.fill(); } }; //Function for creating particles function createParticles(x, y) { this.x = x || 0; this.y = y || 0; this.radius = 0.8; this.vx = -1.5 + Math.random()*3; this.vy = -1.5 + Math.random()*3; } //Draw everything on canvas function draw() { paintCanvas(); for(var i = 0; i < paddles.length; i++) { p = paddles[i]; ctx.fillStyle = "white"; ctx.fillRect(p.x, p.y, p.w, p.h); } ball.draw(); update(); } //Mouse Position track function trackPosition(e) { mouse.x = e.pageX; mouse.y = e.pageY; } //function to increase speed after every 5 points function increaseSpd() { if(points % 4 == 0) { ball.vx += (ball.vx < 0) ? -1 : 1; ball.vy += (ball.vy < 0) ? -2 : 2; } } //function to update positions function update() { //Move the paddles on mouse move if(mouse.x && mouse.y) { for(var i = 1; i < paddles.length; i++) { p = paddles[i]; p.x = mouse.x - p.w/2; } } //Move the ball ball.x += ball.vx; ball.y += ball.vy; //Collision with paddles p1 = paddles[1]; p2 = paddles[2]; if(ball.y >= p1.y - p1.h) { if(ball.x >= p1.x && ball.x <= (p1.x - 2) + (p1.w + 2)){ ball.vy = -ball.vy; points++; increaseSpd(); particlePos.x = ball.x, particlePos.y = ball.y; flag = 1; } } else if(ball.y <= p2.y + 2*p2.h) { if(ball.x >= p2.x && ball.x <= (p2.x - 2) + (p2.w + 2)){ ball.vy = -ball.vy; points++; increaseSpd(); particlePos.x = ball.x, particlePos.y = ball.y; flag = 1; } } //Collide with walls if(ball.x >= W || ball.x <= 0) ball.vx = -ball.vx; if(ball.y > H || ball.y < 0) { clearInterval(int); } if(flag == 1) { setInterval(emitParticles(particlePos.x, particlePos.y), 1000/fps); } } function emitParticles(x, y) { for(var k = 0; k < particlesCount; k++) { particles.push(new createParticles(x, y)); } counter = particles.length; for(var j = 0; j < particles.length; j++) { par = particles[j]; ctx.beginPath(); ctx.fillStyle = "white"; ctx.arc(par.x, par.y, par.radius, 0, Math.PI*2, false); ctx.fill(); par.x += par.vx; par.y += par.vy; par.radius -= 0.02; if(par.radius < 0) { counter--; if(counter < 0) particles = []; } } } var int = setInterval(draw, 1000/fps); Now, my function for emitting particles is on line 156, and I have called this function on line 151. The problem here can be because of I am not resetting the flag variable but I tried doing that and got more weird results. You can check that out here. By resetting the flag variable, the problem of infinite particles gets resolved but now they only animate and appear when the ball collides with the paddles. So, I am now out of any solution.

  Read the article

• SOA Suite Integration: Part 3: Loading files

  - by Anthony Shorten

  One of the most common scenarios in SOA Integration is the loading of a file into the product from an external source. In Oracle SOA Suite there is a File Adapter that can process many file types into your BPEL process. For this example I will use the File Adapter to load a file of user and emails to update the user object within the Oracle Utilities Application Framework. Remember you can repeat this process with other objects and other file types. Again I am illustrating the ease of integration. The first thing is to create an empty BPEL process that will hold our flow. In Oracle JDeveloper this can be achieved by specifying the Define Service Later template (as other templates have predefined inputs and outputs and in this case we want to specify those). So I will create simpleFileLoad process to house our process. You will start with an empty canvas so you need to first specify the load part of the process using the File Adapter. Select the File Adapter from the Component Palette under BPEL Services and drag and drop it to the left side Partner Links (left is input). You name the Service. In this case I chose LoadFile. Press Next. We will define the interface as part of the wizard so select Define from operation and schema (specified later). Press Next. We are going to choose Read File to denote that we will read the file and specify the default Operation Name as Read. Press Next. The next step is to tell the Adapter the location of the files, how to process them and what to do with them after they have been processed. I am using hardcoded locations in this example but you can have logical locations as well. Press Next. I am now going to tell the adapter how to recognize the files I want to load. In my case I am using CSV files and more importantly I am tell the adapter to run the process for each record in the file it encounters. Press Next. Now, I tell the adapter how often I want to poll for the files. I have taken the defaults. Press Next. At this stage I have no explanation of the format of the input. So I am going to invoke the Native Format Wizard which will guide me through the process of creating the file input format. Clicking the purple cog icon will start the wizard. After an introduction screen (not shown), you specify the format of the input file. The File Adapter supports multiple format types. For this example, I will use Delimited as I am going to load a CSV file. Press Next. The best way for the wizard to work is with a sample. I have a sample file and the wizard will ask how much of the file to use as a template. I will use the defaults. Note: If you are using a language that has other languages other than US-ASCII, it is at this point you specify the character set to use.  Press Next. The sample contains multiple instances of a single record type. The wizard supports complex types as well. We will use the appropriate setting for our file. Press Next. You have to specify the file element and the record element. This will be used by the input wizard to translate the CSV data into an XML structure (this will make sense later). I am using LoadUsers as my file delimiter (root element) and User Record as my record root element. Press Next. As the file is CSV the delimiter is "," so I will also specify that the End Of Line (EOL) indicator indicates the end of a record. Press Next. Up until this point your have not given the columns their names. In my case my sample includes the column names in the first record. This is not always the case but you can specify the names and formats of columns in this dialog (not shown). Press Next. The wizard now generates the schema for the input file. You can specify a name for the schema. I have used userupdate.xsd. We want to verify the schema so press Test. You can test the schema by specifying an input sample. and pressing the green play button. You will see the delimiters you specified earlier for the file and the records. Press Ok to continue. A confirmation screen will be displayed showing you the location of the schema in your project. Press Finish to return to the File Adapter configuration. You will now see the schema and elements prepopulated from the wizard. Press Next. The File Adapter configuration is now complete. Press Finish. Now you need to receive the input from the LoadFile component so we need to place a Receive node in the BPEL process by drag and dropping the Receive component from the Component Palette under BPEL Constructs onto the BPEL process. We link the receive process with the LoadFile component by dragging the left most connect node of the Receive node to the LoadFile component. Once the link is established you need to name the Receive node appropriately and as in the post of the last part of this series you need to generate input variables for the BPEL process to hold the input records in. You need to now add the product Web Service. The process is the same as described in the post of the last part of this series. You drop the Web Service BPEL Service onto the right side of the process and fill in the details of the WSDL URL . You also have to add an Invoke node to call the service and generate the input and outputs variables for the call in the Invoke node. Now, to get the inputs from File to the service. You have to use a Transform (you can use an Assign action but a Transform action is more flexible). You drag and drop the Transform component from the Component Palette under Oracle Extensions and place it between the Receive and Invoke nodes. We name the Transform Node, Mapper File and associate the source of the mapping the schema from the Receive node and the output will be the input variable from the Invoke node. We now build the transform. We first map the user and email attributes by drag and drop the elements from the left to the right. The reason we needed to use the transform is that we will be telling the AS-User service that we want to issue an update action. Remember when we registered the service we actually used Read as the default. If we do not otherwise inform the service to use the Update action it will use the Read action instead (which is not desired). To specify the update action you need to click on the transactionType node on the right and select Set Text to set the action. You need to specify the transactionType of UPD (for update). The mapping is now complete. The final BPEL process is ready for deployment. You then deploy the BPEL process to the server and to test the service by simply dropping a file, in the same pattern/name as you specified, in the directory you specified in the File Adapter. You will see each record as a separate instance entry in the Fusion Middleware Control console. You can now load files into the product. You can repeat this process for each type of file to process. While this was a simple example it illustrates the method of loading data can be achieved using SOA Suite in conjunction with our products.

  Read the article

• Slicing the EDG

  - by Antony Reynolds

  Different SOA Domain Configurations In this blog entry I would like to introduce three different configurations for a SOA environment.  I have omitted load balancers and OTD/OHS as they introduce a whole new round of discussion.  For each possible deployment architecture I have identified some of the advantages. Super Domain This is a single EDG style domain for everything needed for SOA/OSB.   It extends the standard EDG slightly but otherwise assumes a single “super” domain. This is basically the SOA EDG.  I have broken out JMS servers and Coherence servers to improve scalability and reduce dependencies. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if rest of domain is unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service. Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Benefits Single Administration Point (1 Admin Server) Closely follows EDG with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Drawbacks Patching is an all or nothing affair. Startup time for SOA may be slow if large number of composites deployed. Multiple Domains This extends the EDG into multiple domains, allowing separate management and update of these domains.  I see this type of configuration quite often with customers, although some don't have OWSM, others don't have separate Coherence etc. SOA & BAM are kept in the same domain as little benefit is obtained by separating them. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if other domains are unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service. Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Benefits Follows EDG but in separate domains and with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Patch lifecycle of OSB/SOA/JMS are no longer lock stepped. JMS may be kept running independently of other domains allowing applications to insert messages fro later consumption by SOA/OSB. OSB may be kept running independent of other domains, allowing service virtualization to continue independent of other domains availability. All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM). Drawbacks Multiple domains to manage and configure. Multiple Admin servers (single view requires use of Grid Control) Multiple Admin servers/WSM clusters waste resources. Additional homes needed to enjoy benefits of separate patching. Cross domain trust needs setting up to simplify cross domain interactions. Startup time for SOA may be slow if large number of composites deployed. Shared Service Environment This model extends the previous multiple domain arrangement to provide a true shared service environment.This extends the previous model by allowing multiple additional SOA domains and/or other domains to take advantage of the shared services.  Only one non-shared domain is shown, but there could be multiple, allowing groups of applications to share patching independent of other application groups. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if other domains are unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Shared SOA Domain hosts Human Workflow Tasks BAM Common "utility" composites Single OSB domain provides "Enterprise Service Bus" All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM) Benefits Follows EDG but in separate domains and with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Patch lifecycle of OSB/SOA/JMS are no longer lock stepped. JMS may be kept running independently of other domains allowing applications to insert messages fro later consumption by SOA/OSB. OSB may be kept running independent of other domains, allowing service virtualization to continue independent of other domains availability. All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM). Supports large numbers of deployed composites in multiple domains. Single URL for Human Workflow end users. Single URL for BAM end users. Drawbacks Multiple domains to manage and configure. Multiple Admin servers (single view requires use of Grid Control) Multiple Admin servers/WSM clusters waste resources. Additional homes needed to enjoy benefits of separate patching. Cross domain trust needs setting up to simplify cross domain interactions. Human Workflow needs to be specially configured to point to shared services domain. Summary The alternatives in this blog allow for patching to have different impacts, depending on the model chosen.  Each organization must decide the tradeoffs for itself.  One extreme is to go for the shared services model and have one domain per SOA application.  This requires a lot of administration of the multiple domains.  The other extreme is to have a single super domain.  This makes the entire enterprise susceptible to an outage at the same time due to patching or other domain level changes.  Hopefully this blog will help your organization choose the right model for you.

  Read the article

• Super constructor must be a first statement in Java constructor [closed]

  - by Val

  I know the answer: "we need rules to prevent shooting into your own foot". Ok, I make millions of programming mistakes every day. To be prevented, we need one simple rule: prohibit all JLS and do not use Java. If we explain everything by "not shooting your foot", this is reasonable. But there is not much reason is such reason. When I programmed in Delphy, I always wanted the compiler to check me if I read uninitializable. I have discovered myself that is is stupid to read uncertain variable because it leads unpredictable result and is errorenous obviously. By just looking at the code I could see if there is an error. I wished if compiler could do this job. It is also a reliable signal of programming error if function does not return any value. But I never wanted it do enforce me the super constructor first. Why? You say that constructors just initialize fields. Super fields are derived; extra fields are introduced. From the goal point of view, it does not matter in which order you initialize the variables. I have studied parallel architectures and can say that all the fields can even be assigned in parallel... What? Do you want to use the unitialized fields? Stupid people always want to take away our freedoms and break the JLS rules the God gives to us! Please, policeman, take away that person! Where do I say so? I'm just saying only about initializing/assigning, not using the fields. Java compiler already defends me from the mistake of accessing notinitialized. Some cases sneak but this example shows how this stupid rule does not save us from the read-accessing incompletely initialized in construction: public class BadSuper { String field; public String toString() { return "field = " + field; } public BadSuper(String val) { field = val; // yea, superfirst does not protect from accessing // inconstructed subclass fields. Subclass constr // must be called before super()! System.err.println(this); } } public class BadPost extends BadSuper { Object o; public BadPost(Object o) { super("str"); this. o = o; } public String toString() { // superconstructor will boom here, because o is not initialized! return super.toString() + ", obj = " + o.toString(); } public static void main(String[] args) { new BadSuper("test 1"); new BadPost(new Object()); } } It shows that actually, subfields have to be inilialized before the supreclass! Meantime, java requirement "saves" us from writing specializing the class by specializing what the super constructor argument is, public class MyKryo extends Kryo { class MyClassResolver extends DefaultClassResolver { public Registration register(Registration registration) { System.out.println(MyKryo.this.getDepth()); return super.register(registration); } } MyKryo() { // cannot instantiate MyClassResolver in super super(new MyClassResolver(), new MapReferenceResolver()); } } Try to make it compilable. It is always pain. Especially, when you cannot assign the argument later. Initialization order is not important for initialization in general. I could understand that you should not use super methods before initializing super. But, the requirement for super to be the first statement is different. It only saves you from the code that does useful things simply. I do not see how this adds safety. Actually, safety is degraded because we need to use ugly workarounds. Doing post-initialization, outside the constructors also degrades safety (otherwise, why do we need constructors?) and defeats the java final safety reenforcer. To conclude Reading not initialized is a bug. Initialization order is not important from the computer science point of view. Doing initalization or computations in different order is not a bug. Reenforcing read-access to not initialized is good but compilers fail to detect all such bugs Making super the first does not solve the problem as it "Prevents" shooting into right things but not into the foot It requires to invent workarounds, where, because of complexity of analysis, it is easier to shoot into the foot doing post-initialization outside the constructors degrades safety (otherwise, why do we need constructors?) and that degrade safety by defeating final access modifier When there was java forum alive, java bigots attecked me for these thoughts. Particularly, they dislaked that fields can be initialized in parallel, saying that natural development ensures correctness. When I replied that you could use an advanced engineering to create a human right away, without "developing" any ape first, and it still be an ape, they stopped to listen me. Cos modern technology cannot afford it. Ok, Take something simpler. How do you produce a Renault? Should you construct an Automobile first? No, you start by producing a Renault and, once completed, you'll see that this is an automobile. So, the requirement to produce fields in "natural order" is unnatural. In case of alarmclock or armchair, which are still chair and clock, you may need first develop the base (clock and chair) and then add extra. So, I can have examples where superfields must be initialized first and, oppositely, when they need to be initialized later. The order does not exist in advance. So, the compiler cannot be aware of the proper order. Only programmer/constructor knows is. Compiler should not take more responsibility and enforce the wrong order onto programmer. Saying that I cannot initialize some fields because I did not ininialized the others is like "you cannot initialize the thing because it is not initialized". This is a kind of argument we have. So, to conclude once more, the feature that "protects" me from doing things in simple and right way in order to enforce something that does not add noticeably to the bug elimination at that is a strongly negative thing and it pisses me off, altogether with the all the arguments to support it I've seen so far. It is "a conceptual question about software development" Should there be the requirement to call super() first or not. I do not know. If you do or have an idea, you have place to answer. I think that I have provided enough arguments against this feature. Lets appreciate the ones who benefit form it. Let it just be something more than simple abstract and stupid "write your own language" or "protection" kind of argument. Why do we need it in the language that I am going to develop?

  Read the article

• Benefits of Behavior Driven Development

  - by Aligned

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Aligned/archive/2013/07/26/benefits-of-behavior-driven-development.aspxContinuing my previous article on BDD, I wanted to point out some benefits of BDD and since BDD is an extension of Test Driven Development (TDD), you get those as well. I’ll add another article on some possible downsides of this approach. There are many articles about the benefits of TDD and they apply to BDD. I’ve pointed out some here and copied some of the main points for each article, but there are many more including the book The Art of Unit Testing by Roy Osherove. http://geekswithblogs.net/leesblog/archive/2008/04/30/the-benefits-of-test-driven-development.aspx (Lee Brandt) Stability Accountability Design Ability Separated Concerns Progress Indicator http://tddftw.com/benefits-of-tdd/ Help maintainers understand the intention behind the code Bring validation and proper data handling concerns to the forefront. Writing the tests first is fun. Better APIs come from writing testable code. TDD will make you a better developer. http://www.slideshare.net/dhelper/benefit-from-unit-testing-in-the-real-world (from Typemock). Take a look at the slides, especially the extra time required for TDD (slide 10) and the next one of the bugs avoided using TDD (slide 11). Less bugs (slide 11) about testing and development (13) Increase confidence in code (14) Fearlessly change your code (14) Document Requirements (14) also see http://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2013/06/01/roc-rocks.aspx Discover usability issues early (14) All these points and articles are great and there are many more. The following are my additions to the benefits of BDD from using it in real projects for my company. July 2013 on MSDN - Behavior-Driven Design with SpecFlow Scott Allen did a very informative TDD and MVC module, but to me he is doing BDDCompile and Execute Requirements in Microsoft .NET ~ Video from TechEd 2012 Communication I was working through a complicated task that the decision tree kept growing. After writing out the Given, When, Then of the scenario, I was able tell QA what I had worked through for their initial test cases. They were able to add from there. It is also useful to use this language with other developers, managers, or clients to help make informed decisions on if it meets the requirements or if it can simplified to save time (money). Thinking through solutions, before starting to code This was the biggest benefit to me. I like to jump into coding to figure out the problem. Many times I don't understand my path well enough and have to do some parts over. A past supervisor told me several times during reviews that I need to get better at seeing "the forest for the trees". When I sit down and write out the behavior that I need to implement, I force myself to think things out further and catch scenarios before they get to QA. A co-worker that is new to BDD and we’ve been using it in our new project for the last 6 months, said “It really clarifies things”. It took him awhile to understand it all, but now he’s seeing the value of this approach (yes there are some downsides, but that is a different issue). Developers’ Confidence This is huge for me. With tests in place, my confidence grows that I won’t break code that I’m not directly changing. In the past, I’ve worked on projects with out tests and we would frequently find regression bugs (or worse the users would find them). That isn’t fun. We don’t catch all problems with the tests, but when QA catches one, I can write a test to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s also good for Releasing code, telling your manager that it’s good to go. As time goes on and the code gets older, how confident are you that checking in code won’t break something somewhere else? Merging code - pre release confidence If you’re merging code a lot, it’s nice to have the tests to help ensure you didn’t merge incorrectly. Interrupted work I had a task that I started and planned out, then was interrupted for a month because of different priorities. When I started it up again, and un-shelved my changes, I had the BDD specs and it helped me remember what I had figured out and what was left to do. It would have much more difficult without the specs and tests. Testing and verifying complicated scenarios Sometimes in the UI there are scenarios that get tricky, because there are a lot of steps involved (click here to open the dialog, enter the information, make sure it’s valid, when I click cancel it should do {x}, when I click ok it should close and do {y}, then do this, etc….). With BDD I can avoid some of the mouse clicking define the scenarios and have them re-run quickly, without using a mouse. UI testing is still needed, but this helps a bunch. The same can be true for tricky server logic. Documentation of Assumptions and Specifications The BDD spec tests (Jasmine or SpecFlow or other tool) also work as documentation and show what the original developer was trying to accomplish. It’s not a different Word document, so developers will keep this up to date, instead of letting it become obsolete. What happens if you leave the project (consulting, new job, etc) with no specs or at the least good comments in the code? Sometimes I think of a new scenario, so I add a failing spec and continue in the same stream of thought (don’t forget it because it was on a piece of paper or in a notepad). Then later I can come back and handle it and have it documented. Jasmine tests and JavaScript –> help deal with the non-typed system I like JavaScript, but I also dislike working with JavaScript. I miss C# telling me if a property doesn’t actually exist at build time. I like the idea of TypeScript and hope to use it more in the future. I also use KnockoutJs, which has observables that need to be called with ending (), since the observable is a function. It’s hard to remember when to use () or not and the Jasmine specs/tests help ensure the correct usage.   This should give you an idea of the benefits that I see in using the BDD approach. I’m sure there are more. It talks a lot of practice, investment and experimentation to figure out how to approach this and to get comfortable with it. I agree with Scott Allen in the video I linked above “Remember that TDD can take some practice. So if you're not doing test-driven design right now? You can start and practice and get better. And you'll reach a point where you'll never want to get back.”

  Read the article

• ANTS CLR and Memory Profiler In Depth Review (Part 2 of 2 &ndash; Memory Profiler)

  - by ToStringTheory

  One of the things that people might not know about me, is my obsession to make my code as efficient as possible. Many people might not realize how much of a task or undertaking that this might be, but it is surely a task as monumental as climbing Mount Everest, except this time it is a challenge for the mind… In trying to make code efficient, there are many different factors that play a part – size of project or solution, tiers, language used, experience and training of the programmer, technologies used, maintainability of the code – the list can go on for quite some time. I spend quite a bit of time when developing trying to determine what is the best way to implement a feature to accomplish the efficiency that I look to achieve. One program that I have recently come to learn about – Red Gate ANTS Performance (CLR) and Memory profiler gives me tools to accomplish that job more efficiently as well. In this review, I am going to cover some of the features of the ANTS memory profiler set by compiling some hideous example code to test against. Notice As a member of the Geeks With Blogs Influencers program, one of the perks is the ability to review products, in exchange for a free license to the program. I have not let this affect my opinions of the product in any way, and Red Gate nor Geeks With Blogs has tried to influence my opinion regarding this product in any way. Introduction – Part 2 In my last post, I reviewed the feature packed Red Gate ANTS Performance Profiler.  Separate from the Red Gate Performance Profiler is the Red Gate ANTS Memory Profiler – a simple, easy to use utility for checking how your application is handling memory management…  A tool that I wish I had had many times in the past.  This post will be focusing on the ANTS Memory Profiler and its tool set. The memory profiler has a large assortment of features just like the Performance Profiler, with the new session looking nearly exactly alike: ANTS Memory Profiler Memory profiling is not something that I have to do very often…  In the past, the few cases I’ve had to find a memory leak in an application I have usually just had to trace the code of the operations being performed to look for oddities…  Sadly, I have come across more undisposed/non-using’ed IDisposable objects, usually from ADO.Net than I would like to ever see.  Support is not fun, however using ANTS Memory Profiler makes this task easier.  For this round of testing, I am going to use the same code from my previous example, using the WPF application. This time, I will choose the ‘Profile Memory’ option from the ANTS menu in Visual Studio, which launches the solution in its currently configured state/start-up project, and then launches the ANTS Memory Profiler to help.  It prepopulates all of the fields with the current project information, and all I have to do is select the ‘Start Profiling’ option. When the window comes up, it is actually quite barren, just giving ideas on how to work the profiler.  You start by getting to the point in your application that you want to profile, and then taking a ‘Memory Snapshot’.  This performs a full garbage collection, and snapshots the managed heap.  Using the same WPF app as before, I will go ahead and take a snapshot now. As you can see, ANTS is already giving me lots of information regarding the snapshot, however this is just a snapshot.  The whole point of the profiler is to perform an action, usually one where a memory problem is being noticed, and then take another snapshot and perform a diff between them to see what has changed.  I am going to go ahead and generate 5000 primes, and then take another snapshot: As you can see, ANTS is already giving me a lot of new information about this snapshot compared to the last.  Information such as difference in memory usage, fragmentation, class usage, etc…  If you take more snapshots, you can use the dropdown at the top to set your actual comparison snapshots. If you beneath the timeline, you will see a breadcrumb trail showing how best to approach profiling memory using ANTS.  When you first do the comparison, you start on the Summary screen.  You can either use the charts at the bottom, or switch to the class list screen to get to the next step.  Here is the class list screen: As you can see, it lists information about all of the instances between the snapshots, as well as at the bottom giving you a way to filter by telling ANTS what your problem is.  I am going to go ahead and select the Int16[] to look at the Instance Categorizer Using the instance categorizer, you can travel backwards to see where all of the instances are coming from.  It may be hard to see in this image, but hopefully the lightbox (click on it) will help: I can see that all of these instances are rooted to the application through the UI TextBlock control.  This image will probably be even harder to see, however using the ‘Instance Retention Graph’, you can trace an objects memory inheritance up the chain to see its roots as well.  This is a simple example, as this is simply a known element.  Usually you would be profiling an actual problem, and comparing those differences.  I know in the past, I have spotted a problem where a new context was created per page load, and it was rooted into the application through an event.  As the application began to grow, performance and reliability problems started to emerge.  A tool like this would have been a great way to identify the problem quickly. Overview Overall, I think that the Red Gate ANTS Memory Profiler is a great utility for debugging those pesky leaks.  3 Biggest Pros: Easy to use interface with lots of options for configuring profiling session Intuitive and helpful interface for drilling down from summary, to instance, to root graphs ANTS provides an API for controlling the profiler. Not many options, but still helpful. 2 Biggest Cons: Inability to automatically snapshot the memory by interval Lack of complete integration with Visual Studio via an extension panel Ratings Ease of Use (9/10) – I really do believe that they have brought simplicity to the once difficult task of memory profiling.  I especially liked how it stepped you further into the drilldown by directing you towards the best options. Effectiveness (10/10) – I believe that the profiler does EXACTLY what it purports to do.  Features (7/10) – A really great set of features all around in the application, however, I would like to see some ability for automatically triggering snapshots based on intervals or framework level items such as events. Customer Service (10/10) – My entire experience with Red Gate personnel has been nothing but good.  their people are friendly, helpful, and happy! UI / UX (9/10) – The interface is very easy to get around, and all of the options are easy to find.  With a little bit of poking around, you’ll be optimizing Hello World in no time flat! Overall (9/10) – Overall, I am happy with the Memory Profiler and its features, as well as with the service I received when working with the Red Gate personnel.  Thank you for reading up to here, or skipping ahead – I told you it would be shorter!  Please, if you do try the product, drop me a message and let me know what you think!  I would love to hear any opinions you may have on the product. Code Feel free to download the code I used above – download via DropBox

  Read the article

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

  - by MarkPearl

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

  Read the article

• RTS style fog of war woes

  - by Fricken Hamster

  So I'm trying to make a rts style line of sight fog of war style engine for my grid based game. Currently I am getting a set of vertices by raycasting in 360 degree. Then I use that list of vertices to do a graphics style polygon scanline fill to get a list of all points within the polygon. The I compare the new list of seen tiles and compare that with the old one and increment or decrement the world vision array as needed. The polygon scanline function is giving me trouble. I'm mostly following this http://www.cs.uic.edu/~jbell/CourseNotes/ComputerGraphics/PolygonFilling.html So far this is my code without cleaning anything up var edgeMinX:Vector.<int> = new Vector.<int>; var edgeMinY:Vector.<int> = new Vector.<int>; var edgeMaxY:Vector.<int> = new Vector.<int>; var edgeInvSlope:Vector.<Number> = new Vector.<Number>; var ilen:int = outvert.length; var miny:int = -1; var maxy:int = -1; for (i = 0; i < ilen; i++) { var curpoint:Point = outvert[i]; if (i == ilen -1) { var nextpoint:Point = outvert[0]; } else { nextpoint = outvert[i + 1]; } if (nextpoint.y == curpoint.y) { continue; } if (curpoint.y < nextpoint.y) { var curslope:Number = ((nextpoint.y - curpoint.y) / (nextpoint.x - curpoint.x)); edgeMinY.push(curpoint.y); edgeMinX.push(curpoint.x); edgeMaxY.push(nextpoint.y); edgeInvSlope.push(1 / curslope); if (curpoint.y < miny || miny == -1) { miny = curpoint.y; } if (nextpoint.y > maxy) { maxy = nextpoint.y; } } else { curslope = ((curpoint.y - nextpoint.y) / (curpoint.x - nextpoint.x)); edgeMinY.push(nextpoint.y); edgeMinX.push(nextpoint.x); edgeMaxY.push(curpoint.y); edgeInvSlope.push(1 / curslope); if (nextpoint.y < miny || miny == -1) { miny = curpoint.y; } if (curpoint.y > maxy) { maxy = nextpoint.y; } } } var activeMaxY:Vector.<int> = new Vector.<int>; var activeCurX:Vector.<Number> = new Vector.<Number>; var activeInvSlope:Vector.<Number> = new Vector.<Number>; for (var scanline:int = miny; scanline < maxy + 1; scanline++) { ilen = edgeMinY.length; for (i = 0; i < ilen; i++) { if (edgeMinY[i] == scanline) { activeMaxY.push(edgeMaxY[i]); activeCurX.push(edgeMinX[i]); activeInvSlope.push(edgeInvSlope[i]); //trace("added(" + edgeMinX[i]); edgeMaxY.splice(i, 1); edgeMinX.splice(i, 1); edgeMinY.splice(i, 1); edgeInvSlope.splice(i, 1); i--; ilen--; } } ilen = activeCurX.length; for (i = 0; i < ilen - 1; i++) { for (var j:int = i; j < ilen - 1; j++) { if (activeCurX[j] > activeCurX[j + 1]) { var tempint:int = activeMaxY[j]; activeMaxY[j] = activeMaxY[j + 1]; activeMaxY[j + 1] = tempint; var tempnum:Number = activeCurX[j]; activeCurX[j] = activeCurX[j + 1]; activeCurX[j + 1] = tempnum; tempnum = activeInvSlope[j]; activeInvSlope[j] = activeInvSlope[j + 1]; activeInvSlope[j + 1] = tempnum; } } } var prevx:int = -1; var jlen:int = activeCurX.length; for (j = 0; j < jlen; j++) { if (prevx == -1) { prevx = activeCurX[j]; } else { for (var k:int = prevx; k < activeCurX[j]; k++) { graphics.lineStyle(2, 0x124132); graphics.drawCircle(k * 20 + 10, scanline * 20 + 10, 5); if (k == prevx || k > activeCurX[j] - 1) { graphics.lineStyle(3, 0x004132); graphics.drawCircle(k * 20 + 10, scanline * 20 + 10, 2); } prevx = -1; //tileLightList.push(k, scanline); } } } ilen = activeCurX.length; for (i = 0; i < ilen; i++) { if (activeMaxY[i] == scanline + 1) { activeCurX.splice(i, 1); activeMaxY.splice(i, 1); activeInvSlope.splice(i, 1); i--; ilen--; } else { activeCurX[i] += activeInvSlope[i]; } } } It works in some cases but some of the x intersections are skipped, primarily when there are more than 2 x intersections in one scanline I think. Is there a way to fix this, or a better way to do what I described? Thanks

  Read the article

• I'm a contract developer and I think I'm about to get screwed [closed]

  - by kagaku

  I do contract development on the side. You could say that I'm a contract developer? Considering I've only ever had one client I'd say that's not exactly the truth - more like I took a side job and needed some extra cash. It started out as a "rebuild our website and we'll pay you $10k" type project. Once that was complete (a bit over schedule, but certainly not over budget), the company hired me on as a "long term support" contractor. The contract is to go from March of this year, expiring on December 31st of this year - 10 months. Over which a payment is to be paid on the 30th of each month for a set amount. I've been fulfilling my end of the contract on all points - doing server maintenence, application and database changes, doing huge rush changes and pretty much just going above and beyond. Currently I'm in the middle of development of an iPhone mobile application (PhoneGap based) which is nearing completion (probably 3-4 weeks from submission). It has not been all peaches and flowers though. Each and every month when my paycheck comes due, there always seems to be an issue of sorts. These issues did not occur during the initial project, only during the support contract. The actual contract states that my check should be mailed out on the 30th of the month. I have received my check on time approximately once (on time being about 2-3 days within the 30th). I've received my paycheck as late as the 15th of the next month - over two weeks late. I've put up with it because I need the paycheck. There have been promises and promises of "we'll send it out on time next time! I promise" - only to receive it just as late the next month. When I ask about payment they give me a vibe like "why are you only worried about money?" - unfortunately I don't have the luxury of not worrying about money. The last straw was with my August payment, which should have been mailed on August 30th. I received it on September 12th. The reason for the delay? "USPS is delaying it man! we sent it out on the 1st!" is the reason I got. When I finally got the check in the mail, the postage on the envelope was marked September 10th - the date it was run through the postage machine. I've been outright lied to, at this point. I carry on working, because again - I need a paycheck. I orchestrated the move of our application to a new server, developed a bunch of new changes and continued work on the iPhone app. All told I probably went over my hourly allotment (I'm paid for 40 hours a month, I probably put in at least 50). On Saturday, the 1st, I gave the main contact at the company (a company of 3, by the way - this is not some big corporation) a ring and filled him in on the status of my work for the past two weeks. Unusually I hadn't heard from him since the middle of September. His response was "oh... well, that is nice and uh.. good job. well, we've been talking within the company about things and we've certainly got some decisions ahead of us..." - not verbatim but you get the idea (I hope?). I got out of this conversation that the site is not doing very well (which it's not) and they're considering pulling the plug. Crap, this contract is going to end early - there goes Christmas! Fine, that's alright, no problem. I'll get paid for the last months work and call it a day. Unfortunately I still haven't gotten last months check, and I'm getting dicked around now. "Oh.. we had problems transferring funds, we'll try and mail it out tomorrow" and "I left a VM with the finance guy, but I can't get ahold of him". So I'm getting the feeling I'm not getting paid for all the work I put in for September. This is obviously breach of contract, and I am pissed. Thinking irrationally, I considered changing all their passwords and holding their stuff hostage. Before I think it through (by the way, I am NOT going to do this, realized it would probably get me in trouble), I go and try some passwords for our various accounts. Google Apps? Oh, I'm no longer administrator here. Godaddy? Whoops, invalid password. Disqus? Nope, invalid password here too. Google Adsense / Analytics? Invalid password. Dedicated server account manager? Invalid password. Now, I have the servers root password - I just built the box last week and haven't had a chance to send the guy the root password. Wasn't in a rush, I manage the server and they never touch it. Now all of a sudden all the passwords except this one are changed; the writing is on the wall - I am out. Here's the conundrum. I have the root password, they do not. If I give them this password all the leverage I have is gone, out the door and out of my hands. During this argument of why am I not getting paid the guy sends me an email saying "oh by the way, what's the root username and password to the server?". Considering he knows absolutely nothing, I gave him an "admin" account which really has almost no rights. I still have exclusive access to the server, I just don't know where to go. I can hold their data hostage, but I'm almost positive this is the wrong thing to do. I'd consider it blackmail, regardless of whether or not I have gotten paid yet. I can "break" something on the server and give them the whole "well, if you were paying me I could fix it!" spiel. This works from a "well he's not holding their stuff hostage" point of view, but what stops them from hiring some one else to just fix the issue at hand? For all I know the guys nephew is a "l33t hax0r" and can figure it out for free. I can give in, document as much as I can and take him to small claims court. This is breach of contract, I'm not getting paid. I have a case, right? ???? Does anyone have any experience in this? What can I do? What are my options? I'm broke, I can't afford a lawyer and I can barely afford not getting this paycheck. My wife doesn't work (I work two jobs so she doesn't have to work - we have a 1 year old) and is already looking at getting a part time job to cover the bills. Long term we'll be fine, but this has pissed me off beyond belief! Help me out, I'm about to get screwed.

  Read the article

• Marking Current Location on Map, Android

  - by deewangan

  Hi every one, i followed some tutorials to create an application that shows the current position of the user on the map with a marking. but for some reasons i can't get to work the marking part? the other parts works well, but whenever i add the marking code the application crashes. i hope someone could help me.here is the code: public class LocationActivity extends MapActivity { /** Called when the activity is first created. */ private MapView mapView; private LocationManager lm; private LocationListener ll; private MapController mc; GeoPoint p = null; Drawable defaultMarker = null; @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main); mapView = (MapView)findViewById(R.id.mapView); //show zoom in/out buttons mapView.setBuiltInZoomControls(true); //Standard view of the map(map/sat) mapView.setSatellite(false); //get controller of the map for zooming in/out mc = mapView.getController(); // Zoom Level mc.setZoom(18); MyLocationOverlay myLocationOverlay = new MyLocationOverlay(); List<Overlay> list = mapView.getOverlays(); list.add(myLocationOverlay); lm = (LocationManager)getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE); ll = new MyLocationListener(); lm.requestLocationUpdates( LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER, 0, 0, ll); //Get the current location in start-up GeoPoint initGeoPoint = new GeoPoint( (int)(lm.getLastKnownLocation( LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER) .getLatitude()*1000000), (int)(lm.getLastKnownLocation( LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER) .getLongitude()*1000000)); mc.animateTo(initGeoPoint); } protected class MyLocationOverlay extends com.google.android.maps.Overlay { @Override public boolean draw(Canvas canvas, MapView mapView, boolean shadow, long when) { Paint paint = new Paint(); super.draw(canvas, mapView, shadow); // Converts lat/lng-Point to OUR coordinates on the screen. Point myScreenCoords = new Point(); mapView.getProjection().toPixels(p, myScreenCoords); paint.setStrokeWidth(1); paint.setARGB(255, 255, 255, 255); paint.setStyle(Paint.Style.STROKE); Bitmap bmp = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.push); canvas.drawBitmap(bmp, myScreenCoords.x, myScreenCoords.y, paint); canvas.drawText("I am here...", myScreenCoords.x, myScreenCoords.y, paint); return true; } } private class MyLocationListener implements LocationListener{ public void onLocationChanged(Location argLocation) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub GeoPoint myGeoPoint = new GeoPoint( (int)(argLocation.getLatitude()*1000000), (int)(argLocation.getLongitude()*1000000)); /* * it will show a message on * location change Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), "New location latitude [" +argLocation.getLatitude() + "] longitude [" + argLocation.getLongitude()+"]", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); */ mc.animateTo(myGeoPoint); } public void onProviderDisabled(String provider) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } public void onProviderEnabled(String provider) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } public void onStatusChanged(String provider, int status, Bundle extras) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } } protected boolean isRouteDisplayed() { return false; } } here is the logcat: 01-19 05:31:43.011: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(759): >>>>>>>>>>>>>> AndroidRuntime START <<<<<<<<<<<<<< 01-19 05:31:43.011: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(759): CheckJNI is ON 01-19 05:31:43.411: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(759): --- registering native functions --- 01-19 05:31:43.431: INFO/jdwp(759): received file descriptor 19 from ADB 01-19 05:31:43.431: INFO/jdwp(759): Ignoring second debugger -- accepting and dropping 01-19 05:31:44.531: INFO/ActivityManager(583): Starting activity: Intent { flg=0x10000000 cmp=pro.googlemapp/.LocationActivity } 01-19 05:31:44.641: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(759): Shutting down VM 01-19 05:31:44.641: DEBUG/dalvikvm(759): DestroyJavaVM waiting for non-daemon threads to exit 01-19 05:31:44.641: DEBUG/dalvikvm(759): DestroyJavaVM shutting VM down 01-19 05:31:44.641: DEBUG/dalvikvm(759): HeapWorker thread shutting down 01-19 05:31:44.651: DEBUG/dalvikvm(759): HeapWorker thread has shut down 01-19 05:31:44.651: DEBUG/jdwp(759): JDWP shutting down net... 01-19 05:31:44.651: DEBUG/jdwp(759): +++ peer disconnected 01-19 05:31:44.651: INFO/dalvikvm(759): Debugger has detached; object registry had 1 entries 01-19 05:31:44.661: DEBUG/dalvikvm(759): VM cleaning up 01-19 05:31:44.681: INFO/ActivityManager(583): Start proc pro.googlemapp for activity pro.googlemapp/.LocationActivity: pid=770 uid=10025 gids={3003} 01-19 05:31:44.761: DEBUG/dalvikvm(759): LinearAlloc 0x0 used 676436 of 4194304 (16%) 01-19 05:31:44.801: INFO/jdwp(770): received file descriptor 20 from ADB 01-19 05:31:44.822: INFO/dalvikvm(770): ignoring registerObject request in thread=3 01-19 05:31:44.851: INFO/jdwp(770): Ignoring second debugger -- accepting and dropping 01-19 05:31:44.851: ERROR/jdwp(770): Failed writing handshake bytes: Broken pipe (-1 of 14) 01-19 05:31:44.851: INFO/dalvikvm(770): Debugger has detached; object registry had 0 entries 01-19 05:31:45.320: ERROR/ActivityThread(770): Failed to find provider info for com.google.settings 01-19 05:31:45.320: ERROR/ActivityThread(770): Failed to find provider info for com.google.settings 01-19 05:31:45.340: ERROR/ActivityThread(770): Failed to find provider info for com.google.settings 01-19 05:31:45.781: DEBUG/LocationManager(770): Constructor: service = android.location.ILocationManager$Stub$Proxy@4379d9f0 01-19 05:31:45.791: WARN/GpsLocationProvider(583): Duplicate add listener for uid 10025 01-19 05:31:45.791: DEBUG/GpsLocationProvider(583): setMinTime 0 01-19 05:31:45.791: DEBUG/GpsLocationProvider(583): startNavigating 01-19 05:31:45.831: INFO/jdwp(770): received file descriptor 27 from ADB 01-19 05:31:46.001: INFO/MapActivity(770): Handling network change notification:CONNECTED 01-19 05:31:46.001: ERROR/MapActivity(770): Couldn't get connection factory client 01-19 05:31:46.451: DEBUG/dalvikvm(770): GC freed 4539 objects / 298952 bytes in 118ms 01-19 05:31:46.470: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(770): Shutting down VM 01-19 05:31:46.470: WARN/dalvikvm(770): threadid=3: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x4001aa28) 01-19 05:31:46.481: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): Uncaught handler: thread main exiting due to uncaught exception 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): java.lang.NullPointerException 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at com.google.android.maps.PixelConverter.toPixels(PixelConverter.java:58) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at com.google.android.maps.PixelConverter.toPixels(PixelConverter.java:48) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at pro.googlemapp.LocationActivity$MyLocationOverlay.draw(LocationActivity.java:101) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at com.google.android.maps.OverlayBundle.draw(OverlayBundle.java:42) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at com.google.android.maps.MapView.onDraw(MapView.java:476) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.View.draw(View.java:6274) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewGroup.drawChild(ViewGroup.java:1526) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchDraw(ViewGroup.java:1256) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewGroup.drawChild(ViewGroup.java:1524) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchDraw(ViewGroup.java:1256) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.View.draw(View.java:6277) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.widget.FrameLayout.draw(FrameLayout.java:352) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewGroup.drawChild(ViewGroup.java:1526) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchDraw(ViewGroup.java:1256) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewGroup.drawChild(ViewGroup.java:1524) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchDraw(ViewGroup.java:1256) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.View.draw(View.java:6277) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.widget.FrameLayout.draw(FrameLayout.java:352) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow$DecorView.draw(PhoneWindow.java:1883) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewRoot.draw(ViewRoot.java:1332) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewRoot.performTraversals(ViewRoot.java:1097) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.view.ViewRoot.handleMessage(ViewRoot.java:1613) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4203) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:791) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:549) 01-19 05:31:46.541: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(770): at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method) 01-19 05:31:46.551: INFO/Process(583): Sending signal. PID: 770 SIG: 3 01-19 05:31:46.581: INFO/dalvikvm(770): threadid=7: reacting to signal 3 01-19 05:31:46.661: INFO/dalvikvm(770): Wrote stack trace to '/data/anr/traces.txt' 01-19 05:31:46.871: INFO/ARMAssembler(583): generated scanline__00000077:03515104_00000000_00000000 [ 27 ipp] (41 ins) at [0x2c69c8:0x2c6a6c] in 973448 ns 01-19 05:31:46.911: INFO/ARMAssembler(583): generated scanline__00000077:03515104_00001001_00000000 [ 64 ipp] (84 ins) at [0x2c6a70:0x2c6bc0] in 1985378 ns 01-19 05:31:49.881: INFO/Process(770): Sending signal. PID: 770 SIG: 9 01-19 05:31:49.931: INFO/ActivityManager(583): Process pro.googlemapp (pid 770) has died. 01-19 05:31:49.941: WARN/GpsLocationProvider(583): Unneeded remove listener for uid 1000 01-19 05:31:49.941: DEBUG/GpsLocationProvider(583): stopNavigating 01-19 05:31:49.951: INFO/WindowManager(583): WIN DEATH: Window{438891c0 pro.googlemapp/pro.googlemapp.LocationActivity paused=false} 01-19 05:31:50.111: WARN/UsageStats(583): Unexpected resume of com.android.launcher while already resumed in pro.googlemapp 01-19 05:31:50.200: WARN/InputManagerService(583): Got RemoteException sending setActive(false) notification to pid 770 uid 10025

  Read the article

• Partitioning recommendations for a Proxmox VM Server (OpenVZ)

  - by luison

  We are new to virtualization and we are planning to turn our online server into a virualized one, mainly for maintenance, backup and recovery improvements. Initially we would only have one real virtual system with load plus 1-3 copys for testing and recovering and maybe a small centralized syslog virtual machine. We would like, if possible the host machine to include an iptables plus rsync to back up to other machines and some other global security systems. Due to this and the offerings of our hosting supplier we are mainly considering Proxmox for its simplicity (we like the idea of its web admin panel) and as I also understand that the container approach of OpenVMZ systems may fit well resource wise with our setup. The base system comes with debian so we can personalise it to our requirements. Proxmox installations default installs an LVM partition for the VMs. Our doubts are with the fact of what would be the best partition structure for this considering that: we would like to have a mirror of the root partition we could boot from if required (our provider supports booting the system from another partition via control panel) we ideally would like to have a partition that could be shared among the VM systems. We still don't know if this is possible directly with OpenVMZ containers, otherwise we are considering doing this by sharing it via NFS on the host machine. we want to use the backup system available on the proxmox host administrator to programme VMs backups and then rsync it to another machine. With this based on a Linux Raid of aprox (750Gb) we are considering something like: ext3_1/ - (20Gb) ext3_2/bak_root - (20Gb) mostly unmounted, root partition sync LVM_1 /var/lib/vz - (390Gb) partition for virtual images LVM_2 /shared_data - (30Gb) LVM_3 /backups - (300Gb) where all backups would be allocated Our initial tests with Proxmox seem to have issues with snapshots backups like this, perhaps caused by the fact that they can not be done to another LVM partition (error: command 'lvcreate --size 1024M --snapshot --name vzsnap-ns204084.XXX.net-0 /dev/pve/LV' failed with exit code 5) in which case we might have to use a standart ext3 partition (but unsure if we can do this with the 4 primary partition limitations). Does this makes more or less sense? Would it be mad to for example write VMs /var/logs to a NFS mounted partition (on the host system)? Are their any other easier ways to mount host system partitions (or folders) to the VMs?

  Read the article

• No network upsets gnome

  - by Darren Cook

  An issue that has been bothering me for over a year now. My notebook, running ubuntu 10.04, is almost all the time using a wired connection, with static IP address. And a remote DNS server. Network is configured with entries in /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/resolv.conf, rather than whatever the gnome UI tool was (*) But if I'm out, or simply unplug the network cable, a few things get weird. Specifically the gnome-panel stops working - it is still there, but isn't updating. And opening a nautilus window (e.g. to look at files on the local disk) has huge time-outs. By that I mean it will not open the window for something like 30 or 60 seconds; but when it does finally open it I can see the files and it is perfectly usable. Everything else works fine, alt-tab between windows, etc. I use the commandline to find the pid of gnome-panel, kill it, wait a couple of seconds, and it opens up a fresh panel which is normally usable. (Something like 10 minutes later it will have locked/crashed again; the same for the nautilus windows.) I'm guessing this is a DNS issue? Would setting up a local DNS server help? Guess number 2 was related to having a file server mount (samba, though running on another linux box), and symbolic links to files and directories on that file server on my desktop. My question is a bit vague... Does anyone recognize these symptoms, and have a suggestion? Or do you have some troubleshooting suggestions for narrowing down the problem? My /etc/hosts: 127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.1.1 myhost # The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts ::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback fe00::0 ip6-localnet ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters ff02::3 ip6-allhosts 127.0.0.1 testsite.local #Other test website URLs here UPDATE: Some timings to open some desktop folder icons. This is after pulling out the network cable. A sub-directory of the desktop took 23 secs to open up. Content appears immediately (just 8 files, it has no further subdirectories). The home directory icon took 12 seconds to open up, but then took about 30 seconds for the files to appear. I closed it and tried again. This time it took 18 seconds to open up, but then 70 seconds before anything appeared. *: I couldn't work out how to use the gnome network tool for my needs, which include 3-4 static IPs for testing virtual hosts locally.

  Read the article

• AIX: iscsi volumes disappear after reboot

  - by Dan

  We have an IBM P505 AIX box, with two internal disks and a defined iSCSI volume. The iSCSI volume is defined in it's own volume group, and is connected to an IBM iSCSI DS3300 disk array via the secondary onboard ethernet port (ie, we're not using a dedicated HBA, we're using the second onboard ethernet port for iSCSI exclusively.) When we reboot the AIX box, the iSCSI volume doesn't get mounted (which is fine; I've figured out that it fails to mount because AIX tries mounting it's volumes before starting the networking stack.) The problem is, after the server has booted it fails to redetect the iSCSI target as a physical disk. This means the volume group (iscsivg) can't go online. if I run cfgmgr -v to redetect the iscsi volume it successfully detects the iscsi target volume and creates a physical volume reference, but allocates it a different volume ID to what was defined before. eg - rootvg contains hdisk 0 and 1 iscsivg was originally defined with hdisk2 as the physical iSCSI volume. after reboot and running cfgmgr -v, AIX detects physical volumes hdisk0, hdisk11 and hdisk3. As there's no hdisk2, I can't varyon the iscsivg volume group. I can't seem any existing hdisk2 definition in the ODM. I can't easily add or change the definition of the physcial disk in the iscsivg volume group as it won't "varyon". Exporting the volume group deletes it completely, recreating the volume group by "importing" it from the reallocated disk makes it available again, but surely there's a better way? Can I force a specific hdisk drive designation for an iscsi target? How do you bring online iSCSI volumes after a reboot? I assume this "just works" with a dedicated HBA instead of a generic ethernet adapter? By the way, the iSCSI volume works fine once it's mounted; we only have problems getting it working - and only with AIX. The iSCSI array works fine with our Linux and Windows servers; ie the volumes get detected and remounted after boot time without any problems, using generic ethernet adapters. Here's some of the config from the AIX box: defined disks / devices: # lsdev hdisk0 Available 06-08-01-5,0 16 Bit LVD SCSI Disk Drive hdisk1 Available 06-08-01-8,0 16 Bit LVD SCSI Disk Drive hdisk3 Available Other iSCSI Disk Drive iscsi0 Available iSCSI Protocol Device scsi0 Available 06-08-00 PCI-X Dual Channel Ultra320 SCSI Adapter bus scsi1 Available 06-08-01 PCI-X Dual Channel Ultra320 SCSI Adapter bus ses0 Available 06-08-01-15,0 SCSI Enclosure Services Device sisscsia0 Available 06-08 PCI-X Dual Channel Ultra320 SCSI Adapter iscsi target definition in /etc/iscsi/targets: # IBM DS3300 disk array # port 1 on second controller 10.10.xx.xxx 3260 iqn.1992-01.com.lsi:1535.600a0b80005b0a7fxxxxxxxxxxxx physical volumes (after reimporting the volume group) # lspv hdisk0 0003b08a0d4936b6 rootvg active hdisk1 0003b08aaa5cb366 rootvg active hdisk3 0003b08a032d04bb iscsivg active

  Read the article

• OS X: Finder error -36 when using SMB shares on a Samba server bound to AD

  - by Frenchie

  We're looking at deploying SMB homes on Debian (5.0.3) for our mac clients rather than purchasing four new Xserves. We've got our test servers built and functioning properly. Windows clients behave perfectly, but we've run into an issue with OS X (10.6.x and 10.5.x). We're going this route instead of Windows file servers due to a whole bunch of other issues that arise when going that way. Specifically, when mounting a SMB share with unix extensions switched on and the remote server bound to AD, the finder cannot save files on the share, instead touching the file and then bombing out with a -36 IO error, folder creation is fine. Copying files in the terminal behaves fine and the problem seems to be limited to the finder. The issue arises (I think) as the remote UID/GID is passed across when using unix extensions. OS X uses its own winbind idmap (odsam) to work out the effective UID/GID from AD users and groups whilst we're using a rid map on the server. Consequently, there is a mismatch in ownership which the finder chooses to honour. How OS X appears to handle this is to use the remote uid and gid at the file permission level (see below) and then set an OS X acl granting the local uid/gid to have the appropriate permissions on the file. I think the finder touches the file (which the kernel allows because of the ACL) and then checks the filesystem perms and drops out with the IO error. On a Client fc-003353-d:homes2 root# ls -led test/ drwx------+ 2 135978 100513 16384 Feb 3 15:14 test/ 0: user:jfrench allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_inherit 1: group:ARTS\domain users allow 2: group:everyone allow 3: group:owner allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_inherit,only_inherit 4: group:group allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_inherit,only_inherit 5: group:everyone allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_inherit,only_inherit We've tried the following without any luck: Setting the Linux side file owner to match the OS X GID/UID Adding ACLs on the linux filesystem which grant the OS X GID/UID perms Disabling extended attributes Setting steams=no in /etc/nsmb.conf on the client We're currently running a workaround which is to just turn off unix extensions which forces the macs to just mount the share as the local user with u=rwx perms. This works for most things but is causing a few apps that expect certain perms to break in subtle ways. Worst case scenario is that we'll continue running in this way but we would like to have the unix extensions on. Regards. Relevant SMB config below: [global] workgroup = ARTS realm = *snip* security = ADS password server = *snip* unix extensions = yes panic action = /usr/share/panic-action %d idmap backend = rid:ARTS=100000-10000000 idmap uid = 100000-10000000 idmap gid = 100000-10000000 winbind enum users = Yes winbind enum groups = Yes veto files = /lost+found/aquota.*/ hide files = /desktop.ini/$RECYCLE.BIN/.*/AppData/Library/ ea support = yes store dos attributes = yes map system = no map archive = no map readonly = no

  Read the article

• Using Diskpart in a PowerShell script won't allow script to reuse drive letter

  - by Kyle

  I built a script that mounts (attach) a VHD using Diskpart, cleans out some system files and then unmounts (detach) it. It uses a foreach loop and is suppose to clean multiple VHD using the same drive letter. However, after the 1st VHD it fails. I also noticed that when I try to manually attach a VHD with diskpart, diskpart succeeds, the Disk Manager shows the disk with the correct drive letter, but within the same PoSH instance I can not connect (set-location) to that drive. If I do a manual diskpart when I 1st open PoSH I can attach and detach all I want and I get the drive letter every time. Is there something I need to do to reset diskpart in the script? Here's a snippet of the script I'm using. function Mount-VHD { [CmdletBinding()] param ( [Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$false)] [string]$Path, [Parameter(Position=1,Mandatory=$false,ValueFromPipeline=$false)] [string]$DL, [string]$DiskpartScript = "$env:SystemDrive\DiskpartScript.txt", [switch]$Rescan ) begin { function InvokeDiskpart { Diskpart.exe /s $DiskpartScript } ## Validate Operating System Version ## if (Get-WmiObject win32_OperatingSystem -Filter "Version < '6.1'") {throw "The script operation requires at least Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2."} } process{ ## Diskpart Script Content ## Here-String statement purposefully not indented ## @" $(if ($Rescan) {'Rescan'}) Select VDisk File="$Path" `nAttach VDisk Exit "@ | Out-File -FilePath $DiskpartScript -Encoding ASCII -Force InvokeDiskpart Start-Sleep -Seconds 3 @" Select VDisk File="$Path"`nSelect partition 1 `nAssign Letter="$DL" Exit "@ | Out-File -FilePath $DiskpartScript -Encoding ASCII -Force InvokeDiskpart } end { Remove-Item -Path $DiskpartScript -Force ; "" Write-Host "The VHD ""$Path"" has been successfully mounted." ; "" } } function Dismount-VHD { [CmdletBinding()] param ( [Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$false)] [string]$Path, [switch]$Remove, [switch]$NoConfirm, [string]$DiskpartScript = "$env:SystemDrive\DiskpartScript.txt", [switch]$Rescan ) begin { function InvokeDiskpart { Diskpart.exe /s $DiskpartScript } function RemoveVHD { switch ($NoConfirm) { $false { ## Prompt for confirmation to delete the VHD file ## "" ; Write-Warning "Are you sure you want to delete the file ""$Path""?" $Prompt = Read-Host "Type ""YES"" to continue or anything else to break" if ($Prompt -ceq 'YES') { Remove-Item -Path $Path -Force "" ; Write-Host "VHD ""$Path"" deleted!" ; "" } else { "" ; Write-Host "Script terminated without deleting the VHD file." ; "" } } $true { ## Confirmation prompt suppressed ## Remove-Item -Path $Path -Force "" ; Write-Host "VHD ""$Path"" deleted!" ; "" } } } ## Validate Operating System Version ## if (Get-WmiObject win32_OperatingSystem -Filter "Version < '6.1'") {throw "The script operation requires at least Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2."} } process{ ## DiskPart Script Content ## Here-String statement purposefully not indented ## @" $(if ($Rescan) {'Rescan'}) Select VDisk File="$Path"`nDetach VDisk Exit "@ | Out-File -FilePath $DiskpartScript -Encoding ASCII -Force InvokeDiskpart Start-Sleep -Seconds 10 } end { if ($Remove) {RemoveVHD} Remove-Item -Path $DiskpartScript -Force ; "" } }

  Read the article

• Ububtu server 12.04 auto installation freezes at kickseeding running if ks.cfg has post scripts

  - by john206

  I'm trying to make a custom Ubuntu Server iso file. Kickstart file (ks.cfg) runs smooth when there is no %post in the file and Ubuntu installs correctly with ks configuration. Installation finishes installing base, apt, grub and It echos: Kickseed Running... and it freezes @ 0% I thought may be apt-get update doesnt work in ks file, I tried to install other apps like apache2 but no luck I have created dozen iso images and installed them in Virtual Box.I have been googling for 3 days and checked out ubuntu forums but haven't figured out the issue. I appreciate your help. This is how I made the iso image. My ks.file and txt.cfg files located in isolinux directory: root@ubuntu:/home/work mount -o loop ubuntu-12.04-amd64.iso original-iso/ rsync -a original-iso/ custom-iso/ cp ks.cfg custom-iso/isolinux/ cp txt.cfg custom-iso/isolinux/ chmod -R 777 custom-iso/ #Creating Iso image mkisofs -D -r -V “$IMAGE_NAME” -cache-inodes -J -l -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o ~/ubuntu-12.04-alternate-custom-amd64.iso custom-iso/ ks.cfg #Generated by Kickstart Configurator #platform=AMD64 or Intel EM64T #System language lang en_US #Language modules to install langsupport en_US #System keyboard keyboard us #System mouse mouse #System timezone timezone America/Los_Angeles #Root password rootpw --iscrypted somethingsomething #Initial user user ubuntu --fullname "ubuntu" --iscrypted --password somethingsomething. #Reboot after installation reboot #Use text mode install text #Install OS instead of upgrade install #Use CDROM installation media cdrom #System bootloader configuration bootloader --location=mbr #Clear the Master Boot Record zerombr yes #Partition clearing information clearpart --all --initlabel #Disk partitioning information part /boot --size 128 --fstype=ext3 --asprimary part / --size 512 --fstype=ext3 --asprimary part swap --size 512 part /tmp --size 512 --fstype=ext3 part /var --size 512 --fstype=ext3 part /usr --size 4096 --fstype=ext3 part /home --size 2048 --fstype=ext3 #System authorization infomation auth --useshadow --enablemd5 #Network information network --bootproto=dhcp --device=eth0 #Firewall configuration firewall --disabled --http --ftp --ssh #X Window System configuration information xconfig --depth=32 --resolution=1024x768 --defaultdesktop=GNOME %post apt-get update mkdir /home/user txt.cfg default autoinstall label autoinstall menu label ^Install Custom Ubuntu Server kernel /install/vmlinuz append file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu-server.seed initrd=/install/initrd.gz quiet ks=cdrom:/isolinux/ks.cfg -- label install menu label ^Install Ubuntu Server kernel /install/vmlinuz append file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu-server.seed vga=788 initrd=/install/initrd.gz quiet -- label cloud menu label ^Multiple server install with MAAS kernel /install/vmlinuz append modules=maas-enlist-udeb vga=788 initrd=/install/initrd.gz quiet -- label check menu label ^Check disc for defects kernel /install/vmlinuz append MENU=/bin/cdrom-checker-menu vga=788 initrd=/install/initrd.gz quiet -- label memtest menu label Test ^memory kernel /install/mt86plus label hd menu label ^Boot from first hard disk localboot 0x80

  Read the article

• Error Installing ruby with RVM Single User mode on Arch Linux

  - by ChrisBurnor

  I've just installed RVM on ArchLinux x64 in single user mode via the recommended install script curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable I've also installed all the requirements listed in rvm requirements However, I'm having trouble actually installing any version of ruby. And getting the following error: arch:~ % rvm install 1.9.3 No binary rubies available for: ///ruby-1.9.3-p194. Continuing with compilation. Please read 'rvm mount' to get more information on binary rubies. Fetching yaml-0.1.4.tar.gz to /home/christopher/.rvm/archives % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 100 460k 100 460k 0 0 702k 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 767k Extracting yaml-0.1.4.tar.gz to /home/christopher/.rvm/src Prepare yaml in /home/christopher/.rvm/src/yaml-0.1.4. Configuring yaml in /home/christopher/.rvm/src/yaml-0.1.4. Error running ' ./configure --prefix=/home/christopher/.rvm/usr ', please read /home/christopher/.rvm/log/ruby-1.9.3-p194/yaml/configure.log Compiling yaml in /home/christopher/.rvm/src/yaml-0.1.4. Error running 'make', please read /home/christopher/.rvm/log/ruby-1.9.3-p194/yaml/make.log Please note that it's required to reinstall all rubies: rvm reinstall all --force Installing Ruby from source to: /home/christopher/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194, this may take a while depending on your cpu(s)... ruby-1.9.3-p194 - #downloading ruby-1.9.3-p194, this may take a while depending on your connection... ruby-1.9.3-p194 - #extracting ruby-1.9.3-p194 to /home/christopher/.rvm/src/ruby-1.9.3-p194 ruby-1.9.3-p194 - #extracted to /home/christopher/.rvm/src/ruby-1.9.3-p194 Skipping configure step, 'configure' does not exist, did autoreconf not run successfully? ruby-1.9.3-p194 - #compiling Error running 'make', please read /home/christopher/.rvm/log/ruby-1.9.3-p194/make.log There has been an error while running make. Halting the installation. The log files are as follows: arch:~ % cat ~/.rvm/log/ruby-1.9.3-p194/yaml/configure.log __rvm_log_command:32: permission denied: arch:~ % cat ~/.rvm/log/ruby-1.9.3-p194/yaml/make.log make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop. arch:~ % cat ~/.rvm/log/ruby-1.9.3-p194/make.log make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431  | Next Page >